Hypothetical Hand - What do you do

[AAroddersAA]

A spin off of a popular question interested in the answers people give

Tournament = WCOAP Main Event April 2013

15K Starting chips
45 Minute clock with all the levels
First hand of the event

We are in the BB and have been dealt QQ

It folds to the SB (an unknown player) who open shoves 15K chips and forgets to protect his hand, which is AKs

Call or fold?

Why???

[mal666]

Call, free chips.

[MintTrav]

Eh? Fold, obviously.

You could construct a tougher decision with different cards.

[deanp27]

Not sure why this question would be popular, it"s pretty pointless.

[AMRN]

Seriously?  Fold.  

400 runners - you would flip to try increase your cEV from 0.25% to around a whopping 0.48%.

[dwh103]

If you know you suck at poker - call.

But given most of us will believe, rightly or wrongly, that we have an edge on the field. Then it"s a fold.

[PHIL_TC]

I remember reading somewhere that the closest 50/50 pre you can have is something like

AT vs 3 3 sharing one of the suits...

Might be wrong, memory not what it was.

Either way. I"m folding.

If you know you suck at poker - call.

Actually..... on second thoughts....

[MintTrav]

Seriously?  Fold.  

400 runners - you would flip to try increase your cEV from 0.25% to around a whopping 0.48%.

How did you come to that answer?

I actually think there are a lot of advantages to having a big stack early. Winning the flip would give you a lot more than double the chance of winning the tournament for several reasons. I just didn"t fancy the downside.

[AAroddersAA]

Seriously?  Fold.  

400 runners - you would flip to try increase your cEV from 0.25% to around a whopping 0.48%.

How did you come to that answer?

I actually think there are a lot of advantages to having a big stack early. Winning the flip would give you a lot more than double the chance of winning the tournament for several reasons. I just didn"t fancy the downside.

Obviously the hand itself would never happen but the situation it creates is that we double up and win 15,000 chips about 54% of the time, and as John says it more than doubles our chance of making it into day two, the cash and the final table, especially if we have the edge that we are all saying is the reason we should fold.

Does your answer change if the tournament is a re-entry?
How much of an edge do we think we need in the tournament to turn this down?

Those of us who think it"s a fold, do you believe you double your stack in this kind of event more than 54% of the time playing small pots or by just getting it all-in in a better spot.

What sort of an edge do we need to fold here and is it realistic to think that we have it?

Also what do we do if we are holding the AK and our opponent is holding QJ?

[AMRN]

Do you seriously believe that doubling up in the first hand doubles your chance of winning the tournament? To win the tournament, you need to gather 100% of the chips in play.   In a 400 runner tourney, you start with 0.25% of the chips in play, and if you double up you have 0.5% of the chips in play.  It"s a helluva long way to get from 0.5% to 100%!

So - ultimately, you"re risking your entire tournament equity, with a potential return of a quarter of one percent of the chips in play.  If you believe you have any kind of edge in the game, calling to take the flip here would be awful play.

[Honeybadg]

If the small blind is willing to do this then I would laugh out loud and fold ... I would expect to have a reasonable edge on the individual concerned ... in this example has he declared that "he" has AKs.

If he has not shown his hand ... then non-trivial to discount AA or KK ... so you have to fold ...

It"s amazing how much of a field think they do have an edge (probably including consistent losers!) ... how many of these will end up in a race after 10 hours of play with their mythical edge?

Question is how much advantage could you make of the double stack in the slow structure - if you could take a lot of advantage then worth flipping.

What would you do with the rest of the day if you lose ... if you could make some money playing cash or working then looks like a great call ... (but why did you enter in the first place?)

For the insta folders - what winning hand % would you want before you called?

L

[MintTrav]

Do you seriously believe that doubling up in the first hand doubles your chance of winning the tournament? To win the tournament, you need to gather 100% of the chips in play.   In a 400 runner tourney, you start with 0.25% of the chips in play, and if you double up you have 0.5% of the chips in play.  It"s a helluva long way to get from 0.5% to 100%!

So - ultimately, you"re risking your entire tournament equity, with a potential return of a quarter of one percent of the chips in play.  If you believe you have any kind of edge in the game, calling to take the flip here would be awful play.

No, I think it more than doubles your chances. Your reply suggests that you will just bank the chips and then carry on playing exactly as otherwise for the remainder of the tournament. It"s not about still having to collect 99.5%. It"s about having 30k v everyone else"s 15k. This gives you significant advantages against your table, such as:

- You have the chips to slap the others about if that is your thing - they cannot afford some of the risks that you can

- If it is your inclination, you can nit it out for a big hand for much longer without having to get into marginal situations

- Huge cushion - drop 10k for whatever reason once the blinds start going up and you"re in a spot with 5k, but you"re still good with 20k

- Best of all, score big against another big stack and you can maximise the outcome, ie potentially go to double-double rather than just doubling at that point

[AAroddersAA]

If the small blind is willing to do this then I would laugh out loud and fold ... I would expect to have a reasonable edge on the individual concerned ... in this example has he declared that "he" has AKs.

If he has not shown his hand ... then non-trivial to discount AA or KK ... so you have to fold ...

It"s amazing how much of a field think they do have an edge (probably including consistent losers!) ... how many of these will end up in a race after 10 hours of play with their mythical edge?

Question is how much advantage could you make of the double stack in the slow structure - if you could take a lot of advantage then worth flipping.

What would you do with the rest of the day if you lose ... if you could make some money playing cash or working then looks like a great call ... (but why did you enter in the first place?)

For the insta folders - what winning hand % would you want before you called?

L

Top response.

In the example he has AK he has held his hand up and you have accidentally seen it. You know you are about 54% fav in the hand is the important thing.

(I agree QQ is a fold if you have not seen his hand, probably KK as well, although I would call KK. It really doesn"t matter I just wanted a situation where we were a little bit better than 50% early on and gave the most extreme example)

Talking about the edges people have, that"s kind of what I am asking about here. Personally I don"t believe I have a large enough edge to justify a fold here and would call. Yeah, I reckon I could use the large stack as well. The one thing I will say about losing a flip after 10 hours of play, this might be fine as it might very well have been correct to take the flip at that point, knowing that is all part of your edge.

What would we do if we lose the flip, that"s why it is set at DTD at WCOAP. Whatever we like pretty much, play cash, play a tournament go to the bar, we are not going to get bored. I entered the tournament to win it, for the gold medal and the trophy and that is my main goal. A smaller goal is getting to the final table. Calling is the best option for me to do this.

What % would I want to make the call? About this, I would not call on an exact 50/50.

I just find it interesting how many people believe their own edge to be enough to make this spot a fold. I think this claims quite a significant edge, certainly more than I believe I have.

Also +1 to what John said, doubling up at this point MORE than doubles your chance of winning/finaling the tournament

[Honeybadg]

... yes ... I probably should have said the "hopeful" race after 10 hours ... sometimes it is AJ vs AK ... so early races are bad ... but you end up crushed ... perhaps missing earlier spots (with added advantages).

Calling for the race with very little value add does make it super marginal though.

L

[dwh103]

Some links to strategy articles (hope you don"t mind the links mods (Paulie))

In favour of flipping: http://www.pokerisrigged.com/general-poker-forum/flip-not-flip-775.html

A wishy-washy argument from a couple of crooks: http://www.thehendonmob.com/poker_tips/coin_flip_two_sides

Against: http://www.pokerplayer.co.uk/poker-strategy/tournament-poker/8073/tournament_strategy.html

You can make up numbers to support either argument, and whilst I believe the "maths" in favour of flipping isn"t great, it"s still the best argument of the three, with the last article being an absolute pile of rubbish. It still underplays the other potential factors imo, like blind and payout structure, skill level of opponents, experience (it"s social for many people after all).

I would suspect that there would be a very limited number of scenarios in an APAT/small buy in tournie where someone"s edge would be significant enough to turn down this 53.8% chance of doubling. Go back a few years and there"d be more of these scenarios, however the average skill level has increased to such a point where edges are being eroded.

Whilst we know from ICM that doubling up does not double your $EV - for the first hand of the tournament this is as near zero a consideration as you"re going to get. Impossible to calculate long term ROI as it is, let alone perceived additional edge from doubling, whilst isn"t great when the blind levels are low. So will you get a better chance to reach the same chip position long term by level 6, 8, 12 (when the blinds matter) or whatever if you don"t take the flip? If the blind levels are 15 minutes, probably not. If 2 hours, there are more arguments to say you may do.

Incidentally, if it"s a re-entry and you"re rolled - get it in!