The outcome is unimportant here, and this seems to be an obvious push, but I had to think about it. This is a turbo tourney that is down to 11 and I'm 2nd with a W of 4 and a Q of about 2. This tourney won't last another 30 hands, which means that those with healthy stacks will move up the pay chart quickly. It also means this whole event is a massive coin flip. The question is, in this situation do you want to put most of your stack on the line against someone with W of 2.5 and a Q of 1.25 when you could effectively blind into 4th or 5th? The villian has been a reasonable player, but I'm not sure that matters here.

POKERSTARS GAME #13237860212: TOURNAMENT #66630862, $10+$1 HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL XXII (15000/30000) - 2007/11/14 - 14:09:18 (ET)
Table '66630862 9' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 2: xxx (112132 in chips)
Seat 3: hero (209937 in chips)
Seat 5: xxx (365513 in chips)
Seat 6: xxx (25856 in chips)
Seat 9: villian (127952 in chips)
xxx: posts the ante 1500
hero: posts the ante 1500
xxx.: posts the ante 1500
xxx: posts the ante 1500
villian: posts the ante 1500

hero: posts small blind 15000
xxx: posts big blind 30000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Kc Ad]
xxx: folds
villian: raises 96452 to 126452 and is all-in
xxx: folds

my vote is yes, it can be folded...
but i'd probably call and live with the outcome.

I hope you're kidding. Shove and fist pump. Playing to move up a spot or 2 is WAY wrong in this tournament (and almost every tournament) as it is a super top heavy pay scale. Villian should be shoving with a range that you absolutely crush, folding AK here is a big mistake.

I agree. Make the call and be confident about it. His range is much wider that your holdings. Play to win the tourney. If that means taking a flip right here then so be it.

To elaborate, in case I wasn't clear or the concept isn't familiar to you, villian is making this bet with a particular range of hands... In all in situations it's pretty easy to determine fold/call spots by calculating your equity versus the hands he is likely to hold.

In this case, with large blinds and antes, if you were only 50% versus his range it would still be a profitable call because of the dead money in the pot. As is, he is pushing a ton of random garbage (i.e. A2, K7, 89...) and you are much better than 50% to win.

edit: unless it's Dantes_11 pushing, then AK is an easy fold. He's crazy tight

So std.

Thanks BF. That's mostly how I came to my conclusion to call. Moving from 4th to 1st or 2nd is much more profitable than 10th to 4th, and I'm going to have to be fortunate somewhere. Folding is a super weak move hear, but having stopped and thought about it, I had to make sure I was following a good thought process.

you didn't if it sounded anything like this.
This is a standard pf shove because you crush his range, the thought process here is pure math.

i think you can easily fold this... the fold button is still there and didn't disappear did it? nobody will know the difference

60k preflop plus his 30k and 96more = 186k
105k into 186 it's just under 1.8/1... plus u're not felted if he holds up either.

you're right to call any ace and still be getting good odds to any pair but AA.... you're crippling all 220 other hands.

easy call. remember the concept of first in vigorish. he could be pushign w/ as little as 10 8 suited.

if it's 10 8 suited or some trash like that, i predict that you lost this hand. AKsux... i've found every way to lose w/ it and some of them have been in horribly huge spots where i could have freerolled my way to Aruba Classic in 11th place and in a satellite to a $5000 freeroll the other day in 45th when 30 pay spots

i woulda folded personally and that's only cuz i lose every hand w/ AK... cuz all of the A's and K's are in my name. maybe i should change my SN to luigi so i can hit AK and win.

I'm calling here 100% of the time in a turbo tournament.

Probably so, however, if you've ever played these MTT turbo's, then you know that at this point (and really through most of the game) people can raise with just about anything. From 15 minutes in, it's a series of end game problems since a vast majority of the remaining stacks are yellow zone, and at 20 minutes most are orange zone. IMO to make it worth playing this tourney, you have to play it on a regular basis to over come the higher than usual luck element.

Where I got momentarily lost is that the short term EV could (though not certainly) lie in folding this hand (a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush) since you know you will make more by folding than by calling and losing. The long term EV is definately better with calling. Since I play this tourney regularly, I have to play for the long term EV and call.

never have i ever wanted to fold here

So there it is.....

this is the easiest push you've made all tourney... especially since you're in the blinds.

Don't ever fold your way to a mediocre payday... play for first. Anything else is just horrible.