Equity changes in an SNG

One thing I am learning a lot about in playing all of these SNGs is that your chips don't have a monetary value and so your equity is no longer the same as in normal poker ring games.

So for example, in a ring game, you have AK on the cutoff. A short stack in early position raises a standard 3x BB raise. You should recognize that AK is probably ahead here and even when its not it stands to win the pot more often than the short stack's hand. (eg they have a small pair - your bet on the flop will often win it). This is a great spot to reraise because you want to push your small margins. If they have AQ or AJ you want them to make a mistake against you here. BUT based on their hand range you probably aren't much more than a 5% favorite before the hand in the long run. This is important to understand. In ring games you push your small margins because in the long run its correct to do so. Putting that small stack all-in now is the best play for making the most money over the million times you have this type of situation...

Now in SNGs the difference is that any given hand means nothing. Your equity on a given hand is less important then the chips you have. Quite simply, if you lose your chips you cannot rebuy - so the long run makes little difference, its all about this hand, whatever result you get, this time only.

Matt and I were recently discussing a hand he busted out on. Here is the situation:

4 players remain in a 5+.50 SNG. Blinds are 120-240. Blind levels will increase in the next few minutes.

Matt was 2nd in chips with ~4000 chips. The chip leader had him covered slightly. The other two players have had ~2000 chips.

Matt is dealt KK. The chip leader, in first position, moves all-in for all of Matt's chips.

What do you do?

Now this was a very interesting hand I think because Matt has a lot of chip equity in this spot. Basically, when you lock up at least 3rd place you've locked up 60% of the prize pool. This means that all three players are guaranteed to win that 2xBuyins at 3rd, and then are playing for 2nd - 1xBuyin and 1st - 3xBuyins. If you lose in 4th, you are out, period. And if you do not bust out 4th, even if you have a small stack, you have the possibilty of winning first.

So getting back to Matt's hand, he called, his opponent showed TT, spiked a T on the river, and Matt was out.

Now, without considering the result - I think that this may be an instance where you should at least consider folding. This is a situation where the only thing that you lose by folding is the blinds, but in the best possible, likely scenario (an underpair) when you do call, you are out of the tournament 1/5 of the time. Lets say we put him on this hand distribution, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, AKs, AK. Poker Stove sets the KK as a 77% favorite in this situation. So the question is which is a better play?

If you fold--- Based on the current chips, lets say that you will get 4th 5% of the time, 3rd 40% of the time, 2nd 40% of the time, and 1st 15% of the time. This would mean 0 + 0.8 + 1.2 + 0.75 = 2.75 is ~ your equity for folding here.
If you call --- Based on the current chips, lets say that you will get 4th 23% of the time, 3rd 7% of the time, 2nd 25% of the time, and 1st 50% of the time. This would mean 0 + .14 + .75 + 2.5 = 3.39 is ~ your equity for calling here.

So it looks like calling is the correct play. :) But I think it is also important to note how close this situtation is - with QQ it might not be correct - or if we move the numbers around a bit based on a weaker table, it very easily could move in the direction of a correct fold situation. The point of this post is to get the idea out there that some of the time its correct to play certain hands differently than in ring games based purely on the fact that if you are out you don't make any money!