Terrible money bubble spot in 100r

[apestyles]

PokerStars Tournament, Big Blind is t3000 with t300 antes (6 handed) Converter on pregopoker.com

UTG (t45398)
UTG+1 (t22026)
CO (t23818)
Button (t20373)
SB (t154795)
Hero (t5143)

Preflop: Hero is in BB with T[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 4[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
<font color="gray">UTG folds</font>, <font color="red">UTG+1 raises to t21726 (All-in)</font>, <font color="gray">CO folds</font>, <font color="gray">Button folds</font>, <font color="red">SB raises to t40452</font>


There are 19 left, 18 pay. 903.60 for cashing so its a fairly significant pay jump. I am obviously not a huge fan of "tourney life" or folding getting significant odds. However, I do believe in trying to maximize my expectation. The question is, is this a call or a fold? Folding here makes a little piece of my soul die but I think its probably the correct play.

I got this very small stack from losing a huge hand, doubling up and then getting 29o utg. I figured it was better to fold and call w/ any 2 in the BB. But then this happened.

[IWEARGOGGLES]

Fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold!

Fold!

......fold.

You'll have 2143 next hand. Post 1800. Fold again. You'll have 343 on button, post 300. Down to 43 in cutoff. ALLLLL INN!!!!!!!

[ASPoker8]

[ QUOTE ]
Fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold fold!

Fold!

......fold.

You'll have 2143 next hand. Post 1800. Fold again. You'll have 343 on button, post 300. Down to 43 in cutoff. ALLLLL INN!!!!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

indeed

[brad2002tj]

Are there any other short stacks that are on teh brink? This factors heavily.

[apestyles]

[ QUOTE ]
Are there any other short stacks that are on teh brink? This factors heavily.

[/ QUOTE ]

Next lowest stack was 17k I believe

[brad2002tj]

[ QUOTE ]
Next lowest stack was 17k I believe

[/ QUOTE ]

If so, blinding away is not likely to get us into the money. I shove and pray and am likely out on teh bubble.

[bobneptune]

reading this thread it seems that the obvious answer is the correct one, that hero should fold. just for the hell of it i fooled around with the numbers and came up with some curious/interesting results.

first, i screwed around with poker stove an tried to find hero's equity against various ranges of utg+1 and sb if hero should call. for instance, if utg+1 has exactly AA and sb has exactly KK, hero has 17% equity. if utg+1 and sb both moved in with top 10%, hero's equity is 21.6%. with this data, for the sake of simplicity assume hero has about 20% equity vs any reasonable ranges.

quite frankly, i have a difficult time putting precise ranges on utg+1 and sb, since the shove by utg+1 is a little odd with a cripple in the bb and a huge stack in the sb, so , again, for simplicity i'll assume their ranges are similar.

that being stipulated, if hero folds, sb wins 50% of the time putting hero itm and utg+1 wins 50% of the time doubling up and leaving hero with 543 chips after he posts the next hand. his chance of cashing at this point is close to zero.

therefore hero's equity of folding is $903.6 / 2 = +451.80 hence , the logic of folding.

but let's explore what happens if hero decides to call. 80% of the time he loses and bubbles.

20% of the time he wins and his stack moves up to 16,329 chips and he is still alive.

of the 20% of the time his cards hold up, 50% of that time the sb wins the side pot and utg+1 bubbles and hero wins $903.60 and is still in the tourney with 16,329 chips and can possibly move up. the other 50% of that time, utg+1 will win the side pot and there will still be 19 left with hero with 16,329 chips, still alive, but with zero monies. so hero's immeadiate equity of calling equals $903.60 x 10% = $90.36. obv that folding is better than calling by $451.80 - $90.36 = $361.44.

but that's not the whole story. the 20% of the time hero calls and wins the show down, he not only gets the cash equity, but 16,329 chips that may enable him to win a lot more money with 18 or 19 players left. how much money would hero have to win to make calling = folding ???

if x equals the equlibrium point in dollars that hero needs to win with his 16,329 chips the 20% of the time he wins the showdown to make equity of folding = equity of calling then .8($0) + .2($X) = $351.44 or x = $1,807.44

so, if i didn't unmercifully bollox this math up, if apestyles calls and the 20% of the time his hand holds up, if he can win $1,807.44 with the 16,329 chips he has, then calling is just as good as folding.

can apestyles take 5.5 bb's and move up substantially with 18 or 19 players left ?? i don't know the structure of the payouts, but at least 2 players at his table will have around 20k in chips, so it.s's not out of the question for a top player.........

[IWEARGOGGLES]

1) Why do you assign UTG+1 and SB similar ranges?

2) He will very, very rarely win $1,807.44 with 5BBs. That is probably 9th or 8th place money.

[bobneptune]

[ QUOTE ]
1) Why do you assign UTG+1 and SB similar ranges?

2) He will very, very rarely win $1,807.44 with 5BBs. That is probably 9th or 8th place money.

[/ QUOTE ]


1.... because i'm not very smart and it makes the math easy.
seriously reads would be helpful. what hands would you cram in this spot with 4 players remaining and sb with 7 times your stack. sb could have a real hand, or just be flyswatting.

2.... for the record... i'm not advocating calling. i just thought with everyone saying easy fold, i would be interesting to try and quantify what conditions it would take to make it a call.

[Confused1]

[ QUOTE ]
so, if i didn't unmercifully bollox this math up, if apestyles calls and the 20% of the time his hand holds up, if he can win $1,807.44 with the 16,329 chips he has, then calling is just as good as folding.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good job on the analysis. That's exactly how you should analyze the situation (we can debate ranges, but the process is right).

The only process mistake you make is highlighted above. The question isn't whether he CAN win that much with the amount of chips he has, it's WILL he win that much ON AVERAGE. 'Can' implies whether it's possible, and it certainly is...but the amount he will win on average with that stack is approximately his ICM equity and that should be much less than the number you posted (but requires payouts to actually calculate).