$22 MTT on Party Poker - 1159 entrants - I'm 7th of 37 players left with just over 4.1m chips (41bb)
Blinds 50k/100k

BU: 22bb
SB (HERO): 41bb
BB: 17bb
EP: 26bb
MP: 10bb
MP+1: 32bb
HJ: 24bb
CU: 11bb

1. Action folds to the button who jams his 22bb so as per my last thread in the same situation, looks like a steal - with ace rag, broadway or small-mid-pairs.
2. I have 99 and go and tank for a bit - ultimately I call knowing I'm flipping at worst but you gotta gamble to win (so they say).
3. Villain flips A9 and I'm 69% to win - flop duly delivers an ace and I'm down to 18bb.
   

Should I have called or folded to wait for a better spot - either a bigger hand or where I'm pushing all-in rather than having to call?

Shnap.

Btw you can use this tool to study preflop spots. I highly recommend it: https://www.holdemresources.net

You got in as a 70/30 favorite, and you still had enough chips that you didn't bust and you have plenty of 3-bet shoving equity. If you can't deal with that happening, well, 30% of the time, then tournaments aren't for you. It's part of the game.

Too many thinly veiled bad beat "strategy" posts on this forum lately.

It’s a genuine strategy post.

You would have snap called there if you had KK, right? In which case, you are STILL roughly 70%. The best you can get your money in is generally 80%. You can't afford to sit around and wait for premium pairs. You read your opponents correctly, and made the appropriate call. What situations do you see where you're going to be in a superior position?

If you want to win the tournament, you should call. In order to live, you must be willing to die. You NEED chips to win. You were in a spot, where 7/10 times, you probably would have been chip leader, or close to it.

Unless there's some wacky pay jumps considerations, this is a clear call. And its not even like you're out of it if you lose. You still have 18 BB, right in the riddle of the pack at your table.

If it is a genuine strategy post, stop the HH at the decision point. Results taints responses.

This. And also don't complain about the result, or even hint that you lost the hand.

But the way I look at it that whilst KK is the same 70% chance to win as 99, the difference is you're very unlikely to be at much risk whereas calling with a mid pair means there's lots of cards (and pocket pairs) that have you crushed.


I understand but I also tend to feel stupid when villain outflops me or turns over a bigger pair - and I wonder if I was too reckless, too gung-ho, especially when it comes to calling an all-in vs shoving (which has fold equity).


Thanks. Question is, does this apply to all pairs, even 22? What about non-pocket paired hands?


I listed the result in case that backed up the rationale that I shouldn't have called.

Didn't complain.

Also, every time I’ve gone out in a tournament when deep, usually being reasonably well-placed at least, there’s always been super short stacks
That cling on, eroding down to 6bb (which when just 10-30 players left can seriously dent all but the chip leader) and then ratchet up the page jumps.

I mean, I went out in ninth yet one of the short stacks made it to fifth for 3x the payout and another even made it to heads up.

And as for my hand with 99, is it good strategy to call off most of a very healthy stack on what is usually likely to be a 50-50? I can’t see that it is. Hence why I showed the opponent’s hand and the result as maybe it’s evidence as to why calling off with a mid-pair is a bad move unless a massive chip leader or a short stack.

If the opponent is any good, I call off 77+, AJs AQo in this spot. Against a weaker opponent, I might go with TT+ AK and sigh fold AQ, 99. In a vacume, calling 99 AQ is probably alright

You have 50% equity and better (60/65% in best case) against BTN, half or your stack! Close to ITM!
It depends on how often you play these MTT, if very often than snap anyway it is fold.


Answer to your question: call is just good here, basically speaking this is break-even situation! Fold is also good move here!

ICMIZER is much better for these spots, just btw. And you can have some free calculations

Did you know what the result would be when you decided to call? Of course not. The eventual result of the hand has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of what the correct decision is. Do NOT post results, or even hint at them; you’ll get better feedback that way.

Also, suppose you had won after calling. Would you still be on here questioning your decision? If not, you’re probably guilty of being too results oriented (and I do suspect that to be the case). You cannot control the cards that are dealt, only your own decisions. The correctness (or incorrectness) of those decisions doesn’t change because of what cards are dealt.

Without considering ICM, you don’t need 50% equity to call. You wish 22b to win 23 (the bb you posted plus villain’s shove). That means you need 22/(22+23)= 48.9% equity to call. I think it’s pretty clear that you have this equity vs any reasonable BU shoving range. Anything other than TT+ and you are >50%, and if BU’s range had A9, there are some combos where you are significantly better than 50%. Easy call IMO. You made a good call and lost; that’s the variance that happens in MTTs.

Spots like these are pretty straightforward to assess.

First, you look at what the "optimal" ~20BB shoving range would be here from the button, figure out how you're doing against that range. I would suggest that's is probably somewhere in the 25%-30% range, and you're obviously crushing that.

Now, most players in game don't jam "optimally "from the BTN with 22BB (are players really jamming stuff like K9o or T8s here) but they are going to jam wide enough. Even if they shove significantly tighter than that (something like 15% of their range and not always jamming premiums) you're probably still about 52-53%.

Assuming there are antes in play, you need to be good here about 48% from a chip-EV perspective. If you want to add an ICM factor, maybe you want to be good about 50-51% of the time.

So if you're going to fold here, you need to have a pretty strong read that your opponent is shoving considerably fewer than 15% of their hands from the button here. If you have that read, then sure, I can see folding here.

But you said you had a read - that your opponent's range was Ax, broadways and small pairs (which isn't a ridiculous observation as those are types of hands that you could easily see in a BTN 22BB shoving range) then 99 is close to 60% versus that range.

So if you trust your read, then this is a slam dunk call.

Try not to think in the way of I lost I guess I should have folded. Look at the odds you were given and your equity vs villains range. Plug that into a calculator. If it’s not a heavy icm situation just remove the worst hands from your calling range and boom your good to go. Hope this helps you

Also pretty much fist pump and snap call here with 99

Yes, this is important, because it seems OP isn't doing that at all:

Considering in the actual hand OP had 70% equity and still posted this, I think OP has some real work to do away from the tables figuring out ranges and calculating equity for hands vs. those ranges.

Dear Miss Vix,

sadly I think MTT's are for you, it's an interesting spot. I honestly don't think you can make a mistake in this hand, if you call with your reads, you are ahead, why question it?


They are all Nitwits....now you have to be a nitbitchindonkey Fold.