A while ago, I was randomly looking around tournaments on FT and happened to open up one where they were down to about the last 30 in a $69+6, and one player had a huge chip lead - I recognised the name of the chip leader, and I knew him to be a very successful player. I randomly glanced at his table, and observed the following hand.
Someone with about 3/5 of chip leader's stack raised from UTG, chip leader raised to about 2/5 of the UTG raiser's stack, UTG raiser shoves, chip leader calls with 22 and loses a flip against AQ. A few hands later, he goes out, having gone from a massive lead to ~25th because he lost that flip.
Here's my question - WHY did he take that flip? The absolute best situation was a flip, and it seemed more than likely he would often be against an overpair. He had such a huge lead I just see absolutely NO reason to have made this play.
Would everyone else who plays MTTs have done this? It just seemed madness to me to risk most of your massive lead on such a low pair...
Thoughts?

make a note on him and just be happy to have him on ur table, cause his move is defintely a major spew!

he must not be as good as you thought. Horrible move.

He's in the top 50 on p5s TLB, fwiw :|
But I meant a more general point - even though many people seem to say you should never pass up a small edge, SURELY this was an edge he should DEFINITELY have passed up?

When the hands were flipped he had a small edge, but against the other players range there is no way 22 has a small edge. Either getting crushed by a PP ~20% or a coin flip for 53%. The player may have arguments for a sick read that the player would lay down pretty easy to a reraise and then just figured his pot odds required a call, but the call still doesn't seem good. I mean if the player would lay down to a reraise easy then he must be super strong, so i don't see why he'd call.

OMG he's in the P5s top 50!!!!

who cares really...he playd the hand badly...he does not have an edge vs the players range

you are talking about when the cards are face up...there his call is marginally ok though ICM may play even this early...I dunno...but face down and adding pairs to oppts range this is just a poor play

I was just pointing out that I *assumed* he must therefore have some idea what he's doing - massive cynicism and sarcasm not needed.

Alright. This is what I thought.

Are you asking why he 3bet the UTG raiser or why he called the push?

He probably raised because he thought he could get his opponent to fold and he called the push cause he was getting a huge price

One would assume that a player that successful had a good reason for what he did. But absent his explanation, it looks pretty foolish.

That said, I have found that it's really rare in tournament poker that you really are presented with the option of taking a flip vs. not taking one. Usually by the time you figure out that that is where you are, there is enough money in the pot that you are thrilled to get in on a 50/50.

But if you are talking about 0 EV plays in general, i.e. calling an all in on a draw where you are getting breakeven odds vs. your opponent's range, I am all for that. Increased variance is good in poker tournaments. The extreme example would be a guy that comes in 1st half the time and last half the time vs. a guy that comes in in the middle every time. The first guy makes tons of profit and the second guy never cashes.

lol @ people speculating about a hand we have no idea about

stack sizes are important
history between opponents is also important

this isnt as cut and dry as everyone would like to think it is

This.

well...area is right to a point...like to see stacks yes...like to see history...but

UTG raises
CL 3 bets
UTG shoves
CL calls presumably a large amount and a nice % of his stack with 22

under what extraordinary circumstance is a this a good decision? What UTG 4 bet shove range does 22 play well against?

I understand that all poker depends but in this spot given the meager information we have on stacks and pot size this just seems realllly poor...

well, it depends a lot on the stacks. i can't get my head around the 2/5 of this guy's stack, 3/5 of that guy's stack numbers. too early, and i'm too dumb. if the CL 3bet to anywhere close to giving himself odds to call a shove given what range he gave MP, then its a correct call.

if that was the case then should he have three bet in the first place? should he have just shoved?

We really need numbers to do this right

maybe there was alot in the pot after he reraised and he figured he have good odds to call... thats the only reason i can think about

well yeah but wouldnt a good player take this into account before reraising? seems like he would have no FE or put himself into a spot where he is rarely in even good shape much less great shape

back to the issue at heart:

generally in the middle and later stages of mtts, antes and blinds begin to build the pot. Thus, it is correct to flip against opponent's hand ranges because the antes and blinds often give you proper pot odds to call.

also, let us not forget whether it's 4.5:1 or 11:10, if a move is +ev then you take it.

bond18 wrote in an article (paraphrasing): "if starting stacks were 10k, blinds 50-100; and the 1st hand you're in the bb, it's folded round and the sb shoves 10k and turns over AKo. you look down on 22.

that's +ev to flip. people often shy away from flips and want to 'wait for a better spot'... that's bull****. for me to fold 22 to AKo, i'd need an edge so huge... like i'm one of ten solid players in a big field, with the majority of runners being satellite and freeroll winners... then maybe i'd condsider it."



cliffnotes: if it's +ev, take it... flipping with proper equity vs villains' range is not something to be passed up... hardly EVER

imo

not the issue as I said!!!!!! If cards are flipped over yes...take the race...if they are not we need to assign a range and every pair we assign to that range makes this more and more and more and more of a bad play...DUCY?

two different things have cards face up and working off a range o hands