Laddering, Pot Odds, What's a Short Stack To Do?

Due to a fund raising garage sale at the Legion last night there was no poker.  Our Wheeler team decided to put one on there instead with a $100 buy-in.  I was on the fence about playing it until Mike sent me a text asking if I was interested in dealing table 2.  Yes Sir!  The tips should cover quite a bit of my entry fee so I was in.  A couple of players called and asked for rides (some of us don't see quite as well in the dark these days) so 3 of us made the trip.  We were expecting 20 players, but I believe 27 showed up, including my young out of town friend Billy (his parents own a house next to our old ice cream store) who had shown up at the Legion to find the garage sale.  He barely made it in time which was good for him since he ultimately won the whole thing.

Before I get into my main topic just a few comments on some stuff at table #2.  First of all, pocket jacks were the nuts.  I had them twice, doubling up each time vs. underpairs and big aces.  Billy won once with them in a pot I was involved with.  Raised with AJ suited, he calls with JJ in the blinds. Flop comes 9/10/Q and Billy shoves.  I had him covered and very close to calling with my straight draw to the nuts plus over-card but elected to fold.  Just too many of my chips if I miss.  Later, Bob, another friend shows JJ as a winner (he came in 2nd or 3rd).

What was definitely not the nuts was KK.  A player shoved with AQ suited, I came over the top with KK and he hit an ace on the flop then rivered the nut flush.  Ouch.  Later a player shoved with KK, I called with AK and hit an ace on the flop.  The third time  a player on the button (Ray the Pro who finished 2nd or 3rd), raised big with 3/4 suited and the big blind had the KK.  She re-raised all-in but "only" 2800 more and she had him covered.  He rivered a straight.  Double ouch!!!!  Like I said, kings could not win at my table and jacks were the nuts.  Go figure.

So, making the final table, we were paying 5 places.  I was one of the short stacks, but stayed in it winning a few hands.  Billy gets super lucky shoving blind from the button and getting 4 callers.  It was hilarious, an ace hits, player bets, he says "Oh great, an ace, I'm fucked".  He turns his cards over hitting 2 pair with his AQ and is suddenly very healthy.  There were 2 players to my immediate left who I felt played very loose and weak.  Sure enough they were the bubble and next to bubble out.  I knew that I just had to outlast them to make the money.  They had both entered the final table with very healthy stacks.

So, as the short stack this happened.  In the big blind @ 1000/2000 level with only 1800 behind, we are all in the money with 5th place paying $160.  The UTG player, Jeff, who is a very savvy player min-raises to put me all-in.  However, he is probably not counting on the entire table calling!!!!  It comes around to me and I have to call 1800 into a 17,000 pot, or almost 10/1 on my money.  Sounds like a snap call, right?  I thought about it for a moment, and folded.  My reasoning was this, it takes a pretty strong hand to min-raise UTG but it takes very strong hands to overcall the raise.  The first overcall may have made sense since I think that he thought the player was trying to isolate me and he had position.  Once he called, the biggest stack next to him had good odds and position on the button while the remaining player had awesome odds to call with chips already invested.  What I was hoping for was a couple of all-ins with one or more eliminations like last Wednesday which would "move me up the pay ladder".  Unfortunately it did not happen, and the button bet on the flop took it down. My cards, which were actually irrelevant to my decision were Q/2.  I hit a 2 on the flop but will never know if I could have won the whole thing with improvement.  Had I called and won the pot I would have been 2nd or 3rd in chips for sure.

I stupidly folded the next hand, was left with 300 in chips, and was out in my next big blind. Everyone just sort of folded around to wait for me to lose, which I did.  So, finished in 5th place despite my best efforts at "laddering".  In retrospect probably should have gone for the gold, but with $100 difference in 4th and 5th places felt I was making a good decision.  Sometimes you have to think about pot odds but pot equity is another factor to consider as well as moving up the pay ladder. With so many players in a pot, even aces have radically reduced equity, particularly when they cannot bet or raise to protect their hand.