Variance, fear of it, and dealing with it.

[illegit]

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recently I was at the final table of a live tournament. There are 3 of us left and I am the small blind, the big blind and I have the same amount of chips (30k) SB=4k BB=8k.

The BB is a thinking tight aggressive type that knows my game well and understands the range of hand that I might raise or push with late in a tourney against a random hand. I look down and I see A-7 off, and being in the small blind and having only 4 BB left, I am inclined to push, but I know that this player understands the situation and knows that I would make this move and is likely to call with just about anything. This makes me only a slight favorite over most hands that this player holds. I hate getting my money in as a slight favorite (is this wrong).

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Very, very wrong. If you push here, no matter how well your opponent knows that you have a wide range, he has no recourse to stop you from making a +EV push especially with the strong hand that you have. His calling range here is irrelevant. This is a huge push and not even close. You could turn your cards faceup on the table and he couldn't stop you from making a +EV push.

But i'm not sure what any of this has to do with variance.