Message Board : Shoving Question for Ed

Hey everyone! I thought I would throw this question out there since I’m a little confused over the idea of "sunk cost."

 A hand came up where I spewed off my chips from the button by jamming over the CO with A8s and ~ 14BBs. He had been raising very aggressively and he had folded to raises in previous hands so I’m still undecided about that play (although in the long run it probably isn’t very good).

However, afterwards I had a discussion with a friend of mine about the play. I said I should be more inclined to shove if I was in the BB rather than the button facing a CO open.

He said he would rather shove from the button b/c he wins more due to the blinds in the pot.

I said yeah, but there are also two more players behind you when you shove from the button and it costs less to shove from the BB.

Then we became confused in discussing this last point and the term “sunk cost” was brought up or whatever.

So here is my question:

All else equal, does it cost less to shove from the BB as opposed to the Button over a CO raise

Thanks for replying Ed.

So you’re risking 1BB less by shoving from the BB right?

How much value can we assign to the fact that from the BB we are also removing the positional disadvantage by shoving?

Sinclair said:

Hey everyone! I thought I would throw this question out there since I’m a little confused over the idea of "sunk cost."

 A hand came up where I spewed off my chips from the button by jamming over the CO with A8s and ~ 14BBs. He had been raising very aggressively and he had folded to raises in previous hands so I’m still undecided about that play (although in the long run it probably isn’t very good).

However, afterwards I had a discussion with a friend of mine about the play. I said I should be more inclined to shove if I was in the BB rather than the button facing a CO open.

He said he would rather shove from the button b/c he wins more due to the blinds in the pot.

I said yeah, but there are also two more players behind you when you shove from the button and it costs less to shove from the BB.

Then we became confused in discussing this last point and the term “sunk cost” was brought up or whatever.

So here is my question:

All else equal, does it cost less to shove from the BB as opposed to the Button over a CO raise

You didn’t spew.  You raised and lost.  There was a very good chance you had the best hand.  When you’re that short, just stick it in.  

One thing to note.  When you are going for the resteal, prefer a hand like QJ over A2 or K6.  It performs a lot better when called (less likely to be dominated and more likely to give you 2 overs vs pairs).  Your hand A8s is really pretty good.  It’s better than 1/2 the As and it’s suited, which has a small amount of benefit.  Don’t let your friend convince you that you should have laid that down at that point in the tournament with that much dead money in the pot.  Tournament endgame is super volatile (I just lost a huge hand 20 minutes ago with A9 vs A5 and a second with AK vs TT that probably cost me 3 finish sports and a couple of K at a final table of 30K guaranteed tourney.  These things just happen), sometimes you just get you money in good against his range and bad against his hand.  Sad but true.