Quote Originally Posted by zenbitz
Assuming neither player is much better than the other...

You 2:1
40% win outright + 0.6 x 0.33 chance of winning if you lose (now you are outstacked 2:1)= 60% chance which is worse than if you fold.

You 5:1
40% win outright + 0.6 x .67 chance (now you are down to 2:1) = 80% chance of winning
which is worse than the 83.3% (5 in 6) you would have if you fold.

So, 40% is not enough. I am pretty sure (without doing math) that 50% is exactly even with zero blinds.

If the blinds are 10% of the total chips (so 3000), then it becomes much closer (because, for example, in the 5:1 case, his chance of future winnings goes up 60% if you just fold!)

It's all about the blinds. Say the blinds were like $1/$2 and the stack sized are like 20K to 10K. If the short stack pushes every hand, just fold until you get a good hand. You'll get one long before he catches up to you. Obviously, if he's not pushing every hand then you actually have to play poker instead of algebra.
What?? Maff makes me head hurty