A hand I forgot from yesterday
Here's a hand from yesterday that I forgot to post. I made a big laydown, and the folks at 2+2 were like, OMGWTFBBQ!?!?!111. Here it is:
SB (t146538)
Hero (t108584)
Preflop: Hero is SB with 5
, J.
7 folds, SB calls t4000, Hero checks.
Flop: ($23200) 5
, J, 7 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets 23000, SB raises 76784 to 100144 to put me all-in, Hero folds.
This guy had given me two walks in the only other blind vs. blind situations, and here he is looking to see a flop apparently. So I check my option and let it go. Flop is pretty damn sweet for me, but it's monotone so I pot it when he checks over to me. He then comes back over the top all-in. I discuss it with a friend of mine, and we both agree that it's a fold. He could easily have a made flush here (limped in with two s00teds, quite possible). He could also possibly have J7 which has me buried, or J+. As long as that spade is above a 5, he's a favorite. He has a lot of suckout equity even if currently behind, and if I call this I'm going broke.
What people need to understand is in a tournament, fold equity is king. First in vigorish is the law of the land. The first player to the all-in can win it two ways, by getting the other player to fold, or by winning in a showdown. Therefore, the all-in player is actually a 2:1 favorite. In this particular hand I needed to call all-in for my final 76784 in a 146344 pot. I am getting 1.91:1 odds, not quite the correct price. Mathematically it's the correct laydown.
Even if I was getting 2:1 or better, calling is incorrect. Why? Because it's for all of my chips. You almost never want to be in a situation where you have to call off all of your chips. You need a very good hand to overcome a person's first in vigorish AND suckout equity. Two pair on a monotone board is not good enough, period.
Many tournament players bemoan their bad luck when they get it all-in with the best hand and lose. What's causing them to lose is not bad luck, but rather a failure to understand basic tournament concepts. This is especially true when many players are in all-in mode with 15 big blinds or fewer. Players are so quick to call large preflop all-in raises with hands like A
Q
and even worse. Being ahead of someone's "range" is not enough reason to justify a call. You have no fold equity, and are not getting anywhere near 2:1 on a call. In fact, even with an ante and even in the big blind your opponent needs to have 4 big blinds or fewer before you are getting the right price. Here's a chart that shows this using a 1000/2000 blind structure with a 200 ante.
You can see when he has 15 big blinds left you're playing with fire if you call. You really need to have AA or KK to call. If you're getting better than 2:1, you can call with anything since you will win one out of 3 times.
Just remember that fold equity > cards. Yes, the computers will tell you that AQ is a 2:1 favorite against T6, and maybe that's even true in a cash game, but in a tournament the opposite is true. The worst hand is actually the 2:1 favorite as long as it has first-in vigorish. Everybody knows that in tournaments, especially online, there are a lot more suckouts than in cash games. Even if they don't want to believe it they know it deep down inside. Nobody knows why, maybe it's God. Maybe it's the RNG. Maybe it's Lee Jones. I don't know either. But I do know that it's the case and you need to adjust to it in order to be a winning player.
SB (t146538)
Hero (t108584)
Preflop: Hero is SB with 5
, J.7 folds, SB calls t4000, Hero checks.
Flop: ($23200) 5
, J, 7 (2 players)SB checks, Hero bets 23000, SB raises 76784 to 100144 to put me all-in, Hero folds.
This guy had given me two walks in the only other blind vs. blind situations, and here he is looking to see a flop apparently. So I check my option and let it go. Flop is pretty damn sweet for me, but it's monotone so I pot it when he checks over to me. He then comes back over the top all-in. I discuss it with a friend of mine, and we both agree that it's a fold. He could easily have a made flush here (limped in with two s00teds, quite possible). He could also possibly have J7 which has me buried, or J+
. As long as that spade is above a 5, he's a favorite. He has a lot of suckout equity even if currently behind, and if I call this I'm going broke.What people need to understand is in a tournament, fold equity is king. First in vigorish is the law of the land. The first player to the all-in can win it two ways, by getting the other player to fold, or by winning in a showdown. Therefore, the all-in player is actually a 2:1 favorite. In this particular hand I needed to call all-in for my final 76784 in a 146344 pot. I am getting 1.91:1 odds, not quite the correct price. Mathematically it's the correct laydown.
Even if I was getting 2:1 or better, calling is incorrect. Why? Because it's for all of my chips. You almost never want to be in a situation where you have to call off all of your chips. You need a very good hand to overcome a person's first in vigorish AND suckout equity. Two pair on a monotone board is not good enough, period.
Many tournament players bemoan their bad luck when they get it all-in with the best hand and lose. What's causing them to lose is not bad luck, but rather a failure to understand basic tournament concepts. This is especially true when many players are in all-in mode with 15 big blinds or fewer. Players are so quick to call large preflop all-in raises with hands like A
Q and even worse. Being ahead of someone's "range" is not enough reason to justify a call. You have no fold equity, and are not getting anywhere near 2:1 on a call. In fact, even with an ante and even in the big blind your opponent needs to have 4 big blinds or fewer before you are getting the right price. Here's a chart that shows this using a 1000/2000 blind structure with a 200 ante.You can see when he has 15 big blinds left you're playing with fire if you call. You really need to have AA or KK to call. If you're getting better than 2:1, you can call with anything since you will win one out of 3 times.
Just remember that fold equity > cards. Yes, the computers will tell you that A
Q is a 2:1 favorite against T6, and maybe that's even true in a cash game, but in a tournament the opposite is true. The worst hand is actually the 2:1 favorite as long as it has first-in vigorish. Everybody knows that in tournaments, especially online, there are a lot more suckouts than in cash games. Even if they don't want to believe it they know it deep down inside. Nobody knows why, maybe it's God. Maybe it's the RNG. Maybe it's Lee Jones. I don't know either. But I do know that it's the case and you need to adjust to it in order to be a winning player.
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