Coniflip for all of your chips early in a no limit multi

Game type: No Limit Hold’em Tournament
Your image: n/a
Stage of tourney: Roughly the 5th hand
Avg stack: 1500
Misc notes:
Your hand: 9♠9♣

The Setup: It’s very early in a no limit multi tournament with a buy-in of $75 and a field of about 800 players. You get nines in late position and when the table folds to you, you make a standard raise. You’re a little surprised when a player behind you pushes all in. The rest of the table folds and the action is back to you.

Let’s say the opponent shows you their hand, and it’s AK offsuit. It’s about 5 hands into this tournament. What’s your play?

14 COMMENTS (Jump to comment form)

Anonymous

Good call from the staff (as well as good fold :p).
There a a couple other factors I find worth taking into account here which are the payout structure and the blind structure.
Let’s say the payout goes for the top 1-5% players or the blinds go up too fast (as in a turbo game), then I see it as an automatic call even for a tight player, because the avcerage stack goes up so fast that the risk is worth.
Likewise, If the payout goes for many players (which pays out sticking around even if you have a short stack) or the blinds goes up slow (so that you may see a lot of hands before you need to get tricky).

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Anonymous

… (continue) If the payout is good or the blinds go up slow, I say there is no need to risk so soon.

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Ally

I really do think that a fold is the right play even though I’ve read tons of experts argue that the no-brainer response here is to call and take the coin flip.

A couple things:

1) If you put your chips on the line in a coin flip just three times during a tourney, you will only still be alive 12% of the time.

2) I think that in order to take a coin flip for your tournament, you have to double your expected payout later in the tournament. I just don’t think that taking this coinflip necessarily will ever dictate that your expected return has just increased by 100% because you won your flip. All it takes later is getting it all in with KK vs. AA and it doesn’t matter whether or not you had 20k in chips or 30k in chips if your opponent has 50k. Or, it doesn’t matter if you lose that one big coinflip late against someone that has you covered.

The only time I think that it is really a good call then, is if you feel that you can manipulate that doublestack and chip up at a much faster rate. Having the huge stack does help you stay alive when you are bad-beat and can increase your expected results. But, I just don’t think that it increases your payout expectation by 100%

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Kevin

Im calling here. Im not making the preflop move in the begining but given this situation im calling.

Take the coinflip, if you lose ohwell, but a double up here if your a good player can easily lead to a very large midgame stack.

I dont see the reason to raise the 9′s here..but in this situation call.

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Zot95

Not to be a stickler, but I disagree that calling is positive EV from a mathematical perspective. In a cash game, it obviously is. But in a tournament, your direct goal is not to merely win chips, but to finish in a spot that pays $$$. In a tournament, doubling up does not generally “double up” your EV for the tourney, because as the old saying goes, survival is important.

In this particular spot, I probably fold. Doubling up would be nice, but wouldn’t provide any sort of decisive advantage at this point. If the blind structure were rapid, or the field were considerably smaller, I might change my tune though.

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paul

i would fold as i have my oppenent on a fairly decent hand

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tsifreak

I will fold. My opponent will suck out on me with 2 overs 75% of the time. May as well have pocket 2s

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Luu

Fold. Even if you have this guy beat (why would he go all in with aces or kings and win 135 chips, instead of a small reraise to win more?), you now know his style and can pick him off later when you do have a premium hand.

This really isn’t a coin flip. Either he has 2 overs (coin flip) or he has a pocket pair (meaning your drawing to 2 outs. If you did the same with jacks or better, he could be making this move with 2 paints, and you could be a huge favorite, in which case the call is worth it, but not with 9s.

Doubling your stack at this point in a long tourney is pretty meaningless, and pocket nines aren’t really all that good.

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nathanthomp

If he shows AKs, I will call every single time, no matter what stage of the tourney. If you are a favorite (albeit a small one), you should hope to get all the chips in the middle because in the long run you will make more money.

nathanthomp

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drhoho

Lets get the math straigth.
I checked the cardplayer: chances are 55% of winning. You can call 1410 to win 3045.
0.55*3045=1675.
So on average you will win 1675-1410=265 chips calling.
Compaired to the size of the call, that would be an expected interest of 19%.

First of all: If the opponent had not in some strange way shown me his hand, I would fold without hesitation. And often I would have just limped 99 from a middle position in the first place.

Now I am less sure. If I had played the tournament before and felt that the opponents were significantly inferior players, I would fold expecting a better chance.
But on the other side: I often make moves with less expected interest than 19%, so why not play here? Sure finishing early is sad, but bubbling is sadder.
How much will doubling early give me a better chance of getting in the money? I am not sure, but as we are nowhere near the bubble, I am not sure I would consider that. It is a very close call, but I migth call here. Also for the same reasons the staff suggested.

And, very unproffessionally, to spite the opponent trying to make me fold the best hand. I would feel outplayed if I folded, knowing I was ahead. That migth make me tilt a bit.

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Patrick Cherry

Call..

Statistically, you are about 52% to win the hand, which means that you are a slight favorite, but you still are a favorite.. in any situation like this, I will call..and hope for the best of it

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bluesbread

Yes, you call here. In an 800-person tournament, face it, you are probably going to get knocked out before reaching the payoff. And there is no glory in finishing, say, 81st if the money goes down to 80th. You’re better off getting knocked out quick, even if there isn’t a cash game to play in. Go home and play with the kids, or get some work done, for gosh sakes. Not that you want to get knocked out by calling here. The odds are on your side (if you know he has AK, as the example states — if you have no idea what he has maybe things are different, although there’s probably as much chance he has a lower pocket as a higher, or even an outright bluff, if he’s an unknown player to you, so I would probably still vote to call). To win a big tourn you gotta go for it when you get the chance.

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Pirate21

Assuming we contain the response entirely to this tournament (if we let post-tourney cash game options enter into our thinking, we really shouldn’t have even played the tournament in the first place).
This is a pretty easy fold this early on.
The logic is simple…. you can’t win the tournament on the 5th hand, but you can (and will) bust out 49% of the time.

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