Hi, forum, Newbie here needing advice and analysis.

At yesterday's MTT (local poker room), I was moved to a new 10-handed table and had to post blinds 800/1600/0, folding both BB and SB to all-ins. At this point my stack is down to 7500, there are two stacks less than mine, two huge stacks of about 80,000 each, the rest in the range of 20,000 to 40,000.

Following Harrington, my M is about 3+, so I'm just waiting for it to be folded to me before shoving with any two cards. My opportunity comes when I'm UTG+3, but I make an error: Without declaring verbally, I push two stacks of 100 chips (total 3500) forward with both hands, then try to push my stack of 500 chips (total 4000) after it. It's disallowed as a string bet, so my action is declared a raise to 3500.

Three players after me fold, the next one (call him Player A) makes it 17,000, and the button goes all-in for about 20,000. The blinds fold to me.

My hand: J7o. I have 4000 in chips left. I was with Player A at the previous table. There he'd made big bets like this about 12 times, and had to show 5 times, showing down QQ, AK, AT, A8 and A7.

What's my move?

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My analysis:

1. I no longer had what Harrington calls "vigorish."

2. I'd been with Player A at the previous table, and pegged him as solid-aggressive. Using Harrington's odds, if Player A had a high pair, I'd be a 4.25 to 1 dog; if not a pair, he was likely to have AX with X = 7 or better, so per Harrington I'd likely be a 5 to 3 dog; and in the remote instance when he also held a J or a 7, he'd likely be way ahead, leaving me only 3 outs.

3. The button was unknown to me, but he probably had a hand.

My decision was to fold.

I believed it was likely I'd bust out if I called, and decided to see what I could do instead with four 1000 chips and a chair (I'd be UTG+2 next hand).

My fold was strongly criticized on the basis of pot odds by two other players at the table who were not involved in the hand.

Soliciting constructive criticism here. Please use more or less standard English as I'm not quite up on poker slang/acronyms. Also if your advice is of the type "Pay closer attention, don't string-bet," please provide tips on maintaining attention and focus.

Thanks in advance, group!

At this point, you are calling 4000 to get a chance at winning 20,900. You need only 16% equity to make that call. Giving player A a range of A8+, KJ+, and 55+, and given the button a tighter range of AJ+, KQ, and 77+, you would have equity of about 20%. More importantly, you left yourself 2.5 BB and tons of action behind you.

You were pretty much done, but the correct move would have been to call with 5 to 1 pot odds.

Hi, SpewingIsMyMove, thanks for the feedback. I will study it seriously.

I'm new at this and am from the Harrington school where we deal with odds. I'm not familiar with the "equity" approach/system. Can you translate your answer?

I actually would place Player A in a much tighter range, but I guess our main difference is that I was pretty sure I was beaten in this hand, and you seem to be saying that I had a 20 percent chance to win against both players? Can you explain how you arrived at that figure?

OK, I am going to go over odds, equity, and touch on EV, which is by far the most important concept.

Odds are basically a ratio of one outcome against another. If you have a sizx sided dice, your odds of rolling a 6 are 5 to 1. For every time you roll a six, on average, you roll 5 non-sixes. For poker, this is useful, as it gives you the necessary ratio of what you will win versus what you must wager. If I am on the turn, and I have a nut flush draw, and my opponent has moved all in, I just need to compare the ratio of what is in the pot to what it will take to call to the ratio of cards that do not make my hand versus the cards that will make my hand. For example, if he bet $500 into a pot of $500, you have to wager $$500 to win $1000. Your pot odds are two to one. If you are on a flush draw on a non-aired board, and you know he has at least a pair, you have 9 cards that will make your hand 37 cards that will miss. Your odds are 37 to 9 against. Since the ratio of 37 to 9 is higher than 2 to 1, you should not call.

Equity is a related concept. It is the percentage of time that your hand wins. This is calculated as total favorable outcome divided by total outcome. Odds are the ratio of unfavorable outcomes to favorable, equity is favorable outcomes/(unfavorable outcomes+favorable outcome). In the example above, you would have 19.5% equity.

Equity has the advantage, though, of being an easier number to work with when calculating against a range. Let's say you are facing a preflop all-in decision where you raised, and villain three bet shoves. You have pocket queens. You estimate his range to be AK, JJ+. Based on this, you can calculate the equity for QQ versus AK, QQ versus AA or KK, and QQ vs JJ, then use a weighted average to calculate your equity against his range. That is very difficult to express with odds.

Equity and odds can be used when comparing simple action with only two end states. For example, when considering whether or not to call all-in on the turn. They are less suited for guiding action where there may be multiple outcomes (if I bet, will he call, raise, or fold, and what is the equity and pot size of each outcome). This is where EV, or Expected Value, comes in. EV is basically the weighted average of every possible outcome (the value of the outcome multiplied by the likelihood of the outcome). I won't go into it too much in this post, but it is really the number you should use to guide your action.

you wont like this but ill add something about making others play well against you by what you say. if after the hand you got into a debate with others on your fold it is only because you must have told them what you folded. now they all know how you play and think at the table. it will be used against you even if its done without thinking about it.
and those fools that started the conversation also let the table know how they think during a hand and how they act.
ego breaks more regular players than bad play it seems

If you are purely a leisure player, ignore my advice.

If you want to improve as a tourney player, reconstruct this hand, with the payout structure, blinds and stack sizes behind, with an ICM calculator in order to a. evaluate Harrington's strategy of shoving in this spot with any two and b. developing an interest in ICM.

as played I think it is a nailed on call and I don't "vigeroush" has got anything to do with it. Spewingismymove basically nails it, esp on stack size remaining (which is why Harrington would have called as well).

This is not true. I can see the other players arguing that OP should call with any two cards, so they don't necessarily have to see what he folded to start a debate.

I think the most important lesson OP can learn here isn't anything to do with the odds on the call, it's to do with how to make your bets and raises to protect yourself. If I'm shoving the only thing I say is all in, if I'm raising the first thing I say is raise, etc etc

Hi, All, thanks for the very informative replies. I'll try to buckle down and learn about equities and EV as suggested.

As it turns out, I did NOT tell them what my hand was. I try to never show unless I have to.

Fatboy, I don't know what an ICM calculator is. Can you direct me to a starting point? Also, if I understand him correctly, Harrington's "vigorish" means that players behind you are more likely to fold to your open-raise all-in. In my situation, my last 4000 in chips and any two cards would have some "vigorish" when I open-shove, although, as Harrington himself points out, only a minimal amount, since 4000 in chips would be only a little more than a min-raise.

I'm still in the dark as to how SpewingIsMyMove arrived at the 20 percent win probability in his reply. Can someone enlighten?

It seems to me now that, if SpewingIsMyMove's 20 percent figure is correct, this really becomes a debate between going with your read or going with the math. My read was that I was beaten and my tournament life would've ended had I called, while folding gave me a small but finite chance at resurrection.

Thanks again, guys. Learning a lot here.

You cannot have been "beaten". It's pre flop, even really weird crap like AA v A7o is only 92/8

20% is just the equity you might have here against some shoving ranges. In other words you will suck out about 1 out of 5 times and win the pot. How can you tell your tournament life would have ended?

So I actually looked at the math and J7o does really really weally badly against overpairs. But even then, if they have overcards or TT then you're doing ok and they don't always have a pair so folding would seem ridiculous.

I haven't read Harrington in awhile, I do not recall his concept of vigorish. It sounds like you are describing fold equity, which is the gain equity from an action due to the liklihood of opponents folding. In this situation, any players that would over shove your first raise would not have folded to a shove. When they shoved on you, they were certain that you would have to call, so they were happy to play you for stacks.

Regarding how I came up with 20%, I simply used an equity calculator (in this case Equilab) to calculate your hand versus likely ranges for each villain. There is some estimation in trying to determine their ranges, but we can make a fair approximation.

Again, I can't speak to Harrington, but I can tell you this. When your stack is between 5 and 10 big blinds, you really want to start shoving into unraised pots very wide. At that range, you still have fold equity, as your stack is big enough to hurt players calling you wide, but your stack is small enough that it isn't worth making a standard 2.5 or 3 bb raise. My ranges vary a bit, based on position and table dynamic, but if I am around 10 bb, I am shoving any unopened pot with any ace, a lot of broadway combos, a lot of mid to high suited connectors.

Regarding ICM, ICM stands for Independant Chip Model. It is somewhat of an advanced cooncept if you are still learning about equity and EV, but it is basically a way of looking at the payout structure and player's stacks to determine the approximate dollar value of your stack. In tournament play, this is very important. For example, let's say you are on the bubble of a tournament, you have AK on the button. Two smaller stacks go all-in in front of you, then a stack that has you covered goes all in. In many situations, you would be justified in calling. But using ICM, you can determine that calling this bet actually loses you money, so it is an easy fold.

Let's make sure you understand equity against ranges and EV first before we start talking ICM.

Everything has to be looked at from the standpoint of what you risk versus what you gain. You were almost certainly behind at that point, likely by a lot. But you had only to risk 4000 more chips for a chance to win nearly 25K. You don't need a lot of equity to justify that call.

If you do not make that call, you are UTG+2 with 2.5 bb. This means you have almost no fold equity (your bet is not going to scare away any viable hands), and you have only 3 hands to catch a good hand. And any hand you catch is going to have to stand up to between 7 to 9 people acting behind.

Realistically, you were pretty much a deadman walking anyways. But calling for the 4K was your best option. Everyone one of us here has seen (pretty frequently it seems) two crap casrds take out an over pair. And if you were dealing with two big aces (e.g. AK and AQ), you are actually not in horrible shape.

If simple math will help, here it is for helping to decide if you should call an all-in bet/raise:

Pot: Amount before last villain bet (Could also define it as amount after V bet, and make applicable other changes)

Prev: A previous bet you made which is then raised (may = 0)

Bet: The shove amount

Call: The amount you have to call = Bet - Prev

Eq = Equity, the chance you win

Pot Odds = (Pot + Bet)/Call

EV = Eq*(Pot + Bet) –(1-Eq)*Call

Set EV to 0 to find minimum equity needed

Eq >= Call/(Pot + Bet +Call) = 1/ ((Pot + Bet)/Call + Call/Call) = 1/(Pot Odds + 1)

Equivalently, Eq >= The percentage of the final pot that is your last contribution

For your hand, (Main) Pot = 2400 + 3500 + 7500 = 13,400, Bet = 7,500, Prev = 3500: Call = 7500 – 3500 = 4000

Pot Odds = (13,400 + 7.500)/4,000 = 5.2

Minimum Equity for +EV = 1/(5.2+1) = 16%.

The final pot is 20,900 + 4,000 = 24,900 and your 4,000 call is 16% of that total.

This situation is a bit similar to having a tight UTG player raise and it is folded to you in the big blind when you have 1BB left after posting your blind. What would Dan Harrington say to do in that spot?

Probably to look at your watch to randomise your play