BlondeFish

In Poker Superstars Invitational, Michael Konig kept repeating that a cardinal rule of tournament poker is to never bet when the short stack is all in UNLESS you have the nuts. When Huck Seed stupidly tried to bluff out David Sklansky when the short stack was all in, Sklansky punished Seed by raising him all-in.

__________________
May your EV always be positive.

ScoobyD

OK, at the risk of potentially reviving this thread, this reminds me of a hand when it was down to 3 (maybe 4) at last years WSOP main event.

Danneman had raised first to act with 77, and Joseph Hachem had flat called with JJ (I thought he was trapping). The short stack called the allin with A-something (can't remember details). Flop comes a ragged 9-4-2 or similar and Danneman and Hachem continued to check it down, even though Hachem had an overpair. Personally, I thought this was insane. Danneman could have easily raised a hand like AK-AT and he's giving him a free shot at hitting his hand. I would have thought protecting the pot with what is very likely the best hand would have been the better play. The only downside I could maybe see is if he pushes out Danneman with a hand like AK and the short stack has a hand like AQ and frees up some of his outs... Thoughts?

wader

I would usually always bet here.....but, this is the WSOP final table and by moving up one spot puts aboout 500k in your pocket. Chances are he would check and call. He probabbly doesnt want to lose the other opponent just to make sure that they bust the allin.

__________________
Don't always rely on the numbers.......Do always rely on the feel

MickeyHoldem

This hand happened when they were down to 3 players... the incentive to knock out the short stack was almost $2 million... the payouts for the top 3 were... $7.5M / $4.25M / $2.5M

__________________
-- Michael
Luck is just probability taken personally!

st0neC0ldNutz

Ok, but how much was in the pot (relative to the blinds) to be won?

Would it have been "worth" it for Hachem to try and isolate if he in fact thought he had the best hand...was the pot big enough? was it worth winning (meaning that taking down that pot would have significantly increased his chip stack so he is more or less guaranteeing that he should move up the money rankings?)

Or was the all-in for a relatively small amount such that it made more sense to check it down to have as many hands in play up against the all-in player to ensure they all moved up in the money?

MickeyHoldem

I beleive the blinds/ante were 150,000/300,000/50,000 at the time... I know Barch pushed just over 5.5 million into the pot so figure about a 17 million pot... Hachem, with JJ, had about 23 million left and Dannenmann, with 77, had about 16 million left... the board came --- 3d 2d 10c --- Qh --- 9c.

__________________
-- Michael
Luck is just probability taken personally!