Regarding the WSOP question, the answer is instacall.
50% shot to quadruple up - i would snap your hand off to be in that spot. You will not get a better spot in the entire tournament to rake in the chips. Some players will say "Why put your tournament life on the line on hand 1 when your only about 50% vs 3 other hands?" The answer is simple and twofold:-
Firstly, versus the types of hands that would go all-in preflop (not that there are many and I am going to give my WSOP opponents some credit) - the other AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK - my aces plays way better than they do vs. random hands (the real ace-crackers being the soootied connectors at between 23% and 26%).
Lets select some samples of these hands and play them vs. aces:
Aces vs Kings, Queens and AK(sooootied)
Kings are 10.5%, Queens are 16.5% and AK(soootied) is 7.5%
Therefore, Aces should hold up 64% of the time
or
64% of the time, 20K in chips becomes 80K
35% of the time, 20K in chips becomes 0
Aces vs. Kings and Jacks and the other Aces (statistically least likely but possible)
Kings are 20.5%, Jacks are 18.5% and the other Aces are 2%
Therefore, Aces will win 2% of the time on their own and chop 57.5% of the time
or
2% of the time, 20K becomes 80K
57.5% of the time, 20K in chips becomes 40K
41% of the time, 20K in chips becomes 0
Secondly, although an argument can be made for making a steady gradual progression through a big tournament such as the WSOP ME, thus avoiding big collisions for all your chips such as this, i would make the counterargument that a quadruple stack going into hand 2 gives you an enormous edge over the rest of the players and if you are a good player, you should be able to wield this edge, giving yourself a great chance to go deep. Not only that, but there is an hourly rate to consider. Going out in hand 1 means you wasted no time playing this tournament which could potentially take you into a 4th 12 hour day of poker for no reward. These 4 days have a value of their own in the life of a profitable player.
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