I was in a 2 table sit and go on pokerstars, and the following hand came up when we got down to 5 handed...

The blinds are 100/200 with a 50 ante, and everyone folds to the small blind, who has 3900 and decides to limp. I have A 3 and make it 800 to go, trying to take it down right there. He quickly calls.

Flop is Q 8 7

He moves all in.

Ok, now here's my question. At this point in the hand, I now have 2200 chips remaining and the pot is 4050. I know he can't beat my ace high, so I call.

My question is this: Can anyone defend folding in this spot, assuming that you know ace high is good?

?

if you know ace high is good, you're asking if calling with the best hand is correct. what??

i think the real question is, how the heck would you "know" that ace-high is good? especially since it's online and you can't really see any physical tell that screams "bluff!"

aseem

Yes, I am indeed asking if calling with the best hand is correct. I guess I better elaborate -- he had J T .

In the PokerStars 2 table sit and gos, 5th place is the bubble. I'm asking if calling with a 60-40 advantage on the bubble is worth it.

My answer is, obviously, yes. I prefer to go for it when 4th place is $9 and 1st is $36. But are there any good arguments AGAINST calling the rest of your stack off in that situation?

I don't honestly know how I knew it, but I did. Occasionally the play of a hand and the style of player I'm up against gives me a feel of "where I'm at," and in this case, I felt like I had the best hand and acted on it.

By the way, the turn was a 9 .

I might be confused, but I dont see how you call his all in with no pair and no draw.
Other than an ace hitting, you realisticly have no chance at this point, as you say when the 9 hit for his straight.

Well, like I said, I knew he couldn't beat an ace high and I was pretty sure he didn't have much in the way of a draw, either. This is just something I knew from watching him play for an hour or more. But yeah, when the 9 falls, I'm beat...

so you're not asking if calling with ace high is correct... you're asking if calling an all-in when you're a 60% favorite is correct. there's no real answer to that, it's just personal preference. if you're on the bubble and you're playing for first, sure, it's a fine call. but some people wouldn't call in a similar situation, e.g. 66 vs. AK, simply because it's a race even though they are technically a favorite, and they don't want to gamble for all their chips on a coinflip.

aseem

Yeah, that's what I intended to ask. If it were the world series, I could see an argument against calling there... but I can easily play another at any hour of the day or night. I'll take my edge in that spot and go for first.

ok.
i guess, if you KNOW A high is winning at that point, then you call. of course. why wouldnt you call with best hand? Im just a bit confused, with his quick call, how you knew he didnt have a Q or 2 pair....

I've played enough online poker to know when someone's bluffing, and when I can justify a call with ace high. It's something you can very easily pick up by playing heads up matches. I've actually even called down with king high before (and won). Concentrate on what the purpose of what their bet is, and what they'd like you to believe.

I don't think you can be entirely certain about that read without knowing the guy and how he plays.. He could either just be _that_ bad, and have pushed with the nuts there, or he could have been an exceptionally good player to realize that you'd put him on nothing if he pushed.

I don't know how many exceptionally good players you run into at the $5 levels, but I've only seen a few in the many that I've played.

Horrible raise to start with...

Why do you want to risk you're whole stack when you are in need of a real hand? You still had 10x the big blind...needed a hand, yes. Need to gamble it all on a garbage hand? Nope. Unless, of course you are 100% sure he is on a pure bluff. Even so a pair of 66's and you're meat...

Bad raise, bad call no matter how it turned out. IMHO of course...

All I can tell you is that I played with hm for a little under an hour, and that I wasn't particularly concerned about how I played the hand before I knew my ace high was good. I was just wondering if calling with only a slight edge was a good idea on the bubble.

Of course it isnt....

Premium hands or position (ie button and everyone has folded to you).

How can you dismiss a 60-40 edge like that?

There isn't any prize structure irregularity to convince me that going for 1st is a mistake. There's a $9 difference between first and second, and a $27 difference between 1st and 4th. I'll take my edge with ace high in that spot any day.

I can realistically assume that if I win this pot, I'm going to get at least second place and cripple a maniac in the process. Why fold a 60-40 edge here?

I think you're just misunderstanding the point of the post. I am not asking for advice on how the hand was played up until my call, or how my read was made. I am happy with how I played the hand and have confidence that I could pick off this situation 5 times out of 6 correctly. You just had to have been playing at that table, with the player in question to understand how I truly did know ace high was good.

Would you fold and try to outplay them with a shorter stack, knowing you had a 60-40 shot at doubling up and getting a decent percentage of the chips in the tournament?

if you are set on making a stand here then limp and make your move on the flop or even the turn. Let him trap himself and then U bluff all in. That way you can feel it out without risking all your chips with A3o which 5 handed on the bubble is a bad bad play. The maniac will call an all in preflop with damn near anything 80% of the time. Even they wake up to a real hand here and there not to mention what they "think" is a good hand....

By limping and seeing the flop you can win two ways. You may actually hit, or you can make a move which forces him to have a real hand or he is making a horrible call.

Suited Id have pushed preflop to his limp if anything. Off suit its a push or limp if you play it....IMO

Strategy...you are asking for other people's opinions in your opening post, so when people give you their opinions you shouldn't try and defend what you thought was the right call. Bottom line to me is that you played the whole hand wrong. Either all in preflop or fold preflop. Very rarely will you get a nice piece of the flop with A3o. If you do see the flop you may have the best hand, but he would have to be on a stone cold bluff, and even then you aren't a huge favorite.

Here. I'll quote myself:

"In the PokerStars 2 table sit and gos, 5th place is the bubble. I'm asking if calling with a 60-40 advantage on the bubble is worth it."

I wasn't asking for your opinion on how the specific hand was played. The above statement accurately describes what I want to hear opinions on.

If you think it isn't worth risking, give me a reason why. That's the intention of the post. At the time, I didn't think the fold was worth it because:
1) The buyin is 5.50 and 4th pays 9, 1st pays 36.
2) I look at these sngs as disposable. The tournament itself is less important to me than making the right decision every hand. I'm not going to fold a 60-40 advantage unless I'm sitting on a large stack and a slightly larger one is all in against me. Bottom line, I don't treat these as the world series, I treat them as a way to make money.

I think your analysis of the specific hand is completely wrong, based on the significant information you are missing about the player in question. That is neither here nor there.

Strategy -

You seem very confident about your call but up against a good player, he would've set you up for just for this situation by making loose calls early. Apparently, your opponent was a habitual bluffer. Don't make a habit of calling with A high.

Horrible hand, bottom line

You ask for advice then question anyone who goes against your move. Sounds like you just want a pat on the back for calling with Ace high. Pot odds say yes, good call. Tournament strategy, probably not so good. I don't really want to race with my last 3000 chips at 100/200 on the bubble.

I repeat: I'm not asking for a pat on the back for the call, I'm asking if there's any way I fold, given the conditions.

I could see your point if this were actually a race, but it's 60-40... it's not a break-even sort of play. There's significant money in this particular call over the long haul.

Thanks for the detailed insight.

I would never have done this against a good player. Calling with ace high has its time and place.

But what do you think? Would you take a 60-40 edge for all of your money (on a semi-short stack) on the bubble?

Depends on what you're goal for the tourney is.

Here's what I said earlier:

At the time, I didn't think the fold was worth it because:
1) The buyin is 5.50 and 4th pays 9, 1st pays 36.
2) I look at these sngs as disposable. The tournament itself is less important to me than making the right decision every hand. I'm not going to fold a 60-40 advantage unless I'm sitting on a large stack and a slightly larger one is all in against me. Bottom line, I don't treat these as the world series, I treat them as a way to make money.

My goal is, and always will be, to get myself to the heads up match with a fighting chance at first. I don't think I've ever limped into the money. I prefer going out on the bubble or getting 1st/2nd over taking 4th place money with no shot at anything higher.

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but this is a tangentially related story that happened today...

I had AKos in late position. Raised 4x BB or so. One limper called. Flop was 2c3c7c. I didn't have a club, but I bet out 10x BB. The guy goes all-in for 8x BB more. After some deliberation, I put him on a stone cold bluff, so I make the call. He flips over QJos. Unfortunately, his jack is a club and he hits another on the turn.

At first, I was proud of the read and knowing that I had the best hand with ace high...but then I looked at the odds and saw that he was post-flop favorite. Was I justified in making the ace-high call?

I'm sure some of the people that responded to this thread that I played my hand terribly would tell you that no, you were not justified in making the call.

The fact is that you had to make it if you put him on a bluff. You were facing a bet of 8BB in a pot of roughly 36.5BB. Given that your read told you he was probably semibluffing a flush draw, you had to call. The only likely hand he could have that would have you crushed would be a pocket pair with a club (making you a pretty big dog).

The way I look at it, your read was right, and you were in a coin flip situation, therefore it was the right move that time. It doesn't really matter that he was a slight favorite when the money went in; you only had to call 8BB more for a 50% shot at a 36.5BB pot.

Do you expect anyone who has even an ounce of poker skill to suggest that this would be anything other than an extremely bad call? First, you DO NOT know if he has anything. Second, even the assumption that Ace high is the best hand is false - if he has a flush or straight draw he has the best hand. Third, if players are going to play this stupid and not even be able to double up with a stone cold bluff, you'll find a better spot to take his money.

Did you even read the responses to this? I have answered this multiple times, because you are not the first that has missed the intent. I don't care what you think about the play in the hand; I wanted some reasoning behind folding, accepting the given facts with the situation.



What an 'extremely bad' assumption. I'm sorry if I missed you, but I didn't realize you were at the table with me. Look at the level. At that point in the tournament, I'd played a few hands with him. I knew his tendencies and had an idea of what he held based on his betting pattern. It's called "making a read," and I sometimes do it. Welcome to poker.



This, again, assuming you know more than I do about a person you've never played with. Poker is a game about watching and adjusting to the styles of the other players. Saying a play was 'extremely bad' having never watched the players in question more than one hand is both absurd and baseless.



'Players' were not playing stupid in that tournament. One player, namely that guy, was playing like a maniac. I could take you through my thoughts on his play, but you're likely to dismiss them and tell me I don't really "know" anything in a game of limited knowledge anyway.

Strategy,

You don't have to listen to any advise given. If you think you can read someone, especially a maniac, with absolute certainty - well, I wish you the best. However, don't expect a single player who has any skill to believe you can read someone 100%, or agree with your call. Blind stealing a maniac and chip leader is not a good idea. And they most certianly know the best way to take down a maniac is NOT with A high on the flop when they have position on them at the table.

I'm open to advice on the situation. The hand? Not so much. I'm satisfied with how it went.

The intent behind the post (which you, and many others have missed) is to ask if it's reasonable to call in situations where you know you're only taking a 60-40 edge on the bubble. I don't care what you think about how the hand was played, or whether my call was correct, or what have you. I'm satisfied with how I got my money in and my tournament results speak for themselves.

In cash games, it's quite alright to take an edge like that knowing you can do it over and over again and show a profit in the long run. In the WSOP, it's clearly a different story. But an online sit and go?