Bubble spot with crazy pot odds and possible cEV/$EV divergence

[seke2]

Allright, I don't have the HH, but I'll totally forget about this hand unless I post it today, so bear with me. I had a disagreement with a player who I generally agree with about the proper play here.

Final 9 of a Stars 27/45. Top 7 are paid, payscale accelerates to much bigger payouts for the top spots but it's not as skewed as your normal MTT payout structure. Sort of a hybrid STT/MTT structure.

Play has been slow and blinds are already at 600/1200/75.

Hero has ~6k, which is about middle of the pack, I think 5th. There's 2 fairly deep stacks (13k+), a bunch of 3k-7k stacks, 2 guys with ~2500, and 1 guy with ~2000.

First shortie pushes for ~2400 in UTG+2. Next shortie pushes for ~2500 in MP1. Action folds to me including the SB who folded leaving himself with ~1500 (but won't be forced all-in for another full orbit).

Hero is in the BB with Q2o.

Pot is ~7500 with blinds and antes so I'm getting like 5.75:1 on this call.

Call or fold?

I've done a bunch of analysis on this already, but I'll save that until some other people give me their thoughts. I really thought this was pretty straightforward, but since I got disagreement on that from a player I generally find to be right, I wanted to at least get some responses here.

And if you want to give me a 1 word response, that's fine here, but I welcome discussion on the potential cEV/$EV divergence aspects because I do think some come into play here.

[dozer]

Odds say call, but stack says you'll be hobbling big-time and won't last another seven hands if you call. Cards say fold. I lay down the monster.

[registrar]

I think call. One person gets eliminated unless you're very unlucky and it's not going to be you so I take a small chance at a big pot getting those odds.

I mean, not always and I'd be thinking about who's getting hit by the blinds and when and when the blinds go up and the push-calling ranges of stacks in front if I have a 3.5k stack etc. etc. but generally, I'd want to call here.

[BarryLyndon]

If the pay scale accelerates to much bigger pay outs near the top, and the top is only around 15K with those blinds, I'd say that push botting is the way to go here; you have much better equity, in terms of CEV and EV. You're getting "sick odds" but even with such odds, Q2 isn't going to be so +EV as to negate the consequences of losing what is still a healthy steal stack.

Barry

[seke2]

As far as stack alignment on the table, I did think that I had enough chips to steal from the guys to my immediate left. However, one of the big stacks to my right was super-agro and pushing many hands. To my immediate right was the microstack with 1 BB.

So it was sort of a mixed-bag situation for being able to pushbot. When I got chances, I was able to take advantage of them, but I wasn't getting a lot of chances.

[seke2]

Ok, here's my analysis.

I tried to estimate my equity Monte Carlo style against a top 30% and top 15% hand and got this:
equity (monte-carlo)

Hand 0: 36.011% 35.71% 01.47% { 55+, A2s+, K5s+, Q7s+, J8s+, T8s+, 98s, A5o+, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o }
Hand 1: 44.860% 44.81% 01.50% { 77+, A7s+, K9s+, QTs+, JTs, ATo+, KTo+, QJo }
Hand 2: 19.129% 19.16% 00.59% { Q2o }

So I'm thinking I have at least ~19-20% equity here, so I think from a cEV perspective this isn't even close. So personally I'm thinking that $EV doesn't matter that much since I'm getting 5.75:1 pot odds with 4:1 equity.

The argument raised by my buddy was that if I fold here, we're basically going to be left 8-handed with a guy having about 1 BB left, so my odds of surviving to get ITM with a middle of the road stack size still maintaining some FE pre and post bubble are good, and even then I'm only 1 double up from having a big stack and being able to go deep. So he's thinking the almost guaranteed money from folding is what I should be playing for here because I gain more equity from letting 1 other player get eliminated than I give up by folding despite having far more than adequate pot odds.

However, I think there are also some $EV implications in favor of calling too.

Most notably, the fact that if I win this hand, I will have a top 3 stack and I'll already be ITM. So I'll have enough chips to exploit opponents when spots arise and will have a very good chance of finishing in the top 3. Also, if I call and lose, most likely 1 player is still eliminated (or very close to eliminated) and the microstack to my right will be forced all-in before me, so I still stand a good chance of at least making it ITM even though my chances of a deep money finish are reduced.

So I really thought this was a snap-call, easy decision.

I see from some of the early replies that I may be wrong, so there's my rationale.

[Neku]

*grunch*

According to Pokerstove, Q2o is - not surprisingly - behind against two random hands (win 28 %, versus 35 % for the others). Assuming first pusher is pushing any two cards, we must assume we're farther behind caller.

CALL & LOSE (at least 62 % of the time): You're left with about 4k, and you should knock one of them out (that t100 won't matter much). Good result.

CALL & WIN (28 %): you've got a 10k stack, knocked two out. Great result.

I'd say call.

[APipeDream]

Yeah, crappy spot, but I would absolutely call.

[Dunkman]

What I did would be almost entirely dependent on how much FE I thought I had if I folded. If we don't really have much I'd call, but if losing this hand takes us from being able to steal to not, then I'd fold and try to abuse the money bubble.

[seke2]

Ok, bumping this one too...given how mixed the replies have been so far, I think there's still more room to discuss this here.