ITM decision

[Seadood228]

Party Poker NL SNG. The BB appears to be a decent player. The BT has been the tightest at the table so far, and did not raise a hand on the bubble. Not sure if a lot can be read into that though. Blinds are 150/300.

Chip Stacks

BT - 1800
ME (SB) - 2400
BB - 3800

BB raises to 1300. You have 88. What's your move and is it even close?

Thanks
Seadood228/Gambooln

[curtains]

I assume you meant that the button made it 1300. I would move allin and I don't think it's close. First of all the button will likely be raising with any pair here, half of which are lower than your 88. Against all the overcards youll be about a 54% favorite.

Secondly they should often raise here with any ace, or sometimes any king, which means that you will sometimes be dominating these hands if it's A7 or K6s or so on.

Third you are getting good pot odds, as you will effectively be risking 1800 to win 2250.

[shoeman]

The BB would never have had a chance to do this since I would pushed all-in from the SB. If you meant to say that the Button raised to 1300, I would push.

The only situation that you should fold is if you are againsts 2 passive players and have been able to steal blinds at will. Looking at the stack sizes, this doesn't look to be the case.

[Seadood228]

Whoops I meant to say the button pushes. sorry bout that.

[Bataglin]

All in, not close.

[curtains]

btw I meant that you are risking 1650 to win 2250 [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Seadood228]

Actually I was watching a buddy play a $30, and we had a disagreement on this hand. I said no brainer push, he said close fold.

Looking at the math, however, it's actually a very close decision. It pretty much boils down to your read of the BB, and the odds of him having 1 overcard or 2. For the sake of this example I'll assume that % of times he has an overpair is cancelled out by the % of times he has an underpair.

Anyway, the breakeven point is around 20%. If you feel your opponent will have just one overcard less than 20% of the time, then a fold has slightly more value according to ICM.

This is all assuming that a) everyone has the same skill level and b) the BB will not call or reraise. If you add in your presumed skill advantage and the possibility that the BB will call, then the decision should lean further towards folding.

In the actual hand, the player DID push after I yelled at him about it, and got called by QsTs. His hand held up and he went on to win.

So I guess he was wrong [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[LinusKS]

Seafood, this is what I'm getting.

When the hero folds, he loses his sb, netting him 2250, for an ev of .3173.

When he goes all-in, and wins, he nets 4500 (2400+1800+300), giving him an ev of .4125.

When he loses, he winds up with T600/ ev .2355.

So it looks like he's risking .0818 to win .0952.

Pokerstove gives me about 57:43, hero's favor, when the button with make this play with any A, any broadway, and any pair.

Even if you narrow it to any broadway and any pair, the hero still has a slight advantage.

If you eliminate all the underpairs from the villain's hand, that gets you to 47:53, but even then the 1:1.16 pot-odds gives you odds to call (barely - 1:1.16 vs. 1:1.12). However, eliminating the underpairs is probably not reasonable.

If the BB calls, the Hero may be in trouble.

However, I wouldn't expect that to happen much. Plus, when he does come in, every time he wins the hand the hero still gets second place.

It looks like to me the all-in is "close" in the sense that it's not a big +EV play, but not close in the sense that it's clearly better than folding.

Agree?

[Seadood228]

I completely agree. but I thought it was interesting how close of a decision it actually is. Factor in the raiser being tight and it's even closer. But then again being tight pre-bubble and post-bubble are two different things.

[skipperbob]

Where do you play?