[Closed] $1 77 on BTN

According to the ICM, you need 47.16% equity against the BB's range to call the push. You are getting almost 3:2 odds and you are only a little risk-averse 6-handed against a player you cover by a bit who has close to the starting stack. Here is the output from ICM Explorer:

Fold: 1715 chips, 0.137, SD: $16.07
Win: 3850 chips, 0.2658
Lose: 240 chips, 0.0221
Tie: 2045 chips, 0.1592

Equity needed: 47.16%
Chip odds: 40.86%
Risk premium: 6.3%

Do you have 47% equity with 77? Against a maniac, or some good aggressive restealers, 77 has enough equity since the BB would resteal with a range like 22+ A2s+ A7o+ KQo and some suited broadways. Against one such range, 77 has 53% equity making this a clear call. However, an unknown player in a low stakes tournament probably defends much more often by calling rather than by restealing. If you give the big blind a tighter range of 55+ AT+ KQs, then 77 only has 45% equity and you should fold. (88 would be a close call against that range.) You will see some strange resteals with weak hands, while other players will flat-call with strong hands, but I think the restealing range is tighter than the second range and that you can fold 77.

In theory, when someone resteals for 15 bb against a button raise, you would like to be able to call with a lot of your opening range. If you don't call resteals very often, then you will be exploitable by aggressive restealing, and 77 is pretty good compared with a lot of the stuff you might open on the button. However, this does not mean your opponents are good enough to recognize this and to exploit a tendency to raise/fold too often, and so you can fold hands as good as 77. If you move up into more aggressive games, you might routinely call 15 bb resteals with 77.

Hi all,

Originally posted by pzhon
According to the ICM, you need 47.16% equity against the BB's range to call the push. You are getting almost 3:2 odds and you are only a little risk-averse 6-handed against a player you cover by a bit who has close to the starting stack. Here is the output from ICM Explorer:

Fold: 1715 chips, 0.137, SD: $16.07
Win: 3850 chips, 0.2658
Lose: 240 chips, 0.0221
Tie: 2045 chips, 0.1592

Equity needed: 47.16%
Chip odds: 40.86%
Risk premium: 6.3%

Do you have 47% equity with 77? Against a maniac, or some good aggressive restealers, 77 has enough equity since the BB would resteal with a range like 22+ A2s+ A7o+ KQo and some suited broadways. Against one such range, 77 has 53% equity making this a clear call. However, an unknown player in a low stakes tournament probably defends much more often by calling rather than by restealing. If you give the big blind a tighter range of 55+ AT+ KQs, then 77 only has 45% equity and you should fold. (88 would be a close call against that range.) You will see some strange resteals with weak hands, while other players will flat-call with strong hands, but I think the restealing range is tighter than the second range and that you can fold 77.

In theory, when someone resteals for 15 bb against a button raise, you would like to be able to call with a lot of your opening range. If you don't call resteals very often, then you will be exploitable by aggressive restealing, and 77 is pretty good compared with a lot of the stuff you might open on the button. However, this does not mean your opponents are good enough to recognize this and to exploit a tendency to raise/fold too often, and so you can fold hands as good as 77. If you move up into more aggressive games, you might routinely call 15 bb resteals with 77.

Great analysis! There are some arguments that tilt it more towards a call, in that if we gamble here we get to abuse the bubble more with a bigger chipstack. However this would be too -$EV of a call to do.