situation:

late in a large multi table tournament, blinds 3k/6k, no ante. there are 20 players left.

you are the small blind and have 50k, which is about 1/3 the average stack, and good for 18th place.

the big blind has just been crippled and has 8k left after posting. There is a significant jump in the money between 19th and 18th.

you are dealt 24o and it folds to you.

What is your play?

It's gonna cost you 14k to win 17k as the BB is going to call you since he's getting almost 3-1.

I fold this.

Fold. He's priced in to call, and you have a poor chance to win against any random hand.

Ok,

This hand looks to me like a straightforward fold because of the things you guys have mentioned (your opponent will probably call with any 2 cards, and you are not getting good enough pot odds)

The reason I posted this is because in the actual hand I observed a world class & winning player make what looked to me like an obvious mistake. I observed this hand in the stars 530$ pot limit WCOOP event no. 7, The hand was played by Barry Greenstein. In the actual hand Barry went all in, and was called by the BB's 2 7's, he failed to suck out.

I thought Barry's overall play in the tournament was verry effective. He was playing a hyperagressive style, and dominateing the table, in many instances it was effective to the point where it appeared that the rest of the table was afraid to play a hand against him, and he was exploiting this (almost) to the max. (He did the audio commentary afterwards, and commented that he did not play agressive enough in some situations!!).

Anyway, I just posted this because i thought it was a clear mistake, and wanted to see if anyone else had any other oppinion.

Youre getting sloppy with your math gobears (unless I need a nap!). Theres 9k in the pot and if you add 8 to put BB all in there is 17 giving him just a bit over 2/1 odds, not almost 3/1..... Still an auto-call based purely on pot-odds considerations but lets do the math right.

But....the other stacks are important here. You say 50k is good for 18th out of 20 players, so there is another short stack between 50k and the big blind (or even shorter than the big blind?) What was that stack? If it is less than or closer to the big blinds 8k then it is to BGs 50k then BG didnt make a mistake at all.

In that case BG's thinking would be that the BB will perceive a need for at least a 50/50 hand, giving the other critical stack a chance to get knocked out before it gets to him. Also, what does picking up 9k mean to BG versus losing an additional 8k? If the other short stack is somewhere in the teens then dropping from 50k to 42k doesnt mean that much to BG. He still has an M of almost 5 and the blinds have just passed him so hes got time to wait out both the shorter stacks. At the same time going from 50k to 59k may put him into a better position to take 18th, or even move him up to higher than 18th.


Not knowing the other stacks I cant say that is the case, but I wouldnt jump to the conclusion that BG would make a huge mistake without there being some other considerations.

There seems to be a running theme lately, where most posters are basing late tourney situations purely on one hand TC pot odds, without taking into account the state of the tourney, the prize structure, and tournament odds. Those considerations are much more important than taking small overlays in pot odds in the current hand.

Hey Copernicus - I think that's at least twice you've caught my bad math! I'm going to have to slow down when I reply to posts.

I've been finding your posts on tournament equity interesting. It's given me more to think about that's for sure.

Question for you when you're in online tourneys - are you actually making these calculations on the fly or do you just go by a general understanding/estimate of what the odds are?

I'm pretty sure that I would not be able to make these calculations given the limited amount of time that you have online to make a decision...but I've always been curious as to whether the math guys like Phillips, Matros actually make these calculations on the fly.

Ok, I actually asked Barry about this hand while he was playing WCOOP event no.8. He told me that he made a mistake interpreting the BB's stack size, since he is not used to online.

The BB Had posted his blind of 3k, and had 5k remaining in his stack, At the time Barry thought the 5k was the bb's total stack, including the blind he had already posted. So barry went all in thinking it was 3.5K more to win 6.5 k, which makes alot more sense.

I don't recall the exact details about the other low stacks involved, but the 19th place player was just slightly shorter than Barry (maybe 5k or so), not crippled like the player in the BB.

Also, Barry has said on many occasions that he plays tournaments to win, rather than looking to move up the money, so that is a factor here as well.

No, I rarely am doing the math at game time (other than pot odds calculations). Thats the main benefit of posting here to me..it makes me do the hard work and hopefully I'll remember them come game time.

Most decisions at game time arent really that close.

I take it you dont know the size of that other short stack? If it was closer to BGs stack then I think he did make a mistake either in misjudging the likelhood of BB folding (a bit of hubris since everyone had been crumbling in his presence?) or misjudging the tournament situation.