Bellagio 15k Bustout Hand vs. ElkY...seeking opinions...

[Seebs]

Hey ya'll...just wanted to collect some opinions on my bustout hand from the Bellagio 15k yesterday. I have talked about it ad nauseam, and seemingly been heavily criticized for it, but I wanted to hear from some of you...as, of course, I keep running in through my head over and over..

So, with blinds at 50k-100k (!), and an ante of 10k, I had just previously been CL (9 players left) with 3.25m in chips, but lost a race with AK vs. 77 for about 925k, and then went through the blinds, plus a few antes extra plus that, leaving me with just about 2m in chips, which is where most of the players basically were.

The situation was this: everyone folded to ElkY and me in the blinds and he brought it in, as usual, to 275k, which was slightly more than he had been bringing it in for recently. A little history first: I had ElkY on my right every time we played together during this tournament and in our history he had brought it in 100% of the time when it was folded to us in the blinds, which is obviously considerable given that stage in the tournament. This is no exaggeration, as it was literally 100%, which was the correct strategy for him, as I had decided to let him do his thing and not get involved with garbage hands at that stage when I didn't need to. I would say he brought it in when it folded to him on the button 85% of the time, and in the cutoff 70-75% of the time.

So, he does his thing, and I look down at K-9off and decided that this hand was too good to just let it go to him at this point, given his raising frequency, as well as his expectation that I would not play back at him whatsoever (I believe I re-raised him back roughly 4-5 times in late position in the last two days we played together). I didn't see him calling me too lightly here, and certainly think he would have raised me with 2-3off the same as AA there, although he seemingly had been bringing it in small with his better hands the few times I saw them. He had no reason not to keep raising with ATC, as it had to have seemed like free money to him.

I only had roughly 7 times what he brought it in for, and he had me barely covered with probably about 2.2m to my 2.0m, so even though he was basically playing for his tournament there, I was ACTUALLY playing for mine, which may be a reason to lean toward folding here.

At any rate, he thinks for about 60 seconds and calls with A-9hearts and I'm in jail and out of the tournament.

I still feel that this was the right play given all the info that I had collected over the last 2-3 days playing with him, but it was just unfortunate that he actually had a hand then...although it seems to me that given all the information he had on mine, it was still a bit of a light call.

Thoughts? Basic aggressive play? Terrible play? Let me know...

Thanks,
J

[Justin Bonomo]

Your equity shoving over his range of any 2 if he is calling perfectly (i.e. he can see your hand) is +3 big blinds, a huge chunk of your stack.

However, after playing with Elky on and off for 2 days this tourney, I highly doubt he's raising any 2. There are a couple things I don't understand in your OP though. You make it sound like your sample size of hands where it folded to Elky in the SB is large. It can't really be more than 2 or 3 hands, can it? Also, you don't specify what "bringing it in" means. Is he ever limping, or always raising? You mention that 2.75x is larger than normal. Why would you ever fold your BB to a SB raise of 2.5x or less? I'm literally calling any 2 in that spot (and raising some as well of course). Give us the exact history of your SB vs BB hands rather than using phrases like "not getting involved with trash hands".

If instead we say Elky is raising about 40% of hands (which is very wide and includes a lot of trash hands, but is still somewhat accurate) and calling with A8+, KJ+, any pair, A2s+, KTs+, QJs, , then your shove equity is +0.26 BB, which means you are actually showing a loss on the hand still (because you had to post 1.1 BB).

Maybe I'm giving Elky too much credit, but raising 100% of your range in this spot is pretty bad. I assume he's good enough to limp a large % of his range here as well, but I could be wrong, or maybe I'm underestimating how tight you've been playing Joe.


Basically what it comes down to is, if you are confident he's raising over ~55% of his range there, then shove for sure. If it's less than ~45%, then calling is a better option. (Too lazy to do the math for in between 45% and 55% to figure out exactly where calling becomes right)

IMO, calling > shoving >>>> folding.

[Paul Smith]

Who covers who is irrelevant here. Given the frequencies/dynamics you have assigned to Elky, and that you hadn't played back at him much at all, the shove seems standard. The fact he didn't snap call also makes it even more clear you made the right move.

EDIT: I agree with everything Justin says, but am trusting Joe's take on his read and image. In general, I expect good players to show up with a hand relatively frequently here given the stack sizes.

[Justin Bonomo]

Originally Posted by Paul Smith

Who covers who is irrelevant here.

With 9 left in a WPT, this isn't even close to true.

[Paul Smith]

Originally Posted by Justin Bonomo

With 9 left in a WPT, this isn't even close to true.

Please describe why a 2 BB difference with the stacks sizes described by Joe should be a factor in Joe's decision.

[Justin Bonomo]

Originally Posted by Paul Smith

Please describe why a 2 BB difference with the stacks sizes described by Joe should be a factor in Joe's decision.

Because the equity of having 2 BB left with 9 players remaining in a WPT where the average stack size is 15 BB is huge, especially considering both players have just posted their BB's and will get some cheap hands to look at. And then there's the added equity of being a short stack in a game with antes where the majority of hands are going raise/fold (i.e you can get 5.5-2 to play a hand against one opponent a large % of the time).

[Justin Bonomo]

Originally Posted by Paul Smith

The fact he didn't snap call also makes it even more clear you made the right move.

I think this is also incorrect. Elky knows he has a loose image, and knows that Sebok is the type of guy that's going to make a stand. Elky's not an idiot.

If he is indeed raising 100% of hands, he's going to snap call A9o.

The fact that he didn't indicates that he has a more reasonable range, like the 40% range I suggested where A9o is towards the bottom of the range of hands he should call with, and he should be "thinking then calling" with.

[Paul Smith]

Originally Posted by Justin Bonomo

Because the equity of having 2 BB left with 9 players remaining in a WPT where the average stack size is 15 BB is huge, especially considering both players have just posted their BB's and will get some cheap hands to look at. And then there's the added equity of being a short stack in a game with antes where the majority of hands are going raise/fold (i.e you can get 5.5-2 to play a hand against one opponent a large % of the time).

Of course there's more equity in having 2 BBs rather then being busto. That's not what I'm asking. What I'm asking is, how would it affect the specific situation that Joe is in for this hand? What would you do differently then you laid out in your first post if the stack sizes were reversed?

[Justin Bonomo]

Originally Posted by Paul Smith

Of course there's more equity in having 2 BBs rather then being busto. That's not what I'm asking. What I'm asking is, how would it affect the specific situation that Joe is in for this hand? What would you do differently then you laid out in your first post if the stack sizes were reversed?

If Elky has the chiplead, Joe should be slightly more likely to make the play that busts him less. I'm honestly not sure if this means calling or shoving, but I would assume calling.

If Joe has the chiplead, his shove will have a bit more fold equity as well.

And again, there's hidden equity in having a 2 BB stack (see last post and my 5.5-2 line). It's worth more than a 4 BB stack would be if you tried to calculate a prize split based on chip equity for example. Because of this, it's like you get a 2 BB rebate if you shove and lose, which is huge and affects the math greatly.

[Jimmy Fricke]

I'm with Justin, I really don't agree that Elky is playing 100% of his hands here for a raise. There's no reason for him to. If he was in fact doing that then definitely he should be open shoving his weaker hands since it seems like if he just open shoved the bottom 60% you would not be calling with hands as strong as K9 which would be a disastrous error.

Mathematically, making it 275k from the sb with any 2 cards would be incredibly spewy against you if you are defending well from the bb. There's absolutely nothing wrong with calling in this spot as long as you're willing to ship it over cbets on certain flops with air. Elky is in a terrible spot postflop against you, which is why it leads me to believe he's not making this raise with a huge range of hands (huge meaning 80%-100%, he could still be opening a little under half like Justin said though I think he could limp a lot of those holdings as well).

I think there's a little something wrong when you're willing to go nuts on him if he limps but are just not willing to play back at him if he raises as small as he is. The 'tournament life' arguments are just too damaging when the structure has turned to ****. There are serious chips in the pot every single hand, so you can't be worried about shipping it in light in some spots. I watched the final table for a bit, and seeing people open fold or limp SB's with a short stack or watching Nam Le open for damn near a minraise and fold to a shove with 9.5bb's from the SB was PAINFUL. Oops, on a tangent.

Here's a quick pokerstove analysis of your shove based on a 40% opening range and a calling range of KQ, A9+, 55+ which I think is pretty reasonable for Elky. That's 11.8% of overall hands. So 70.5% of the time you shove, you get folds. Huzzah. This is what makes it profitable. You win 275k+100k+90k = 465k. Over 20% of your stack, great success.

29.5% of the time, you get called. Fear not, when you get called you have 31.7% equity against his overall range (from pokerstove). 4.09m in the pot, you get 31.7% of it meaning you end up with 1296530, round it up to 1.3m which is a net loss of 600k. Boo.

70.5% of the time you profit 465k, 29.5% of the time you lose 600k, meaning the EV of the shove is about 150k. That's 1.5 bb which is significant but I'm fairly sure that calling is higher EV than that. Agree with Justin. Call > shove >> fold.