How much you should you invest in chasing a hand?

I remember seeing a video by Chris Moneymaker where he said something about when playing pocket pairs if you miss the flop you should only continue with the betting as long as it's 1/15 of your stack or something. Is that a good rule? my numbers might be off. lol. I was just finishing up a MTT where I was in the money, and was the shortstack. I get dealt pocket 88's so I limp in, I get to see the turn for free. Then to see the river was 1500. Of course I fold, and an 8 hits. There were two other people in the pot and it would have completely turned my situation around. Of course if I paid the 1500 and it missed, I'm pretty much dead. Just curious in regards to chasing flushes, and straights as well.

There are very few "rules" in poker, as each scenario warrants its own decisionmaking. In the case you pointed out, if you're shortstacked, I might go all-in pre-flop with pocket 8's. This depends on your position, as you want to be seeing how many people would call you. But the way you played it, yes, you have to fold when someone raises 1500. Occasionally you will hit that two-outer, but in the long run, you will lose much more than you will win. It's small things like that that separate a winning player from a losing player.

What you are talking about sounds like set-mining. The generally acceppted ratio is 1 to 12 - bet to effective stacks. So if I have 88 and the bet is $1 and my stack and villian's stacks are both over $12 then I call.

The next part of your question is more complicated but using the rule of 4+2 can help. After you missed the flop you had 2 outs. With the turn and river coming you where %8 to hit your set. After the turn you where %4 to hit your set. This means that in order to get correct odds to call 1500 had to be %4 of the pot at that time which I doubt you where getting.

The fact that the 8 came just means that %4, while small, doesn't mean it never happens.

Of course the situation is more complicated than this, without knowing the board and turn cards. This might be a bet with middle pair or Ace high after it checked around the flop, which of course your 88 might beat.

Anyways, I think it was a good fold proably, and my math above might be a little fuzzy because it is really late here .

Your numbers aren't a million miles away, but I would think that common sense tells you as the short stack, and already in the money, you should just have open shoved your 8's?
If you limped, were forced to fold and was then too short to make a comeback, then you should have just stuck with your 8's regardless and either tried to buy the pot, or take a shot at the 2 outer. These 'rules' can be implimented in most situations, but they require a dab of common sense too.
As far as straights etc... With a gutshot on the flop you've a 3 outer with 2 chances to hit, so 3/47 then 3/46 (47 cards left after your hole cards and 3 on flop, then 46 cards with turn on the board) comes to roughly 8/1, or a 15% chance of catching. Odds are doubled for an 'open-ended' straight. With a flush draw, your looking at just short of a coin flip on the flop (40/60 against?). 9 cards out of the remaining 47 will make your hand, and you have 2 shots at it with turn and river. making you around 2.6/1. I will usually make a reasonable bet on the flop with a f.d. but not after the turn, where your odds are far lower at around 20% (over 5/1).

I hope my maths are right, i'm still learning pot odds etc, but i'm getting a basic grip of them as I go on. Everyone feel free to correct me!

Of course you are correct Kev, but he was asking about the 1 to 15 Moneymaker thing, so I just assumed.

When he said short stacked that could still be 20BB deep, or whatever.

However, there could still be an argument for a shove look at these numbers:

88vsAKs
52--47

88vsKJ
53--45

88vsA9
57--42

88vsA4
69--30

88vsTT
18--80

So against most hands pre-flop we are a favorite, but against a higher pocket pair we are a huge underdog.

as far as chasing is concerned...i usually fold unless it's real cheap to try to catch it. i have a question about chasing a flush, because i got burned the other day and i'm wondering how stupid my move was.

in this case was a sng, next person out was out of the money and everyone left was in i think, or maybe the next two out were out of the money, i can't exactly remember. i had a suited AT. i limped on in and the flop showed 2 of the cards were the same suit as my pocket, no pairs. a K was hanging out in the flop. next guy goes all in (who had slightly lower amount of chips than me) and the 2 or 3 other ppl in the hand fold. so it's my turn and i'm thinking he's got to have a K or 2 of them. or maybe he's just full of it, because he had been playing pretty funny prior, and i wasn't sure how he was still in the game. i know, aside from a miracle of god, i'm pretty much done for if i call and my suit doesn't show up in the next cards but i figured since it was bed time that i'd give it a shot. anyway. my suit doesn't show up, he had 1 K...and his pair won and that was about the end of me.

was it worth it to try to call an all-in in a situation like that or should i have just tucked my tail and thought about what might have been...till the next hand?

well if you had 88 and were already itm and decided to limp....meaning nobody before you had raised....i dont see where shoving preflop is a bad decision....usually any pp and your ahead

hey ted,

Let me first add the caveat that I don't play SNGs so as far as tactical decicisions go I don't know if risking your tournament on a draw is correct.

Mathmattically speaking however, you had 9 outs plus 3 for the aces giving you a total of 12 outs. The rule of 4and2 says you were about 48 percent to hit and win.

Plugging it into a program shows your ATs winning about 46% of the time. So if the blinds are super high and you are shortstacked it might be worth going for a coin flip, but if it was earlier you might want to wait for a better spot.

Again I wasn't there and don't know how much you where invested in the hand, or how light this guy was bluffing either.

Just at the end of his thread he also asks about odds for chasing straights and flushes too mamushi. Thats why I focused more on that.
As I said though, the 1/15 thing is a good rule to stick to, but not if your in a position where you need a double through to continue.
I would guess that, as op suggests that he was too short to continue after calling the flop on this hand, a shove would have been the better move.
Its doubtful that he had any more than 10-12 BB's if he was left in that position. I understand your 20+BB quote though.
I'd much rather take a 50/50 (fair odds with a mid-pair?) shot at doubling through once i'm in the money than being left too short to make moves later on.
GG guys and great posts.