Villain had been pushing fairly frequently (though not constantly) in the last few orbits, and had not entered a pot without a push since becoming shortstacked; but had not had to show down any of the hands he pushed with.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

MP (t6465)
Button (t1605)
SB (t1295)
Hero (t2010)
UTG (t2125)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9, A.
3 folds, SB raises to t1295, Hero...?

ETA: This is a $1.20 single table SNG, where the top three get paid.

fold. he beat you to the push now you have to fold. If he just completes then you push. Simple.

It's not that simple.

We're probably significantly ahead of his range.

It may not be that simple, but we certainly would prefer first in vig.

Where do we draw the line for calling in this scenario?

I don't know. I play it by feel. It's one of those things where you gotta be at the table. Like, what hands has he shoved with, etc. If he's shoving several times per round, we are WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY ahead of his range here.

Given that we're 5 handed, still 2 from the bubble, we can't exactly fold to cash. There's one massive chip leader, and we're all pretty close 12, 16, 20, 21, 65. Cop's gotta plug it into SNG PT, but I can't imagine folding this hand here. Sure, we'd like FIV, but with a guy on our right who's pushing a ton, we aren't going to get that chance all that often, and maybe never with a hand as strong as A9.

I pretty much instacall here, but I'll leave it up to Cop to SNG PT this.

call every time, unless the payout circumstances are drastically different

Before SnGPT: I instacall also.

After SnGPT: If villains range is 22+,A2+,K2+,Q2s+,Q6o+,J7s+,J9o+,T8s+,98s instacall, picks up 2.8% of the prize pool over folding
If villains range is 22+,A2s+,A3o+,KTs+,KJo+,QJs narrow call, .2% of the prize pool
If villains range is 44+,A7s+,A9o+,KJs+ easy fold, 2.2% of the prize pool


What should his pushing range be? if he puts us on a coinflip to call or fold his pushing range should be 22+,A2+,K7o+,K4s+,QTo+,Q9s+,JTs, which is somewhere between the top 2. Pluggng that back in as his pushing range we should call with A9, picking up 1.2% of the prize pool.

If he thinks were tighter than that (since weve never called his pushes) then he gets looser and A9 improves even more.

Sounds like this might be the case, since he's never had to show any of his pushes.

What I hate about these situations is that it's a complete guess whether he's pushing with ATC or he's woken up with a real hand. What I find is that people are more likely to be holding a real hand later in a string of pushes than earlier (they push with mediocre cards when they're desperate, and then they keep doing so when they score real hands to take advantage of the deception). A player can't keep pushing and assuming that people will keep getting out of his way, so I would be more fearful of a real hand in this situation than I would have been on his first or second push. But maybe that's just superstition with no basis in reality...

Very interesting discussion! Ready for results?

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BTW, on a totally unrelated note, I want to thank you guys for teaching me to bet/raise my monster hands rather than slowplaying them. Just now I felted a guy with my quad eights (he had TP), and I don't know if I could have gotten there without building the pot on the river and turn. I was going to post the hand as a separate thread, but the converter is not responding; plus the closed thread scared me off of that idea (personally, I had no problem commiserating with Gallo over the folded straight flush, but I'm not in charge).

Zach's right, I shouldn't have posted in Strat.

No worries about that one, there's potential for a strat question, but you gotta frame it like a strategy post, converter, reads, question, etc. Like I said, feel free to repost it if you'd like.

EDITED TO ADD: I didn't even notice that closed thread was a straight flush fold...

Results: hero calls, villain shows AJ, which held up. But I feel a lot better about my call after seeing that many of you would have done the same. I think maybe it was just bad luck; but jmbreslin might have had something there. It's impossible to know, because the results don't prove he didn't have a wide range.

I stick to my guns and say I woulda folded.

I woulda called. He could push with almost any two cards there. I know if I'm in the villains situation, I'm pushing with almost any two cards there, anyway. This is one of those "decisions not outcomes" situations; I firmly believe you made the right decision, it just happened that he had a hand that was way at the top of his range.

Right on, thanks. That's what I told myself at the time; but I definitely wanted to run it by you guys.

FWIW A8 is the cutoff for me here - too many hands he could have that are dominating A -weak, but A9 is way ahead of his range.

This call becomes a lot tougher if the villain pushes from the CO and we are instead on the button with 2 players to act behind us.

Good point.