How much more is a bigger stack worth?

[slapdash]

You're down to the final two players in a tournament, and your opponent goes all in. Obviously before deciding whether to call or fold, you try to estimate how likely you are to have him beaten. But the right move also depends on how likely you are to beat him in the tournament if you do fold, or if you call and lose the hand. Any rough guidelines? Assuming you're equally matched in terms of skill, how likely are you to win the tournament if you have twice as many chips as the other guy? Or three times as many? Or ten times? Probably this also depends on the size of the blinds. Maybe even more so than on the relative stack sizes?

[Dave Mardell]

Re: How much more is a bigger stack worth? It kinda help here if you know relative hand strengths. Persoanlly Im inclinded to call almost any two cards if doubling him up will still leave him with less chips than me. But im not exactly a good heads up player If you fell you can outplay him however, you really shouldnt be giving him oppurtunities to double up in a shoot out all in. Like wise if you feel your outclassed you dont want to give yourself the chance to be bluffed off you big hands and should be the one moving all in preflop. The danger tho of denying him the shoot out is he may just keep moving all in....and then you need to take a stand. usually an Ace or Pocket pair will do the trick.... Also remember the relative sizes of the blinds. I think its plays a greater role in chosing to call or not that the cards themselves. Imagine you got yourself heads up, equal in chips and the blinds are only 50/100. Id fold any hand except AA to an all in raise i think. If you got 7500 in chips hes gonna have to go steal a lot of antes before your in any real trouble so why call with a marginal hand. If the blinds are really high however you have to be a bit looser. You need to be prepared to gamble it up a bit as a few steals will cripple you. Your opponent is likely also aware of this as well and doesnt need to have much. He may be moving with a pair of 2s or A2, and thus and pair, or ace is likely to be good, and any two big cards wouldnt be a huge dog. You might be walking into aces but at this stage of killer blinds if you are its just unlucky