To Call or Raise a short stack all-in

SirWatts

Consider the following situation late in a NLHE tournament. A short stack pushes all-in in front of you and you have a hand you deem at least worth a call, possibly a raise to try and isolate with the shortstack. How do you decide when to raise, and how much to raise, and when to just call? I know this is a very general question with a lot of "it depends" involved so I'll give a concrete example:

PokerStars Game #1061952578: Tournament #4473984, Hold'em No Limit - Level XVII
(6000/12000) - 2005/01/10 - 16:58:42 (ET)
Table '4473984 47' Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: grandslam (33640 in chips)
Seat 2: ctj*abq (291007 in chips)
Seat 4: SirWatts (386607 in chips)
Seat 5: jangeno (280385 in chips)
Seat 6: $portyJ (335669 in chips)
Seat 7: Scotty_az (130676 in chips)
Seat 9: thijsw (126426 in chips)
Scotty_az: posts small blind 6000
thijsw: posts big blind 12000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SirWatts [As Js]
grandslam: raises 21040 to 33040 and is all-in
ctj*abq: folds
SirWatts: ?

How does your play vary depending on your hand (ie AK, pairs JJ-77 are interesting cases as well) your stack size, if the all-in is slightly bigger or smaller, your position, and the sizes of the stacks behind you to act? (or any other relevant factors i forgot to mention?)
A lot of the time people don't give this much thought since they figure no one else probably has a hand worth calling with but a misplay here can prove very costly late in a tournament either by letting a hand into the pot that you shouldn't have or not giving yourself a chance to get away from your hand by pot-commiting yourself with too big a raise. Hopefully this generates some discussion.

Mike

Dave Scharf

PokerStars Game #1061952578: Tournament #4473984, Hold'em No Limit - Level XVII
(6000/12000) - 2005/01/10 - 16:58:42 (ET)
Table '4473984 47' Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: grandslam (33640 in chips)
Seat 2: ctj*abq (291007 in chips)
Seat 4: SirWatts (386607 in chips)
Seat 5: jangeno (280385 in chips)
Seat 6: $portyJ (335669 in chips)
Seat 7: Scotty_az (130676 in chips)
Seat 9: thijsw (126426 in chips)
Scotty_az: posts small blind 6000
thijsw: posts big blind 12000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SirWatts [As Js]
grandslam: raises 21040 to 33040 and is all-in
ctj*abq: folds
SirWatts: ?

Edited version.

Blinds 6,000-12,000. 7 players at table. UTG player moves all in for $33,640. Our hero is in middle position with As-Js and $386,000. The cutoff seat and button are both big stacks; the blinds are small stacked (although enough to do damage).

So, our hero faces a call of $33,460 into a pot of $51,460.

Question, should our hero call? Should our hero make an isolation raise?

In this case, I do not like moving in. You are moving $386,000 to win $51K. Winning the $51K is marginal in any event (the all-in player has a hand you will have to beat). And, you DO NOT want to be called. In this case, I call. Calling serves notice that "I have a hand I am willing to play against the all-in short-stacked player." If one of the big stacks moves on the pot I can fold with minimum damage. He can’t make a pure bluff at the pot because there is an all-in player. So, if he comes over the top I will accept that he has a hand I do not want to play against with As-Js. I probably have to call the medium stacked blinds if they move on me.

Other factors? If my stack is smaller then I may move in. If you are pot committed to a big re-raise then you might as well move in yourself and force the toughest decision you can onto the player behind you. When chips are deep, call. When chips are shallow, move in.

Does my particular hand make a lot of difference? Not really. If I have a hand that I deem "playable" then I am probably apt to flat call with it (deep chips). I am interested in taking on the short-stacked all-in player, but I am not interested in the big variance of moving in and getting called.

The point of all of this is: The all-in player has made this a dead pot. Limping in will tend to solidify this fact. In my opinion a big raise will not shut out too many hands that have not already been shot out and so I am unlikely to move in on the pot.

mads777

Really like your answer Dave.

Good post, good thinking as usual!

ScottyZ

I would just call with the AJs, and I'm probably willing to drop the hand if there's a pre-flop raise.

While generally rather marginal versus a raise, AJs looks like a good enough hand to play against a short stack all-in player, particularly one who is UTG. Such a player may be feeling a little desparate to make a move *now* with their BB coming up next hand.

ScottyZ

Jay

I was also going to go with calling and folding to a re-raise.

SirWatts

Yeah you're all right on this one. I re-raised the minimum to try to scare off marginal hands while not pot-commiting myself to calling a re-raise from one of the big stacks and got myself in a world of trouble when the SB re-raised all-in another 80K. With all that money in the pot I thought I had to call this bet and did call but in hindsight it seems like I should still be able to get away from the hand here easily enough since the fact it will be a 3-way main pot decreases my pot odds drastically. I took a big hit when I lost the whole pot to AK and had no momentum going to the final table (I was 2nd in chips before this hand with about 14 or 15 left but limped to the final table in 7th place). A suckout had me back in contention with 6 players left but then the favour was returned (again by the SB from the above hand and again vs my AJs, though this time I had him dominated preflop). I was crippled and busted out a few hands later in 6th. Still my best result in a big MTT online but disappointing to have cost myself a good shot at more by misplaying this relatively simple hand badly.