Hypothetical Final Table Decisions and factors that influence them

Weregoat · Sep 6, 2010

So let's say we're at a final table at a big tournament. Whatever's big for you, whether it's a $4 w/o rebuys, a $300 with, the wsop Main Event, whatever.

The final table just recently started, and we're sitting at second chip stack with about 24% of the chips in play, chip leader has 30%, and the several short stacks put on an interesting show.

UTG+1 has been shoving all-in as he only has a few BBs left, after a few rounds of picking up the blinds, he has worked his way up to around 11 BBs, and opens the action with a shove.

MP+1 has about double that, and jams over the top. We haven't seen him play a hand yet, except very early in the tournament when he was at our table before it broke at the first break. He seemed relatively tight, and won a few small pots without going to showdown.

The BTN doubles MP+1 with his own all-in jam, and we haven't seen him play at all. Granted we only have a handful of hands of history with him.

And it's on us to close the action, in the BB.

Now, let's say we look down at QQ. What thought processes are we going through here?

(Suppose we only have about 15 BBs over the highest all-in, and as people get knocked out the money goes up quickly.)

We're at a full table. What is the lowest quality hand you'd call with, and why? What if we're not to close the action, what if deep stack is to act behind us. What if a shorter stack is to act behind us.

What if we're the short-stack, and covered by everybody in the hand.

So, to recap:
1. What's the range of hands you'll call here with? (AA only is an acceptable answer...)
2. How does your chip stack effect your decision?
3. What if there are several people to act behind us? What kind of hands are we looking to call with? And if they have us outchipped, to raise with?
4. How do we play the hand differently with more people all-in before the action gets to us? Admittedly the pot odds get better, but then the more people that get knocked out, the better our payout. And we still have ~50 BBs, and we're not playing in a turbo or hyper-turbo, so it should make it last a while...

I'm curious about this one, my final table experience has been very limited, and I'm certain that this sort of thing doesn't come up very often, but with the payouts getting increasingly larger.

If the deepest stack in the hand takes it all down he'll be sitting pretty with by bumping several spots in the payout, but if we call and win that'll be another spot in the payout, and a dominating grip on the chip lead to boot, and our tournament life isn't exactly on the line.

Just wonderin'.

- WG

8Michael3 · Sep 6, 2010

First shove is probably shoving about top 50% of all hands if hes that short. The 2nd shove-realizing this, is probably shoving about top 20-25% hands. The thrid shove probably the top 5% of all hands.

I would call with with KK/AA only. folding AK so quick it blurs across my screen like a 72 and QQ so fast it looks like a 55.

The 15BB left is crucial for me to shove with KK/AA because 2 people are probably getting knocked out of this hand. Thats a basic answer from a simple mind but Im sure Moshman or Harrington or any number of top pros could give you some serious equity talk here.

xdeucesx · Sep 6, 2010

Yea, AA is a call but KK? idk, im conservative, so I might fold and jump 2-3 spots up in the money..but thats just me, I think KK is definitely an okay play here. No reason to play QQ especially at the final table, bc you could potentially jump 10 to 15% increase in money without even having to play

KINGSIN · Sep 6, 2010

1. AA only.
KK Fold-The first guy has a wide range, the secound guy likes is hand- thinks its best at the table, but with the third guy, says he has eveyone beat. I'd believe, even puting him on AA, and if he has AK so be it, he can still bust your KK, and puts you in a undesireable spot, its not always about the stating hand, but the situation at hand. Id just move up the money, and look at at a better situation=me being the aggresor, and not calling off my chips.

2. Chip stack effect the dicision somewhat if the third guy didnt have mp+1 covered, id gamble with the KK, with an all in myself-to isolate. And if AA wakes up behind me-oh well 1 in 24 times, i made the best decision i could at the time.

3. is already awsered: see 1 and 2

4. If more people are in it doenst change the awnser given in 1, just cause table goes crazy, doesnt mean you have too, what you should do is ask yourself: why are they all going crazy, if the pay goes up dramatically, why would they risk ellimination on a free for-, think why are my opps playing this way, at the showdown you see 88(1st), QJs(2nd), QQ(3rd), AA(4th) then you understand, but if you see 87o, 22, 45s, A4s, Id play tight and let the donks knock each other out. Ive seen donks clean a table for me yea when you get heads up you outchipped, but id rather play a donk that has me outchipped, than a TAG even in chips.

jcsaint · Sep 6, 2010

Last night I was playing a 10K tourney on bodog. At the final table, I had about 25% of the chips in play (I was 2nd on the leaderboard). I'm the BB, and I'm holding pocket Aces. The chip leader, who is sitting in the cut-off position, makes a monster raise. I figure he's trying to steal the blinds, so I re-raise all-in. He calls my all-in with pocket Kings and gets trips on the turn, knocking me out of the tourney.

My question, even though I had a huge hand and could have crippled the chip leader, should I have played more conservatively??

KoRnholio · Sep 6, 2010

jcsaint said:
Last night I was playing a 10K tourney on Bodog. At the final table, I had about 25% of the chips in play (I was 2nd on the leaderboard). I'm the BB, and I'm holding pocket Aces. The chip leader, who is sitting in the cut-off position, makes a monster raise. I figure he's trying to steal the blinds, so I re-raise all-in. He calls my all-in with pocket Kings and gets trips on the turn, knocking me out of the tourney.

My question, even though I had a huge hand and could have crippled the chip leader, should I have played more conservatively??

You had the nuts. 20% of the time you're out, the other 80% you're cruising to top 3, with a great chance at winning it all.

cjatud2012 · Sep 6, 2010

Am I allowed to ask for more specifics on the payout structure? Cause that would probably sway my opinion one way or the other. I know you said the money goes up quickly, but by how much? Is first, second, third much much greater than sixth, seventh, etc.?

Weregoat · Sep 7, 2010

cjatud2012 said:
Am I allowed to ask for more specifics on the payout structure? Cause that would probably sway my opinion one way or the other. I know you said the money goes up quickly, but by how much? Is first, second, third much much greater than sixth, seventh, etc.?

Sure.

It's a large MTT. 1st place gets about 100x the buy-in, 2nd place gets around 45x the buy-in, 3rd place gets around 30x, 4th place gets 20x, 5th gets 15x, 6th gets 13x, 7th gets 12x, 8th gets 11x, and 9th gets 10x.

cjatud2012 · Sep 7, 2010

Weregoat said:
So let's say we're at a final table at a big tournament. Whatever's big for you, whether it's a $4 w/o rebuys, a $300 with, the WSOP Main Event, whatever.

The final table just recently started, and we're sitting at second chip stack with about 24% of the chips in play, chip leader has 30%, and the several short stacks put on an interesting show.

UTG+1 has been shoving all-in as he only has a few BBs left, after a few rounds of picking up the blinds, he has worked his way up to around 11 BBs, and opens the action with a shove.

MP+1 has about double that, and jams over the top. We haven't seen him play a hand yet, except very early in the tournament when he was at our table before it broke at the first break. He seemed relatively tight, and won a few small pots without going to showdown.

The BTN doubles MP+1 with his own all-in jam, and we haven't seen him play at all. Granted we only have a handful of hands of history with him.

And it's on us to close the action, in the BB.

Now, let's say we look down at QQ. What thought processes are we going through here?

(Suppose we only have about 15 BBs over the highest all-in, and as people get knocked out the money goes up quickly.)

We're at a full table. What is the lowest quality hand you'd call with, and why? What if we're not to close the action, what if deep stack is to act behind us. What if a shorter stack is to act behind us.

What if we're the short-stack, and covered by everybody in the hand.

So, to recap:
1. What's the range of hands you'll call here with? (AA only is an acceptable answer...)
2. How does your chip stack effect your decision?
3. What if there are several people to act behind us? What kind of hands are we looking to call with? And if they have us outchipped, to raise with?
4. How do we play the hand differently with more people all-in before the action gets to us? Admittedly the pot odds get better, but then the more people that get knocked out, the better our payout. And we still have ~50 BBs, and we're not playing in a turbo or hyper-turbo, so it should make it last a while...

I'm curious about this one, my final table experience has been very limited, and I'm certain that this sort of thing doesn't come up very often, but with the payouts getting increasingly larger.

If the deepest stack in the hand takes it all down he'll be sitting pretty with by bumping several spots in the payout, but if we call and win that'll be another spot in the payout, and a dominating grip on the chip lead to boot, and our tournament life isn't exactly on the line.

Just wonderin'.

- WG

Weregoat said:
Sure.

It's a large MTT. 1st place gets about 100x the buy-in, 2nd place gets around 45x the buy-in, 3rd place gets around 30x, 4th place gets 20x, 5th gets 15x, 6th gets 13x, 7th gets 12x, 8th gets 11x, and 9th gets 10x.

okay thanks, if that's the case I'm pretty sure I'm shipping it in here with QQ. There's like no difference between 5th and 9th, even 4th is only 2x the payout for 9th. So obv we're gonna be playing for first based on this structure, so we I think need to stick it in. I'd muck JJ and AK though, QQ is the worst I'd call with here. Depending on the ranges we assign to villains we're gonna have 15%-25% equity here, which is sort of marginal but that's the kind of move we need to take to get first. Besides, we won't get KO'd if we lose, we'll have 15bb left which is more than enough to come back.

If we were putting all of our chips in instead, I might tighten up to KK+.

If we're not last to act, I still think I'd put it in because if there's this much action in front of us, there are probably fewer combos of hands that beat us left for players left to act (I think that's a legit reason, I'm not very good with combinatorics). If there were more people all-in front of us, I honestly wouldn't know what to do lol, it would depend on reads but as long as we're the biggest stack I think I'd still stick it in...

Poker Orifice · Sep 13, 2010

I think more important than this tourney being a big one for us is -> what is the actual tourney? (it makes a difference.... ranges we put villains on would be different from one tourney to another).

I 'fold' the QQ here in this spot.

Poker Orifice · Sep 13, 2010

8Michael3 said:
First shove is probably shoving about top 50% of all hands if hes that short. The 2nd shove-realizing this, is probably shoving about top 20-25% hands. The thrid shove probably the top 5% of all hands.

I would call with with KK/AA only. folding AK so quick it blurs across my screen like a 72 and QQ so fast it looks like a 55.

The 15BB left is crucial for me to shove with KK/AA because 2 people are probably getting knocked out of this hand. Thats a basic answer from a simple mind but Im sure Moshman or Harrington or any number of top pros could give you some serious equity talk here.

I think the ranges you've assigned these players is too wide (esp. if this is a live tourney, where typically you'll see players alot tighter on shortstacks).

First shove 50%? in UTG+1 with 11bb's... keeping in mind that he'd been shoving often & knowing he'll have to get thru the entire table.. also, it's less likely he's shoving this wide after having already shoved multiple times.
Top50% would include hands like J7o,J4s,Q2s.. < do we think villain is shoving here with J4s in UTG+1?

2nd player with ~22bb's (a decent re-steal-sized stack) you think would ship with Top25%? (that means they're going to come over the top here with T8s, K6s, K9o.... mmm.... I REALLY doubt it). They've got a great stack to resteal shove over an LP steal raise.... so why would they want to iso an 11bb SS early position shove here with K9o in eMP? Doesn't make any sense to me.

'IF' in fact these two were shipping this wide... and you put 3rd ai at Top5% then I'd be getting it in with QQ here all day long. BUT I think these numbers are way off.

8Michael3 · Sep 14, 2010

Poker Orifice said:
I think the ranges you've assigned these players is too wide (esp. if this is a live tourney, where typically you'll see players alot tighter on shortstacks).

First shove 50%? in UTG+1 with 11bb's... keeping in mind that he'd been shoving often & knowing he'll have to get thru the entire table.. also, it's less likely he's shoving this wide after having already shoved multiple times.
Top50% would include hands like J7o,J4s,Q2s.. < do we think villain is shoving here with J4s in UTG+1?

2nd player with ~22bb's (a decent re-steal-sized stack) you think would ship with Top25%? (that means they're going to come over the top here with T8s, K6s, K9o.... mmm.... I REALLY doubt it). They've got a great stack to resteal shove over an LP steal raise.... so why would they want to iso an 11bb SS early position shove here with K9o in eMP? Doesn't make any sense to me.

'IF' in fact these two were shipping this wide... and you put 3rd ai at Top5% then I'd be getting it in with QQ here all day long. BUT I think these numbers are way off.

I think youre absolutely right here. I didnt read that the first player had 11BBs. I skimmed through and saw he had a few BBs. To me that means about 6 and with the Blinds coming through next hand he has less than 5. And I would be shoving pretty much any two even worse than J3 if thats the case.

If hes shoving 11BBs that channges everything.

I would overshove him with 88 or better and AK/AQs. Which means the 3rd overshove could only be AKs/ AA/KK/QQ and maybe JJ if the spots were payed as was mentioned later. Which means I can only then reshove fourth with AA.

And I was way off by even giving any of those ranges anyway and you were sharp to point it out that no one in there sanity is reshoving with hands like T8 or less unless they have a hatred of money.

MiguelCPA · Sep 16, 2010

8Michael3 said:
First shove is probably shoving about top 50% of all hands if hes that short. The 2nd shove-realizing this, is probably shoving about top 20-25% hands. The thrid shove probably the top 5% of all hands.

I would call with with KK/AA only. folding AK so quick it blurs across my screen like a 72 and QQ so fast it looks like a 55.

The 15BB left is crucial for me to shove with KK/AA because 2 people are probably getting knocked out of this hand. Thats a basic answer from a simple mind but Im sure Moshman or Harrington or any number of top pros could give you some serious equity talk here.

^^ What he said........and a great answer by someone who clearly understands that there is a balancing act going on at the final table between trying to win the tournament and avoiding marginal spots that can cripple you. Unless the third all in was some sort of complete maniac, QQ is prob crushed and can't even win a sidepot in this example.

jaymfc · Sep 24, 2010

AA is only a pair and if there were 3 all ins in front of me and players left to act behind me , I more than likely drop ATCs and let them fight it out .
I still have a comfortable stack and can easily wait for a better spot . I suck and am not giving advice just answering the hypothetical question .

dwolfg · Sep 24, 2010

fold queens unless shortstacked.

Search

Hypothetical Final Table Decisions and factors that influence them

Weregoat

Visionary

8Michael3

Rock Star

xdeucesx

Bar Master

KINGSIN

Enthusiast

jcsaint

Rising Star

KoRnholio

Visionary

cjatud2012

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Weregoat

Visionary

cjatud2012

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Poker Orifice

FoolsTilt

Poker Orifice

FoolsTilt

8Michael3

Rock Star

MiguelCPA

Rising Star

jaymfc

R.I.P DJ & Buck

dwolfg

Visionary

About CardsChat

Our Community

Our Site

Follow us

Language