In the bubble. I have a tight table-image. Villain is a pretty tight player, but one of the looser ones on this particular table. I made this bet to steal the blinds.

Edit: We are getting less than 2:1 here. IMO this should be an easy fold. Agree?

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t80/t160
4 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
Hero: t2465
Button: t3910
SB: t3800
BB: t3325

Pre-flop: (4 players) Hero is UTG with Q J
Hero raises to t360, Button folds, SB calls t280 (pot was t600), BB folds.

Flop: 4 K 8 (t880, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t480, SB raises all-in t3440

I have not done an ICM calculation in a while:

- If you fold, you have 1,625 chips and 15% equity

- If you call and lose, you have 0% equity

- If you call and win, you have 5,090 chips and 32.6% equity.

Therefore the breakeven probability of winning to justify calling can be found by:

Folding equity = (Probability of losing x 0%) + (Probability of winning x 32.6%)

15% = (X x 0) + (Y x 32.6%)
15% = Y32.6%
Y = 15/32.6 = 46.0% chance of winning.

What is your chance of winning?

Let's look at a range of hands that Villain might do this with (any K, and pocket pair):

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

184,140 games 0.015 secs 12,276,000 games/sec

Board: 4c Kc 8d
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 40.947% 40.93% 00.02% 75364 36.00 { QcJc }
Hand 1: 59.053% 59.03% 00.02% 108704 36.00 { 22+, AKs, K2s+, K2o+ }



Looks like a pretty close fold, unless you think he is bluffing more than 6% of the time with an undercard to a Q...

I don't like the flop bet at all. I would prefer to check behind here and get the free card. If we do decide to bet this flop, pot size would be ideal...but that commits us, so just shovel. Half pot says, my AK just missed.

AK would not have missed on this flop.

Fold preflop.


yes its four handed, but the idea of a SNG is to first make the money, then go for the win. Since you only have 15 BBs and you are the shortstack, you should not be playing any hand you would not commit all of your chips with. QJ is not a hand to commit all of your chips with.

Yes, yes, yes, I really don't like that raise w/ QJs PF. The only time you should be making that kind of play is if you're the dominant stack at the table and want to push around the shorties on the bubble. But here you are the shortie and you need to conserve your chips for big moves.

Once you're in, though, I think you just have to use whatever FE you have left and open shove the flop. SB doesn't have a lot of chips to play with either, so force him to face the prospect of being crippled with his TP or whatever he's holding. If you are prepared to get jiggy with this hand to begin with, I think you have to play it hard postflop in this situation.

I have no problem with the preflop raise. QJ suited is aboslutely raiseable 4 handed. Believe it or not, game thoery allows QJ suited to raise even under the gun 9 handed! Not a fan of that kinds of raise myself, but it's definately acceptable 4 handed. Now i'm not saying you have to raise, but if you are completely against raising, you are playing too tight. Even though tight is right here, you can't just let yourself get blinded out either. I actually don't think the flop bet is so bad either, althought I think check might be best, a bet would only be a slightly worse move (and it might not be worse). There is a very good chance a bet will win the pot and if it doesn't you still have outs. As far as the all in goes, I would fold, but I wouldn't say calling is horrible either. I like to hold on to my chips and outplay later. Overall, I don't think you played nearly as bad as people seem to think, if you did play wrong, it wasn't by much, it's easy for people to say you played wrong AFTER he shoves you all in.

Hero is not close to being blinded out, he has enough room to wait for better spots. And besides, his effective M is low enough here that he should be looking for pushing opportunities, not making min-type raises with speculative hands.


That bet is definitely a bad move. Hero has led with almost 25% of his stack and doesn't actually have a hand. The best outcome here is for Hero to steal the pot on the flop, and the best way to do that is to open-push. And if he does get called by a better hand, he's still 2-1 to complete his flush by the river.

What would Hero do if SB flat-called on the flop and the turn card didn't improve his hand? Check-fold, leaving himself with 1700 chips?

Actually I like your point, I'm now convinced check is the right move, as for the whole preflop situation, I didn't see the raise was so small, he should make it 3 bets if he's going to raise. But my point on getting blinded out didn't mean he was getting blinded out, it meant if you sit and wait for AK the blinds are going to eat your stack awfully quickly 4 handed. You're only going to get a hand better than QJ suited about 6% of the time, there is a good chance your hand is best and if you are waiting for a top 6% hand, you are going to see your stack drop awfully quickly 4 handed

Wow, really? I never crunched the numbers on that.

Wow.. learn something new every day. 6% 4-handed? Yikes. I'm going to go ponder my short-handed game.

Yeah that's based on Andy Bloch and Chris Ferguson's game theory

I'm not sure it makes sense to look at it that way. It makes QJs sound like a really good hand but it becomes a statistical underdog if called by any Ax or Kx hand, which would not be that unusual in a $2 tourney. I'm not saying you have to wait for AA/KK/AK - it's the combination of the QJs, the small raise, and the position that I don't like here.

the chances are, nobody has anything that can call a raise. If they really are calling with all Ax and all Kx, then you are still not only a coinflip statistically, but you are the FAVORITE to win the hand because you are the aggressor. If they don't hit some kinda of pair (especially with Kx), they are going to have a tough time calling anything.