$5.50R turbo WSOP Sat - calling All In before bubble?

[kindling]

$5.50 R turbo - WSOP sat to the $160DS
30 players remaining, 15 seats awarded

I have an average stack, and I think I need to double up at least once to survive until the bubble.

Villain has 2.5 BB, and I expect he should be pushing pretty light.

I raised to isolate, since I don't want to play this multi-way. Players have been folding to pushes for the most part. Also, no major stalling happening yet. Should I just be folding this here? With only about 4 BB myself, I'm not comfortable yet about folding into a seat.


Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t2000/t4000
(Ante: t200)
8 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: t11429
UTG+1: t18178
MP1: t49635
MP2: t12165
Hero: t17170
Button: t9320
SB: t17845
BB: t23873

Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is CO with T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
3 folds, <font color="#cc0000">MP2 raises all-in t11965</font>, <font color="#cc0000">Hero raises all-in t16970</font>,

thoughts?

[seke2]

Not gonna do the math, but I'm guessing you're better off folding. You aren't possibly going to have better than 60% equity here. You seem to have an average sized stack, so that means you've already got like a 50/50 shot at making it ITM. That probably means you need a LOT more than 60% (again, that's like, at best, if opponent is pushing top 50%, you're like 54% equity against the top 25% of hands).

So without doing the math, I'm guessing you'd be better off folding this and open-pushing a pretty wide range sometime in the next hand or two. And honestly, you have enough chips to even fold THROUGH the blinds once and still have a little FE to hopefully steal blinds from LP.

[bobbycharles]

Fold and wait for my own first in vigorish. I think at best your against any broadway or a weaker ace. At worst, you're dominated.

[bobbycharles]

I agree fold, but do you push AK? What about AQs?
I do, but i've been bubbling a lot lately and am needing to re-look my strategy. (not a math guy, so that may be the answer - study the numbers)

[seke2]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree fold, but do you push AK? What about AQs?
I do, but i've been bubbling a lot lately and am needing to re-look my strategy. (not a math guy, so that may be the answer - study the numbers)

[/ QUOTE ]
AK, yes ... AQ, probably. Now you're getting up into likely 63-67% equity against your opponent's range, and that's probably enough to justify a call. JJ+ I'm calling. And its also a consideration that even if you lose this hand, you aren't out, you still have enough chips to get right back into the fray with 1 double-up.

Like I said, you're already probably like 50% to get a prize here. Doubling up once probably puts your chances up near 100%, looking at the stack sizes. But folding here doesn't cut your chances at all, and I think if you're halfway decent/don't run into a monster, you could get the chips you need to stay afloat by just stealing blinds once or twice an orbit as first in.

[Mi_T_Sharp]

You should fold this. Although you only have 4 BBs, it looks like most of the people behind you are also very short, so you should be able to find a better spot with decent FE using first-in vig and a potentially much worse hand.

[kindling]

Thanks for the input all.

In the turbos, with 5-minute blinds, and stalling galore, I'm not sure whether I'll make it through the blinds before they go up a couple of times. I was looking for some insurance, and expecting to be ahead most of the time.

I think I overplayed it here, because the previous day in this tourney I bubbled out when I had about the same stack at the same point. A number of small stacks won their forced All-Ins, and I ended up finishing right on the bubble. That was probably just bad luck, since a couple of coin flips in my favor, and I get the seat.

I'll try to remember that Fold Equity may be more important near the satellite bubble, if they're paying attention. This table seemed to be somewhat aware of proper sat play, so you're likely correct that I should have looked for a better spot.

[kindling]

[ QUOTE ]
Not gonna do the math, but I'm guessing you're better off folding. You aren't possibly going to have better than 60% equity here. You seem to have an average sized stack, so that means you've already got like a 50/50 shot at making it ITM. That probably means you need a LOT more than 60% (again, that's like, at best, if opponent is pushing top 50%, you're like 54% equity against the top 25% of hands).


[/ QUOTE ]
I did the Pokerstove against top 50%, and you're right on the equity. What's interesting is that he showed 45s, which I had to go to top 58.5% to include. I think he opened his range up because the table was playing fairly tight, the blinds were hitting him soon, and the blinds were moving up. He probably hadn't gotten a chance to push first in because of other raisers, so he was pushing light.

Against this specific hand, I was about 60/40, which of course meant that I lost when flopped his 5, and I caught a 4-flush with 2 overs that didn't improve. I seem to finishing near the bubble in sats lately, and I'm trying to up the aggression slightly (or maybe just decrease the passivity) near the bubble.

[namespace]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I agree fold, but do you push AK? What about AQs?
I do, but i've been bubbling a lot lately and am needing to re-look my strategy. (not a math guy, so that may be the answer - study the numbers)

[/ QUOTE ]
AK, yes ... AQ, probably. Now you're getting up into likely 63-67% equity against your opponent's range, and that's probably enough to justify a call. JJ+ I'm calling. And its also a consideration that even if you lose this hand, you aren't out, you still have enough chips to get right back into the fray with 1 double-up.

Like I said, you're already probably like 50% to get a prize here. Doubling up once probably puts your chances up near 100%, looking at the stack sizes. But folding here doesn't cut your chances at all, and I think if you're halfway decent/don't run into a monster, you could get the chips you need to stay afloat by just stealing blinds once or twice an orbit as first in.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think I would push AK here-this is a sat after all with the top being paid equally.

I think first in vig goes a long way and I'd rather be the first to push AT than call a push with AK.

Though I'm not sure if this can even be backed up through math.

[seke2]

You could do the exact math, it's just exceedingly difficult and probably not worthwhile. But I think you can approximate reasonably.

If you work under the assumption that you are currently 50/50 to get ITM, and winning this pot would make your chances roughly 100% while losing would drop your chances to say, 20% (not out of it, since 1 double up puts you back at a near-average stack), maybe you'd need like 60-65% equity to call? That's how I thought it might be a call with mid-60's equity, which is roughly what I figured for AK.