$1.20 NLHE STT: Bubble play: Do i make this call

[Clambake420]

$1.20 NL HE STT: Bubble play: Do i make this call

Ive been short stack for almost all of this tourney, did a lot of blind stealing and had some double ups to keep me in it, then this hand comes up. I already realize i made the mistake of just flat calling the original raiser, should of been a shove or fold situation. But the problem comes when the other SS shoves and the original raiser who i thought for sure was calling ended up folding and now its on me....? If i fold i am the only short stack and need to do a lot of work to get back in it. If i call i am most likely up against a pretty strong hand as i do not think this guy is re-shoving with weaker cards and i would bubble anyways.

pokerstars No-Limit Hold'em, 1.2 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB (t1675)
UTG (t4470)
Button (t5310)
Hero (SB) (t2045)

Hero's M: 6.82

Preflop: Hero is SB with

,

1 fold, Button bets t500, Hero calls t400, BB raises to t1675 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero?

 

[Four Dogs]

This is a no brainer. A call is 100% manditory here. What are you getting? Almost 4:1? Your running on fumes? His range is huge. You need to double up. Calling serves 2 purposes. If you win your ITM with a competative stack. If you lose you're still alive for 1 more play. Your really not far behind the range of hands a short stack will be shoving with. Just call.

 

[cjatud2012]

Hate hate hate flatting the button here, you said you already realize it was a mistake, but it ought to be reinforced that this is an awful call. Like, I simply cannot describe how bad this is... Not trying to be mean, but there are literally no good reasons to flat.

Now, as played, I believe we're getting about 2.3:1 odds here. There's t2,675 in the pot and it's t1,175 to call. So we need only 30.3% equity against his range for this to be +cEV, which is true even if he is shoving as narrow as the top 5% of hands. The problem is we need to think about our decision in terms of tournament equity, or $EV, not in cEV. It'd take me a little while to figure out the math behind it, I can do that when I get home from class. Obviously we could never do the math in game, so you'd have to eyeball it. So if I try to just eyeball it now, it's a very tough decision (another reason why we don't flat pre, we want to make our decisions simpler not harder), and I guess a call is the right play, but it feels so gross, I would never want a hand to play out this way for me.

 

[Four Dogs]

oh, I agree with above. Flatting was terrible. But you still have to call.

 

[Clambake420]

Hate hate hate flatting the button here, you said you already realize it was a mistake, but it ought to be reinforced that this is an awful call. Like, I simply cannot describe how bad this is... Not trying to be mean, but there are literally no good reasons to flat.

Now, as played, I believe we're getting about 2.3:1 odds here. There's t2,675 in the pot and it's t1,175 to call. So we need only 30.3% equity against his range for this to be +cEV, which is true even if he is shoving as narrow as the top 5% of hands. The problem is we need to think about our decision in terms of tournament equity, or $EV, not in cEV. It'd take me a little while to figure out the math behind it, I can do that when I get home from class. Obviously we could never do the math in game, so you'd have to eyeball it. So if I try to just eyeball it now, it's a very tough decision (another reason why we don't flat pre, we want to make our decisions simpler not harder), and I guess a call is the right play, but it feels so gross, I would never want a hand to play out this way for me.

no problem i appreciate the healthy criticism. So would you wait for a better spot or shove this hand. In Hindsight after getting a feel for the player i should of shoved since he was folding to a lot of 3bets on the bubble. I can see where you might fold this hand pre and wait for a better spot with a short stack at the table but were not that much better off then the short and we got blinds coming through. So its looking more like a shove...i need to stop making these mistakes at the table, specially on the bubble. I think i been letting my bad streak get in the way and i just keep thinking of how this guy is going to suck out on me so i play scared...BIG MISTAKE!!! got to fix my leaks fast.

Thanks again guys for the advice.

 

[WiZZiM]

Hate hate hate flatting the button here, you said you already realize it was a mistake, but it ought to be reinforced that this is an awful call. Like, I simply cannot describe how bad this is... Not trying to be mean, but there are literally no good reasons to flat.

Now, as played, I believe we're getting about 2.3:1 odds here. There's t2,675 in the pot and it's t1,175 to call. So we need only 30.3% equity against his range for this to be +cEV, which is true even if he is shoving as narrow as the top 5% of hands. The problem is we need to think about our decision in terms of tournament equity, or $EV, not in cEV. It'd take me a little while to figure out the math behind it, I can do that when I get home from class. Obviously we could never do the math in game, so you'd have to eyeball it. So if I try to just eyeball it now, it's a very tough decision (another reason why we don't flat pre, we want to make our decisions simpler not harder), and I guess a call is the right play, but it feels so gross, I would never want a hand to play out this way for me.

Well lets do a quick guesstimate of the risk/reward.

Right now, before this hand we have around 21-23% equity.

If we call and lose, we are left with around 14-17% equity. (This is not entirely realistic, as we know ICM overvalues shortstacks. Being left with 400 chips doesnt put us in good shape, though theoretically it leaves us with some equity in the tournament.)

If we call and win, we are left ITM and with about 30-32% equity.

So from the risk/reward side of things, it looks like we're getting a good deal. Given that there is so much overlay in this pot, it's a call. But the real mistake here is made preflop, as mentioned, putting ourselves in this tricky/bad spot.

As for 3bet shoving, this guy is going to have to fold a ton of hands for it to be profitable. Combine stuff like the fact we're on the bubble and we need to be very risk averse in raised pots, this is an easy peasy fold. Anything else is going to be horrible. The bigger stacks are not the guys we want to be targetting, ideally, we want to be attacking the weaker smaller or equal stacked players. I just plugged it into wiz, i gave this guy a completely unrealistic range, and re-stealing here is still a fold.

 

[WiZZiM]

And as for doing the math in game, no one is going to be able to work it out, especially if your multitabling. But we can however, do things when we review games that re-enforce good decisions at the poker table. A lot of time we're going over the same situations in review time and time again, so that when we are in game, we sort of have a memory bank built up, and we can intuitively know what the correct play is. It takes quite a while, but constant play/review is going to really help you get situations like this in your head, so that you can quickly look at a situation and figure out how much equity you have roughly now, and how much you stand to gain/lose in a certain situation.

 

[Clambake420]

awesome thanks wizz for putting that into SNG wiz for me. good advice, i need to really work on my bubble play...or just my play in general.

 

[cjatud2012]

Yeah WiZZ, we would need a ton ton ton of fold equity for 3-betting to be good here, I think that's mostly due to the bubble conditions right?

Another question, if we called the shove and lose and we have ~t400 chips left, that leaves us with ~10% equity according to ICM... But if we were analyzing it in SNGWiz (hard to do for this spot given the pre-flop action, but this question is just in general), what kind of edge would we apply in our analysis? I think it'd be pretty positive, right? Unless I'm getting it backwards.

 

[WiZZiM]

Yeah WiZZ, we would need a ton ton ton of fold equity for 3-betting to be good here, I think that's mostly due to the bubble conditions right?

Another question, if we called the shove and lose and we have ~t400 chips left, that leaves us with ~10% equity according to ICM... But if we were analyzing it in SNGWiz (hard to do for this spot given the pre-flop action, but this question is just in general), what kind of edge would we apply in our analysis? I think it'd be pretty positive, right? Unless I'm getting it backwards.

Not just the ICM tax, though it contributes a lot to it, we know getting it in late game is going to be really bad for us.

Also to do with the fact that we're comforably in third position here, we really don't need to make this re-steal. And re-stealing won't increase our equity very much, so it's not really worth the risk. We will still be in second place, though we will have a few more chips compared to the shortstacker. And add to that, QJ plays horribly against any calling range here. It's going to usually be on the wrong end of a 60/40, and it's dominated easily.

As for the edge, something around 0.15 would be fine. We don't have to account for stuff like the bunching effect and whatever, so we don't need to play around with the edge much.