Should you call with pocket sevens?
A player in mid-position or so pushes all in preflop. You're in the big blind and it's folded around to you. You have two sevens. It's just you and the all in player. What should you do?
It depends on a lot of things.
How big is your stack in comparison to the blinds? It it's pretty small then you should tend to call.
What stage of the tournament are you in? In the later stages you need to balance the amount at risk and the win potential by discounting the value of the win. But you should also add some value for the potential of busting out a player right now. It's not immediately clear to me that this won't be a wash, but I'm not sure.
How much of your stack will you be risking if you call? If it's small, then you should of course tend to call. If it's a large part of your stack (or all of it) then you might want to give it some more thought.
And what I think is most important --
What is the range of hands your opponent would have pushed in with? The tighter this range is the bigger a dog you are, and the better pot odds you need to even think about calling.
I did some simulations with Poker Stove of 77 versus various distributions of opponents hands. Here's the result.
If he has a pair of Jacks or better, or AQ or better, or KQs, then your 77 is a 3/2 dog.
If he has a pair of 5's or better, AQo or AKo, or ATs or better, KJs or KQs or KQo then you're a little better off, only a 56/44 dog.
If he's fairly desperate, pushing with any pair or any two broadway cards, then your 77 is acually a slight favorite, 51/49
Besides giving you a little insight into how to decide what to do with a pair of sevens against an all in player, I think these numbers illustrate a much broader point -- it's really important to give a lot of thought into the question of what range of hands the other guy has before you make any playing decision with any hand.
Just in the example the difference between a fairly tight opponent and a fairly desperate opponent is the difference between you being a 60/40 dog or being a 51/49 favorite.
Of course, if he's completly nuts and would have done that with any two cards you're about a 66/44 favorite with those two sevens.
A player in mid-position or so pushes all in preflop. You're in the big blind and it's folded around to you. You have two sevens. It's just you and the all in player. What should you do?
It depends on a lot of things.
How big is your stack in comparison to the blinds? It it's pretty small then you should tend to call.
What stage of the tournament are you in? In the later stages you need to balance the amount at risk and the win potential by discounting the value of the win. But you should also add some value for the potential of busting out a player right now. It's not immediately clear to me that this won't be a wash, but I'm not sure.
How much of your stack will you be risking if you call? If it's small, then you should of course tend to call. If it's a large part of your stack (or all of it) then you might want to give it some more thought.
And what I think is most important --
What is the range of hands your opponent would have pushed in with? The tighter this range is the bigger a dog you are, and the better pot odds you need to even think about calling.
I did some simulations with Poker Stove of 77 versus various distributions of opponents hands. Here's the result.
If he has a pair of Jacks or better, or AQ or better, or KQs, then your 77 is a 3/2 dog.
If he has a pair of 5's or better, AQo or AKo, or ATs or better, KJs or KQs or KQo then you're a little better off, only a 56/44 dog.
If he's fairly desperate, pushing with any pair or any two broadway cards, then your 77 is acually a slight favorite, 51/49
Besides giving you a little insight into how to decide what to do with a pair of sevens against an all in player, I think these numbers illustrate a much broader point -- it's really important to give a lot of thought into the question of what range of hands the other guy has before you make any playing decision with any hand.
Just in the example the difference between a fairly tight opponent and a fairly desperate opponent is the difference between you being a 60/40 dog or being a 51/49 favorite.
Of course, if he's completly nuts and would have done that with any two cards you're about a 66/44 favorite with those two sevens.
posted by Gary Carson at 5:00 AM
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