After the story of the Sunday High Roller which saw the incredible back-to-back of Gaspare ‘gasparotto10’ Sposato, a real wave of indignation was unleashed on social media following a hand that we posted.
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It is the spot you see in the image above, in which the Elban regular, strong with an overwhelming chipleading, isolates from the small blind with J 4 on an opponent’s open-push for less than 6bb.
The big blind then also enters the hand and thanks to the board that gives him a straight on a silver platter, ‘Gasparotto10’ gets double player out and consolidates his chipleading, bringing the PokerStars Poker – Sisal Poker Sunday High Roller to five left.
To understand if this action is really as scandalous as some have portrayed it on social media, we used the help of some tools and the opinions of a couple of regulars.
Context and call calculations
Before that, however, it is necessary to clarify a couple of things about the expected value calculations in tournaments with bounties – whether they are normal, progressive, or mysterious.
By paying the €250 buy-in to this week’s Sunday High Roller Bounty Elite, participants received an initial stack of 10,000 chips. By eliminating an opponent on the first hand, they would have immediately collected a bounty of €56.25, with the same amount going to replenish their own progressive bounty.
The €344 of progressive bounty pending on the elimination of ‘realaddicted66’ (the player who open-pushes for less than 6bb in the hand) therefore equates to more than six initial bounties. That is, more than 60,000 chips.
To calculate the exact number of chips equivalent to ‘realaddicted66’s bounty, a simple proportion is enough: 56.25:10000=344.52:x.
To find out that the bounty of the open-pusher is exactly equivalent to 61,248 chips. In pot odds calculations for the call, this amount must be added to the amount of chips that ‘Gasparotto’ could win by calling.
Expected value and bounties
After ‘realaddicted66’s push, there are 57,200 chips in the middle of the pot. By calling for 37,075 chips, therefore, ‘Gasparotto10’ can win a pot of (57,200+61,428) chips, to which the call chips are then added. The pot odds are therefore:
37.075/(57.200+61.428+37.075)=0,238…
Regarding the expected value in chips, therefore, ‘Gasparotto10’ must be good more often than 23.8% of the time to be profitable.
Since it is a 7 left situation, however, we must reason in dollarEV and adjust the percentage upwards by a few points (we could also have done the calculations directly in monetary terms and not in chips, but for simplicity of exposition we preferred this way).
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With the help of software like PokerStove, we see that against a sensible range of 10% (77+, A9s+, KTs+, AJo+, KQo), J4o is in full odds to call.
The magnitude of the call in relation to the stack
Another detail that perhaps many have not considered is the magnitude of the call in relation to ‘Gasparotto10’s stack. After the short stack’s openpush, the Elban player is required to make a call of 37,075 chips against a monstre-stack of 564,000 chips.
In practice, to try to win €344 in bounties, Gaspare only has to invest 6.6% of his stack. Even if he loses the hand, nothing will change for him.
Navigating bounty tournaments
Ettore ‘pro-fumato87’ Esposito provided us with help in navigating progressive bounty tournaments.
“The more bounty the opponent who shoves has, the more we have to call any two cards. In this case, the call is determined by the fact that the opponent has seven initial bounties. If he had one, it would be a fold. But when he has four starting stacks in chips and seven bounties, then you have to call because the number of bounties is higher than the number of starting stacks. For example, eight initial bounties and five starting stacks are still to be called, and so on.”
Analysis with ICMIZER
We then analyzed the spot ourselves by feeding the ICMIZER software the complete game situation with payouts, progressive bounties, and stacks. According to the software, ‘Gasparotto10’ should have called with the entire deck in this spot.
As seen in the image, the call with J4o is profitable by $9.76. Some marginal profits, it goes without saying, can be perfectly avoided.
Ranges according to HRC
We then asked Alessandro ‘aleorsi98’ Orsi for confirmation of the analysis’s validity. Initially, after seeing the spot, the Trentino regular commented:
“J4o in this situation seems like a clear reshove. I don’t know if it’s ATC though, I have to solve it.” Ale’s ‘solve’ denied the call with ‘any two cards’, but confirmed that with J4o it is a spot to take.
Orsi also sent us the screen of the big blind call range after ‘Gasparotto10’s push.
Here too, the percentage of the deck to play is probably higher than what many would have believed.
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