Local casino loyalty tournament, we were in shove fest mode until now we are in chopping mode because at 14 players left, we had a count for ICM, but 1 player (SB in this hand) said no. I was going to get £3.8k with my stack, but SB who had even less chips than that, refused to take his £3k from this freeroll and he said stuff like "I play better with 10 bb than you do with 20bb" "I play more tourney than you" "I want 4k, no 4k, no chop"

6 handed, blinds 12,000 / 25000 2000 antes, total chip 4,010,000, average 286, 428


UTG Folds
Hero (257,000) dealt 77, my stack currently worth about £3.8k, but prize for the next one to bust with no chop is £850.

What is the next 4 players (who all have me covered) fold % or calling range required for this to be a profitable shove? Bearing in mind the tournament WILL BE OVER as soon as SB is busted.

Without ICM consideration, Pushbot suggests ATC is a +Ev shove if calling range is top 5%, I am not sure how to add ICM to the equation

Fold if your desired outcome is to preserve your current equity. Assuming a 6 or 7 handed table, you will not get called often (90%+ likely to get through) but you didn't list how tight or good the other players are. You only need to pick up the B+A once per orbit to maintain and a wide push from Button/SB will do that with less risk.

However, each hand is worth ~$660 (~49,000 *$54,000/4010000) right now. Shoving is pretty much the correct mathematical play.

Curious as to the payout structure - is it flat for loyalty or really steep to encourage chops?

Next 4 players and their image of me -

CO (Biggest stack on table) - TAG, have seen him shoved about 10 time so far, ALL premium, JJ+, AQs+

BTN - TAG, fought back from 2bb to now about 14-15 BB, have not seen him spazz out, only AK+

SB - Loosest of the lot, have seen him re-jam with 99 couple of times on btn 7 handed. He is the reason we are still playing and have not chopped

BB - Usually extremely loose in cash game, have not played a hand in 4 orbits, earlier he opened folded 99 on BB when UTG open jammed 14bb.


Payout structure is extremely steep that encourages chop, after all this is a one day tourney and card room want us out of there soon as.

Prizepool 65k

Payout from what I remember

1st - 13k
2nd - 10k
3rd - 6.8k

11th - 850

26th - 490
36th - 425

Go all in and proceed by not chopping unless you get a bunch of extra money.

In game, I'd shove and not think too long. Everyone else is playing way too tight as the hands you list for them are < top 3%. I'd prolly even show so I could shove the next hand as well.

BTW - SB may be correct about not chopping if everyone else is too tight. (but only if he's push-botting more then everyone else).

If the payouts are top heavy, there is less of an ICM effect. If players are playing tight looking for a chop, then more reason to play aggressively and go for the top places. Sometimes you will bust as you probably did, but you should take that risk. Even if you are looking for a chop, it doesn't look like there will be one soon anyway.

If you have a skill advantage and can afford the variance, you shouldn't take a 13-way ICM or whatever chop. SB was probably right for turning it down.

The reason for this post is to find a mathematical reasoning as well as psychological. This chop, whether its 13 or 10, will be the biggest live cash for me and 2 more players on the table.

I felt that levels being only 25mins long, average stack is just over 10bb, there is very little "POKER" left to play, its all down to the timing our jam, re-jam or calling a jam, I think whatever "edge" as a player is now even out by luck, would you agree? If not, how many BB average will you say there is no more "POKER" left to play?

I jammed UTG with 77 and it folded to BB, I said to him "SB is our enemy, as soon as he is gone, you get your 4K". After tanking a bit more, he folded KJdd.

1 orbit later I took 5bb from SB and finally he agreed to chop after the other 10 players left give him £70 each. It created a really ugly scene as players who came 12th + 13th got really pissed busting mainly due to his insistence for not chopping. And I have to thank him for adding another £1100 to my payout comparing to first count.

If you read the replies in summary, the answer is that there is not mathematical reasoning for chopping - in fact it would suggest not chopping is printing money.

IMHO, there is poker to be played until you have 100% of the chips.

It is very much for the scenario you experienced that I personally do not chop unless I get more equity than a chip chop. Also, one does not get very many FT and short handed opportunities and I value those experiences over the additional $$$.

SB has a right to not chop. You were cheating when you openly suggested to another player teamwork against him.

This is true when everyone is decent or good, but against a lot of players my edge with 10bb each is significantly larger than with 100bb each. Not because they play well deepstacked, but because all you need to do is a few low risk shoves and you double your stack.

I didn't think it was cheating at the time as everyone was shouting "Everyone put a ££ bounty on SB head". I was simply using speech play to get fold.

I like this.

If only I studied Pushbot spreadsheet a little more before this, I didn't know under those calling range I stated I was getting all to fold as high as 90% 6 handed. Low risk indeed.

Right, that would also be cheating. Poker isn't a team sport.

WTF?

This kind of chop stuff is standard in live mtts guys cmon now U should know this by now

im not going to devote any level of brain function to this but if someones dumb enough to say "I play better with 10 bb than you do with 20bb" "I play more tourney than you" "I want 4k, no 4k, no chop" you should shove


if i was thinking about it id probably ask all the relevant stacks so there could actually be some coherent dialog, but as i said, no go, just trust me and say allin.

WTF!?!?! I'm surprised SB didn't go apesh*t.

Thinking back, I actually said "I am not your enemy, just fold, you don't need to fight against me, wait and get your chop"

I didn't mention SB, but that is what I was implying.

The speech borders on collusion, but it is also a bad idea, because it makes it pretty clear you want a fold, so you probably don't have TT+/AQs+ or whatever. He couldn't call with KJs anyway.

This is not HS. It is a freeroll, but it probably has a lot of cash regs in it.

Sometimes it is hard to decline the chop. His pushbots might not have so much FE if everyone wants to bust him.

Ppl can say this stuff with anything but KK+. Usually the chop-friendliest guys and the ones that tell their hands when they push are the nittiest. I think most players in this table wouldn't like AK vs. AQ showdown instead of picking the blinds, and they would hate so much if some donk called their "obviously strong" 10bb push with 88 and their AK lost.

Still not a good move to try to convince him to fold, as he can figure you don't have the top of your range. With 77, you should be 20% or 55% against marginal calls, so you don't want a call here, even if you aren't playing scared.

I would never consider chopping until the final table at least, and certainly not with 2 or 3 tables left in play, I think you are losing the chance for a big score and the big scores are the true variance killers, and I think it's probably -ev in the long run to chop 12-14 handed or whatever. Of course, given that it was a freeroll (I'm assuming) one could argue just to chop and take the 10bb pushbot variance out of play, but I would say take the risk and always go for top 3 and then chop.

I find this really interesting! Didn't know 2 table chops existed! Where was this?

I'm glad you shoved because its super +EV.

It was at Aspers Stratford, London. Chop has become a standard for this tourney