FT short stack strategy question

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islandtime2

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I am curious what the opinions are for this situation that comes up alot. Made the final table (10 handed) but short stacked at ~11 big blinds. Dealt QQ in middle position.

PF: Shove allin? or make a standard pf raise (2.5x-5x) and reevaluate the flop planning to shove on flop if no K or A comes up?

Flop: If did not shove, and get a caller, and now out of position, and a K or A does show up - ignore the K or A and shove anyway for the 2 outer if needed? Or respect the K or A and just give up and check, planning to fold to any bet and wait for another last stand but now with an even shorter stack?
 
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islandtime2

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I think I am asking here the basic question when down to ~<12bb's do you always just wait for a good hand (top 10%?) and shove or if actually get a top 5 hand do you sometimes want to entice a call and just std raise and then shove on the flop?
 
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cpgd176

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Well with the QQ example, i'm always shoving there. A lot of worse hands are going to be calling you such as 22+, AJo+, K9+. And you can get an easily double up. Occasionally, the Ax hands that call you will hit there 3 outer and you can't really be upset about that since you got it in good and had a good shot to double and be a contender to win the tourney. Now, without getting QQ, when down to 12 bbs or lower, you should be shoving a wider range or cards such as the calling range i listed above ^^ (22+, AQo+, AJs+). If you wanna win tournaments try to avoid getting this low in chips and if you do, try to find good spots to shove with good hands and get double up or sometimes just steal blinds with hands that still have decent equity.
 
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It really depends on the other stacks at the table. Sometimes the final table is between 10-20bbs or avg stack might be 30bbs. If avg stack is 30bbs, i think you should shove pre most of the time. If its a shallow final table, you can raise and get someone to shove light.
 
rdm4k

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Jam plz!
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doncaster

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shove shove shove..what else could you wait for???Even if you just steal the blinds.....better than nothing.
You bound to get a caller though as there must be a big stacker who usually calls with any 2 cards.
And good luck !!
QQ is as good as it gets and even if you had AA you still only a 50/50 chance to win against the big stack caller.
What did you do ???? And what was the result ??
 
lovemiscou

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You should shove with QQ. You re chances of doubling up are very good

it s better to go out fighting then just blinding out
 
Jacki Burkhart

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It really depends on the other stacks at the table. Sometimes the final table is between 10-20bbs or avg stack might be 30bbs. If avg stack is 30bbs, i think you should shove pre most of the time. If its a shallow final table, you can raise and get someone to shove light.

Totally agree with this advice. If you are much shorter than most other players...I'd shove the QQ and hope a bigger stack will make a loose call.

if this is the kind of tourney where everyone's a little short, then I'd make a standard raise and hope for somebody to re-raise...of course you're not folding preflop no matter what so you'll either call their all in, or go all in yourself if you have enough chips left to 4 bet.

Now, what if somebody just flats you and the flop sucks? That's the real danger here.

If you're out of position and there is both an A and a K on the flop, just check fold (and second guess yourself for not shipping)

If you're out of position and there is only a King (no ace), probably just go ahead and shove.

If you're out of position and there is only an Ace (no king) it's risky...go based on your player read but seriously consider check folding.

If you're in position and they check to you, pretty much shove the flop no matter what is on the flop.
 
steveiam

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QQ is an auto shove in that position. Hopefully you will get one caller and your hand will stand up.
 
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I do agree that you can get in some tricky spots when someone flats you. I still think you should shove more than fold if only an ace or king hits the flop. More likely to fold if both an ace and a king come. So it really depends on the players and their tendancies to flat versus shoving.
 
Propane Goat

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With 10BB left this is more than enough to shove with. If you raise 3-5BB, the flop is something like AKx, and you have to check-fold, you're down to desperate and you'll have to double up fast just to get back to where you were. Ship it and make people risk the maximum to beat you with their K9 and T8 junk. You can't just sit and wait for AA, those hands only come once every 220 times on average. If you get low enough in chips people will have the odds to call with any hand, and they will.
 
AtiFCOD

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I am curious what the opinions are for this situation that comes up alot. Made the final table (10 handed) but short stacked at ~11 big blinds. Dealt QQ in middle position.

PF: Shove allin? or make a standard pf raise (2.5x-5x) and reevaluate the flop planning to shove on flop if no K or A comes up?

Flop: If did not shove, and get a caller, and now out of position, and a K or A does show up - ignore the K or A and shove anyway for the 2 outer if needed? Or respect the K or A and just give up and check, planning to fold to any bet and wait for another last stand but now with an even shorter stack?

I think shoving is the best solution. And pray for getting called. :)

Flop: You are pot committed, cant fold it even A/K shows up.
 
WeenieSVK

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In this situation the best thing what you can do is shove preflop. You will get called with much wider range (especially from BB) in this case, so you will be ahead most of the times... Ofcourse can happen that you will be unlucky, but thats poker.

Minraise is bad, cause maybe you will not get maximum from opponent if he folds on flop, or you can get called with more players who would not call allin preflop, but will call minraise and you can get suckout more often I think :)
 
Jacki Burkhart

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With 10BB left this is more than enough to shove with. If you raise 3-5BB, the flop is something like AKx, and you have to check-fold, you're down to desperate and you'll have to double up fast just to get back to where you were. Ship it and make people risk the maximum to beat you with their K9 and T8 junk. You can't just sit and wait for AA, those hands only come once every 220 times on average. If you get low enough in chips people will have the odds to call with any hand, and they will.

I don't think he is wondering if QQ is good enough to shove with, I think he wants to know if shoving is the best way to play it and get maximum value.

We all agree shoving is a fine option... But there are other options to extract more value from a hand as strong as QQ. Shoving essentially turns it into a blind stealing hand and that is fine, but you don't need QQ to blind steal. Shoving essentially turns your QQ into A7 or KJ by usually just winning the blinds.

If I've been shipping a lot lately to steal blinds, then I'll ship with QQ too.

If I've been sitting tight not playing many hands then I'll probably just raise with it as shipping will rarely get a worse hand to call a tight płayers all in.

Just another point of view...
 
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I don't think he is wondering if QQ is good enough to shove with, I think he wants to know if shoving is the best way to play it and get maximum value.

We all agree shoving is a fine option... But there are other options to extract more value from a hand as strong as QQ. Shoving essentially turns it into a blind stealing hand and that is fine, but you don't need QQ to blind steal. Shoving essentially turns your QQ into A7 or KJ by usually just winning the blinds.

If I've been shipping a lot lately to steal blinds, then I'll ship with QQ too.

If I've been sitting tight not playing many hands then I'll probably just raise with it as shipping will rarely get a worse hand to call a tight płayers all in.

Just another point of view...

If you're sitting tight and then just raising with a short stack, other players are gonna know something is up and they're usually not calling unless they have AA KK AK, maybe 10 JJ if they're loose and have a lot of chips. Going all in instead of raising honestly will probably get you more value. Why would you raise with a short stack? Your opponents are going to think you're more likely to have a wider range if you shove than raise short stacked.
 
okeedokalee

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Shoving is the best option with a stack that size.Any stack 15 BBs and under is a shove for me.You have to risk dying in order to live, at 11BBs you are going to blind off without many better opportunities to build a decent stack.
 
Akorps

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Pretty sure shoving is theoretically optimal in that situation.
 
Carl Trooper

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If you fold queens here, you are doing it wrong!
 
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I'd have to shove with QQ in that situation. My problem with not shoving wouldn't be the prospect of AK in the flop it would be going up against too many hands. The shove is to eliminate most of them. My most comfortable scenario would be one of the bigger stacks calling and me doubling up. I'd rather double up through one on one than one against 5 or 8. If I was one of the bigger stacks with QQ I'd just call and see what came in the flop.
 
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if you're shortstacked just shove it allin , cause at that stage the blinds are big so you can collect those without being called & risking anything
 
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as someone said if the Av stack is 30 bb's or whatever then it is 100% a shove as a call is only for 1/3 of their stack and thus they will do so lighter. however, if everyone has av between 15-20 bb's it would be totally fine to min raise or 2.5x, deffoo not 3x looks too fishy. this could induce someone to shove a small pair over the top as they think they have fold equity. or call from bb with 6 7s or whatever then just stack off when they hit top pair as stacks are so short.


if you feel comfortable potentially being called and having to play post flop with 10 bb's behind then by all means min raise (as i said it stacks are short) however if you know you will feel uncomfortable and will shut down if an A or K hits and could potentially be bluffed off by say 3's which saw you basically turn your hand face up and decided to put you in the cage then just shove and avoid such a scenario. personally if stacks are short i like to be tricky with big hands such as flatting a raise with a big pair. for example earlier i flat ep raise with around 15 bb's with AA, co or button calls can't remember exactly, then sb over shove squeezes. original raiser folds i call and other guy folds. he had QQ but that is besides the point, even with 8's or something he could have easily squeezed. something that he would never do if i 3 bet an utg raiser from utg+1 as this looks so strong and 8's would be an insta fold. also i collected the dead money from the 3rd caller as well. anyway hope i helped :)
 
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Do whatever looks the weakest, which is usually shoving in this case. If you have raise/folded with a 12 bb stack recently, then you should min raise, if you have been only open shoving 12 bb stacks, then shove. I'm pretty much always shoving instead of min raising with 12 bb's or less.
 
Arjonius

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In general, this is an automatic shove situation. But, there can be some circumstances where you might decide to play differently, although they'd have to be quite unusual.

For example, I've been at a few final tables where the average stack size was less than 10BB. In a case like that, if a couple of people are on the verge of blinding out and if moving up one or two spots would mean winning significantly more money, it's not out of the question to open with a raise to retain the option of folding. Card-wise, I'd say shoving is still best, but automatically assuming its also optimal money EV-wise might not be correct.
 
TeUnit

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think you shove or do a limp and go and shove any flop

lot depends on the players left to act, the tourney equity, and stack sizes
 
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scottieflippen

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I'm always shoving the QQ there at 14/15 BBs
 
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