W
WiZZiM
Legend
Silver Level
This relates to the late push/fold part of the game. I have here an example of hands played by a friend of mine, and it illistrates how missing one +EV shove can have a negative effect on the rest of the tournament.
So here is a series of missed shoves, that if taken can have a huge effect on cashing in SNGs, and of course, winning more SNGs.
I didn’t want to post the whole HH here as I wanted the Hero to have anonymity. So I’ve selected crucial hands throughout this tournament and trying to show how a few missed shoves can be so important in SNGs.
pokerstars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds 25 Ante (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Button (t2215)
SB (t1505)
BB (t4060)
Hero (UTG) (t1765)
MP (t1690)
CO (t2265)
Hero's M: 3.92
Preflop: Hero is UTG with A
, 10
4 folds, SB bets t1480 (All-In), BB calls t1280
Flop: (t3110) 4
, Q
, 10
(2 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: (t3110) 8
(2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t3110) 4
(2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: t3110
So here’s the first missed spot. With the antes the blinds are effectively 150/300. We’re UTG shoving into a full table, but ATs here is easily a shove. If we miss this shove, we are then put through the blinds, and most of the time, we’re not going to find a good spot to call someone down in the blinds. Taking this shove, we either win the blinds right then, or we get called, sometimes we lose and we’re out of the tournament, sure. But sometimes we double up, which is obviously a significant boost to our equity. Either way, when we shove here, we win more than we lose, we gain 450 chips, adding to our stack which can lead to better more +EV spots in the future. Think about it like this, we fold here, we leave our 1740 stack, we pick up say AA next hand in the blinds, we get shoved on and we call. We increase our stack from 1740 to 3400 roughly, nice. If we made the shove with ATs, and took down the blinds, we now have ~2100, we get shoved on, we call and increase from 2100 to around 4200
3400-4200=1000 chips we just cost ourselves by not making that initial shove.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB (t2040)
BB (t3300)
Hero (UTG) (t5345)
Button (t2815)
Hero's M: 7.64
Preflop: Hero is UTG with 10
, J
1 fold, Button bets t800, 1 fold, BB raises to t3275 (All-In), 1 fold
Total pot: t1900
Here’s another clear cut shove in my opinion. We have the dominant stack on the bubble, with two absolute nits, and one who may call us down lighter than the average player. Even so, the calling ranges on all villains here are extremely tight, we need to capitalize on having the big stack here by shoving all in and taking down the blinds. Reads wise, the button and SB are nits, so it’s highly likely that they both fold to the BB, The BB here is one of the main competition, and is the one who will be shoving into us most likely. So we kind of want him to lose chips. If we shove here, we increase our stack by a good margin, and we put more distance between us, and the rest of the stacks. Sure we get called sometimes, and we may lose, even if that happens, we still have a decent stack left. I’m not saying this is an ATC shove here, but TJs is certainly in my range for shoving. If we take this thin shove here, we can now “own” the bubble. If we fold a few things can now happen, the worst is when both players fold to the BB, and he picks up the pot, then next hand, both Nits fold, and the SB shoves into us, all of a sudden in the space of two hands, he is now the chip leader! If we shove now, and put a considerable distance between ourselves and the other stacks, we may actually get more folds from the SB as he might be worried that we will call him.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB (t1340)
BB (t3400)
Hero (UTG) (t7445)
Button (t1315)
Hero's M: 10.64
Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q
, 4
3 folds
Total pot: t500
Here’s another one, in the same shoving situation before, two nits on the button and SB and another player who wont be able to call wide enough due to the two shortstacks, the difference now is the BB is the only competition to us at the moment, this is certainly and ATC shove spot, the other one stacks we’re a touch closer and I could understand folding out a chunk of our range, here, Q4s is an easy peasy shove. Again as stated before, worse case scenario is that both nits fold to the BB, which happens often as they both seem to be in survival mode Vs each other. We shove and take this down, it’s highly likely everyone folds to us again, and we get to shove ATC against anyone. And of course the BB may shove into us wider now that he has a stack that can hurt us ( I know I certainly would).
It so happened that the BB raised on our blinds the very next hand, Hero made a suspect play by re-shoving against a very tight SB raiser with Ax and the BB in this hand doubled up. So lets look at some math from the BB’s perspective.
This hand if we shove, he folds most of his range. So he’s left with 2975 so now when he doubles through us, he gets ~6000, if we don’t shove and nits fold to him, he gets left with ~3500, now when he doubles he has 7000, Yep, we just gave him an extra 1000 chips than we needed too, he is now the dominant chip leader, and we have to tighten significantly. I hope you’re beginning to see a pattern here, and why it’s called the “ripple effect”
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 50 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
UTG (t690)
Button (t7400)
Hero (SB) (t2645)
BB (t2765)
Hero's M: 2.40
Preflop: Hero is SB with 6
, 5
3 folds
Total pot: t800
Here is the one that I labeled the most crucial and probably worst fold of all.
We’re covered by the BB here, sure. But this guy is a nit, (nit or not, we’re shoving ATC regardless). Some will make an argument here that, “oh I’ll fold this very thin shove, because I have heaps more chips that the Shortstack at the table, and it’s likely he will bust out”.
When people offer that as a rationale it makes very little sense to me. Firstly, if we shove here and take the pot down, we put ourselves in much better +EV spots later on, The villain to our immediate right may think twice about shoving into us. And we can now shove really wide on the two villains to our left. Secondly, Getting into the money with a 2k, stack isn’t something that really pleases me, we’re going to be left with a lot of third/second placings. But we ITMed you say? Awesome. It should be our goal to get ITM with a chip stack that gives us a chance to win a tournament, It’s pretty much common sense if we enter ITM as a bigger stack, we have more of a shot to win it, right?
Folding to this guy also makes us a little risk averse vs that player, we are now covered by more, and he might call us down lighter later on in the tournament.
Lastly, sure the shortstacked villain is short, but one double up, and he’s now really close to us in chip count, which, is exactly what happens the very next hand.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 50 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
BB (t640)
UTG (t7350)
Hero (Button) (t2295)
SB (t3215)
Hero's M: 2.09
Preflop: Hero is Button with 5
, J
UTG bets t1200, 2 folds
Flop: (t1680) 9
, 9
, Q
(2 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: (t1680) Q
(2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t1680) 3
(2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: t1680
Yes, that just happened! And now we kind of put ourselves into a situation where the blinds are about to hit our very small stack.
So what ended up happening was the guy to our immediate right starting shoving every hand(what we should have been doing earlier) and started “owning” the bubble. We get left in this truly ugly situation of trying to outlast the remaining shortstacks trying to get ITM.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 50 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Button (t2210)
SB (t9360)
Hero (BB) (t1095)
UTG (t835)
Hero's M: 1.00
Preflop: Hero is BB with A
, 2
2 folds, SB bets t1200, 1 fold
Total pot: t1400
This is another clear cut call in my opinion. If we don’t take a risk here, with a hand that is likely ahead, we have simply given up our chance of winning, and we still don’t have a huge % chance of making the money.
Anyways what happens is the hero, somehow, manages to cash in this tournament. But it could have gone a lot better, and it starts way earlier on in the tournament. Making these thin +ev shoves earlier on, can help set us up to make much better +EV decisions later on in the tournament. It can also stop us from being in really ugly bubble spots. Sure we will bust out a lot more and probably have a much lower ITM %, but it means that when we get ITM, we have a much larger stack compared to the remaining players, and that’s something we shouldn’t ever underestimate. As it translates into winning more tournaments.
And hopefully you can see how not taking a thin +EV spot can really have more of an effect that you could ever imagine.
So here is a series of missed shoves, that if taken can have a huge effect on cashing in SNGs, and of course, winning more SNGs.
I didn’t want to post the whole HH here as I wanted the Hero to have anonymity. So I’ve selected crucial hands throughout this tournament and trying to show how a few missed shoves can be so important in SNGs.
pokerstars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds 25 Ante (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Button (t2215)
SB (t1505)
BB (t4060)
Hero (UTG) (t1765)
MP (t1690)
CO (t2265)
Hero's M: 3.92
Preflop: Hero is UTG with A
4 folds, SB bets t1480 (All-In), BB calls t1280
Flop: (t3110) 4
Turn: (t3110) 8
River: (t3110) 4
Total pot: t3110
So here’s the first missed spot. With the antes the blinds are effectively 150/300. We’re UTG shoving into a full table, but ATs here is easily a shove. If we miss this shove, we are then put through the blinds, and most of the time, we’re not going to find a good spot to call someone down in the blinds. Taking this shove, we either win the blinds right then, or we get called, sometimes we lose and we’re out of the tournament, sure. But sometimes we double up, which is obviously a significant boost to our equity. Either way, when we shove here, we win more than we lose, we gain 450 chips, adding to our stack which can lead to better more +EV spots in the future. Think about it like this, we fold here, we leave our 1740 stack, we pick up say AA next hand in the blinds, we get shoved on and we call. We increase our stack from 1740 to 3400 roughly, nice. If we made the shove with ATs, and took down the blinds, we now have ~2100, we get shoved on, we call and increase from 2100 to around 4200
3400-4200=1000 chips we just cost ourselves by not making that initial shove.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB (t2040)
BB (t3300)
Hero (UTG) (t5345)
Button (t2815)
Hero's M: 7.64
Preflop: Hero is UTG with 10
1 fold, Button bets t800, 1 fold, BB raises to t3275 (All-In), 1 fold
Total pot: t1900
Here’s another clear cut shove in my opinion. We have the dominant stack on the bubble, with two absolute nits, and one who may call us down lighter than the average player. Even so, the calling ranges on all villains here are extremely tight, we need to capitalize on having the big stack here by shoving all in and taking down the blinds. Reads wise, the button and SB are nits, so it’s highly likely that they both fold to the BB, The BB here is one of the main competition, and is the one who will be shoving into us most likely. So we kind of want him to lose chips. If we shove here, we increase our stack by a good margin, and we put more distance between us, and the rest of the stacks. Sure we get called sometimes, and we may lose, even if that happens, we still have a decent stack left. I’m not saying this is an ATC shove here, but TJs is certainly in my range for shoving. If we take this thin shove here, we can now “own” the bubble. If we fold a few things can now happen, the worst is when both players fold to the BB, and he picks up the pot, then next hand, both Nits fold, and the SB shoves into us, all of a sudden in the space of two hands, he is now the chip leader! If we shove now, and put a considerable distance between ourselves and the other stacks, we may actually get more folds from the SB as he might be worried that we will call him.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB (t1340)
BB (t3400)
Hero (UTG) (t7445)
Button (t1315)
Hero's M: 10.64
Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q
3 folds
Total pot: t500
Here’s another one, in the same shoving situation before, two nits on the button and SB and another player who wont be able to call wide enough due to the two shortstacks, the difference now is the BB is the only competition to us at the moment, this is certainly and ATC shove spot, the other one stacks we’re a touch closer and I could understand folding out a chunk of our range, here, Q4s is an easy peasy shove. Again as stated before, worse case scenario is that both nits fold to the BB, which happens often as they both seem to be in survival mode Vs each other. We shove and take this down, it’s highly likely everyone folds to us again, and we get to shove ATC against anyone. And of course the BB may shove into us wider now that he has a stack that can hurt us ( I know I certainly would).
It so happened that the BB raised on our blinds the very next hand, Hero made a suspect play by re-shoving against a very tight SB raiser with Ax and the BB in this hand doubled up. So lets look at some math from the BB’s perspective.
This hand if we shove, he folds most of his range. So he’s left with 2975 so now when he doubles through us, he gets ~6000, if we don’t shove and nits fold to him, he gets left with ~3500, now when he doubles he has 7000, Yep, we just gave him an extra 1000 chips than we needed too, he is now the dominant chip leader, and we have to tighten significantly. I hope you’re beginning to see a pattern here, and why it’s called the “ripple effect”
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 50 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
UTG (t690)
Button (t7400)
Hero (SB) (t2645)
BB (t2765)
Hero's M: 2.40
Preflop: Hero is SB with 6
3 folds
Total pot: t800
Here is the one that I labeled the most crucial and probably worst fold of all.
We’re covered by the BB here, sure. But this guy is a nit, (nit or not, we’re shoving ATC regardless). Some will make an argument here that, “oh I’ll fold this very thin shove, because I have heaps more chips that the Shortstack at the table, and it’s likely he will bust out”.
When people offer that as a rationale it makes very little sense to me. Firstly, if we shove here and take the pot down, we put ourselves in much better +EV spots later on, The villain to our immediate right may think twice about shoving into us. And we can now shove really wide on the two villains to our left. Secondly, Getting into the money with a 2k, stack isn’t something that really pleases me, we’re going to be left with a lot of third/second placings. But we ITMed you say? Awesome. It should be our goal to get ITM with a chip stack that gives us a chance to win a tournament, It’s pretty much common sense if we enter ITM as a bigger stack, we have more of a shot to win it, right?
Folding to this guy also makes us a little risk averse vs that player, we are now covered by more, and he might call us down lighter later on in the tournament.
Lastly, sure the shortstacked villain is short, but one double up, and he’s now really close to us in chip count, which, is exactly what happens the very next hand.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 50 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
BB (t640)
UTG (t7350)
Hero (Button) (t2295)
SB (t3215)
Hero's M: 2.09
Preflop: Hero is Button with 5
UTG bets t1200, 2 folds
Flop: (t1680) 9
Turn: (t1680) Q
River: (t1680) 3
Total pot: t1680
Yes, that just happened! And now we kind of put ourselves into a situation where the blinds are about to hit our very small stack.
So what ended up happening was the guy to our immediate right starting shoving every hand(what we should have been doing earlier) and started “owning” the bubble. We get left in this truly ugly situation of trying to outlast the remaining shortstacks trying to get ITM.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 50 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Button (t2210)
SB (t9360)
Hero (BB) (t1095)
UTG (t835)
Hero's M: 1.00
Preflop: Hero is BB with A
2 folds, SB bets t1200, 1 fold
Total pot: t1400
This is another clear cut call in my opinion. If we don’t take a risk here, with a hand that is likely ahead, we have simply given up our chance of winning, and we still don’t have a huge % chance of making the money.
Anyways what happens is the hero, somehow, manages to cash in this tournament. But it could have gone a lot better, and it starts way earlier on in the tournament. Making these thin +ev shoves earlier on, can help set us up to make much better +EV decisions later on in the tournament. It can also stop us from being in really ugly bubble spots. Sure we will bust out a lot more and probably have a much lower ITM %, but it means that when we get ITM, we have a much larger stack compared to the remaining players, and that’s something we shouldn’t ever underestimate. As it translates into winning more tournaments.
And hopefully you can see how not taking a thin +EV spot can really have more of an effect that you could ever imagine.
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