Big Stacks Go to War

[-Oz-]

Situation: Final table NLHE tourney, 6 players left. Payouts: $3900, $1700, $1200, $800, $700, $600.

Blinds are 1K and 2K. Big Stack with T35K in cutoff seat, Hero with with T25K (2nd stack) on button. Short stack is UTG with 4K, the other 3 stacks have ~10K.

Everyone folds to BS who raises to 6K. He's been playing very aggressivly, but only shown good hands so far. Hero on button finds <font color="black">A[img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img] K[img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img] </font color>.

Rank these four options and add comments:

1) Fold
2) Call
3) Raise small (6K)
4) Raise all in

I'll add my comments and results below.

-Oz-

[-Oz-]

1) Raise All In

The obvious choice. You are very likely to win the pot right now. The main problem is that in this situation, the BS is very unlikely to call with a worse hand. So, when he calls, you are in a coin flip or big dog situation. Because of this, I beleive that you should give *some* consideration to:

2) Fold

Everyone else is short stacked and you have position on the BS. Whenever he passes a hand, you will get the green light to steal. Why get into a confrontation when you are virtually assured to get into the top 3 and the real money. But on balance, I like raising all in a little better.

3) Call

... with the idea to trap on a flop you like. Risky and too passive IMO.

4) Raise small to 12K

This is really bad IMO, because you give the BS odds to call and you don't have enough left to push him off when you have the worst hand on the flop.

-Oz-

[-Oz-]

I was the BS with <font color="black">J[img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img]T[img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img]</font color> in this hand and the hero (or heroine in this case) chose to raise only 6K more.

Now notice that, if our chip positions are reversed (I have 19K left and she has 23K left), this play has a lot more merit. For the minimal raise amount, she has put me to a decision for my whole stack. But (being the gambling type [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] ) I called for the additional 6K taking the 3.5 to 1 offered.

The flop: J 6 3, one [img]/forums/images/icons/spade.gif[/img]. I checked and she moved all in for 13K. She then gave me the classic bluff tell, being very still and not breathing. I considered if she was giving me a reverse, decided not and called. She failed to catch her 6 outer on the turn and river and I had the monster stack with 5 players left.

The thing that's instructive here is that the only way she gets knocked out of the tourney is by making such a small raise before the flop. If she had raised all in preflop, she would have won the pot and if she had only called preflop, I would have a much harder time calling a 19K bet in a 15K pot.

-Oz-

[fnurt]

With the other stacks being what they are I think folding is the #1 option here. AKs is not that huge a monster and you simply can't risk busting out in 6th with this big a lead over 4 other stacks.

[sam h]

1)Reraise all-in.

Six handed, AKs is a big hand. The big stack is very likely to be stealing and does not have enough chips to double you through and still be in comfortable position. The big money in this tournament is for first.

2) Call

My second choice because I can't bring myself to advocate folding. You still will have 19K if you miss and you have a chance to trap and double through into a dominant chip lead.

3) Fold

A good idea if your goal is third place money. But you could take three 3rds in this tournament and still not equal the prize money for finishing first once. The big stack is likely to be raising a lot of pots right before you, really hurting your ability to steal blinds and grow your stack. Waiting until you have AA or KK to make a stand is not a good plan.

4) Raise small

You probably won't get the big stack to fold and you're putting in half your stack, which is going a pretty significant distance to committing you to the hand. So much of your equity in raising is in taking down the pot uncontested. If you were in the blinds, you were sure the big stack would call with any pair but would also fold many pairs on the flop against overcards like Qs and Js, maybe there is some small merit to this. But not much.

[Magician]

You go all-in. Either he folds and you win the pot right there, you are a slight dog to QQ or smaller pair, or you are a favorite against hands like AQ or AJ if your opponent would call with those. Six-handed it's highly unlikely that he would have AA or KK.

All-in - the shot at 1st place is too positive EV to pass up.

[yct]

I like the option of push all in and give the Big Stack a chance to fold. Let the Big Stack tastes his own medicine and he will not call unless he just happens to have a premium hand.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Given how top heavy first place is, going all-in is the best choice, and it's not even close.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)