Tournament Survival

In a tournament, under what circumstances is it beneficial for me to call an AIPF that puts me AI if I have a PP and I know my opponent has higher unpaired, like TT vs AK/AQ, (resulting in a 1 on 1 coin-flip)? I know I'm going to win about 6% more often than he does, but I don't think I should be risking my entire tournament on a coin-flip, or worse, multiple coin-flips (which would give me nil chance of winning if I do it enough). Circumstances as in, my stack in relation to the average, time in the tournament (early/late), etc.

If I raise with absolute crap PF, like 7To, and someone rebumps AI, what pot odds should I be looking for to call if I know they have to unpaired overs?

For me the answer lies in the blinds/antes at the paticular time in the tourney.The lower my M (blinds + antes divided into my chip stack) is the more likely I am to flip.I do not have a set rule,It is very situational for me.


Snow

How do you "know" that someone has unpaired overs? Unless you have a spectacular betsizing read on someone, this knowledge is suspect at best. I can understand potentially suspecting that someone has a pair (I personally do this myself on rare occasions) but I would think that the other way around is unheard of.

Have you ever used Poker Stove? (it's freeware and you should be able to google it) It allows you to look at a range of hands against a range of someone else's hands and find the probability that you will win the hand. A generally used approach is to put your opponent on a range of hands and then calculate if you have the pot odds to call.

I said PF, not post-flop, and I'm not just talking about pot odds. I'm talking about +EV for tournaments. If I go AI PF with PP vs unpaired repeatedly in a ring game, that's +EV because I have a slight advantage. If I coin-flip repeatedly in a tournament, eventually I am going to lose because each one diminishes my chances of winning every one: one ~ 0.5, two ~ 0.25, three ~ 0.125, etc.

I know it's impossible to know what an opponent has. I wasn't asking for a set answer; I was merely trying to stimulate a theoretical discussion on something I was curious about.

As with most things in tournies, it depends.

Broadly you should be more willing to accept (and even seek out) flips in tournaments which have quick structures. Any turbo and most of the 1500 standard starting chip regular structure tournies count for this.

In this kind of situation getting it all in with QQ or JJ or AK versus a range that includes 77+ and AQ+ or thinner is definately the way to go (particularly if you have some fold equity by getting in first). However in some rebuy (after the first hour) and deepstack (ie Sunday Million) structures it's a harder decision assuming you have an edge on the field that makes you more than 55-60% to double up without requiring a flip. Obviously the amount of time you have to do it is determined by the structure and has to be a huge part of your thinking.

Ultimately though, flips are a big part of MTT play and while there are approaches that minimise the need to rely on them to win, if you go out of your way to avoid them you'll struggle to get the kind of stack needed to go really deep very often.

This is a mathematical truth but a fallacy about tournies I've seen a lot.

Let's say you flip once. You win and now have double the starting stack.

You get dealt AK and are arrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnnnn versus JJ and lose.

How often has the other stack doubled as well? If he has you are done, if not you are back where you started (admittedly with the blinds further along and so the chips worth less).

By playing people with different stack-sizes differently and selecting the situations where you are likely to get into flips based on your stack and there's it becomes a very different situation to the maths described above. Still need some luck to get a big stack, but not as bad as described.

Your question is very broad. Are you talking live or online? beggining or end of touney? deep stack or turbo? There are just to many situations to give you the correct answer.

Um... did you read my post or someone else's? I never talk about post flop, ring games, or about coin flipping...

If your question is, when should I call to flip in a tourny? (which in itself is kind of wrong because you should be looking at your equity against a range anyways), the short answer was given by Snowmobiler in that if you are shortstacked, or have a small M, then you should probably call. When looking at the pot odds, you need to compare it to your equity against villains range (and why I recommended Stove). The more favorable this is, the more you should be inclined to call. If you combine these pieces of information together, it's basically that the later in a tournament that you get, the more you should be calling with a thinner equity advantage relative to pot odds.

I personally do not like coin flips. If your question is at the beginning of a tournament, never. Can't say I have never done it before, but, I generally don't do it.

For me in the middle you will most likely have to win one or two of them to advance.

At the final table, depends but I am selective when I would try it.