Pop quiz: UTG shoves blind, you call with... ??

[Dex]

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If this was a home game, I'd probably announce that I'll shove blind as well.

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In the scenario given, it would be a positive EV bet if you called without looking at your cards. It is a 50:50 contest with the blinds as an overlay. A no brainer call if you had to call without looking.

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Ooops, I guess I forgot about the rake. There goes the overlay. So I guess it is important to ask if this is a time charge game or a raked game. If it is a time charge game and you have a $1 and $2 blind going into the pot, then you each automatically have an expected $1.50 gain on your $100 investment if you go in blind. This adds 1.5% to the profitablity of any hand you play, provided there is no rake.

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Good point! I forgot about rake too, so note that my previously posted answer assumes no rake.

[Taso]

I really don't get calling just because you could be 50/50...Don't see the point.

What I mean is, you toss a coin 20 times, it's not always going to be 10 heads and 10 tails...Could be 20 tails for all you know. Now obviously if you have a "4%" edge, it doesn't really mean much. Yes, infitinly done, you will end up winning quite a nice amount of money...But this isn't infinite, this is a one time deal, you toss that coin, you lose $100 bucks. Thats it. You think he goes "oh, well...Why not, lets do it again? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] " Instead, he goes, "well...I'm about even, cash out!"

[LouisCyphre]

Jake,
the concept is called expected value. You should read up on it and maybe you will understand why calling with any hand that is better than 50/50 is advocated.

[emerson]

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I really don't get calling just because you could be 50/50...Don't see the point.

What I mean is, you toss a coin 20 times, it's not always going to be 10 heads and 10 tails...Could be 20 tails for all you know. Now obviously if you have a "4%" edge, it doesn't really mean much. Yes, infitinly done, you will end up winning quite a nice amount of money...But this isn't infinite, this is a one time deal, you toss that coin, you lose $100 bucks. Thats it. You think he goes "oh, well...Why not, lets do it again? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] " Instead, he goes, "well...I'm about even, cash out!"

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This is what advantage gambling is all about. Suppose a guy wanted to bet me $100 on a coin flip. No, I wouldn't do it. But suppose two other bystanders, lets call them small and big blind, just wanted to watch and tossed a few extra dollars in the pot. Good deal, now we play.

Don't worry about infinity. Worry about the average of infinity. That's what dictates your action. What would you do based on the infinite average. This is called expected value and is the basis for most of your decisions as an advantage gambler.

Players who don't think this way are playing too big for their bankroll. If you are consistently avoiding advantageous situations because you are afraid that there is a good chance of losing, you should play smaller games where you no longer feel that way. It is consistent with the Kelly criterion, which involves betting fractions of your wealth based on favorability.

In the situation given, assume no rake. There is a $100 all in player that you can call, it is just you and him. Suppose you have to decide whether to call without looking at your cards. With the $1 and $2 blinds in the pot you have a 1.5% advantage for calling, and it is basically a 50:50 contest with close to 1:1 payouts. If $100 is a bigger fraction of your wealth than 1.5%, then you are correct not to call. But, as I said, you should be in a smaller game. It would mean that you had total wealth of less than $6700. If that's the case you shouldn't be playing poker.

Now, some people use a more tame criterion, such as half or 1/3 Kelly. If someone were using a criterion of 1/3 Kelly he should have total wealth of around $20,000 to call this bet without looking at his cards.

And then, some people don't consider total wealth, but only their gambling bankroll when making such decisions. If that is the case you'd have to figure what fraction of your bankroll the $100 constitutes and then call with only those hands that correspond to that fraction. Thus, if you had a $2000 bankroll then this $100 bet would constitute about 5%, so you would only call with those hands that would give you about a 3.5% edge against a random hand (we have included the 1.5% edge offered by the dead blind money). This is a hand with just under a 52% win probability.

[KipBond]

Some people play poker to gamble. Others play poker to get those players' money.

[emerson]

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Some people play poker to gamble. Others play poker to get those players' money.

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A highly ambiguous observation. Does that mean you support calling with a small edge or not?

Any venture with an uncertain outcome is a gamble in a sense. But there is advantage play and non-advantage play. A pure gambler might take slightly the worst of it just because he enjoys the action. An advantage player will always take any bet he can afford if he has the best of it. And a nit is not going to take any risk at all without having what they assess as a very big advantage.