When is it good to "accept" a race?

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jaded848

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At one point while playing a $2 SnG today I picked up TT in the BB. Blinds were 50/100 and there were still 8 players in it. MP1 fired a raise to 300 and action folded around to me. He had over 3k chips while I had about 1100, and I knew it was likely I was in a race situation. But I couldn't figure out if it was profitable to go for the race or not! I decided with only 11 BB's left this was a good spot to at least go for a double up and get a decent shot at making it ITM, so I shoved. Villain called and flipped AKo, hitting a K on the flop and knocking me out.

It really made me wonder, if fold equity is gone, when is it a good move to accept a flip?

P.S. I realize there's no way I could have "known" I was facing a flip, as villain could have easily had JJ-AA, but I'm just saying I knew it was more LIKELY villain was raising there with AK, AQ, AJ, or KQ, simply because there are more possibilities in the deck to make those hands.
 
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WiZZiM

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what you should be more concerned with is this.. is 10 10 ahead of his raising range??? if so, then shove for value.

this is where you should have been watching the game develop. has the guy been loose? has he not played a hand until this point? have you seen him before? the reads you have in certain situations will help you a lot in these spots...

like for example, if i see a reg make a raise here to 300, i know that 10's are probably the bottom of his range, thus, ill fold.

but if its a random guy, who ive seen raise a fair bit before this hand, then ill asssume hes raising stuff like A4s K9s etc, and shove for value. in this specific spot, you actually have more fold equity than you think.

and to answer your question. when your really short, it can be ok to accept a negative edge. what i mean by this is say your in the bb with 600 chips total. the blinds are 100 200, and its folded around to the sb who shoves. your hand here doestn matter, folding down to 2bb's is horrible, and you should take a "flip".

Early on in a sng, it can be "ok" to take flips, we dont really want to neccessarily, but at the beginning of a sng, we know that, we can nearly double our equity in that tournament if we win, and we spew less equity.

We dont want to be flipping on the bubble, if we can help it, as we know we spew a ton of equity here..

ITM, it's fine to take "flips" as we want to get 1st place.
 
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jaded848

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what you should be more concerned with is this.. is 10 10 ahead of his raising range??? if so, then shove for value.

this is where you should have been watching the game develop. has the guy been loose? has he not played a hand until this point? have you seen him before? the reads you have in certain situations will help you a lot in these spots...

like for example, if i see a reg make a raise here to 300, i know that 10's are probably the bottom of his range, thus, ill fold.

but if its a random guy, who ive seen raise a fair bit before this hand, then ill asssume hes raising stuff like A4s K9s etc, and shove for value. in this specific spot, you actually have more fold equity than you think.

and to answer your question. when your really short, it can be ok to accept a negative edge. what i mean by this is say your in the bb with 600 chips total. the blinds are 100 200, and its folded around to the sb who shoves. your hand here doestn matter, folding down to 2bb's is horrible, and you should take a "flip".

Early on in a sng, it can be "ok" to take flips, we dont really want to neccessarily, but at the beginning of a sng, we know that, we can nearly double our equity in that tournament if we win, and we spew less equity.

We dont want to be flipping on the bubble, if we can help it, as we know we spew a ton of equity here..

ITM, it's fine to take "flips" as we want to get 1st place.

So it's better off to flip both earlier and later in the SnG, but essentially not in between? I.E. as we approach the bubble, the tendency to flip should be less.

So let say villain's hand was face-up in the scenario I mentioned (obviously it's not and other factors must be considered). But excluding those factors, is it a call since it's early in the SnG?
 
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WiZZiM

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err well no, because were so much deeper earlier.. so its not necessarily good to be flipping earlier on in a sng, what im saying is, if it happens, its not as bad in terms of loss of equity as when your flipping on the bubble.

theres very few times that you have the opportunity to double up early, basically were playing super tight early, to try and conserve our stack, so that we have enough chips so we can make the blinds fold.

once were ITM it's generally fine to take "flips" as we already have 3rd place locked in, so were going for first.

and yes, on the bubble we really want to avoid flipping. were still shoving as normal. but we hate getting called.
 
dwolfg

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It is absolutely acceptable to accept a race when you are short stacked to where you cannot play a hand for a preflop raise and postflop cbet without being pot-committed. At 11 blinds at a standard table it is all in or fold imo, and 1010 is good enough for me.
 
salim271

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Okay, 8 people left with 50/100 seems to mean tight players... its alright to accept the race if you want to take that chance... but I believe with an 1100 stack you can still try and steal from late position when its folded around to you... you still have fold equity, just avoid any shorter stacks, they'll feel they have to call you especially if you push them around too much.
 
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volpereira

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It was a STT?

I would wait a little more for the flip.

I was a FT? Flip, for sure!
 
LombardiStix

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It is imo, a matter of player and willingness to risk. Obviously you don't wanna go throwing your chips in ever TT you get looking for a caller with AK AQ, but understanding the risk of your typical coin-flip is a personal decision. If you are at peace with risking a loss to gain a chip edge and "go for the win" than the risk is acceptable. I'm not claiming you must do this to win... but it is a certainty that you must be willing to risk your tournament to win.
 
Pascal-lf

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I avoid flips early in tournies, but towards the end - when a double up can mean the difference between 50th of 80 and 20th of 80 (and I'm already in the money) then I'd be much more willing to take it :)
 
Drunkard912

Drunkard912

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I think that under 20 bbs is a good time to accept a race. Personnaly i think that if you dont get it in with a race soon you will be getting it in worse than that. Some people talk about racing for all your chips as a bad thing but when blinds get so high you have no other choice sometimes.
 
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Tonawanda

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Tough decision. One thing pretty certain. Either fold or go all in. Hard to fold 10's, so all in is usually the play. I like your decision.
 
10crow10

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i you have Under 20BB's and pocket 10's then a flip is never really a bad idea IMO
 
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