Second-Last Hand – You Are BR2 And First To Act – Three Left In Contention

Monkeysystem

Monkeysystem

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In a tournament I played recently I was first to act on the second-last hand, meaning I would be last to act on the final hand. One advanced from this table. There were three of us still in serious contention, though there were two more players remaining between BR1 and BR3 who still had some chips.

Bet limits 100 – 10,000. BJ’s pay 3:2. No surrender. Bets in increments of 25 but the lowest chip is 25 (BJ’s pay 1:1 on an extra 25 chip.)

=>Me: Bankroll 29,250, bet ?
BR1: Bankroll 33,500
BR3: Bankroll 26,900

BR1 and BR3 had both been playing a reasonably skilled game. BR1 sitting directly to my left had been roughly correlating my bets the last three or so hands. BR3 had just won a maximum bet the previous hand in order to get back into it. He had been managing his bankroll pretty effectively throughout the round.

I thought, and thought, and thought…

What would you bet, and why?
 
My 10 seconds guess, I would bet 4300. This will force BR1 to correlate the bet or bet max and BR3 will probably bet max. If the hand does not results in swings, you will still be behind BR1 by 4250. The next round you bet last, so you can bet max and double or split if needed.
The alternatives are bet minimum bet but that would leave your too much behind if BR1 wins a max bet. The other alternative is to bet max but then BR1 will correlate and if you lost, you will have little chance on the last hand.
 
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Well, since Monkey says "I thought and thought" I gave myself 1 minute to come up with the following ...

My thoughts are that BR1 will continue to correlate any bet that you make, so it's really a matter of what to do about BR3. A smallish bet of 2,250 or less will preserve the low over BR3 and probably elicit a bet of 3,500-4,000 from BR1. BR3 will probably then bet max again. This should then leave you in reasonable shape on the final hand if you win, and not completely out of it with a double/split should the worst happen and one of them swings you on the second last hand.
 
Next to last, no surrender and you know that BR1 will somewhat correlate and only one advance: 8550 bet. *If surrender would have been allowed, 4300
 
BR1 will likely bet enough to cover a max bet by BR3. That means without your bet to consider he is betting at least $3500. You can bet up to $2300 and have the low over BR3. Any bet over $800 covers a swing with BR1. A $7300 bet covers the high over a BR3 max bet but may have you all but out of it on the last hand where you have the huge position advantage. I would bet $2250 to $2300 . You should still have a good shot if the wheels fall off the cart on this round and would be in great shape on the last hand if you win.
 
Monkeysystem said:
In a tournament I played recently I was first to act on the second-last hand, meaning I would be last to act on the final hand. One advanced from this table. There were three of us still in serious contention, though there were two more players remaining between BR1 and BR3 who still had some chips.

Bet limits 100 – 10,000. BJ’s pay 3:2. No surrender. Bets in increments of 25 but the lowest chip is 25 (BJ’s pay 1:1 on an extra 25 chip.)

=>Me: Bankroll 29,250, bet ?
BR1: Bankroll 33,500
BR3: Bankroll 26,900

BR1 and BR3 had both been playing a reasonably skilled game. BR1 sitting directly to my left had been roughly correlating my bets the last three or so hands. BR3 had just won a maximum bet the previous hand in order to get back into it. He had been managing his bankroll pretty effectively throughout the round.

I thought, and thought, and thought…

What would you bet, and why?
Click to expand...
Do you want to tell us how you played it?
 
The_Professional said:
Do you want to tell us how you played it?
Click to expand...

I considered all these things. I figured BR1 would correlate my bet no matter what. So in all likelihood I would be BR2 on the last hand. I figured BR3 might bet contrarian to BR1's and my bet if I bet too big or small. Assuming BR1 would correlate me, my goal for the last hand was to be BR2 acting last and down by less than half a max bet. What I wanted to avoid was being behind either player by more than half a max bet on the last hand. Another thing I thought about was that it's been my experience that it's best if you attack BR1. I wanted to bet more than BR1's lead over me.

I finally decided to bet 5000. This made it impossible for BR3 to make a contrarian bet that could get me more than half a max bet behind him, if we got the same result. If he bet the max and lost, I would be more than half a max bet ahead of him on the last hand. It was possible for BR1 to respond with a bet that could get him more than half a bet over me if we had the same result, but there was no bet I could make that could prevent that. It also occurred to me that this was the best way to push BR3 into risking his tournament life with a max bet on this second-last hand. He had to beat both BR1 and me. If I could attack BR1's lead while at the same time holding him to making some kind of medium bet, this would be the best way to force BR3 to take that risk.

Finally, I started thinking in generalities. There were so many different possibilities of opponents' responses multiplied by actual results of each that it was too much for a monkey to think about at the tournament table. I didn't want to get bogged down in minutiae. I remember consciously stopping myself from pondering this any more because I was wasting time and risking making a stupid mistake by trying to be too smart. I was in the position I wanted to be in on the last hand, and it just seemed like half a max bet had the best chance of not having my position change. And if it did change, a change to my benefit was equally as likely as a change to my detriment.
 
gronbog said:
Well thought out, as always. The next question is - what happened?
Click to expand...

=>Me: Bankroll 29,250, bet 5000 cards BJ, action stand
BR1: Bankroll 33,500, bet 3700 cards stiff, action hit and bust (or 17, I don't remember for sure)
BR3: Bankroll 26,900, bet 10,000 cards hard 13, action double 10,000 and total 20
Dealer upcard 10, hole card 8

I was now BR2 but down by slightly more than a max bet.

Everybody bet the max on the last hand. I didn't get a pair to split. I had to play for a win-loss swing. But the new BR1 hit a stiff for a total of 21 and I was done before I had a chance to play my hand. Stick a fork in me.

Anyone want to comment on the thought process that led to my bet of 5000?
 
Monkeysystem said:
Anyone want to comment on the thought process that led to my bet of 5000?
Click to expand...
It seems that you and I agree that the goal was to make to the final hand in decent shape. One of my weaknesses is in sometimes making mathematically-based decisions without considering the ultimate goal(s) of my opponent(s). My bet suggested was based on maintaining my ranking while not giving up the low to BR3. Once we accept that BR3 is in a situation where he must attack BR1 (that information is implied by your comment re: his reasonable skill level), then we no longer need to be concerned with giving up the low to him. Your bet of 5,000 seems reasonable to me in that context.

Interesting that BR1 covered BR3's max bet win but not your potential double/split. He could have done so easily, but it looks like he didn't want to give up a 1/2 swing to you. I think that was an error on his part.
 
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