Hi there...wondering if I made a mistake or just got pure unlucky...no matter what...I know it was unlucky but am wondering if there is any poker theory I should be considering in this decision.

MTT with 2 live event tournament packages up for grabs..other payouts are negligable. 821 entrants...down to the final 4.

This is approximate...Blinds are 10/5K with 1k ante

Chip stacks are:

450K (me) Utg
400K Button
350K SB
230K BB

I look at AA and 2.5x raise
Button calls
SB reraises to 70K
BB folds
I reraise 170 K
Button folds
SB pushes - I call

He has KK, K on the turn to take down the pot...I am now crippled. 2 hands later I get KK and am out of the tourney (down to Ace rag...Ace on the flop...sigh...)

Is there ever a time I should be folding AA in this spot 4 handed? I feel like there is never a time to fold in this circumstance but would like to hear some other opinions...

I don't think so, but I'm not an expert on sattelite/bubble play... i'd definitely shove over his 70k if i decide to play

Absolutely no fold ever here. You have basically an 80-20% typically vs whatever he has that is usually KK,AA,AKs at best and often QQ-AA,AK really (84%) and if you lose you are not eliminated yet due to chip and a chair effect so look that to balance the fact that even if you double up you are 100% top 2 at the end.

As it is you are after the heavy action about 41% to make it to top 2 so its miserable if you fold after the 170. So forget it.

http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sn...6=&s7=&s8=&s9=

You instead have 80% chance to say have an 88% chance to win top 2 if you win the all in ~ 70% overall chance to make it from that alone.

http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sn...6=&s7=&s8=&s9=

And even if you lose you have 18% left.

so its 80% *0.88+0.2*0.18=0.74 so 74% vs 41%. Its way ridiculous to fold here.



But if say you raised and then all hell broke out and it looked like 2 or 3 of them would end all in then maybe its ok then to avoid a 4 way all in and let them kill each other. But it seems to me that even then it looks ugly due to their stacks that means that if for example a small guy won you only lose 1 from a 3way all in and sometimes none at all actually which is terrible waste.

Basically i cant see a fold here with AA unless they all had similar stacks and you thought after your raise all 3 would be all in eventually.

never folding here

/thread

The **ONLY** situation you would fold AA is if you are on the bubble in a SNG/Satellite and are essentially dead (M < 1 and much shallower than the rest of the table) and somebody has called a shove in front. That way, if the shallower stack loses you still make it into the money, whereas if you call you can either win and still have a tiny stack (still likely to be out of the money) or you can lose and be out of the money altogether.

Agree with masque de Z. ICM says that even before the hand started your equity in the tourney was just 0.66 of a seat, and after getting all-in against a pocket pair your equity is 0.74, so this was a profitable hand for you in terms of ICM.

By the way, OP, the "theory" you're looking for is ICM. If you know about ICM, you can do these computations yourself, or have a software do them for you (SNG Wizard does this, for example). Google about it. ICM stands for "independent chip model".

id be interested in studying the icm value of reraising to 170 vs just reraising all-in after the 3bet.

Well since he had KK there was no way to avoid the all in regardless how it got there.

Since we are not folding with AA i see no difference in pushing vs raising to 170. I mean sure give him TT-AA,AK and have him fold some in general if we push vs him pushing hoping we fold but i doubt it will get any different if he folds and we risk nothing vs all in and called because over 50% of the time he will call anyway and maybe the other 50% is not very bad compared to AA winning with the risk the all in has.

So i opt for inviting the guy to push me with AA here rather than trying to force a fold to avoid any risk because the risk brings more of a gain since the pot we pick is nowhere near the big of the all in result. I mean possibly uncontested we go to 70% when he folds to a push and the rest back to 74%. So the avg is a bit less than the way it happened where we basically invited him to push first by value betting but not by ~1-2% it seems.

yaqh: At least according to ICM, it is significantly better to get all-in with SB then just to make him fold his KK. So if you know in advance that he shoves if you raise to 170K but folds if you shove, then you should play it like OP did.

bbvs that way >

In this situation you should be shoving or folding when the bubble factor is this high. You should've just shoved over the top instead of raising as his calling/3-bet shoving range will be the same. If you had shoved with the AA it would've been incorrect for the SB to call with KK so you might have avoided the situation.

Sorry for not going into the maths but I'm too tired.

Absolutely not true.

Neither player at this stage has a "lock" on a seat, they can all be considered more or less even for the purpose of needing chips to guarantee a seat.

Given the escalating nature of the blinds, you can't throw away KK in this spot, and being just 4 handed, 3bet shove ranges are going to be 22-AA, AT-AK, KQ (and this doesn't even take into account blind defenses and 3bet steals)

no way KK is a correct fold here. The ONLY way KK is a fold in this spot is if AA is a fold in this spot and the only way that would be the case is if stacks were

AA 1.8M
KK 1.7M
V3 225K
V4 200K

blinds 25K/50K

Sure, you have something ridiculous like this then absolutely AA and KK are a fold against each other. But given the stack sizes OP listed, all the money is going in and there is nothing you can do about it

fold is not an option here!

Thank you very much for all of the comments. I really felt that I wanted to be called in this circumstance and then after losing the hand felt pretty crushed...

I have to think...How am I supposed to get a lock on a seat if I don't accumulate chips...What better hand to accumulate chips with then AA? If I could fold AA here what hand would I ever play with...and if I don't want to get called by a hand that I have dominated then what hand do I ever want to get called with?

With the chip stacks the way they were I felt it was really anybodies game. But I guess the question becomes...Even if the math says that it is a +EV hand to play in any circumstance is there something to be said about not risking essentially your whole chipstack preflop on the bubble in a satellite tournament? Especially when you are not in a shortstacked situation...

There may be something to the thought that it should have been a push or fold move which would have then made it incorrect for another player to call with a similiar stack size no matter the hand they have...Is a 15-20% chance of losing the hand too big of a risk to take when the risk is not absolutely necessary?

There will be times to fold AA 4 handed but only when you and one other player are effectively tied for first and the other two are in very bad shape with super low M's. If you figure your mostly going to be at least 4 to 1 vs opponent then you have to have a better than 80% chance of making the money by just folding out. In your example you simply decided to, effectively, take an 80% shot at winning one of the two top prizes here and now. You might not get another one.
You can't fold here, but its not hard to imagine situations where you could fold AA 4 handed with two prizes.