calling to chop? is it ok?

Jacki Burkhart

Jacki Burkhart

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occasionally situations arise where a player makes a bet and because of the action you are almost positive you are going to chop the pot...but you have far from the nuts.

What is the general thinking and strategy in these situations?

example...today I had AK in a 3 way raised pot and the board was A83 rainbow. player A bets, player B min raises. I put him on AK or AQ the whole time, so I decide to flat the min raise from the button. Player A folds.

Pot contains $1,650

heads up to the turn it is a 2 putting 4 different suits out there. he open jams for $3,600. so more than 2x the pot.

I know I could be crushed here, but there are no 2 pair combos that make much sense. I don't put him on a set because #1 I put him on AK or AQ from the get go and #2 a set would probably play slower to try and extract some value on such a safe board.


so, I tank-call. and I'm right. he had AK and we chop. But i had to risk most of my stack (3600 off my stack of 5,500) to win essentially 800 chips.

At the time I was pleased that my read was correct, but as I got to thinking about it I wonder if I should ever make that call? does the fact that he could possibly have AQ make it any better of a call?

Other situations arise sometimes, too where you know any A will chop the pot, but they bet first. Is it OK to call with your ace to chop the pot, in the hopes that they are maybe bluffing?
 
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WiZZiM

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you have to allow for stupidity against most players, it's an easy call even if you have him on exactly AK/AQ, he should have AQ more often because we have a blocker. also people tend to overvalue things, so he could have aj-at here, maybe not very often, but since we played it so passively you can't just rule it out. anyways i think calling is fine.
 
Jacki Burkhart

Jacki Burkhart

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thanks. yeah, in that spot I don't think I can fold but it got me thinking about the situation in general.

should tournament strategies outweigh our read in these types of situations? How sure do we have to be that we are chopping? How often must we be right in order to balance out the disastrous outcome when we are wrong? Since we're not actually winning very many chips, we have to win them a very high % of the time to make up for that wacky time they are playing the nuts this way....
 
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WiZZiM

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common sense prevails in those situations.

in this specific one i wouldn't worry about it too much, it comes up pretty infrequently. however we can apply your thoughts above to a bunch of different situations.

obviously if we're sure we are chopping, we're only winning 50% of the blinds, or 50% of whoever might have called preflop. so taking down maybe 1-2 bb's doesnt really seem worth the risk when we can just fold and steal the very next hand with no risk.

in the example above, you include AQ, so we win the pot there a decent amount of the time, but we also have to factor in things like he could possibly have worse than AQ, and the possibilities he could have better. just from a probability standpoint, he is likely to have worse more often than the nuts. (also can't exclude the times he has aq and binks the river).

it comes down to how sure you are on your read, then we need to factor in random times he has the nuts, or doesnt and still outdraws us when we call. so the equation is definitely in their favour.

so unless your sure there are hands that we beat a decent amount, then folding is the best route, because we stay at that same stack size 100% of the time, rather than gaining a few bb's a large % and being eliminated from the tournament a small %.

also, what the buyin means to you has a lot to do here. extreme example, we have AK in the same situation on the bubble of the wsop ME, folding here guarantees our stack, and basically guarantees our cashing in the tournament. by calling, we gain very little to our stack, and we bust the tournament 2-5% of the time. if that buyin means a lot to you, then the choice is clear, it has nothing to do with books/strategies or anything, it's about common sense and what cashing in the tournament means to you. now if you are phil ivey in the same spot, who cares, just call because your likely ahead a small fraction and can get more chips.
 
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thatgreekdude

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if you essentially know you're going to chop try to keep the pot small where possible, in this case he overbets and depending on your read on this player he could easily have AQ-10 so you are right, could be dangerous if he is a loose player because he could easily have ace rag suited A 8, A 2 so just be careful, depends on the situation
 
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