I had a long preamble scipted but this teaser is comlicated enough. $5 MTT of EBJ, final table, min $1000 max $100,000 1st-$30, 2nd-$22.50, 3rd-$15, 4th-7.50 Hand 8 (1st elimination day) Br2 Button 152,000 secret (17 stand) Br3 2 120,000 1,000 (13 Dbl) Br4 3 112,000 secret (8 hit to 18) Br5 4 100,000 secret (12 hit to 19) Br1 5 168,000 10,000 (20 stand) BrL me 6 98,000 32,000 (11 ???) Dealer shows a seven. Two players passed me after I bust my 12 v dealer 10 on the 7th hand, leaving me alone in last.Also, Br3's min bet out in the open takes away most of my advantage for betting/playing last. This game has seen an all in win and a half max bet but nothing ploppy. Assume these are all skilled (if not expert) players and the secrets might be Br2-$25-51K, Br3 $10-13K, Br5 $1/$12/$21-24K. There is no synthetic correlation (one high + another low) available. I may be assuming too much but one thing is clear to me, I should bet to cover Br3 if I win. 32,000 gives me the high on all manner of strange play from Br3 and the high on my assumed bets for Br4 and Br5. It's also small enough to allow split-resplit and split-double which inreases my chances of getting a winning hand. Finnally, if I'm right about Br5 (I'd call him at $21K), I can still surrender into the low. There is a low % I would follow through with such a play but it's there. Am I crazy? I doubled my 11! I knew vaguely what I was giving up. A chance to keep hitting until I knew I had a hand. I only needed to win my wager and I had no one to hide my card from. However, I wasn't going to surrender and any loss would mean elimination so I thought it would be better to start the 9th hand as one of three leaders than as one of three chasers. Getting through this elimination hand is not enough to guarantee Br$$$. "Survival is insufficient!"-Seven of Nine I estimated the one-card cost as being >1% (it's not in Ken's lists of low-cost doubles, AllIn VIII Is8) and <10% (other ways I might make a hand less those I'll lose or push anyways) but as the clock was running down and the sum of 1/169ths became to onerous I asked myself a simpler question: If you knew you would get 11 v 7 ahead of time would you have bet more/max? Questions; 1. What's the one-card cost of doubling 11 v 7 ? 2. How is it affected knowing a push v 17, 18, 19 = elimination ? 3. At what point do you stop playing for not last and start playing for 1st? 4. Did I use that semi-colon right ? Thanks for reading all this. I hope it intrigues you.
I don't like your yes option. It's not the case that you should treat all elimination hands as final hands. Doubling 11 v 7 gives you a 56% chance of winning and 8% chance of tying. Hitting to 17 gives you (estimating here) a 60% chance of winning and 10% chance of tying. 40% of the time you are damned either way. The other 60% of the time, the hit save you 10% of that time (6% / 60%). Is the extra $38K worth the greater chance of elimination? My guess is no here. P.S. Not doubling also wins if one of the secret bets also loses and bets in the range of 40-60K.
I'll put my .25 here with Toonces. As far as the initial bet, why not just bet 1/2 BR (49,000)? That give you a victory over BR 3, catches up on the leaders, still allows you to split, etc. Another option, as BRL is just to bet it all, 98,000 - just a thought In this case to DD on the 11, I just don't see the purpose since you NEED to hit to get a winning hand. I wouldn't have done it that way but what do I know?
1 Card Tax Hi Sooeygun (How do you pronounce that? sue-ee-gun?) If we assume you have to win your hand to avoid elimination your double down cost you just under 2%. Hit to 17+ = 59.6% Hit to 18+ = 59.5% Hit Once (DD) = 57.9% Regardless of the above, at the table I wouldn't have doubled. I know it's sometimes hard not to double those 11s but I can't see any real benefit from doing it in this case. I would assume that I have to win my hand to progress and that losing it pretty much sees you to the door. If you win your single bet you're through since BR3 can't overtake you no matter what they get so why risk more money at worse odds? Coupled with that I don't think you should necessarily play each elimination hand as if it were the final hand UNLESS you are BRL or close to BRL. As BRL you usually need to win your hand to progress so if you can take the high from someone, as you did from BR3, you just have to sit back and let the cards do the talking. However, since you can't use your remaining chips if you are eliminated, and since if you survive by the skin of your teeth and remain BRL you are still weak, you may as well go for it on this hand. Hell, put the lot in the middle! If you lose your hand you're out but that would probably also be the case if you bet 500 or 32000. If you win, hey presto, BR1! As for the semi-colon; I'm not sure whether you have used it correctly or not. What I want to know is when do you use a hyphen? Cheers Reachy
All In As BRL you should always consider the all in. Even if you had survived the drop by surrendering 16K and losing less than an opponent, you would've been so far behind that you would need to win a hand to win the game anyway. Why not have this elimination hand do double duty and serve as a catch up bet against the chip leader? Normally I try to survive elimination hands as cheaply as possible, rather than playing them as a final hand. But I also like to use them as catch up bets if I'm far behind the leaders and will need to win a bet to win the game.
All in I like monkey's logic: My first thought was 1/2 Br in case of split possiblities, but splits result in too many pushes. I wouldn't split in this case anyway, even A's. And also I would not dd a smaller bet even with the 11. Therefore, go all in. tgun
Yes, Sue-ee-gun. Thanks. It sounds like after I made my bet I had to stop thinking of this as a catch up hand and play to survive. I'm a little surprised that no-one liked the play (I've seen it used often), but then the aggressive play is all-in. Would you change your answer on the 25th hand with 2 places paying?
make a break, make a move Sooey I would probaly still go all-in. With five hands to go it's not great to be BRL. If you bet small and you survive elimination you are still likely to be BRL and you are going to have to make your move at some point. Plus you are betting last so nobody can counter your move. Also if you do survive you will be acting last on hand 30. Nice. Cheers Reachy
All In I would go all in as it is your best opportunity to catch up against the other players, who will be betting much more conservatively in order to avoid risking their own Elimination once the one fellow has made the small bet. BTW, did you review the hand history prior, how many stiff hands had you received immediately prior vs. dealer makes?
"BTW, did you review the hand history prior, how many stiff hands had you received immediately prior vs. dealer makes?" In an honestly dealt game that additionally is shuffeled every hand (ala Bet21) this information would be worthless. You could have 10 stiffs in a row and it cant affect your next hand...nor can it matter about the number of dealer makes...that changes nothing as to odds of your next hand.... The question gets down to ...Are my odds better with one large bet or two smaller ones...? I believe your odds are best with the one larger bet... Doubling down should remain a decision based on your BR position vs hands remaining vs time to recover should the attempt fail... Players tend to cross the lines of tournement BJ and revert to a regular BJ game where they understand from BS that you should always double because of the positive EV and you need that advantage to overcome the house edge and therefore bring it down to the minimum....but that is irrelevant to tournament strategey... In a tournament you need to guard or risk your BR as necessary...sometimes that calls for splitting 10 or any pair for that matter IF NECESSARY!!! Some of the biggest mistakes I see are unnecessary doubles and splits...if fact Im amazed at some of the splits I see. Its very good advice to use elimination as double duty...catch (right) up or go home....the odds also favor a positive outcome on that move.
