Holy pot odds!
Or ... don't fold so fast, Batman!
In my last post, I mentioned my exit hand from a micro MTT near the (irrelevant) bubble:
Blinds at 100/200/25, I(4300) picked up KK, UTG+1. UTG(5200) opened with a min-raise to 400. I reraised to 1600, folded to BB(3600) who went all in. UTG raised all in.
I called, found I was up against AA and AK, and lost.
At the time I thought that the call was a mistake for two reasons: I made it too quickly (it was a ‘what the hell, let's gamboool’ call), and it was wrong. The first reason is the more galling one and still applies. But, I'm beginning to reconsider the second. In this kind of position, unless I'm keen to practice my short stack play, I'd be willing to take slightly the worst of it with a call, since the winning outcome (a near triple up) leaves me with a very comfortable stack to try and work through to the final table. That factor favours a marginal call, if indeed it is marginal.
Time to think about some ranges. The absolute tightest ranges I can imagine assigning to the BB and UTG are KK, AA, and AK. I don't read anything into UTG's raise, rather than call. He had struck me as a somewhat knowledgeable player, and since a call would obviously pot commit me, he might as well get the money in immediately with the slight added vigorish that I just might fold to a raise, but not to a call -- in fact I never would, but some might. The combinations are easy enough to work out by hand, but giving it to PokerStove is even easier. My equity in the pot against those two ranges is 25.9%. If I call, with my remaining stack of 2,700, it will create a main pot of 10,900 and a side pot of 1,400.
My call is less than a quarter of the main pot.
My pot equity is more than a quarter.
Therefore, call is correct.
A call would even be correct if I took the extra 700 chips that are about to go into the side pot, and threw them to UTG.
If we loosen up BB's range (as I suspect we should), say adding QQ and JJ, equity jumps to 34.9%. If we add only QQ and AQ, it jumps to 41.4% and, apparently paradoxically, actually puts us ahead of UTG -- because with more one ace hands for BB, there are, relatively, fewer two ace ones for UTG. Even if we tighten UTG's range to KK+, and AK suited (to allow either for the fact that with AK and caught in the middle, he might make a very poor fold, or that the initial min raise favours AA over AK), against the looser BB ranges, call is still correct.
Zowie! Ka-ping!
In my last post, I mentioned my exit hand from a micro MTT near the (irrelevant) bubble:
Blinds at 100/200/25, I(4300) picked up KK, UTG+1. UTG(5200) opened with a min-raise to 400. I reraised to 1600, folded to BB(3600) who went all in. UTG raised all in.
I called, found I was up against AA and AK, and lost.
At the time I thought that the call was a mistake for two reasons: I made it too quickly (it was a ‘what the hell, let's gamboool’ call), and it was wrong. The first reason is the more galling one and still applies. But, I'm beginning to reconsider the second. In this kind of position, unless I'm keen to practice my short stack play, I'd be willing to take slightly the worst of it with a call, since the winning outcome (a near triple up) leaves me with a very comfortable stack to try and work through to the final table. That factor favours a marginal call, if indeed it is marginal.
Time to think about some ranges. The absolute tightest ranges I can imagine assigning to the BB and UTG are KK, AA, and AK. I don't read anything into UTG's raise, rather than call. He had struck me as a somewhat knowledgeable player, and since a call would obviously pot commit me, he might as well get the money in immediately with the slight added vigorish that I just might fold to a raise, but not to a call -- in fact I never would, but some might. The combinations are easy enough to work out by hand, but giving it to PokerStove is even easier. My equity in the pot against those two ranges is 25.9%. If I call, with my remaining stack of 2,700, it will create a main pot of 10,900 and a side pot of 1,400.
My call is less than a quarter of the main pot.
My pot equity is more than a quarter.
Therefore, call is correct.
A call would even be correct if I took the extra 700 chips that are about to go into the side pot, and threw them to UTG.
If we loosen up BB's range (as I suspect we should), say adding QQ and JJ, equity jumps to 34.9%. If we add only QQ and AQ, it jumps to 41.4% and, apparently paradoxically, actually puts us ahead of UTG -- because with more one ace hands for BB, there are, relatively, fewer two ace ones for UTG. Even if we tighten UTG's range to KK+, and AK suited (to allow either for the fact that with AK and caught in the middle, he might make a very poor fold, or that the initial min raise favours AA over AK), against the looser BB ranges, call is still correct.
Zowie! Ka-ping!
Labels: math
posted by Michael Albert at 8:44 am
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