What would you do?

[MrRoyal]

It has been suggested in the past to try and get various people to put up a scenario each week for discussion. I've done a couple of these in the past and I've seen a couple of others but it would be good to make it a regular thing. Perhaps the mods could also add another discussion group called puzzles where these could all be posted and leave this area for general strategic discussion.

Anyway this weeks problem is quite a simple one from a league game I played on Monday. Hopefully it may promote an interesting debate on pre-flop odds and tournament play.

Dealt Kh utg with 5 left in a MTT. Blinds 600/1200. Chip leader has about 30k, you and another player have about 13k each and the other two players are short-stacked with about 5-6k each. You limp in, chip leader folds, and dealer raises all-in for 5500. Both blinds fold so you are left with 4300 to call. So call or fold?

[CaptainSandy]

I would not have 'limped in' with K,8 offsuit; however the question posed is fold or call. Depends how I was feeling, but the majority of times I would fold. (flop would then come 8, 8, K)

[AtDawg]

FOLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDd dont even call it

[Tb1rd]

so the pot is 8500 i think and to call it would be another 4300. Considering the fact that i wouldn't limp in with the hand anyway i would definitely have to fold seeing as its a bet that too call is at least a quarter of the rest of my stack with a very marginal hand, the odds aren't there at all so id have to fold.

Ok I'll do one

Blinds are 100/200 in NY Times. You've been dealt A10 spades with 3 people behind you and one call before you. You raise it to 600. You get two calls (the initial caller and the guy on the button ~ making a pot of 2300 [you have 5k, first caller has 4k and the guy on the button has 6.5k) Flop comes Ah Kh 5s. The person utg bets 500.
Call, raise or fold and why

[ARSENALRULES]

Originally Posted by Tb1rd

so the pot is 8500 i think and to call it would be another 4300. Considering the fact that i wouldn't limp in with the hand anyway i would definitely have to fold seeing as its a bet that too call is at least a quarter of the rest of my stack with a very marginal hand, the odds aren't there at all so id have to fold.

Ok I'll do one

Blinds are 100/200 in NY Times. You've been dealt A10 spades with 3 people behind you and one call before you. You raise it to 600. You get two calls (the initial caller and the guy on the button ~ making a pot of 2300 [you have 5k, first caller has 4k and the guy on the button has 6.5k) Flop comes Ah Kh 5s. The person utg bets 500.
Call, raise or fold and why

500 is quite a weak bet I would raise to 1000 to see where you are , I would rather know now.. that I might be beat than just call... defintely would not fold.. hopefully your raise will make all the players after you fold and then its heads up for the pot..

[roo27]

Originally Posted by MrRoyal

Dealt Kh utg with 5 left in a MTT. Blinds 600/1200. Chip leader has about 30k, you and another player have about 13k each and the other two players are short-stacked with about 5-6k each. You limp in, chip leader folds, and dealer raises all-in for 5500. Both blinds fold so you are left with 4300 to call. So call or fold?

got to be a ezey fold here the odds are not in your facer and with your chip count id be trying to sit back and let some 1 knock out the shrot stakes whil you waght for a big hand

Originally Posted by Tb1rd

Blinds are 100/200 in NY Times. You've been dealt A10 spades with 3 people behind you and one call before you. You raise it to 600. You get two calls (the initial caller and the guy on the button ~ making a pot of 2300 [you have 5k, first caller has 4k and the guy on the button has 6.5k) Flop comes Ah Kh 5s. The person utg bets 500.
Call, raise or fold and why

id flat call and then rerase arfter the tern if no hart that way you get to bild the pot if you are leading with top pair and also get to see the reations of the other players befor you hit the river

[OP66fozzy]

Can't really answer either question as I have to be on the table and get a feel for how the other players are playing.

If it is early doors, I would be playing conservative or aggressive, depending on my mood.

[MrRoyal]

Interesting answers to my original problem so now I'll give some thoughts on why to call.

First, the question of limping with K8o. No, I would not normally do this and I certainly would not normally call a raise of that size. But, there are other things to consider such as the fact that there are only 5 people left and the blinds are rising. In this situation I believe it is necessary to loosen up starting hand requirements and play some more marginal hands. Ask youself if you would call with K8o at heads-up and then consider that there must be some point at which you start playing it. That said the intention of the question was to discuss the merits or not of the call.

To start with consider the match situation:
Don't call and the other player takes a pot of 8.5k in chips and you're left with about 12k.
Call and lose and you are down to about 8k while the other player is on about 12.5k.
Either of these and both of you are still in the game. While you'd rather be in the former situation the latter is not too bad, however...
Call and win and there is one more player out of the tournament while you are sitting pretty on just over 20k. You need to get into this sort of position to be able to take on the chip leader.

So, what are your chances? Well, what does the other player have? Consider you were in their position, short stacked and in danger of being blinded out of the tournament. They need to push at some point. While they'd love this to be with AA or KK they really have to look at taking a chance at some point maybe with Ace-rag, a low pocket pair or just 2 decent cards (QT, JT, etc). This is a prime opportunity for them as they stand to steal 3k if uncontested.

So what are the chances of K8o? Against a low pocket pair only slightly worse than 50:50, against 2 cards between K and 8 you are slight favourite, against most Ax about 2:1 behind and you may be surprised that even against something that would seem a problem like KQs you are only 3:1 behind.

Looking at the pot odds which stand at 2:1 to call there is certainly merit in calling.

In the actual game I called. The other player held A5s leaving the odds for me at slightly better than 2:1 (in other words I would have had the odds for the call if I knew their cards). I hit the 8 and won the hand. This put me in a position to bully out the other short-stacked player and stand a chance against the chip leader. Unfortunately I got hammered by a flush vs. full house a few hands later and finished 3rd.

As far as Tb1rd's problem goes I think I would flat call. Better stacked I would have made a small raise to see if I could lose the player on the button and buy the river for free but in this situation I would be taking the cautious approach and seeing how the others bet and what the turn brought then re-evaluating from there.