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The Short Stacks Win Some Hands
I still wasn’t terribly worried. The short stacks in seats two, three, and six
would be getting pounded soon. I liked my chances.
Seat two won when forced all-in, holding 82. Seat four was knocked out a few
hands later, so we were down to nine. Seat six then won two straight hands
while all-in in the blinds. Seat eight might still bail me out, though, since
he held less than one big blind. Alas, my hopes were dashed when he woke up
with A9 in the big blind, enough to beat KQ. (Incidentally, I also had A9, but
there was no way I was playing it under the gun. That’s results-oriented
poker.)
Seat five made a terrible mistake on this hand. Here are the appropriate
stacks and hands:
(I know what the small blind was holding, because he mentioned it in chat
afterwards.)
As seat five, holding a good hand here, and plenty of chips, what is your
move? You know the small blind also has a lot of chips, so if you simply call,
the small blind will complete, and two of you will cooperate to knock out the
seat eight player, who is all-in. Seat six was lucky to get through the blinds
intact, so you know he’ll fold any two cards. Seat five didn’t simply call,
but raised instead. This forced seat seven to fold what would have been the
winning hand (he would have paired his four). The tournament did not end for
four more hands because of this major blunder. In a tournament with smaller
blinds, this is the type of mistake that can come back to haunt a player.
Don’t make it yourself.
The Big Blind Comes Back to Me
My worst fear has been realized. This tournament never would have come back
around to me had the short stacks not had some tremendous luck. Here are the
stacks:
After posting my blind and ante, I only had 3463 chips left. After posting the
ante, seat two only had 1492 chips left. First to act, seat ten went all-in,
holding AA (I know now). It folded around to me with 57 offsuit. What’s your
move?
There are 400,002 chips in the pot (333,463 of which I’ll get if I win the
hand). It’s 3463 for me to call an effective pot of 330,000. I’m getting
better than 95-1 odds. Do you call? In a cash game or a non-satellite
tournament, you make this call every single day of the week (twice on
Sundays). In a satellite tournament, in this specific situation, I made a big
mistake. All I saw was my incredibly short stack of 3463 and my pot odds of
95-1. It looked good, so I called.
The board was a six-high straight. My seven was enough for the win. I got very
lucky.
My Mistake
Many of you without a lot of satellite tournament experience think I’m smoking
something funny here, but I’ll explain why it was a mistake. Seat two was the
key.
After posting the ante on the hand, seat two had only 1492 chips left, not
even enough for a whole ante. If I fold in the big blind, I would begin the
next hand with 3463 chips. After the antes were posted, seat two would be
all-in. I would then have to put up the small blind, which I wouldn’t have
enough for, so I too would be all-in. It would be (at least) a three way
all-in with the big blind (plus hopefully some other players would call as
well).
Assuming random hands, if three players go to showdown, I am a 2-1 favorite to
win a satellite seat. See, I don’t care if I win the hand. I only care that
seat two does not win the hand. If seat two and I are knocked out on the same
hand, I finish one place higher because I started the hand with more chips.
That one place is the difference between $215 and $20.
If the big blind, seat two, and I take this hand all-in three ways, I win if I
have the best hand or the big blind has the best hand. An extra factor in my
favor is that if seat two wins, but I have the second-best hand, I’m still
alive for two more hands, so I am actually quite well off here. I only lose if
seat two has the best hand and I have the third-best hand. Since I have no way
of guessing what those hands will be, I only know that I will be a better than
2-1 favorite to win the tournament (by finishing eighth). It is impossible to
calculate the exact odds, because if seat two wins the hand, and I have the
second-best hand, I will have 3942 chips on the button. Seat two will have
4476 under the gun.
Now, go back to the AA versus 57 hand. If I make the reasonable assumption
that seat ten went all-in under the gun, he is likely to have some sort of
high pair. Against any pair higher than seven, I am a 4-1 underdog. I saw
those 95-1 pot odds, and I made the cash game play of calling. The satellite
tournament play was to fold. I confused my 95-1 pot odds with my 4-1
tournament odds. Bad choice.
Compare:
1) 4-1 underdog on this hand. If I lose, I’m out.
2) Better than 2-1 favorite on the next hand. I’m only out if two wins and the
big blind is second best.
Which scenario would you rather face?
Was the AA All-in a Mistake?
The reason I analyzed this hand so closely was to consider whether the AA
player had made a mistake by going all-in there. It seems ridiculous to even
consider the possibility. After all, when would you NOT want to be all-in
preflop with AA? There are certain satellite tournament situations where it is
actually proper to fold aces.
If the AA player had simply folded under the gun, he would have had enough
chips for the blinds and antes the next five hands. With the incredibly short
stacks at this table, that probably would have been enough to win. If one of
the big stacks decides to call, the AA could be knocked out in ninth place on
a bad beat. The questions to ask are: 1) how many players are likely to call
me, and 2) what are my odds of winning the tournament and surviving five more
hands?
The answers to those questions are difficult to determine, and I will say that
it was a very close decision. I feel that I would have folded the aces, but I
can’t criticize the decision made. I am glad I spent so much time analyzing
the aces decision, because it exposed a flaw in my game. I was fortunate to
have won the hand, and I went on to win a seat. The aces player got a seat
too, so all worked out well.
There are times where winning a tournament takes precedence over winning a
hand. Although the situation I presented here would be quite rare, I feel that
studying these occurrences makes us all better poker players. Good luck in
your next satellite.
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