Had this hand come up yesterday on final table of the 1k guaranteed $15 plo8 on ACR and thought it was an interesting spot.

stacks sizes are as follows with 4k/8k blinds and no anties.

Chip leader Button 280k
Small Blind 42K
me 65K

Payouts are $200 for 3rd, $265 for second and $393 up top..

Big stack has been busting pretty much everyone all final table, and I have just folded my way to 3 handed, so my image should be somewhat weak tight passive and foldy

Small Blind has pretty much employed the same strategy as me and folded to 3 handed..


So onto the Hand, button folds for a change, and small blind pots to 24K.. pretty much commiting himself to hand. hero looks down at K843

Do I fold this or get it in?

you have junk... fold. getting it in with the short stack, has the possibility to eliminate him yes, but losing would cripple you. You have a terrible hand fold it and wait for a better spot.

fold
i hate to say it but this is at best a flipping hand.
Let the other guy flip first (icm) then u flip.. been there and it hurts to fold down but its the best option.

GII is +cEV if he opens wider than 30%. I guess that means it's just a fold.

icm conclusion = if he raises and calls a shove with narrower than a top 40% range --ppt 6handed ranking-- then folding is better than shoving. if he raises and calls wider then top 40% it becomes +EV to shove.

you don't think Villian is opening wider? if I was him given stack sizes and how tight I had been playing would prolly be open 65-70%... walking me when ur the short stack is the last thing he wants to do here.

Villain raise folding isn't really a consideration here... maybe a 1 % misclick equity at best .

seems like it all comes down to if he is opening wider than 40%..... so it's close.

I wonder If thinking I will have an edge in a HU match with workable stacks can justify calling somewhat wider here......

also taking a marginal gamble here prevents big stack from manipulating the bubble to bleed me down before he allows the match to go HU with either one of us.( something I would absolutely do in his spot...)

Probably a bit wider than 30%, but opening 65-70% is just bad for obvious reasons. I think the last thing he wants is to gii with a hand that gets scooped too often.

yea but he prolly think I am folding a bit too often I think..

This is a call or fold, not sure why you would ever shove

I think call is best

If we fold we effectively give up our small chip adv, while playing our hand in position is not difficult

True, playing a 48k pot with 14k behind is not difficult.

This. However, it really depends on your opponent and how well you know them tbh.

What the hell are you talking about? There are nearly no flops you can correctly fold.

Looks like a fold to me.

When are we calling and folding with SB having 18k left on the flop?

I would fold any high card flops - 3 high cards or any 2 high card combos that dont give me 2 pair ( or a set of Ks obviously). Fold QT4 but not KT4.

I like folding pre knowing that button did so likelihood that sb has a legit hand goes up. But can see benefits to calling since you still have 41k behind.

2-3 high cards we miss and some paired boards, pretty straightforward stuff

18k is a non trivial amount

honestly just calling doesnt even cross my mind, sometimes my King High will be the best hand and I have to see 5 cards I call the raise, switch my K to an 7 and maaaaybe flat makes more sense...

as I sure everyone gathered, I ended up calling here, and was shown the AK92 and did not improve and busted in 3rd... so maybe Amok had a better idea of villains range than I did...

Thanks for discussion and especially for the math NGFTW.

I admit that I originally miscalculated that there is 14k behind. There is 18k and the pot will be 48+18+18=84k. So, you need 21,4% equity to call on the flop if you call pre and we can assume villain jamming nearly 100% on the flop of his pre-flop raising range (which we can assume is 30-40%).

According to the propokertools graph, Hero's hand has more than 21,4% equity on roughly 92% of the flops (against a 35% range). The rest 8% you can correctly fold, if you are able to recognize them. QQ2 with a bdfd Hero has 28,3% for example. QJ2 is 25,2% and so on...

In practice you will call some incorrectly and fold some incorrectly. I fail to see how calling pre is an improvement over GII. I think if there is a difference, it's insignificant.

PPT ranges aren't a one-to-one match to actual player ranges, especially this deep into an mtt. Also that ranking was developed for 10-handed o8 where all 10 hands go all the way to showdown 100% of the time iirc which is nowhere near optimal or even remotely realistic, look at all the effort that goes into heat maps and such for holdem. Also, you shouldn't expect opponents to play flops perfectly either...you're missing a ton of value by not taking exploitative lines in a smaller buy-in mtt. Mistakes by an opponents with an SPR like this are a bit rare, but they are very costly so it's not a good idea to underestimate them. And then there's the whole image and meta crap to worry about, especially important deep in an mtt because you know you have their attention at that time. Sure there might not be much difference between calling and GII against a good player, but at least you aren't inflating your aggression factor by re-raising pre when you don't really have to. But since OP was pretty passive for much of that FT, it didn't matter too much anyway.

You certainly don't have to be happy about this play, but if you are folding this then you pretty much gotta fold a lot more similar spots which will end up getting you even more abused late in tourneys, once they figure out you shut down too much or too often. You gotta take a stand sometime, and preferably while you still have the shorter stack covered. Besides that, they both already folded to well under 10bb and are only 3-handed...this isn't a deepstack cash game lol. You could easily not see a better hand for another 2-3 orbits and that would be pretty much half your stack.

you cant flop a set of kings... you dont have KK in your hand

Lotuspod2, I don't understand your points at all. What are you suggesting? That you should call and then fold more or less than 8% on the flop? How is someone "expecting an opponent playing a flop perfectly", when it's rather clear that he is sticking the rest, 18k into 48k pot no matter what the flop is? How are you taking an exploitative line in this exact spot? Why do you consider "inflating your aggression factor" as something that has any meaning?

I know how the ppt-ranges are constructed, but it's the best we have and are definitely not that far from reality (i.e. from ranges that people actually play).

i don't understand how calling is taking an exploitive line here, nor do i see how folding this specific hand, if you believe it to be -EV vs. the range you believe sb to have raised with, is being exploited, or will lead you to be exploited in the future.

but the point i find the most 'controversial?" is
i understand this as you saying that it's very probable("could easily")you won't be dealt a better hand ("not see a better hand") in the next 6-9 hands dealt to you("for another 2-3 orbits").

this could hardly be a true statement unless you rate this hand very highly.
so, i'm very curious to hear how you 'rate' this hand.

if we were to categorize hands specifically for this end of tournament 3 handed situation into 4 sets:
the best 25%,
in the top half of hands but not in the best 25%,
in the bottom half but not in the worst 25%,
and the worst 25%,
in which category do you place this hand?




needless math follows, read at your own peril:
for simplicity sake, if we use just 4 subsequent hands, and you were to place this hand in the top 25% then ~30.6% of the time you will not be dealt another top 25% hand in 4 subsequent deals, but if you place it outside the top 25%, then in 4 subsequent deals you get dealt a top 25% hand ~69.5% ott. if you place it in the bottom half, and so the entire top half are better hands, in 4 subsequent deals you get dealt a better hand 90% of the time.
extend this to more then 4 deals and the percentages favor getting dealt a good hand over not getting dealt one.

A better question for amok might be how good of a hand are you folding 100% of the time preflop here?

One for ng, 4 hands from now is 16k chips (or even more if blinds go up anytime before then) and I'm assuming OP will have 57k chips after this hand if he folds. Are you willing to fold away almost 30% of your stack on the roughly 70-ish% chance that you will improve? One key thing to note is that there no guarantee as to how much you will improve or if any at all since hand rankings aren't perfect yet...and we all know preflop equities run pretty close in o8.

Also we most likely won't be flipping against a smaller stack then either, currently as the bigger stack our chips have a bit less value to us per chip than the shorty's stack is valued to him so we can afford to give away a small edge chip-wise. Win or lose, at least we get out of the crappy position being the man in the middle...unless its split

You kidding me lotuspod? You seriously can't answer even a single question out of the five I asked?

I will answer your question: I am willing to fold a hand as good as K843 100% of the time against the range that I assume an unknown would raise there. That is obviously susceptible to change upon receiving new information.

Fold or shove. Calling is just ****ing hideous for so many reasons.

I haven't done the maths yet (too much gin) but if SB is playing half capably shoving is probably best.