SB all-in for just over double the BB (which is you)
I was playing at home game last night and the blinds were 150/300 with a 25 ante. There were 3 people left. The button folded. The SB (who is a tight solid player and who just folded his BB to a raise) goes all-in for a total of 675 making it an extra 375 to you. You have approx 2500 and are second in chips (with the chip leader having approx. 4500).
Is this an automatic call? If yes why? If no what hands would you have to have or what situation would you want to call with?
Is this an automatic call? If yes why? If no what hands would you have to have or what situation would you want to call with?
Comments
Yes. You are getting almost 3-1 on your money for what is probably a coin flip or at least close to it. No matter what hand you can put him on you are probably not worse than a 3-1 dog..
Seriously, I was abit shocked when you didn't call here. I was pretty sure you would have, must have caught something of a tell, did you?
Yes, I call here no matter what. I am guessing (since I am a genius) that you folded. Personally I wouldn't want to give the short stack so many chips (as compared to his stack) for free.
It's far more likely that he folded his BB with complete junk and then realised how underchipped he is in the SB and pushed anything.
And Hork if it was STR82ACE I would have looked him up with 5-2 off.
Well for starters, K7 doesn't dominate J2. Â And J8 vs J2 only makes you about a 2.5:1 dog. (It might actually be less since there will be more chops with the weakly dominated hands with low kickers).
If you're getting 3:1 there are only going to be 2 situations you don't really want to see:
Underpair vs. overpair (4.5:1 dog) (although if you have a PP I don't see how you're folding)
2 undercards vs. overpair (about a 5:1 dog)
So as Flint said, if you have 2-3o and "know" he has a pocket pair, that's about the only situation you wouldn't want to call...
Unless you had a decent starting hand, let him get out with his 1000 or so chips.
If you call and he beats you now you are only 2000 to his 1400ish.
He is conservative AND he just folded big blind. Why would he play this hand when he sees many free ones to come.
In the free ones to come, he would potentially earn more from the blinds and any callers.
I'd let him off with this one and wait for a situation with higher odds.
Looking at PokerStove
    equity (%)  win (%) tie (%)
Hand  1: 67.5072 %  57.17% 10.34%    { Jc8s }
Hand  2: 32.4928 %  22.16% 10.34%    { Jd2h }
   equity (%)  win (%) tie (%)
Hand  1: 63.8354 %  63.50% 00.33%    { Kc7s }
Hand  2: 36.1646 %  35.83% 00.33%    { Jd2h }
375 to win 1050 is 35.7 % again about 3 to 1. Â
Easy call?
If you call and miss you now have another player in the game with 1500 in chips and you with only 2000 (That's enough chips that he can make a move with). Where with the fold you still have a 2 to 1 chip lead over him leaving him with only 1000 compared to you 2500 which you can still muscle him with.
I know most people are saying calling but I honestly don’t think it is such a simple decision, or maybe it is and I’m over analyzing it. (BTW these were the thoughts that were running through my head at the time)
Be careful when working with odds and percentages.
Pot odds of 1,050 to 375 in percentage format are computed as follows:
375 / (1050 + 375) = 26.3%
which (as you have correctly stated) represents roughly 3 to 1 pot odds in odds format.
Therefore, hands you hold that have a >26.3% chance of winning are +EV hands here. You are also in a tournament scenraio where the variance of this particular hand hurts your opponent much more than it hurts you, as Hork42 previously alluded too.
This is a nice real life example of "chips change value" from TPFAP. With no chips remaining, the chips in the pot (with or without your potential $375 call, again, as Hork42 has noted) are incredibly valuable to your opponent. They would keep him alive in the tournament. On the other hand, your own $375 chips are probably worth pretty much the same to you as $375 chips would have during the previous few (or the upcoming few) hands.
This is one of those tournament scenarios where you might even want to make a -EV play in order to force your opponent into a high variance play, but in this particular hand, your play seems to actually be +EV as you will probably be better than 26.3% to win the hand versus your opponent's probable hand range.
This is an easy call with any two cards, since you will have two live cards a vast majority of the time.
A similar hand is discussed in the chapter "All-in Strategy" (pg 67) in TPFAP.1
ScottyZ
1But do be careful. If you don't know what all-in means, you are not ready for that book.
I witnessed a similar situation when I was in a poker tournament with Daniel Negreanu. Â Late in the tournament, a female was the small -blind and went all in. Â Negreanu in the BB was able to induce her to flash her cards to him after showing one of his undercards. Â Even though many players would think that Negreanu's cards were "dominated", he quickly called the all-in. Â I asked him why he called as a short stack himself, and he confirmed that it was the pot odds. Â Basically, it was an automatic call with any two cards.