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Home Forum MTT Poker Strategy At what pot size does this become a…

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At what pot size does this become a call with A3 suited

BadAstronaut

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March 13, 2016 - 4:43 am

It’s £40 live tournament with mostly poor players and a few solid guys. Blinds are 200/400 with a 25 ante. MP has just lost a huge pot and it’s still re-entry for a few more levels.

UTG limps (aggressive player, I have seen him at other live tournaments before), UTG+1 limps, UTG+2 folds and the MP short stack shoves for 1975. Two players fold and I’ve got Ah3h and make the call for 1975 from my stack of 13000. It folds through the blinds and the UTG limper shoves for 9000. We’ve all seen this a lot of times before and I am positive it is QQ or KK, possibly AA. The UTG+1 limper folds and now I’m thinking, well, usually this is a very instant fold, but given that I have a suited ace and there’s:

200 (small blind)
+400(big blind)
+250(antes)
+400(UTG+1)
+1975(MP shove)
+9000(UTG shove)
+1975(my call)
= 14200

and I need to call 7025 to win 21225… If I win the pot, I have double the starting stack and am well above average with re-entries ending soon. If I lose, I use my second bullet to restart at a different table and give it another go.

If it was a freezeout I think I am throwing this hand away 100% of the time. I was prepared to pay for one re-entry and made the call, knowing that I was definitely behind the UTG limp-shover and the MP could have any 2. I am pretty sure this wasn’t a good call at all and want to know at what pot size it becomes a mathematically correct play?

Foucault

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March 13, 2016 - 9:00 am

You should start by thinking in terms of equity, rather than just “if I win I have X and if I lose I’ll re-enter”. You need to get comfortable doing pre-flop equity calculations with a tool like Equilab. Put the Villain on a range, determine how much equity you have against that range, and then compare that to the pot odds you’re getting.

BadAstronaut

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March 13, 2016 - 10:08 am

Thanks – when I ran it earlier in ProPokerTools I was looking at a bunch of hands and it always came up below the 33% it looked like I needed to make the call here.

How best would you phrase this question – maybe even the way I am thinking about just asking the question is flawed?

I’ll have a look at it in Equilab now. Cheers.

BadAstronaut

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March 14, 2016 - 5:39 am

I got Equilab and played around with it a bit. Not sure if I am giving too tight or too wide a range for the short stack shove. I’m exaggerating in my OP that he could have any 2, so I have made it way less here.

Equity Win Tie
BB    53.66%  52.75%   0.92% { JJ+, AKs, AKo }
MP    24.02%  22.62%   1.40% { 22+, A2s+, K8s+, Q8s+, J8s+, T7s+, 98s, 87s, A2o+, K9o+, QTo+, JTo }
CO     22.31%  20.88%   1.44% { Ah3h }

So obviously this is a fold with only 22.3% equity – I guess that if the BB limp shove stack was around 4000 or so, making me need to call 2025 to win a pot of about 11000, then this becomes a marginal but still +EV call?

By my numbers I need 18% equity but have 22.3%… is this always a call or do we always fold and wait for way better spots to get it in?

Foucault

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March 14, 2016 - 9:58 am

I’ll have to take your word on MP but he really shouldn’t be shoving a bunch of the hands you include there. TBH I’m not a big fan of your call the first time around, in part because not closing the action means that something like this can happen. The fact that it’s not a freezeout shouldn’t have much impact on your strategy here, or ever really. Yes, if you only had to call 2025, it would likely be a call.

BadAstronaut

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March 14, 2016 - 10:19 am

Thanks – yes, my call was bad for exactly why you stated. Noted about the ‘not impacting strategy because it is a freezeout’ stuff too.

How would you adjust the MP shoving range, considering he has now got less than 5 bigs and is only a few away from being in the BB?