AA on bubble of Sunday Million DS Sat

[Ontario_Tory]

What's my line here?

Villain has been hit luckboxing his way to a ticket the whole FT. Kinda gross how well he's been running. That being said, he's been pushing around the table... His range is huge...

It's not a turbo - I have plenty of time.

4 of us left, 3 seats given. 4th gets $35.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (4 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

saw flop|<font color="#C00000">saw showdown</font>

<font color="#C00000">UTG (t9512)</font>
Button (t1270)
SB (t2633)
<font color="#C00000">Hero (t1585)</font>

Preflop: Hero is BB with A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
UTG calls t30, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, SB completes, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t120</font>, UTG calls t90, SB folds.

Flop: (t270) 9[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 2[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets t465</font>, <font color="#CC3333">UTG raises to t3120</font>, Hero ????

[Micdiddy]

Call and cry. Leaving yourself with 1K is tought here, but like you said you do have plenty of time. Still UTG is obviously a HUGE fish, his first mistake is playing any hand for the remainder of thr tournament when he shouldn't play anything at all, period. Now that we know he's a fish, he could be pushing KQ here with or without a spade. it's more likely he's on some sort of draw or worse made hand than he just flopped the flush GG. I would prob go broke here and push, but i'm not super satty savvy.

[Austiger]

Open push the flop next time. He SHOULD be reluctant to call you given his position. The last thing you want is to be in a race. As played, what's your gut feeling on how good the other two are? Are they going to get into it with the big stack eventually? Many players just don't get the big picture here and just think "I have a good hand. I have to play it." If you think that might be the case, then fold.

[mflip]

Can you explain the thinking on the flop bet?

[Ontario_Tory]

[ QUOTE ]
Can you explain the thinking on the flop bet?

[/ QUOTE ]

Thinking at the time: I'm safely ahead, he could have anything, let's induce a fold. In prior hands he was not folding to any 'regular' bets, but was folding to overbets, hence the 2 X pot bet. I figured if he repops, I'll re-evaluate.

He re-popped.

I re-evaluated.

Now I'm curious if I re-evaluated correctly in 2p2's mind...

[hamnegger]

call u only have 1000 left

[bulldogs24]

just shove preflop against him

[swede554]

[ QUOTE ]
just shove preflop against him

[/ QUOTE ]

Come on shoving 50 bb's preflop in this spot w/ AA is just bad even if villain is a LAG luckbox. However, I'd be willing to raise a little more then the standard preflop raise since he is likely to make some speculative calls w/ that stack and if he's been running good. I'd make it 150-200 preflop, lead flop w/ a potsize bet and call a push.

[Nate.]

Tory --

Once you bet the flop you have roughly 1000 left. If you fold (we'll round off the big stack's chances of getting a ticket to 100%):

The three shortest stacks are 2600, 1300, 1000. As a very rough approximation, P(you don't get a ticket) = (2600/4900) * (1300/2300) + (1300/4900) * (2600/3600) ~= 50%

If you call and lose P(no ticket) = 100%. If you call and win you'd have half the chips in play and P(no ticket) would be roughly (2600/7000) * (1300/4400) + (1300/7000) * (2600/5700) ~= 23%, so P(ticket) ~= 77%.

So since the utilities involved are (roughly) .77, .5, and 0, you need to be roughly a 2:1 favorite to call. Note the big discrepancy between pot odds and "utility odds." I really doubt you're a 2:1 favorite here vs. his range, though it's close. I'd fold.

But... yikes, don't put yourself in this spot. Honestly vs. weak opponents I like a flop check (especially since the chips you win aren't as important as they would be in any other setting). As weak as it sounds, I'd fold to heavy action and wait for safe cards before making reasonable bets. In these spots you should err on the small side when you're value-betting, because the marginal-utility effects are so great. Overbetting this flop is not good.

Of course, if your opponents make you fold every single hand, then you have to adjust and eventually make a stand. In practice--and I've played tons of these sunday million satellites--this doesn't happen.

Hope this tough spot had a happy ending.

--Nate

[swede554]

Excellent post Nate. I certainly need to work on correctly applying satelitte concepts such as these in similar situations.