Yesterday I rode up to Pearl River Resort to play their Sunday hold-em tournament. It is a low-entry, low-payout event but once it was over, I planned to play some low-limit
(4-8) hold-em also.

There were 30 people who signed up for the tournament which was using a turbo format. 900 in entry fees with 150 taken out for the house gave us 750 to play for. We played down until there were four of us left. Someone proposed a chop which would give us each a little over $185. At the time, I was chip leader with about 7K more than 2nd and about 15-20K over 3rd & 4th. Since they wanted an even, four-way chop, I declined and we continued play. I didn't think that was so dumb but I did fail to make a counter-offer which I now think was dumb. If they could have come up with enough to give me a total of $250, I would have chopped right then. I was planning to propose that chop anyway once we got down to 3.

Still, just that oversight didn't put me into idiot gear yet. A few hands later, it was folded around to me with A-10, the blinds were at 4K-8K so I raised it 20K and after some deliberation, the short stack called all-in with 7-7. She only had another 16K so it wasn't a full call. I didn't improve and she had her courtesy double-up. That moved me from chip leader to second short and just barely ahead of last place. Anyway, I went card dead for a few hands and had to make a move to keep from being blinded off. With only 4 players, I was in one of the blinds 50% of the time. The move didn't work and kablooee, I was out.

This is why I feel my idiot gear kicked in. Since I was going to propose a chop as soon as one more player busted out, I could have used my big stack to just sit back and wait on one of the smaller stacks to get desperate and shove. The blinds were already high in proportion to our stacks and they were going to have to move pretty quick. Instead, I got impatient and took the chance on busting her out myself to get things over with when I didn't have to. A-10 isn't exactly trash four-handed but I could have gotten away from it. I wound up in pretty much a coin flip situation that I really didn't have to be in. So you guys beware if you have an idiot gear. It can screw up your poker.

The only thing that kept me from really beating myself up on the drive home was the fact that I was able to turn a small profit in the cash game that payed for my tournament entry fee and the $20 I piddled away on a bar-top VP machine waiting on the tourny to start. Even with those losses, my $101 win in the cash game gave me an overall profit of $51.

Card dead is my middle name sometimes.
I guess it's easy to get cocky when you are out in front like that
but you are right.
Glad the day wasn't a complete loss for you Rebel.

Jeez--sounds to me like you made an $84 mistake--if you play at the 4-8 level this is nothing. Your biggest mistake was not figuring out your equity and making that counter-offer.

FWIW--I probably would have never accepted that chop either---you as the chip leader get royally screwed with an even split.

You didn't give me enough data to compute your equity though.

But as a rule of thumb the tourney leader will have to take a 10%-20 discount on equity--the guys at the bottom get a bonus.

The last time I chopped as a chip leader was in a large free roll with hundreds of entries--the field was down to 18--and the $1200 was real money to me at the time.

There's a lot considerations/variables when making this decision.

Easy for me to say sitting here in the audience, but I think I coulda laid down that A-10 in that situation. Maybe.

Man, the thing I hate most is walking away from a poker tournament with regrets. Haunts me for quite some time.

I think asking for about $230 of the chop seems about right. Shoot for $250 and go from there. Dont blame you one bit on the A10 play