Rafe Furst poker strategy tips full tilt poker Cash Equity at the Final Table

Rafe Furst

While playing the final table of the $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold 'em event, I found
myself in a difficult spot when we were down to four-handed play. I was in
the big blind and Rizen, a tough, respected online tournament pro, was in
the small blind. It was folded to Rizen who announced that he would raise
the pot. With blinds of 15K/30K, his raise made it 90K to me.

At the time, I had about 400K in chips; Rizen had 750k and the other two
players had about 250K each.

I looked at my cards and found As-8s, a pretty solid holding in
short-handed play. I decided to raise the size of the pot. My total bet was
180. Rizen immediately re-raised, forcing me all-in.

The pot contained 580,000 (400,000 from Rizen, 180,000 from me) and I
had 220,000 remaining. I was getting nearly 3 to 1 on my money, so this
looked like an automatic call. I needed to win the pot only about 27 percent
of the time to justify a call.

Against a big pocket pair (other than aces), my A-8 suited would win about
32 percent of the time. Against a bigger ace (A-K, A-Q, etc), my A-8 suited
would win about 30 percent of the time. There was also a non-zero (though
small) chance I was up against a small pocket pair and would win about 50
percent of the time.

So this was almost a zero-equity chip decision. That is, folding and calling
would have pretty much same result over the long term. To find the correct
action, I had to look beyond pot odds and consider (a) how this hand would
affect my cash equity for the tournament (i.e., which action would maximize
my expected cash payout) and (b) how this hand would affect my chances
of winning the tournament.

There were two factors I looked at when considering my cash equity:

1 - Each chip in a short stack is more valuable in terms of cash-equity than
each chip in a large stack. By calling in this situation I would have been
risking chips of great value to pick up chips of lesser value.

2 - Folding removes any chance of busting. By folding, I would give my
opponents a chance to bust on subsequent hands, which would move me
up to a bigger payday.

After looking at these factors, it seemed that folding was the clear choice.
But still, I had to think about how folding would effect my ability to win the
bracelet - which was my primary concern. Would I be putting myself out of
the running by giving up on so many chips? Not really.

When there are more than two players remaining, each additional chip you
accumulate has a lesser impact on your ability to win the tournament. So
when the chip-equity decision is a wash, you are better off folding than you
are trying to accumulate more chips.

If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, you should also keep in mind
that there's a big difference between moving all-in and calling all-in. When
you move in, you can win the pot by forcing a fold. When you call, this
obviously isn't possible.

I decided to fold and wait for a better spot, and I'm very glad that I did.