crimethink_

No, obviously putting your money in as an 80-20 dog is not profitable in the long run. Moving all-in in this situation is, however. The point is that, even if the blinds knew exactly what hands to call you with, they wouldn't get those hands often enough to prevent this push from being profitable.

1. I agree with Actuary, there are definitely spots in a tourney where open limping is the best play. Here is not one of them, though.2. He isn't ahead of an ace and a flush draw, he's a slight dog.3. It really depends on your read of the guy, and whether or not he's the kind of person who likes to play ace-rag and thinks top pair is the nuts. With no reads, I might just dump this here.

Not sure I follow...are you saying that you don't think that, in practice, the equities calculated using ICM actually correlate to the % of the prize pool the player can expect to take down in the long run? If that is what you're saying, well, yes, in practice, that is true because the ICM calculations assume all players are of equal skill. But that doesn't affect their usefulness in situations like this, where you are simply calculating the relative change in equity. I'm really not the best person to address your skepticisms on this, though, as I don't have the greatest understanding of the

If you consider yourself the best player at the table, then clearly your equity is higher than your stack size would indicate on its own. An easy way to account for this is simply to give yourself more chips in the calculations, thereby artificially increasing your equity. I remember a thread on this a while back at 2+2, I can try to dig it up for you if you want me to. Anyway, having more equity in the tournament actually makes pushing in this spot an even better play.

You do want to do that, because it's profitable. Even if you flipped your cards over and let your opponents play perfectly, pushing would show a profit here.

Well, you have to realize that it's just math. Saying that the results aren't applicable in real life would be akin to saying that 1+1 doesn't always equal 2 in real life. The math SNGPT uses can actually be done by hand, and this post explains how to do it.

I'm basing this (if by this you mean why I am saying that a push is +$EV) on the fact that, if you plug the numbers into SNGPT, there are literally no ranges you could put SB and BB on that would make the push -$EV. It's an unexploitable push. And why would you want to get away from a +$EV situation?

Yes, I mean +$EV, not +cEV. And the reason you should risk so much is because it's profitable, and I don't see how making a smaller raise is more so.Edit: And I should add that even if you knew you had no fold equity, that both the SB and the BB would call you with any 2 cards, a push would still be profitable.

Neither of your opponents has more than 10xbb. There may be a better way to play it, though I doubt it, but pushing is definitely profitable.

Yea, and that's a great excuse for a poker game not splitting pots correctly...

You forgot the sw

I'd say you were looking for "wary."

Yes. And then that guy will proceed to push you out of every pot you're in against him, unless you're lucky enough to catch a hand. Why in the hell would you want your opponents to try to run over you? You want them to play passively, not aggressively. Not only is making this call +$EV, it will encourage your opponents not to play so aggressively against you as a bonus. Okay, at this point, I think we've established that Matt Matros, Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Paul Phillips, and Greg Raymer will all take any edge they can find. And I hear they're pretty good poker players.

Push preflop (the first time it gets to you). No matter what they're calling you with, pushing will show a profit here.

Would you want to be the donk who folded AK when the other guy showed his QJ?

Couldn't resist coming back to check on this thread, as well as Chip Reese's status in the H.O.R.S.E. tourney (hey, I have a bet riding on him ) No, it's a reference to the book 1984.

Sweet, someone new to argue with. Perhaps you would care to point out the flaw in Matros' article? Well, ladies and gentleman, I'm off to get some sleep now. Here's hoping I wake up to some brilliant and insightful posts in this thread.

Well, in that case, your point is a complete non sequitur to the argument that we were having before you stepped in. Namely, that taking any edge you can find is proper tournament play. As I said before, no one is arguing that if another players pushes all-in on the first hand of the ME, that you should call with 55. It's remarkable how quickly you descended from wrong to stupid.

Read my post again. "No one here is arguing that, in practice, you should be calling large all-ins with small pairs or suited connectors early in a tourney." In practice, no one is going to be showing you QJo. If the other guy did show me QJo, I would indeed call, as I said earlier. I also doubt you are alone in this...I'm sure plenty of fish would be happy to agree with you. You took that FYP too literally...It was an FYP for emphasis.

FYP

No one here is arguing that, in practice, you should be calling large all-ins with small pairs or suited connectors early in a tourney. The argument is that in order to do well in tournament poker you need to take any edge you can find, no matter how small.

That was funny, but it was a pretty bad analogy. I'm not saying that the 55 example is an example of how to get a small edge in a NLHE tournament, I'm saying that the 55 example is an illustration of the concept that you need to take any edge you can get in a tourney.

Btw, loismustdie, I find it hilarious that you went from arguing that the theory is wrong to arguing that the theory is stupid and doesn't matter when it became clear that you were wrong.