Generic Tournament Question

Fold or Call?

  • Fold

    Votes: 36 50.7%
  • Call

    Votes: 27 38.0%
  • **** Tournaments

    Votes: 8 11.3%

  • Total voters
    71
zachvac

zachvac

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You're in the ME of the wsop, $10k buy-in. First hand of the tournament it's folded to the SB who open shoves and accidentally flips over AKs. You look down in the BB and see QQ. You have a 53.8% to win here. Do you call?
 
Steveg1976

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I see this possibly getting ugly....
 
rileyl

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I voted for **** tournaments but seriously I think I might fold here. ME filled with donks and I'm sure you can find better spots than this. Even though it may be mathematically incorrect to fold, I think your tournament life in this situation is much more important.
 
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switch0723

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fold, no matter the tourny surely, even though i sucketh at tournies, it's survival > chip accumulation, taking a coin flip first hand is not survival, and your only going to double your stack which you can do later on by outplaying the tables and using bigger edges to your advantage
 
Steveg1976

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fold, no matter the tourny surely, even though i sucketh at tournies, it's survival > chip accumulation, taking a coin flip first hand is not survival, and your only going to double your stack which you can do later on by outplaying the tables and using bigger edges to your advantage

But what if you are the donk?
 
jewboy07

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But what if you are the donk?

in the main even there are thousands of donks so i would expect there to be numerous opportunities to double up later


and i voted for fold
 
Genso Hikki

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I'm folding - only because I'm a chicken and it would really suck to go out on the first hand. I might have folded even if I handn't seen his cards - YES, I'd be that big of a chicken on the first hand of the tourney.
 
Makwa

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Im folding because I didnt pay 10K and travel 2000 miles to play one hand.
 
zachvac

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As per the bigger edges comment:

ME had a few thousand people right? Let's use 4096 because it's a power of 2. It will take winning 12 of these in a row for stacks preflop to win:

.53^12 = 0.049% chance of winning
1/4096 = 0.024% chance of winning

Thus taking this "small" edge actually increases odds of winning tournament by just over twice. So two people with exactly the same skill set apart from this play the same tournament. One player takes the 53% edges, other doesn't. The one who does has twice as much chance of winning the tournament.

Granted that's nowhere near complicated enough because we have to factor either player losing in the money, but due to the top heavy nature of mtt payouts we should be shooting for #1 anyway right?

The one argument against it would be say you are basically like anyone in the forum. This is simplified but say you had a strategy that would win the $12 million 1% of the time. There is another strategy that will never win and always barely make the money giving say 20k 30% of the time.

Obviously 120k > 6k by a ton. Yet this would be a tough choice for me. If I had millions and millions it would be the easiest choice in the world. As it is now I'd probably lean towards 30% of 20k although I'm not sure. If it was something like 30% at 100k (which still makes 120k > 30k) I'd take the 30% at 100k no question about it even though I'm literally giving up 90k in ev every tournament I play.

Basically I've been watching a few MTT videos over at Stox and this came up in one of the videos. He said that even thinking of folding here would be silly because first off what I said above and second off while you're sitting there waiting for a better edge, over half the time the other guy has twice the chips and is using those to exploit all edges including the big ones you're going to exploit. So you could wait another few hours and finally get that bigger edge and meanwhile he's found a few edges and has doubled up 2-3 times again.

Anyway just curious question, although I still think I'd take the flip. I figure no matter what I do I'm not cashing more than 50% of the time anyway so having less than 50% of busting isn't the end of the world.

But on the other hand for purely entertainment value I'd like to play more than one hand in the WSOP ME.

So I'm pretty sure from a game theory standpoint and pure ev the call is a no brainer. Just curious as to other opinions on this. Also note that if you fold and refuse to take an edge that's not big enough sooner or later you could have like 10 big blinds and be forced to take the 40%.

For those who say fold, what threshold would you need to call? I'm assuming most would insta-call AA vs. AK. Would you call KK vs. AK? AK vs. 78?

edit: fwiw I voted **** tournaments even though I think playing the WSOP ME would be awesome :).
 
Genso Hikki

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For those who say fold, what threshold would you need to call? I'm assuming most would insta-call AA vs. AK. Would you call KK vs. AK? AK vs. 78?

Truth be told, I guess I'd call with AA or KK - and that's about it. Remeber, we've already established I'm a chicken. Everything you say about it being the right decision to call makes sense, but I have SUCH a mental block against getting all my chips into the middle pre-flop on the first hand of ANY MTT (not just the WSOP ME). Yes, it's stupid I know, but for some reason I just can't stand the thought of buying in, sitting down, and racing off all my chips on the first hand. It makes no logical sense, because if we're talking about the second hand I might happily race for it all with QQ against AK.

Clearly, this is a mental block I need to get over :(
 
jolubman

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This is a coin flip decision on taking a coin flip. Do you feel lucky?
 
jdeliverer

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I'd take it because I'm not confident enough in my ability to outplay enough people at the ME to make the money anyway, and if I bust out first hand then I can head to the local casinos for more profitable games.
 
PokerPete

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I actually voted for call before reading the rest of the thread...
... thinking about this from the standpoint of what if I didn't see his cards:

Without seeing his cards, I can't possibly put this guy on KK or AA playing at the WSOP... in a Ultimatebet 0.50 SnG? You bet there are those out there... but WHY would he push here? Isn't he really telling me "I don't want a call. If I did, I'd raise enough to get you into the hand so I can take more than just your blind"... but that line of thinking might just make me an easy sucker to put out of a SnG 1st hand!
 
smd173

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I voted call before reading the thread. And I still say call. And not just on what zach posted. We all watch the ME and see the edited hands broadcast on TV. Alot of those hands are coin flips or even dominating hands where someone hits a 2 outter on the river. And alot of those hands happen throughout the tourney. Especially getting closer to the bubble. Finishing 667th out of 6800+ is the same as finishing 6800/6800. Yet almost anyone would take that coin flip on the bubble in a heartbeat.

If you'd be willing to do it later in the tourney, you have to be willing to do it in the beginning.
 
zachvac

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I'd take it because I'm not confident enough in my ability to outplay enough people at the ME to make the money anyway, and if I bust out first hand then I can head to the local casinos for more profitable games.

This is another pretty good thought. If you bust first hand you have a few days free. If you just play tight and bubble you've wasted all that time. Low-stakes buy-in I take a coin flip first hand in a heartbeat (yep, even if it's 50-50). I'd rather have 50% chance of double up and 50% of losing anyway. Isn't that why we rebuy first hand of a rebuy? The extra chips are worth the buy-in. Only problem would be the variance and it being a 10k tourney (with huge payout differences) I'd probably be a bitch and fold too.
 
vanquish

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fold; all ur math doesn't take into account the fact that the ME has the most amazing structure ever and you can wait much longer for better spots
 
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If you put me in this situation tonight, I would fold easily. The education from playing more hands with the competition for a few hours would far outweigh doubling up my chips in the first hand.

However, assuming I had the BR to be playing in $10k tourneys, I would call no question.

If I was getting my entry staked, I would probably fold. I don't think your sponsor would be too happy if you went out your first hand. Unless you got extra coverage for being, "The guy who went all in the first hand of the WSOP and lost."
 
Egon Towst

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In any everyday tournament, I would cheerfully take the coinflip.

If I win, I am chipleader at the table right from the off and that is an edge I can exploit. A double stack this early more than doubles my winning prospects.

If I lose, there will be another chance tomorrow.

In the WSOP ME, I`m folding. Whatever the logic, my heart says I can`t travel this far to this great tourney and go home again after just one hand.

If it happened on a bad beat, it would be horrid but bearable (just). To do it to myself with a risky play is just unthinkable.
 
The PoolBoy

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Turbo call ME fold... I'm not voting cuz bastard is not a choice!
 
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teeko

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Fold

In tournament stay away from coinflips, Especially in the early stages. U have to be careful and two overs is crazy. If ur lucky enuff to see ak i say drop it.
 
eNTy

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Turbo call ME fold... I'm not voting cuz bastard is not a choice!


**** Tournaments is Bastardish ... :(

I voted call although it's such a great tourny with great structure I still think you can't play scared money. Although a 53% chance of winning may not be all that great, I do feel if you say I insta call this in any other tourny but fold in the ME you're logic is kind of flawed.

Does that mean you're playing different poker because it's the ME ? What else are we changing then..
 
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I voted call..... you have to take the edge when you got it and if you do lose you can at least say you went in with the best hand pre-flop and he got lucky.............:)
 
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Halibel

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tough... you wouldn't call all in with 77 vs K-Q... so I shouldn't see why with this situation.
 
B

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at this stage of my life no because it would be a big chuck of my bankroll to enter the tourny but say i was like phil ivey or top pro with plenty of money think i would call seeing im favrioute
 
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