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Old 01-13-2007, 10:40 PM
robinmbuk robinmbuk is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Posts: 445
Default When to take coinflips?

I have just started playing (very) low limit HU NL SNGs, and have a question regarding coinflip situations.

I regard coinflips to be pp vs overcards pf, 2 overcards + flush draw on the flop, and oesfd on the flop.

I remember I once read that if you belive your skill is such that you are around a 65% favourite to win when playing heads up, you should avoid coinflip situations (when playing for stacks) because you are effectively decreasing your edge from 65% to 50%.

So when should you take coinflips? What considerations other than skill are there (e.g. blind level, stack sizes, pot size).

I ask this because I recently played a HU SNG in which it soon became apparant that I had a fairly large edge over my opponent. After about 5 mins I had a 3 to 1 chip lead, and I flopped a flush draw with my Ah9h on a ten high flop.

He bet, I raised, he shoved. I knew he could easily do this with any pair / any draw, so I thought ITLR it'd probably work out as a 50/50 coinflip (sometimes he'd be drawing almost dead with a worse flush draw, sometimes he may have me crushed with a set, but more often than not I have two overs to his pair plus the nut flush draw).

In this situation I took the coinflip and lost. Although I went on to win the match I couldn't help thinking I should have folded, as my edge over him was bigger than the 50/50 I took calling his push.

Does it make a difference that I still had a slight chip lead even if I called and lost?
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