Daily Hand Quiz

its for basically our whole stack. i don’t like gambling late in tournaments unless I have to, and I don’t need to yet. no one gets to the end of the tournament by choosing to gamble for stacks just cuz they have a pair of tens. we have no read, no reason to think he can’t have landed a couple of high ace shoving hands.

it would be very foolish to work hard for chips only to decide calling a no read open shove for our entire stack is a good play.

fold. poker is about patience. some times that means folding hands we’d loooove to play (tens on button). but who wants to play a no read huge pot for the entire stack with tens without seeing a flop first.

the only compelling thing here is that blinds will go to 50/100k in a few hands. and we have 3 short stacks acting before us the whole time, so it could be that we’ll get pinched into a spot where we have to call off chips with a worse hand, like 77, simply because it isn’t going to be possible to get in first our self with a decent hand. however racing against overs doesn’t matter if you have 77 or JJ. This pinch is something that will have to be considered if any more of these spots come up again. For now though, I don’t want to needlessly gamble just because of a pair, and I’m willing to give the guy credit for back to back shove-able hands.

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blue Reply:
February 11th, 2011 at 3:53 am

lol

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Major Dude Reply:
February 11th, 2011 at 11:46 am

The most important data point we’ve been given is the tournament structure. We’re now in the exact opposite of a bubble — we’re all stuck on a long plateau where finishing 18th and finishing 10th is the same thing.

In bubbles, you take fewer risks, because short-term survival is so valuable. Bullies exploit that by open-shoving a lot.

In this anti-bubble, we’re wasting our time if we can’t figure out a way to become a big stack before the tables consolidate. Villain looks like he’s already got a plan to make that happen. As you point out, our seating is such that we may not get a lot of chances to be first in. I’m not eager to fold my way into 12th (or even eighth.)

If this were a more-standard situation where our payout got a little bigger each time we survived someone else’s bustout, then your analysis might be the way to go. We get paid for surviving even a little longer.

But this structure doesn’t reward small-stack nits at all. I think we’ve gotta play this.
Other posters have made a good case that we’re at least slightly ahead of Villain’s range. The extra antes & blinds in the pot make it an even better proposition.

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T Reply:
February 11th, 2011 at 4:49 pm

Wanted to do an extensive post on this but you pretty much said it all.
In a standard payout structure, even though it looks like we are a small favorite to win against his range, a fold should be +EV. Especially considering there are no real remarkable stacks at the table.

But this is different, when we win this hand we can fold our way a lot farther toward 9th place – we may even pick up a better hand during that time and get called wider. We’d probably need to double up at least once more before we hit a better prize, but we need to set it up before we become the lone shortstack.

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Easy shove since our M is about 6.5, especially because of Villains history AND he has the big blind coming to him next round and might be trying for a steal.

V’s range probably KJ+,A9+ any PP.

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We have every reason to gamble here… We have 13BB’s about to go to 10BB’s left, we have two big stacks to our left, we are getting ante’d, there is no pay jump for a long while and skulking into 9th isn’t much of an improvement in payout.

The UTG shover has even more reason to gamble than us, with 11BBs and about to go through the blinds. Of course we can’t rely on seeing a couple of hands of his, but we have slightly more reason to call because of the previous shove by him.

Our AQs or 10s aren’t doing THAT great agaisnt his range but I think they’re ahead of anyone who’s not a nit anyway. That’s good enough for me at this point.

So find your way to the call button.

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I’m short and need to double up so I’m shoving either AQs or tens. I am not optimistic about a better chance any time soon for reasons explained by others. If I am beaten then I will be very happy with $7,600.

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if villain is shoving 10% of the time here…and most people at this level will with far more, then we are a head.

easy shove, AJs is close here as well

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Not sure if we have AQ or TT, but I’m shoving either of those in this spot. In either case there are few hands we are behind and V’s recent history makes me think his shoving range is a little wider than normal. Deciding factor for me is that payout doesn’t change significantly for awhile, so it’s a perfect time to take a shot at doubling our stack.

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I’m shoving here.
Obviously you’d love to have more of a reason to fold AQs or TT here just because you could well be behind. But patience isn’t a luxury you have here. If you go bust, then so be it. If you double up here you have a fighting chance at the final table and a bigger payday.

The thing I’m curious about are the big stacks to your left. If you shove, then they are getting 3-1 on a huge pot. Although I really don’t think they are calling without a real monster… but how sick would you feel if you wake up as the SB or BB with AKs, QQ, or JJ?

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In my view, the deciding factor is the pay-out structure. With a low M, this is a good time to gamble with either AQ or TT. Nothing to lose and a chance to move-up into the higher $.

AI and hope the opponent did not wake-up with the handful of hands that are ahead.

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Fold. Small to medium pair? AK? No need to gamble here.

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blue Reply:
February 13th, 2011 at 9:13 pm

lol, ur ahead of all the hands you stated.

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T Reply:
February 13th, 2011 at 10:04 pm

AQ vs AK is a 30% dog.
AQ vs 22-JJ is a 48% dog.

And drop the condescending ‘lol’ please. It’s incredibly lame even when you do have some substantial arguments.

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i think folding is horrible, im calling 100%. all me chips

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