I made the wrong play here. Anyone care to elaborate on why?

I tend to agree with you, all things considered shoving is good, i think as you pointed out, i missed the fact that if we shove, get called and lose, we are still pretty darn deep, if we win, we can totally own the bubble, making it even better.

I'm converted...

It's funny, because in an actual game, where i don't have time to think about this, id probably just shove, yet, here i am arguing a call.. Which i still think has merit.. in other situations :P

This is all true, I didn't want to be the first guy to question a coach, but now that Chris has taken the first step, I agree with him. If Debi's coach thinks that calling is superior to shoving, then he isn't the best coach to be taking advice from

That is a pretty lame remark to make just because you disagree with what he would do in one situation lol. However based on the number of sng's he has played (12k), the level he is at ($33/55), his ROI (over 30%), his profits to date (over 34k) and recommendation by Collin Moshman I will continue with the coaching. (SS stats with no filters)

(Not being a smartass - just wanted you guys to know I didn't just hook up with some random internet sng player who said - "Hey I won 3 sng's last week,why don't you pay me to teach you how to win?" lol)

One thing I do need to point out however is that this was discussed as what he or I would do and we play $11 and $33/55 sng's not $1 sng's so the buy-in for this has to be ignored as far as anything he or I have said.

With all said neither he nor I would think anyone who condones the shove here are idiots who don't know how to play sng's. There are some good arguments both ways. This situation is not going to come up all that often with the chip stacks exactly like that. Neither calling or shoving in this one unique situation are horrible decisions that would deem you unfit to play (or coach lol) sng's.

Another thing I keep seeing mentioned is about even though his stats show tight he would be opening up his range at that point which of course is true. But almost every sng player I know has their hud stats set for different stages of sng's - so when I see that I make (maybe incorrect cause I don't know what TPC does) the assumption that is how he is playing at this level of the game.

ye i didnt mean that as it came out, only now did i read it back in your quote, and it sounds like im attacking the guy, which is not what i intended. He's obviously a winning player, and will improve the game of many people, since he can beat low/mid stakes comfortably.

Its just he doesnt know everything, because who does ldo, so is going to be weaker in certain aspects aswell, and this is an area which he clearly isnt sure on, being a big stack near the bubble, since he is playing to cash, which is the way you play 95% of the time in sng's, but in spots like these, where you should be focusing on increasing your 1st place equity, aswell as cashing.

Again this isnt meant as a personal attack, this is just common sense about every player, but after all those sng's at such a high roi (which isn't his STT roi since 30% is impossible in STT's, probably hit a big score in an mtt or something) he isn't up playing at 100's or higher, because he has flaws in his game, which everyone does.

Its really hard to explain without making it sound like im dissing the guy, since hes clearly a good player, way better than me at sng's, its just this is an area that he has a possible flaw in his game, so you shouldn't think what he says in every part of the game is the correct choice

strangely (yet obviously if you think about it) enough good players won't tend to end up with a big stack when 4-5 handed simply because they don't take the absurd risks that bad players who will either go bust or quickly double/triple up do - so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that because good players don't tend to have heaps of big-stack shorthanded experience (and therefore aren't reviewing so many hands where they are the dominant stack) it could be a surprisingly common leak in an otherwise good player's SNG game.

i'm just theorizing though.

Yea of course I know he is not right about everything - neither are you and I. I And who knows - if he were taking part in this discussion he might change his mind - but I kind of doubt it knowing him lol. (He is a renegade and likes to step outside the box sometimes).

He doesn't play them now but has played multi-table sng's as well. I just narrowed the search to stt's and his roi is 15% - still quite impressive.

The reason I have been playing $1 SnG's is because I just got back into playing SnG's after reading Collin's "SnG Strategy" book. I wanted to start from the bottom up while I was adjusting my game.

I agree with what DM said, if you are using a strategy like the one that's in Collins book, with five players to go, you usually aren't going to have a stack like that. But, using this strategy you see some cheap flops with PP's and suited connectors when the price is right. In this SnG I happened to hit two monster flops a set vs two pair and a straight vs a set. Which is why my stack was so big.

I know most of you that are participating in this thread don't play this low of a buyin anymore. I'm not sure if the quality of play has changed or if you have forgotten how these players actually play. I'm not saying they play great by any means. But they aren't stupid either.

I've talked with Pifan quite a bit about shoving AK preflop in a lot of different situations. I would think he agrees, the times we are called a lower Ax hand doesn't show up that often. It's almost always a PP. Granted that PP could be anywhere from 22+. The tighter the players stats at this level, the more likely when you put them in a situation for all of their chips they are calling with a PP and not a lower Ax hand. Which means you are usually in a coin flip. So that goes back to we are shoving to pick up 500 in chips if the button folds in the original hand, which isn't really going to help us in the SNG at this point. If he calls we are probably flipping and flipping for 60% of our stack which isn't necessary at this point in the SNG.

Again, with SnG's we are trying to make the money first. With the stack we already have, we are going to make the money an extremely high % of the time, and probably have the chip lead when it's three handed. Which is right where we want to be to win the whole thing.

If we where three handed and a similar situation came up. I'm shoving all day long. If we were on the bubble and this situation came up, I'm shoving here all day long. A lot of you guys talk almost like AK is AA. I agree it's a strong hand, but it's not winning 80% of the time like AA is.

-----------equity---- win
Hand 0: 85.204% 84.93% { AdAh }
Hand 1: 14.796% 14.52% { random }

-----------equity---- win
Hand 0: 65.320% 64.47% { AhKd }
Hand 1: 34.680% 33.83% { random }

I do agree that there is a certain amount of gross exaggeration that goes on when people talk about the stupidity that goes on at lower limits.

Yeah, those were my initial thoughts as well. In your situation at that table, if you shoved, you wouldn't just be shoving the ~2700(?) chips, you'd also basically be putting your almost-guaranteed cash in the pot as well.

That's where all the +EV talk kinda falls apart. Yes, in a vacuum, shoving 2800 chips with AK preflop against a small raise is a +EV move, I'm sure. But you're not just pushing 2800 chips vs. 2800 chips. You're shoving 2800 chips and anywhere from $1.80 to $4.50 versus just 2800 chips. (Depending on how much chance to cash/win we would assume we'd lose if we lost the pot.)

The risk of a catastrophic loss versus the chance of a tiny gain.

I guess I just don't see the value of shoving at all here.

I also guess this is really just a longer version of the same post I wrote 6 pages ago, heh. Oh well.

I hate to nitpick here, but STT's are not about making the money-- rather, they're about making +$EV decisions.

But yeah, more power to ya for working out your game at a lower level. More players, especially new ones, should be doing this when trying to practice something they've learned.

im still interested in what the people who think calling is good, are doing with AT in this spot?

I really think with AT you are folding here

Of course, I would fold ace ten as well.

thats good, i was worried that people would be thinking calling with AT here is cool

so what happened? did you cash?

The result isn't going to prove who's right or wrong...

i need closure......how can you leave off the ending?

there won't be any closure, because the results don't really matter. The only thing that matters is the long term $EV of the decision. And obviously it's still debatable what move is the most +$EV in the long term. There aren't many black and white answers in poker, and that's why it's rare to have "closure". But still, what's important to understand is that the way this hand and this tournament played out won't indicate which play is best.