Early decision

[Nimradel]

This was only the 4th hand of a 180-man SNG, so no reads or table image other than that I'd won a pot showing down JJ 2 hands earlier.
There had been none of the open shoving we sometimes see at the start of these tournaments.

PokerStars Game #24217355233: Tournament #136069936, $4.00+$0.40 Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2009/01/24 2:51:32 ET
Table '136069936 10' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: HRDONKNSTUF (1340 in chips)
Seat 2: dystopia88 (1490 in chips)
Seat 3: 12hrsnorth (1470 in chips)
Seat 4: grimesrob (1010 in chips)
Seat 5: Poko22 (1950 in chips)
Seat 6: Venpekim (1500 in chips)
Seat 7: Jamie174111 (1500 in chips)
Seat 8: BoredAlready (1340 in chips)
Seat 9: rbump11 (1900 in chips)
Poko22: posts small blind 10
Venpekim: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Poko22 [Qc Qd]
Jamie174111: folds
BoredAlready: calls 20
rbump11: raises 100 to 120
HRDONKNSTUF: folds
dystopia88: folds
12hrsnorth: folds
grimesrob: folds
Poko22: raises 100 to 220
Venpekim: folds
BoredAlready: folds
rbump11: raises 1680 to 1900 and is all-in
Poko22:

Do we consider folding here?

[Ensano]

call

[miaowmiaowchowface]

preflop too small, folding is terrible sorry he had aA

[Felting]

Insta-call

[Felting]

preflop too small, folding is terrible sorry he had aA

Maybe, but this is my world(micro MTT's)

Just as likely to see Ax, any pair, any two suited cards.

[Nimradel]

preflop too small, folding is terrible sorry he had aA

Maybe, but this is my world(micro MTT's)

Just as likely to see Ax, any pair, any two suited cards.

This is where it gets interesting to me. Everyone is saying call, and I agree, but to what degree is that is because this is a micro donkament?

Put another way, is there any level of stakes at which we consider a fold?

I see two main factors to consider:

1) the ratio of wild players, to whom we can assign Felting's range (or wider) to more "serious" players who we might assume are holding AK/TT-AA (against which we are a flip). Since this ratio will always be >0, calling should be at least slightly +ev vs an unknown villain.

2) the value of doubling up early versus the value of not getting knocked out early, assuming we have something of an edge in general play.

[Jernej Zorec]

ur a bit over 52% vs that range
and if u would take a that chance every time u get it
u would be more then twice as likely to win the mtt as an average player would

so it still an easy call
as Mtt Matros says, calling doesnt negate our skill edge, calling is our skill edge (hand in example is 1st hand of 10k buyin event, folds to sb who shoves all in and shows u AKs and u have QQ in bb )

[Jernej Zorec]

here its also as article
http://www.cardplayer.com/author/article/all/162/4080

[Nimradel]

ur a bit over 52% vs that range
and if u would take a that chance every time u get it
u would be more then twice as likely to win the mtt as an average player would

so it still an easy call
as Mtt Matros says, calling doesnt negate our skill edge, calling is our skill edge (hand in example is 1st hand of 10k buyin event, folds to sb who shoves all in and shows u AKs and u have QQ in bb )

Thanks, that article is quite comprehensive.

My general philosophy is to favour survival over building early, where possible avoiding races for my whole stack unless I badly need the chips. In this case(inexplicably, even to myself), I took it to an extreme and folded the QQ, knowing full well it was technically wrong. In this instance it may have paid off as I was able to go deep in the tournament, but I certainly won't be doing it again.

Besides, hell hath no fury... since this laydown, it seems that I cannot win a hand with QQ!