Am I not putting enough importance on first in vigorish?

It seems that in Sngs my results are best when I focus 100% on first in vigorish in the late stages of the sng. Something like this happens all the time...I'll be in the SB with a reasonable hand like ace 8 offsuit. It's folded to the CO with an M of 3 who pushes all in, and I'm thinking "he's got to push with almost anything here my hand is probably the favorite" so I call and he has a premium hand like 10 10. But I still understand how important first in vigorish is, I'll fold a KQ against an early raiser when my M is 3, but the next hand I'll push with a 10 8 offsuit if it's folded to me. But is first in vigorish so important that I should not call other shortstacks with anything worse than AK, AQ, or AA-10 10?

"Am I not putting enough importance on first in vigorish?"


I don't know....... perhaps "the gold may importance for you?"

PMSL after I fell out of my wheelchair!!

If they got their M down to 3 by folding and blinds/antes eating their stack then A8o is definitely not ahead of their range. If they just lost most of their stack then it could be. A call here is more situational and how he/she has played before. Depending on my stack size relative to theirs I am calling it no matter what I think he has.

what does 'putting enough importance on first in vigourish' even mean, ive never heard that saying

Vigorish is the bookie's percentage in wagers - which makes no sense in this context

Maybe you mean aggresiveness or fold-equity?

Somebody set up us the bomb!

vigorish is about saying Pushing big or allin 1st here. You want to open up the pot big and do it before anyone else does.


I think it can be very situational really, but it is important not even just late in the game its important through out if you ever have to push all in you want to be in first really.

HoH explains it well. Comes from the concept that it takes a much stronger hand to call and AI that it does to push AI. In the specific hand A8 may be enough to call if the short stack had just lost a big pot but as was said if the SS had been folding a lot then I'd lay A8 down here.

I'm pretty sure I've said this to you before Ben: you're assuming that your opponents know (and care) about M and first-in vigorish.

Truth is, there loads of people out there that either don't know (or don't care) about these concepts.

Maybe they don't even recognise that they've got an M of 3 - they've got a stack of 2500 and that's lots of money and they don't care if the blinds are 300-600 because they've got 2500 and that means they've still got time to wait for a premium hand. I know players who don't change their play until they've got less than a big blind left.

So always assess each opponent individually. Never assume that everyone knows and cares about M and first-in vigorish.

First in vigorish is the fact that if you push you have two ways to win the pot, taking it uncontested or getting called and winning a showdown. If you call an all in you can only win by showing down the best hand. Here's an example of it in a sng. You have ace 6 offsuit with an M of 3.5 and another shortstack pushes all in, you don't have the first in vigorish so you should fold. But if instead you had a Jack 9 offsuit (a worse hand) but its folded to you then you should shove.


Yea thats very true Oz, it seems like 80% of the players don't change their preflop strategy at all until their stack is the size of the BB, they only play AA - 10 10, AK and AQ.