Unexpected shove, part 2

See the first part of this post for the setup of the hand, here.

I took about ten seconds to think about this. Here's how I reasoned: If I fold, I'll have less than 50% of the chips by the time we get to heads-up play, so assuming comparable levels of skill, I'll have less than a 50% chance of taking first-place, which is the prize I'm interested in, because, obviously, that's where the biggest money is. I can essentially turn the question of first-place money into a coin flip by calling here.

The problem with that logic, which I realized about one second after clicking "call," was that it took no account of second-place money. I reduced a near-lock on second place to almost zero, because most of the time I'd take either first or nothing with a call. The percentage by which I increased my chance of first place was not large enough to compensate for the loss of almost any chance at second place.

He had pocket jacks (adding another data point to the frequent observation that that is the hand with which you'll most commonly see an oversized pre-flop raise, because so many players are uncomfortable playing post-flop with jacks). The board brought no help for my Big Slick, and I was out.

I was going to run through the math of an ICM (independent chip model) calculator, but reader Eddie beat me to it in a comment to the original post. It confirms my subjective guess--made a little too late--that calling was a mistake.

Well, we live and learn.