[Jeff76]

Actually I encouter situations like this all the time against short stacks where I basically think "I can't fold for this amount and I really don't know much about what he has" and then call, almost always to find out I'm beat. I can't help but feel it's a leak every time it happens, but I shrug and think "what could I do?"

The problem with short stacks is that the amounts are generally less significant in terms of absolute dollars to many of the "big pots" we play that we really mull over, and usually because we get there with less betting we have very little information to go on. Such is the power of the short stack I suppose.

But no matter how insignificant the money is, odds are still odds and you have to be good here 1 in 3 times to make calling here profitable. If we are really going to be the best players we can be we can't simply shrug and say "what can I do, it's only 10BBs"- we have to do our best in every pot to make the correct decisions- small leaks add up.

However, once again it comes back to what information do we have? Not much. If we though this was a rational player we could probably fold because he'd know we'd be very likely to call getting 2-1 on our money, but with only the action thus far it's hard to tell what, if anything, our opponent is thinking.

If we changed the problem so that these were full stacks and villain was betting $33 into a $33 pot then we'd have a much better idea of where we were at because we'd have seen whatever action it took to build the pot that big in the first place. We'd still have the same 2-1 odds with the same hands, but more information to make a better decision.

At any rate, I think we all call here because we are getting a good price with a decent hand and we don't have much information, but every time this happens it feels like I'm just leaking money.

Or that's my 2 cents anyway.