Indy, MATH Recap, and Late-Game MTT Question

Yesterday I forgot to mention that I saw the new Indiana Jones movie this past weekend as part of my little brother's bachelor party festivities. Now, I will admit right off the bat to being a bit of a dickhead about most "blockbuster" type of movies, and certainly of most unnecessary sequels, and most of all about bringing back a superhero type of movie with a guy who is what, 67 years old now in real life? Crazy. So I went to see this movie over the weekend, and you know what? It wasn't half bad. Now don't get me wrong -- the first Indiana Jones was and always will be a top 10 or so movie of all time. You just can't beat that for a thriller / adventure / hero flick. I know it is one of the all-time greats because literally every fucking scene in that movie is top notch. From the opening scene where he switches the golden statue with a bag of sand, and ends up being chased by the huge boulder down the thin rock hallway, to where that guy comes out at him with the knives and shit and he just smirks and pulls out his gun and shoots. And who can forget the face melting. Am I right or what? Face melting almost always = kickass movie. Remember that one.

So anyways, this movie was not half bad. It was no Raiders of the Lost Ark, but as I said above, what could be. It wasn't as good as the third Indy movie either, the one with Sean Connery, which was also a pretty great movie. But this one has got to be better than Temple of Doom, that shit pretty much sucked. To be sure, Harrison Ford really did look old, older than I thought he would even. He could barely run in the scenes that called for him to run, let alone do any of the simple stunts that were all clearly done with stunt men. And the acting or the story aren't about to win an oscar or anything. But I enjoyed it ok. I would rate this one as 3 out of 5 stars. Watchable if you want to see it. Not nearly as bad as I figured this thing was gonna be, that is for sure.

So, I received some feedback in emails and girlies from a few of you on Monday evening, and it seems that the decision to keep things fresh in the Mondays at the Hoy by changing the payout structure to pay the winners in entries to the weekend's big Sunday Guarantee tournament has been generally well received. That is good. I really wanted to do something to spice it up as the BBT3 came to a close, because I myself was feeling a bit drained from all the high-pressure tournaments day after day like it was for three long months. And I know if I was feeling that way heading in to my own weekly tournament that I love, then lord knows what the rest of you must feel like. It's great how many of you came out and played in so many of the BBT events, and it just felt to me like now was the right time to try to add a little new intrigue to the MATH. As I said yesterday, I really would like to do what I can and what we can to get some bloggers into the big weekend tournaments, and hopefully help someone find their own biggest career online score, because for me in the end that's what it's all about. It always has been and it always will be.

So, with that in mind, 22 runners came out for the new 750k satellite MATH, making for a cool $528 prize pool and payouts to the top four finishers in our weekly shorthanded nlh tournament. Unfortunately I missed the first 50 minutes of the Hoy out being entertained by a big law firm at one of the finest restaurants in New York, and yet somehow I still managed to final table, busting out in 6th place as I was the short stack for the entire time I sat with the final 5 players. The MATH is always a fun time for me though, as the pace of a shorthanded blonkament gets really fun after about 90 minutes and that pretty much lasts right through the end, with this week being no exception. And with just 22 runners we are right in our sweet spot after so many weeks of the huge crowds that make it so dam near impossible to consistently survive in this thing.

Here are the list of players who did survive to the top 4 spots, including our two winners of their buyins to Sunday afternoon's 6pm ET full tilt 750k guaranteed tournament:

1. astin $216 (Sunday 750k buyin)
2. chitwood $216 (Sunday 750k buyin)
3. twoblackaces $62.40
4. HighOnPoker $33.60

So we're back out of BBT land, and once again we resume where we left off, with two lawyers out of our four cashers this week. Lawyers = best bloggers poker players, period.

So here's a hand analysis question I have for you all. This hand went down in a blonkament over the recent past. It was part of the BBT3, so there was that added pressure to win, if you choose to think of it that way. We are about 3 hours in to the tournament, and we were down to 11 players remaining. The player with over 34,000 chips in Early Position 2 (EP2) is the chip leader, by a small amount over second place but then with a nice gap until the Button's 26k stack in 3rd of 11 remaining players. The Small Blind with 17k was around 8th of 11 left.

Now take a look at the hand history that went down here:

Full Tilt Poker Game: Table 1 - 400/800 Ante 100 - No Limit Hold'em -

Seat 2: EP1 (14,193)
Seat 3: EP2 (34,466)
Seat 5: Cutoff (11,825)
Seat 6: Button (26,006)
Seat 7: Small Blind (17,134)
Seat 9: Big Blind (18,675)
*** all players ante 100 ***
Small Blind posts the small blind of 400
Big Blind posts the big blind of 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
EP1 folds
EP2 has 15 seconds left to act
EP2 raises to 2,700
Cutoff folds
Button has 15 seconds left to act
Button calls 2,700
Small Blind raises to 17,034, and is all in
Big Blind folds
EP2 has 15 seconds left to act
EP2 has requested TIME
EP2 folds
Button folds
Uncalled bet of 14,334 returned to Small Blind
Small Blind mucks
Small Blind wins the pot (9,500)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 9,500 | Rake 0
Seat 2: EP1 folded before the Flop
Seat 3: EP2 folded before the Flop
Seat 5: Cutoff folded before the Flop
Seat 6: Button folded before the Flop
Seat 7: Small Blind collected (9,500), mucked
Seat 9: Big Blind folded before the Flop

I want to focus on the EP2 player. Again, this person is the new chip leader with 11 runners remaining in a BBT3 tournament. He raises from early position #2, gets called by the button, and is then raised allin for half of his new chipleading stack by the small blind, who was in 8th of 11 players remaining at the time. He thought it over quite a bit, and then folded.

My question for you is, how good of a hand does EP2 need to have in order to call here? In other words, he obviously calls with AA and KK. What about QQ? Do you call the big allin if you are holding QQ in EP2 in this spot, having just taken over the chip lead? What if you have JJ or TT? Or here's another question. What if you hold AK? How about AKs? Anybody folding AKs in this spot? Please leave your responses in the comments as I have had some useful discussion on this point over the past few days and would really like to hear everyone's views.