avoid the big stack at all cost, or decided based on EV?

[elmitchbo]

stars multi. i'm second in chips with a little over $11,000. the chip leader is at my table with $18,000. we are pretty far ahead of the rest of the field. he has been pushing the table around(and preventing me from playing much) and steadily picking up chips, while i earned my stack mostly in a few huge hands.

the hand itself is not the real issue here, but it is part of the setup....

we have just been moved to the final table. i'm in the CO and pick up 99. the big stack makes a normal 3x BB rasie to $1,200. i reraise to $2,400, leaving about $8,600 behind. everyone folds back to the big stack, and he pushes all in.

ok. if i fold now it will put me back in the middle of the pack, but with plenty of chips to play with. if i call and win i'll easily cruise to HU and have a great chance to win. of course if i call and loose i'm out with nothing.

this guy is the only stack at the table that can bust me. in this situation should i just avoid him at all costs, or play with him if i think the EV is there for the hand? my instinsts tell me i should make some adjustment, but i think that might be theoretically incorrect.

this is not the first time he's made a push like this.... he has used his stack nicely to bully people off of hands. when he's had to show down a hand it usually wasn't that great(he got lucky a time or two). i think i'm ahead here, although i would guess this guy was smart enough to realize that i'd been playing tight.

do i call if i think i'm ahead? or avoid the risk of the bust out and fold just in case he woke up with a hand here?

i have a tough time with tactical situations like this. it just seem slike the pro's and con's are about even. am i missing something that would make the decision easier?

[schwza]

what position at the table is villain? you're not getting great odds here - unless you've seen villain show a lot of late aggression (i.e., 3-betting and 4-betting and not just opening a lot of pots) i think you've got to fold.

if you call and villain has two overcards, you've made a great play in terms of chipEV, but i'd guess you've made a ~neutral play in terms of $EV. and i think you're going to get shown a big pair more often than a hand like A8 or 66.

i hate the small reraise on your part though. pushing is my first choice, and calling would also be ok. the problem with the min raise is that you're not going to win the pot - you're going to leave yourself in a tough spot against someone you don't want to play a big pot with and you won't know where you stand. pushing let's you increase your stack by about 20% and doesn't leave you in this spot where you are likely to make a mistake.

The last thing you want is a call from a bigger stack with 99 so I either call and wait for a flop or make a larger raise. In this case, I would just call. (Well, I say that, is what I 'would' do, what I do do is look at the pretty pair and play it like an idiot) but the right play seems to be to fold, call or push rather than try to take the hand down with a minimum raise, a marginal holding against an opponent whose table image is a) profitable b) dictates that he can't fold to a re-raise.

The first MTT I ever played, I reached the break second and the chip leader at the table was first. He was UTG and open raised 7x or so BB. I had AQ and 'knew' I was ahead so I went over the top and he called with K10. He paired the 10, won the hand and won the tournie. Naturally, I was annoyed (calling for almost all your chips with K10o???) but I realised that to fold meant that he would be doing no more blind stealing for a while, that he wouldn't be chip leader anymore etc. etc. so I was the fool to put him to a decision for all his chips without an absolute monster.

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
The first MTT I ever played, I reached the break second and the chip leader was first. He was UTG and open raised 7x or so BB. I had AQ and 'knew' I was ahead so I went over the top and he called with K10. He paired the 10, won the hand and won the tournie. Naturally, I was annoyed (calling for almost all your chips with K10o???) but I realised that to fold meant that he would be doing no more blind stealing for a while, that he wouldn't be chip leader anymore etc. etc. so I was the fool to put him to a decision for all his chips without an absolute monster.

[/ QUOTE ]

you could post this hand in a new thread if you want, but

a) you should have pushed and

b) you should be happy when he calls as a significant dog

[Melchiades]

"avoid the big stack at all cost, or decided based on EV"

Doesn't make sense really. Always decide based on EV. Sometimes that means avoiding the big stack though.

Yes, I know that now. My point is that showing moderate aggression against the fat stack is not going to get you anywhere. 99 and AQ are nice hands but not in the face of a raise from a stack that is larger than yours, particularly when the stack is fat not because they've won some big pots but because they've won a lot of small pots. The temptation is to 'teach them a lesson' by getting your chips in with the better hand, assuming that they 'must' fold but it doesn't always work like that. The big stack will often call despite the pot odds because they feel they can't be seen to turn down action no matter what cards they initiated with.
I suppose it comes down to each individual's philosophy of tournaments. At first, I used ring game tactics, like re-raising the fat stack with 99 or AQ but if i've spent a couple of hours building up a nice stack, it seems a shame to waste it on small favourite/massive dog confrontation with a larger stack.

when your posting a hand like this,you will get much better and thought out responces if you give more detail.
like what is the villain's position here?
what are the blinds like ?are they aggro?thight?loose?
i assume the blinds here are at 200/400(seen as 3xBB makes it 1200).
your reraise here is too small.
with a hand like 99 you really dont want any confrontations but prefer to win the pot pre-flop.even though you prob have the best hand right now,but that will not be likely after the flop.your min reraise is basically an invitation for some one to call you and you only ever do that with a very strong hand like AA or KK.even with them hands you would make an slightly bigger raise,because you want the caller to be making a mistake by calling you.if you give them proper odds to call ,they are not making a mistake.
when you raise 1200 here your giving him something like 3.5:1 odds to call you.there are not that many hands that are more than 3.5:1 underdog against your hand range.which makes a call correct with a wide range of hands.
back to position in hand anyway ,i think you should deffo fold here.you still have enough chips to look for better spots to build your stack and aslo work your way up the money.
but in situation like this,keep in mind that even though the big stack would not get hurt as much as you if you confront him,but he still gets hurt badly.which means if he is a good player he will avoid confrontations with you as well unless he has a premium hand.so in the future if you want to play a hand like this ,just push and make him fold.