Coinflip situations

Ok so I was thinking about coinflip situations and I was wondering what others thought. At what time in a tournament are willing to take a coinflip situation? For what reasons? What kind of hands are you willing to go into a coinflip with? Pairs or the overcards? I will respond after a few posts to discuss.

I'd be willing to take a coinflip more likely once I'm in the money.
As for the kind of hands, depends on the strenght of the pockets and overcards and how many players in the hand.
I hope I understood the Question properly, If not feel free to correct me as I'm relativly new to some poker terms.

I'll play coinflips early in the tournament, as long as busting out early wouldn't be a huge blow to my bankroll.

Also, when I get in the money and a double up would either put me in the chip lead or I have a chance to knock a short stack out, I'll go.

Never, unless I have a sufficiently dominating stack size. Coinflips without dominating stack is just a rookies playing field.

Only exceptions :-

1) It isnt really a true 50/50 coin flip (and they rarely are). If someone launches from the cutoff and you are BB looking at 99....is that a coin flip? We never deal in absolute information. So if I thought my side of the "coin flip" was favourite then obviously I am more likely to call.

2) I am the aggressor, not the caller

The above 2 scenarios cover such things as becoming shortstacked and building a stack. But a sidenote on shortstacked play, you should never let your stack get so low that it makes it too easy for any other player to call. (ie dont getting blinded out gradually). The hands I would play in this case depend on how quickly this critical point is approaching.

Welly

I played in $1000 guarantee tournament on UB. This was my first tournament to play in aside from STTs.

I was 2nd in chips for a while but as I started to dwindle I made a risky move by going all in on a flush draw. Actually I was AK suited and highest card was a 9, i think, so I figured I had 15 outs unless someone flopped a set, two pair didn't look likely. I caught my flush. Opponent had pocket tens

Then once I was in the money and the shorter stacks would go all in (and I had an enormous chip stack) I would call with any Ace with a reasonable kicker. So I call an all in with AJ, which I happen to think is a dumb move but with my chip stack I wasnt afraid, okay maybe a little. He shows pocket Jacks so I knew i was far behind, worse than a coin flip actually but I got lucky and hit an ace.

Not sure if this is a coinflip or not but the chipleader is at my table and has been playing pretty aggressivley. He raises it to 3000. I forget the blinds but it's a huge raise, blinds cant be higher than 400. I have pocket 9s so I call. Flop comes out 9 8 2 so I move all in and he calls with QJ, gusthot straight draw. He was no longer chip leader after that. I kind of felt sorry for him because he had to have been feeling pretty good being chip leader all this time and now is just a minutes away from being blinded out. But he made a horrible call. Even if I had a pair of 2s he's behind.

I make it to heads up and I dont care if I get second or first, both prizes are pretty good and I consider heads up a cointoss, especially the way I play. I still have about 80,000 in chips and my opponnent has about 15,000 so I put him allin with my 8 5 off suit. He calles with Ace 4 offsuit and I catch a 5.

In my case I had a huge chip lead and wasnt really afraid of coinflip situations. I wasnt afraid of losing, but afraid of doubling people up. But I got lucky a few times, and sometimes thats what it takes.

I'm not an experienced tournament player but I figure do coinflips when you can afford a loss. In my case I had a dominating chip lead. For a while I had about 3x more than the 2nd place chip leader. However I wasnt a complete idiot and call all allins especially against someone in the top 5 or so that would take a huge portion of my chips, unless I had AA KK or QQ.

There's also the saying "always leave yourself outs".

Busting out is the definition of a huge blow to your bankroll.....

Perhaps you mean as long as you haven't spent much of your bankroll on the entry fee?

Got my seat for the WPT Legends with preflop all in with 7 players left and 4 seats, my AK to his 99 caught an A on the flop and won which made me a lock.

In the WPT on Day 2 after 5 hours of nada I called his all in (started with 35K BB 1,600, ante 300 I bet 6K so I had about 8K in 1/3 my stack), his 66 to my AK flop came 10, 10, Q any J, Q, K, A on the turn or river I woulda won and doubled up, came 4, 4 and I busted out.

Go figure

i have been thinking more about this and I have come to a conclusion that I would not go into a coinflip situation unless the reward was substantial enough. I guess this means a significant position change in a tournament or chip advantage. I also agree with welly about being able to afford to go into a coinflip situation, but I think that you must also be willing to go broke to win a tournament.

To Suceed in a Big Field of players, like the WSOP, you have to be willing to take lots of chances, and you have to win numerous coin flips,, To win an event like that you have to get Good Cards & be very Lucky for 10 or 12 days in a row, or however the event takes,, in events like that, LUCK, plays a big part..>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> buck

To expand on my above post, what is most important in tournament play is putting yourself in the situation of never having to take a coin flip without dominating stack size.

Well a whole book could be written on how this is done . so no point going into that here . And of course it is not always possible to get to that situation, because of the luck factor.

If we take the extreme example of say 30 coin flips (without dominating stack) to win the WSOP. Well that would mean you get better odds by playing the national lottery. So one of many many skill elements to me is avoiding coinflips without dominating stack size, and reducing the dependance on this form of luck. Aggression can be found in many other areas.

Intersting Thread JeeDub

I find it hard to say to myself: right this is a 50/50 situation, is it worth it. Because you never really know for sure if its a definite coinflip. An example, In a $50 SNG i had pocket Jacks early on and raised to 5K (a substatial raise) and the guy comes over the top all in. He has about 10K in chips, I have 25K, so I think hes got overcards, probably AK because hes been playing quite tight, It was one off the money so i figured potentially knocking this guy out would be worth my while. So he turns over 66, the hand plays out with no suprises and I knock him out, just saying that you never know for sure itsa coinflip situation.

Well put Welly. I agree on what you say about avoiding that situation unless you are stacked up well enough. I guess its all about a solid read on a player and being prepared financially for it in chips. Again, very nice response welly.