A Hand From WSOP
So i was watching the WSOP yesterday its heads up between JJ and Tom or Tim ( i forget but meh) so anyway JJ had this one play i completely disagree with and i wanna see if anyone else does. JJ has double Toms chips, they both call and see a flop. Tom gets bottom pair and pushes all in. JJ has a flush draw aswell as an overcard to the board, so it was rougly 50-50 in odds for either of them to win. She didnt call his push. I highly disagree with her play because when you have double your opponents chips heads up with a 50-50 chance to nock them out, shouldnt you take it?
Comments
Just a thought from both this thread and your heads up thread, I'm getting the impression that you rely too heavily on your hand / the hand you're "playing". This is commonly referred to as "First Level Thinking".
Calling an all in for a significant amount of chips with only an overpair on a flushed board is not something I like to do myself without good reads. This is similar to your heads up thread. You called with bottom pair figuring it was good but then added "with enough outs..." you didn't think about what your opponent may have (2nd level thinking).
I think you should try and work on being more conscious as to when you are legitimately aware of what your cards are and what your opponent likely has, and then be aware as to whether you actually thought whatever way DURING the hand, or if, in your remembering of the hand, retroactively justified your actions (a VERY common phenomenon).
Mark
hahahahaha..this post is funny in so many different ways I don't know where to begin to burn you Mark..
I'll start simply with:
sick 'read'
And you risk doubling your opponent up with a mediocre hand? No thanks. Just because you HAVE the chips doesn't mean you should freely GIVE them away.
Mark is right, other than his misreading your OP...you have to consider what your opponet has as well. Bottom pair is NOT a good calling hand UNLESS you have a read that strongly suggests that you are way ahead. Why would JJ risk half of her stack to double her opponent up and a coin flip? Much rather wait for a strong hand and take him out.
Bad read of the example, I thought someone had JJ not JJ the woman... this was against Ted Forrest in the WPT..
Okay, my example bad - my point good.
Mark
:8h :6h :4s
Ted checked, JJ bet 300K and Ted pushed in for 2,595K. I don't remember the exact hole cards, but I think Ted hit bottom pair and JJ had a King-high flush draw. Unless somebody remembers the exact hand, let's assume it was something like
:kh :2h vs.
:4c :ts
JJ had twice as many chips as Ted and had 5,745K left. First place is worth $1,150,000 and second takes $600,000. What would you do?
At the time I was watching, I had the same opinion as the OP! Have I played poker so rarely for the past month that I've now become a zeroth level thinker?
if jj folds, her $ev is a shade under 55% of the pool.
if she calls, she loses 53% of the time for a $ev of about 46% of the pool
and she wins 47% of the time for a $ev of about 67% of the pool.
this nets out to a $ev of a call of about 56% of the pool.
so calling is marginally +ev. (given the size of the pool, it is worth about 17k or 1.5+ buyins!)
note, in order for JJ to make this decision, she has to be able to put ted on this exact hand, which i'd say would require an extreme soul read.
If you're Doyle Brunson or Phil Ivey you might laydown and look to pick apart your opponent or look for a very favourable spot. JJ is not Doyle or Phil or even close. Take the shot now.
$EV = ~47% * $198,917 - 53% * $140,250
= +$19,158
As long as her chance of winning the hand is at least 41%, she would maximize her cash EV by calling.
Interestingly, 41% is the same result I got when calculating chip equity. Since she needed to call 2,295K chips for a total pot of 5,550K chips, she only needed a 41% chance of winning (2295/5550) to make calling correct. So the basic pot odds analysis that I was doing while watching the hand on TV has the same result as doing the much more complicated ICM analysis later. In the case of a winner-take-all structure or when it is down to two players, you just have to worry about maximizing chip EV since it is the same as maximizing cash EV. No, she did not need to know his exact hand. She could have used the R.E.M. method (Range, Equity, & Maximize). In other words, if she was able to figure out that she probably had over 40% equity against Ted's RANGE of hands (which includes a significant chance of bluffing), then she would have realized that calling would be the correct EV-maximizing decision. In addition, unless you think that you have a huge skills advantage over Ted Forrest to pass up on an expected gain of over $19,000, then calling is even easier.