chime in here - pocket 9's, final table...

[Boogie711 0]

OK - I'm at the final table to determine who gets a free trip to either Vegas, Monte Carlo, Los Angeles or Disneyland. Second place gets nothing.There are 5 players remaining. I have 36,000 chips, and in second place. Big stack is in the BB. Blinds are 1,000/2,000. 3rd through 5th place have about 20k, 15k and 12k chips.I get dealt 99. UTG folds, I raise to 6,000. Button folds, SB folds, BB moves all in for 50,000.He's been 'relatively' tight, but during the recently finished break, was mentioning that he didn't even know what first place was. When he was informed it was winner take a trip, no one gets anything for anything else, he was surprised.Action is back to me. Do I call or muck pocket 9's?

[Davin 0]

Action is back to me.  Do I call or muck pocket 9's?

easy easy fold.dont get involved w/ the bigstack w/o the nuts. look to build your stack against the small stacks, as they cant knock you out. 9's are far from the nuts

[Tateisgo 0]

fold fold FOLDWhy even bother with this hand at this point? There are very few hands that he will have, where you are a strong favorite to win. You're probably up against two overs (best case senario), so why risk the win for a coin flip?Losing 6,000 hardly effects your stack. You should be avoiding the big stack at all cost and putting pressure on the short stacks. Find better spots to gradually build your stack and you'll do alot better than calling all-ins blindly with 99 against a tight chip leader.

[copernicus 0]

what they said

[kilgoretrout 0]

Avoiding the big stack is wrong when the tournament pays only one place. You will need to get all the chips at the table at some point. So if youget the money in against the big stack while you hold the best hand, you should be happy to take the opportunity. That being said, given your description of the big blind as a conservative you should probably throw this hand away. Just remember you are throwing it away because you beleive you have negative to neutral equity against his range of hands, not because you are afraid to gamble against him. If he had been moving in alot then it would be an easy call.

[Tateisgo 0]

Avoiding the big stack is wrong when the tournament pays only one place. You will need to get all the chips at the table at some point. So if youget the money in against the big stack while you hold the best hand, you should be happy to take the opportunity. That being said, given your description of the big blind as a conservative you should probably throw this hand away.  Just remember  you are throwing it away because you beleive you have negative to neutral equity against his range of hands, not because you are afraid to gamble against him. If he had been moving in alot then it would be an easy call.

Even against a loose player I'm folding this hand.What hands can he have that I'm happy with and willing to risk the tournament? 88? small suited connectors?Pre-flop this seems like a silly call against any player. There are easier/smarter ways to get all the chips especially with 3 other short stacks. Just because you're playing to win, doesn't mean you should make bad plays. You're not in too bad of shape with a 30,000 stack, blinds at 1000/2000. So why are you risking 30,000 (and your tournament) to win 37,000 with pocket nines pre-flop?There might be an arguement for going all-in to a raise, but calling all-in just seems like unnecessary risk.

[copernicus 0]

Avoiding the big stack is wrong when the tournament pays only one place. You will need to get all the chips at the table at some point. So if youget the money in against the big stack while you hold the best hand, you should be happy to take the opportunity. That being said, given your description of the big blind as a conservative you should probably throw this hand away.

Excellent point...with a caveat. Players are very different HU vs multi-way, and if you are confident in your HU play it may be beneficial to pass up on some +EV situations where you are second stack and confident you'll get HU, even if behind when you get there.

[zimmer4141 0]

Let's look at the 3 possible outcomes here.Fold- You still have 30k chips, but now the big stack has you outchipped 2-1 and you only have 15BBs left.Call and lose- You're out in 5th, which doesn't give anything less than 2nd.Call and win- You now have 75k in chips. You are a massive chipleader, having about half the chips on the table. If you have a skill advantage you are likely to win the whole tournament at this point.I think you should call here, and gamble it up. It is most likely a coinflip, and I don't know how much of a better spot you will have with escalating blinds.

[copernicus 0]

Let's look at the 3 possible outcomes here.Fold- You still have 30k chips, but now the big stack has you outchipped 2-1 and you only have 15BBs left.Call and lose- You're out in 5th, which doesn't give anything less than 2nd.Call and win- You now have 75k in chips. You are a massive chipleader, having about half the chips on the table. If you have a skill advantage you are likely to win the whole tournament at this point.I think you should call here, and gamble it up. It is most likely a coinflip, and I don't know how much of a better spot you will have with escalating blinds.

Do you really think a reraise of that size puts you on "most likely a coinf flip"? I would think you are most likely dominated. Chip leader has little incentive to gamble it up, and cant see his move with less than 77 or AK.. So there are 30 pairs that dominate, 12 pairs you dominate, 16 AKs. You are a 60/40 dog with that range. The only way I gamble here is if I think I suck at HU play.Edit: Even if y0u give him 16 AQs as possible, you are still a 55/45 dog

[zimmer4141 0]

Let's look at the 3 possible outcomes here.Fold- You still have 30k chips, but now the big stack has you outchipped 2-1 and you only have 15BBs left.Call and lose- You're out in 5th, which doesn't give anything less than 2nd.Call and win- You now have 75k in chips. You are a massive chipleader, having about half the chips on the table. If you have a skill advantage you are likely to win the whole tournament at this point.I think you should call here, and gamble it up. It is most likely a coinflip, and I don't know how much of a better spot you will have with escalating blinds.

Do you really think a reraise of that size puts you on "most likely a coinf flip"? I would think you are most likely dominated. Chip leader has little incentive to gamble it up, and cant see his move with less than 77 or AK.. So there are 30 pairs that dominate, 12 pairs you dominate, 16 AKs. You are a 60/40 dog with that range. The only way I gamble here is if I think I suck at HU play.Edit: Even if y0u give him 16 AQs as possible, you are still a 55/45 dog

So I guess I'm looking at it from the standpoint that we have an effective 40% chance to win the hand.If we lose, we have a 0% chance to win. If we fold, we have about a 25-30% chance to win. If we call and win, we have I'd say about a 80-85% chance to win. So by calling, the chance we win is 40% x 80% = about a 32% chance to win by my estimation, especially if we have a skill advantage over the rest of the field.

[copernicus 0]

So I guess I'm looking at it from the standpoint that we have an effective 40% chance to win the hand.If we lose, we have a 0% chance to win. If we fold, we have about a 25-30% chance to win. If we call and win, we have I'd say about a 80-85% chance to win. So by calling, the chance we win is 40% x 80% = about a 32% chance to win by my estimation, especially if we have a skill advantage over the rest of the field.

Yes, its very close. Based on chip ratios, a fold gives you 22.5% to win, and a 40% chance at the winning the larger stack gives you a 22% chance to win. Presumably skill edge would just increase both proportionally, so it comes down to a style/preference decision.

[Scott3705 0]

I think this hand is very read dependent and hard to dissect online. I think being at the table with him, you would probably be able to tell whether he was doing this with a big pair or in fact he thought he was 5050 and looking to gamble. If this weren't a payout for only 1st, I would say fold probably. But since only 1st gets played, this might be the time for you to gamble if you think you've got atleast a coinflip.

[copernicus 0]

I think this hand is very read dependent and hard to dissect online. I think being at the table with him, you would probably be able to tell whether he was doing this with a big pair or in fact he thought he was 5050 and looking to gamble. If this weren't a payout for only 1st, I would say fold probably. But since only 1st gets played, this might be the time for you to gamble if you think you've got atleast a coinflip.

When you say a "Coinflip" do you mean roughly equal EVs or in the more traditional sense of winning this hand being in the 43%-57% range? I still put this hand as a 40/60 underdog to survive, but equal EV wise.

[LPY2005 0]

Let's look at the 3 possible outcomes here.Fold- You still have 30k chips, but now the big stack has you outchipped 2-1 and you only have 15BBs left.Call and lose- You're out in 5th, which doesn't give anything less than 2nd.Call and win- You now have 75k in chips. You are a massive chipleader, having about half the chips on the table. If you have a skill advantage you are likely to win the whole tournament at this point.I think you should call here, and gamble it up. It is most likely a coinflip, and I don't know how much of a better spot you will have with escalating blinds.

Easy fold. I don't see the problem with being a 2-1 dog to the chip leader as long as you stay ahead of the blinds. If you get heads up as a 2-1 dog and he doubles you up once then you are now a 2-1 favorite. Your either a coin flip to over cards or a huge dog to an over pair with your pocket 9's. An M of 10 is not great, but you are far from desperate. I'd prefer to add some of the small stacks to mine as they will soon be getting desperate.

[HtotheNootch 0]

Is BB the kind of player who would make this play if he thought you were just on a steal?

[boyitalia 0]

Gotta fold my man. Still got more than ten times the blind and you said yourself he is a pretty tight player. Plus someone who does not pay attention to chip stacks usually is a beginning player, and beggining players usually don't make moves after a raise that deep into a tourney, unless they got a monster hand.

[estobbart 0]

im always folding here barring some extra information, reads etc

[twinboyz 0]

Fold and wait for a better spot. You're a slight favorite at best.

[timwakefield 68]

Fold. You said he's pretty tight. So he almost certainly has 2 higher cards, paired or not. MAYBE he has 88 or 77, but that seems unlikely. You are either in a race or way behind. I think you give him credit for an overpair, but if you call and he flips AQ you're still not smiling...

[violaman 0]

Actually, if I called and he turned over AQ I just might smile. Half of the time I'll have a huge chip advantage to wield upon the short stacks and have a better chance of winning. More importantly though, how are you doing at this table? You have a decent sized stack with 36,000 but are you a growing stack or a falling one? Are the short stacks pushing almost every hand, if so this might be the time to gamble. Are you stealing blinds enough to grow your stack with little risk, in this case you should probably let this go. This is not a black and white decision until you've analyzed these variables.

[timwakefield 68]

Actually, if I called and he turned over AQ I just might smile. Half of the time I'll have a huge chip advantage to wield upon the short stacks and have a better chance of winning. More importantly though, how are you doing at this table? You have a decent sized stack with 36,000 but are you a growing stack or a falling one? Are the short stacks pushing almost every hand, if so this might be the time to gamble. Are you stealing blinds enough to grow your stack with little risk, in this case you should probably let this go. This is not a black and white decision until you've analyzed these variables.

To the contrary, if the short stacks are pushing nearly every hand to keep themselves alive, I would rather gamble against one of them than the one guy who can dead me. And yeah, AQ vs 99 don't sound bad, but the AQ can afford to lose and you can't.