Why re-raise all in with 23 big blinds??

Hi guys

I would like to draw attention to an article in the most recent article of cardplayer magazine featuring dan cates: http://www.cardplayer.com/cardplayer-magazines

On page 34 in the hand to hand combat section a hand which a pro played is beeing described.

Blinds were 150-300 with antes of 25 at a 9 handed table

He raises with pocket 6's in middle position and gets two calls from villains whom he views as having moderately wide calling ranges. Then he goes to mentionning that he labels one of the villains as inexperienced because he didnt move all in with 23 big blinds instead of calling.

What is the reasonning behind that? It seems to me 23 BB is still a decent amount of play left before you would need to make such a move. Why would he expect an experienced player to move all in instead of just calling? If the villain expected the pro was raising light and would then re-raise all in with say A9o isn't that kind of a dicey proposition to put your tournament life on the line?

Thanks

Well, I can't find this article so not read it but I too, don't understand.

I'm sure there must of been more underlying reason other than him not shoving rather than just calling.

For one, what was his raise with the 6'6s? If of course he raised 15x then a call would be bad, if it is just your standard 3x raise then you say he raised in middle postion, the two callers could of been in postion rather than being in the blinds so have that to their advantage along with a range of hands which have a lot of value in position or even out of position.

Of course flatting in position with some hands with value isn't bad with 23bigblinds, unless like I say dan isn't telling all about this player. He might well of been calling nearly every pot prior so might of been a calling station and so saying inexperienced would be right. He could of been calling anything, again we don't know so again this could be a reason why he thinks he's inexperienced.

Like I say, I'm sure there is a reason he said he thought he was inexperienced and should of shoved because of previous hands with this player. Shoving 23blinds just isn't correct play in general unless of course you hold the nuts and expect to be called.

An experienced or unexperienced player for that matter "would" or "could" move all-in if he thinks Daniel is raising light, as he still has fold equity left.

I most certainly don't think Daniel would say in general someone with 23 blinds should be shoving every hand if they are an experienced player and face a raise from middle position and basically would class them as an "inexperienced" player if they don't shove.I'm almost 100% sure that Ivey's/Daniels/durrrs etcetc won't shove with 23blinds of less.This is just throwing money away and darn right bad play and not even heard of. I think it's wrong to even think an experienced player shoves rather than call with 23 BB left, so again there must be another reason why dan says he thinks he's inexperienced not just based on 23blinds and flat calling.

23blinds isn't shove/fold game, still got some play left.

On another note, Daniel isn't even a tournament player and if he indeed does actually think this based on 23big blinds then he really is quite inexperienced, I'm almost sure most players (top players too) wouldn't take the same line as Daniel as here IF (I doubt) Daniel did base the whole thing on just 23blinds left and flat calling is inexperienced play.

There's a bunch of information we don't have here (stage of the tournament, reads and stack sizes for each player, etc). I don't claim for a second to understand why the author of the article (was it Negreanu?) really thinks this player is inexperienced. But speaking generally...

First off I suppose it depends on what you mean by "a decent amount of play left". If you mean you've got a little breathing space allowing you to wait for a hand sure, I guess you're right. But a stack that size doesn't really leave us many options when it comes to playing this hand.

Assuming the opening raise was 2.5-3BB it's going to cost more than 10% of that stack to call. We're just not deep enough to get the implied odds we probably want in this spot with something like a medium pair or suited connectors. Making this move with something like AT / KQ is just asking for trouble and we'd probably prefer to get some value on our good hands by raising.

So the question is what hand could we possibly have where's its a good thing to just call a raise with a 23BB stack? Almost none if we're the first player to call and very few if we're the second player. At best it's a weak play and most of the time we'll just be throwing 2.5-3BB away. When you make a move that makes no sense for any hand in your range people are going to assume you're an inexperienced player. And chances are they'd be right.

Shoving, on the other hand, maximises our fold equity. Depending on the specific action we could pick up something like 5-8BB if we can get everyone else to fold by shoving. Our bet will be big enough that we can probably get a lot of medium strength hands to fold. We also ensure we get called for the maximum amount the times we get villains to call us with a worse hand. I'm not saying it's always the right play to shove, all sorts of things will factor into that decision. But it's a play that has a lot of advantages compared to just calling.

Oz:

I enjoy reading your comments.

Question though,

I'm guessing with Dan being in middle position and the flat call from this player, being in position (most likely) You really don't think it's profitable to call a range of hands here? Again we don't know how deep Daniel was at this point..

I don't like the thought and I'm surprised you think no hands have any value with calling a raise with 23bb's left in postion. What does this mean?

You're indeed just shoving over the top? It also means if that's the case you have to either make a move with a some what worse and marginal hand or wait for a premium hand, by the time that has come around you have lost a lot of your blinds and fold equity.

I quite often will call a raise with 23bb's in position as a lot have so much value and I know you say there is no good implied odds but a good player is going to know when he's beat anyway so you won't be getting them anyway.

Unless Daniel has less than 23BB then as far as our implied odds go it doesn't really matter what his stack size is - if we're the player with 23BB then all stacks are effectively 23BB or less. Obviously Daniel is able to open wider if he's sitting on 100BB as opposed to 15BB but as far as flat calling goes I really don't think it matters.

What's our plan for the hand when we just call? Are we planning to play fit-or-fold on the flop? We'll miss most flops so most of the time we'll just be throwing our preflop call away. Even when we hit there's no guarantees we'll be paid and when we do get paid it's still for only about 20BB more. By flatting we lose small most of the time, win small occasionally and we rarely win big.

Which is why I asked the question: what hands do you think it would be a good idea to flat with in this spot if you're the one sitting with 23BB? What's your plan for the hand?

As to what I'd do it really depends on the tournament structure, reads and whether we're the first to act after the raise or whether we're second and the first player has already called. If it's close to the money, there's some short stacks about to bust out soon or one of the players still in the hand is likely to call me wide then I'm probably folding most of my range and shoving the top hands (probably AQ+ / TT+, depends). If we're already in the money / a long way from the money, or if our opponents are generally weak I could well shove a wider range looking to pick up the dead money.

We also need to be concerned with the players still to act after us. Unless we're in the big blind (in which case we'll be playing a bloated pot out of position postflop, which sucks) there will be other players still to act, what do we do if one of them shoves? All the dead money in the pot certainly makes it enticing for someone to try and it'd make for a very tough call for us.

So in pretty much all cases I think either folding or shoving is better than calling. If we're second to act and we've got passive players behind us then maybe a set mine might be OK given we've got two players already in and the likelihood of at least one more that could pay us off if we hit... that's about the only spot I can think of though and even then I don't think folding would be a huge mistake.

Thanks for the reply guys but it was James Obst playing the hand. Its on page 34 of the most recent issue of carplayer magazine if you want more specifics but the gist of the hand is pretty much in my post.

it definitely depends on whether the 23bb is first or second to act after the initial raise...if they're first then i cant see calling as even an option, no matter what hands you have...but if they're second then i think theres a relatively wider range of hands to just flat with and see a flop...it also depends on how big the raise was in the first place, if its the standard raise and theres one caller already, then i think its worth calling with any playable hand just to see a flop and play it from there...but yea, if you're first to act after the initial raise i think its a jam/fold position, no room for just flatcalling there considering the person left to act behind...

I was playing someone in a SNG yesterday he had 3k he was 2nd iirc and his only move once blinds hit 100/200 was, shove.. shove. shove. regardless.

All he induced was folds 95% of the time.. I had him up about it.. saying wtf do you suck at post flop play or something as this is your only move and hes like no im ss we all are.. my god his theory was anything under 25bbs was SS.. I was like like wwwhaaat!!!!!

I tend to stick to 10 bbs and 15 bbs when blinds are high... of course depending on stack sizes at the table a SS bb ratio can change.

I can`t read the article and am therefore a bit vague on the details, but in medium-stacked tournament play it would be standard among experienced players to either make the squeeze (ie. re-raise) or fold if you are in position with a raise and a call in front. I would guess that might be the meaning of the author`s remark. The second call seems weak, unless it`s a deliberately deceptive move.

Erm... that means his stack was about 15BB. Exactly how much postflop play do you think there is when you're only sitting with 15BB? If I had a hand I meant to play and that stack size I'd be playing the same as your villain did. Speculating on flops is silly when you're that short.

As soon as I go below 20BB I try my hardest to avoid seeing any flops.

I personally beg to differ tbh.. its such a defensive play, there are times when I'll shove. but its not my be all and end all move when blinds hit 100/200 I have 3k+ one other bloke has about 2.5ish.who is before me followed by 2 avg 1600-1800- after me, and followed by two ss 1k-less who are also after

Why need to shove?,

So you raise 3bb on AQ in lp avg stack reraises all in and he has stats of 10/10 or something, shows AK well shit you just lost a great portion of your stack didn't ya how ever if you raised 3bb and he came over the top.. its entirely up to you if you wanna call off another 1200 chips. knowing full well by the villians ranges you are beat and at best flipping.

Raising and a SS shoves? well of course you call if you raise 600 and he reraises with with a total of 900 so only 300 to call of course you are gonna call off with whatever you raised with arn't ya.

Also this can happen. you raise AJ in MP, SS reraises all in so you think ok cal.. but then an average stack shoves over the top in the blinds and he is known as tight solid, you can get away from it..

In a nutshell I don't see the point into shoving into people of whom the majority of you have well covered, a SS wont just call your bet and it would be silly for an average stack to be relentlessly calling off your 3bb bets either,

If I see people calling me off wide, i.e calling hands like q10 in the blinds, if a 10 on the board comes, shove. then I might employ the shove pf all day every day, but not always. to me its unnecessary and you come out losing.

so often you see the big stack shoving AQ from mp-lp only to run into bigger, something you could of got away, from this is talking about an average stack + reshove. and your reads of course.

Oh and this is primarily talking about a 9 person SNG here in a tourney, play would be entirely different.

Sorry stopped reading when you said 3x AQ at 100/200 with 15bb

lol sigh. everyone plays different and everyones got different views of a SS I play quite comfortably sitting on 15bb.. and lol if you have starting stack, 1500 chips.. are you saying as soon as blinds hit 50/100 you are shoving all in? how boring, if everyone played like that I think I'd give up poker.

Your whole philosophy seems to be im pushing this regardless if im behind oh well, better luck next time. which to me seems flawed as ****. no offence,

In your own words, "lol sigh". How the hell did you come to this conclusion?

At 15bb I tighten up my range, don't steal light, only play hands which I am happy to get in preflop in 90% of situations. Shoving low pocket pairs to steal blinds and maximise fold equity is fine. Would you really play a hand like this?:

15bb stacks effective
Raise to 3x with 66, one caller
Pot 8bb
C-bet 4bb on K72 board
Villain shoves
You fold? You've just invested 7bb of your 15bb stack, and you have like 0% equity. WP

So for that reason I shove 66 in that spot. I get called by worse (22-55, all high cards), and while I occasionally get called by better I still have equity.

I don't just randomly shove hands I want to play and don't care. I just tighten up and play for value.

Also, 3x'ing off 12bb is bad, why would you do it? Raising smaller induces more 3bet bluffs and means people peel wider with more dominated hands. It's not like it's hard to get it in with 12bb behind over 3 streets...

I wouldnt raise pocket 66s 3bb like you are saying I would shove that is a hand that needs to be protected,

But if im in lp and have aq or the like what is the point of shoving, only too gain 300 chips or so, is what I'm getting at, I'm happy to take the risk if my stack has an edge on the whole table. or adjust my raises accordingly so if a person does call I know precisely what range to put them on and adjust accordingly. Bear in mind this is if I am big stack if I'm average or below I am playing shove/fold/ basicly under 10bb or 15bb in certain cases where there are fishy bigstacks.

The way I said sigh is cause it seems where the type of play you are implying is when blinds get to 100/200 you are utg you'd shove AJ wouldn't ya? which to me is wrong especially if you are big stack. I mean it pays off.. for what 300 chips? what if it goes wrong.. and oh does it go wrong as running into a Ace with higher kicker, or pockets even leaves you screwed doesn't it, when blinds are 150-300 I'm shoving much wider. but 100/200 to me when you are sitting on 3k+ no need to get panicky

LOL

[X] I think you are wasting your time Pascal
[X] He can play like he want (don´t tap..)
[ ] Oz and Pascal are fishies, don´t pay attention to them.




no offence

Yo do know with all poker theorems and such should not be blindly followed like a christian does with the bible right. A guide yes, but I wouldn't base my play entirely on what I read, thats why you see so many people making the same shoves/plays.

Saying you should shove a 3k big stack when blinds are 100/200 all day every day regardless when presented a solid hand of AJ+ which is the message I'm getting to me is wrong and why would you wanna jeopardise your stack(atleast more than half) I don't get,

Lets say I raise 3bb utg with AJ and get reraised by someone similar to my stack in the blinds, and he has stats of 16/10 I lost 600 chips, compared to what woulda been virtually my whole stack if I applied the theory i'm reading from you guys

This is a very vague example but just saying.

You can accomplish the same thing without putting your whole stack in the middle. is what I'm getting at.

This applies to SNG single tables only MTT plays of pushes and shoves are entirely different

Would I shove AJ UTG with 15bb at 100/200? No, I'd probably fold. Would I shove AJ with 15bb at 100/200 from CO instead of raising? Sure, because 66% of the time I will miss the flop, and if I c-bet and get raised on a low board, assuming I have two live overcards I'd just give myself odds to call him off and have enough equity, which seems awfully foolish - almost like trying to get it in behind?

Sounds like you've got a case of monsters under the bed syndrome. Shoving 15bb from LP with AQ is fine, and you will get called off with worse a lot of the time. When you do get called you are normally flipping, and even if they have you crushed you probably have 30% equity at worst. If they've got aces, tough, gg. It's about ranges, not about the odd time someone has something better.

If you have AQ UTG with 15bb, do you raise/call, raise/fold or shove? Clearly, raise folding seems bad because AQ is super strong, especially with 15bb, so we can discount that I hope? If you are raise/calling (to 3x pre, then calling the jam) do you think he'll shove worse than AQ over a large UTG raise? On the other hand, jamming UTG with not all that many chips, do you think he'll call AJ/AT/KQs? If you want the answer, it's yes. Additionally, if they do have something like AT, a low flop comes, and you c-bet then they fold, you are losing a ton of value if they would have called pre.

Meh I learnt a ton of forums, might as well try and give some back, plus I enjoy debates

And what's the big difference between SNG 9mans and when you are deep in tournaments? Unless you are talking about doing this stuff for ICM reasons, in which case you are burning tons of money raise folding to 3x when raising to 2.1x would have the same effect

Ahh I see what your saying, I still reckon what you are saying more applies to higher limits rather than low, where most are easy to read, hence why my play probably works for me.

Whats this monster under the bed syndrome? huh? nah its not that but you generally can tell simply because of the image you portray to the table yourself, what the person who reraises you has got, what they flat call you on etc. most of the time, like all reads they can be wrong. but without jeopardising shoving your dominant position at the CO with AJ, by running into better, you can minimize the losses the times you are dominated.

What do you consider low limits? I play low limits...

You may minimize the losses the times you are dominated, but you also lose value when you are ahead, and at micros people make terrible, even wtf, calls. Monsters under the bed syndrome is assuming everyone will always have a better hand when they shove.

for the past month I've played at the 5 dollar tables so yeah we can talk about those,

And true you make a fair point, about the value thingy.

And nah I don't think I suffer from that too greatly. I do at times find it hard when I get a random RR from a person who has been tight though. I'm talking 10/10 at times i think they're just using their image to their advantage.

Sure, I play $5 dollar tournaments, and a couple of months ago I played purely $1s-$5 tournaments.

The problem with folding strong hands to reraises off short stacks is if you do it twice then you've essentially lost half your stack with 0 equity.

The easiest way to deal with hands such as AJ in EP is, if you are not willing to go with it for a 15bb stack, is just to fold.

Yeah spose you make good points guess that goes hand in hand with a flop not seen is a flop not lost, but I wouldn't fold to a SS raise regardless if they may have me beat if its effectively a min raise or less you HAVE to call... lets say I raise 600 someone with 1500 comes over the top. i may fold... maybe 50/50 on that one. anything more and yeah fold.

but yeah it is ****en annoyingm where you do raise twice and get RR and yeah now in a bad state so I see and kinda regret debating about it now on why the shove thing should not be employed

So you're saying that it's a play that's maybe specific to low stakes games but to an extent it relies on your opponents paying attention to your table image? If so your logic there is flawed - DUCY?

The vast majority of my play has been at $6 / $11 turbo STTs by the way so we're not talking about vastly different stakes here or anything.

This thread has actually turned in to something really interesting and something I'm learning from. You let me in to some of your play, which is good

As for A,J I'm confused, are you really willing to fold with 15bb's in EP? I thought this would be an instant shoving hand? What if you fold, I'm sure I've done this and tried waiting for a better spot you end up most of the time getting it in with a much worse hand and less blinds. I think I'd be shoving UTG with A,J - maybe that's why I'm no where near as good as you. I'd actually like some sweat sessions with you some time if you don't mind

On another note,

would you care to explain your shoving ranges from UTG? Any pairs or are you folding some?

By the way, I have a difficult one, 10-15bb's, UTG/UTG+1 low pairs 22-55? What do you do? Fold/shove or do you find there is more value even with a pair of 2-2s than A,J UTG?


ps: I think (would be good too if you consider it ) a thread purely dedicated to spots and situations where you will answer them yourself. Basically a HH section, but pascals answers lol. Yours seem quite an in dept good explanation which makes more sense to me! If not (might go against rules of the actual HH section) I will post them in your MTT thread, even though that would be quite a hi-jack which I don't want to do, so I think you go with making one for us or me haah.

It was a few days ago that I read the article, but I'm pretty sure the 23BB guy had TT and ended up doubling up on the hand. I know we don't like to be results-oriented, but knowing what he did have (as he did) I don't mind the line of play -- he totally decepticated the author!!

I'm not even going to read the rest of the post before I respond to this first part here. Come on.. 'if' the guy were to raise 15x?? Come on... OP isn't referring to some freeroll on Stars. 15x lolzz

It doesn't even have anything to do with prior hands played (or likely doesn't)... shoving 23blinds in a spot like that is 'correct play'.. not shoving isn't. Only time I'd consider flatting would be if I did hold the nuts with a stack of that size (but even then, vs. a good player the 'flat' would be suspicious & more deceptive to just ship your entire range that you'd be playing in that spot (ie. don't ship AK.. but then just 3bet or flat w AA )

That was just an example, of course I don't expect 15x in a live event like that lol. Just there was information missing that was all, so we didn't know any stack sizes or anything.

Wow.

Well, I'm clearly doing some basic stuff very wrong then. I still think personally there is play left with 23blinds, I mean you does this mean you shove with 23blinds if you are indeed going to get involved in a hand?

I always had or worked with the theory of 10-15 blinds you may as well shove. For one, what if he's indeed holding Aces/Kings and you shove in to that? Or two overs to your middle pair? It's a coin flip, you don't mind taking flips at this stage? I don't mind flips with 15< or so.

Second, flat calling with Q,J or any connectors/suited I don't think is a bad idea, maybe I'm wrong. I'd only shove over with 10's+.

Surely you have some play left even if you check/fold, then you pick up a hand you can shove over the top with with less blinds? I just don't like the idea of shoving with 23blinds..

I can't ever imagine (happens very often) blinds 50/100 - avg stack size 2000-2500. You mean to tell me, it's correct to be shoving now if you have a hand you're willing to call with then shove over the top? You put your tournament line on a flip, when in my opinion there is still quite a bit of play left. Of course, we don't know how m any levels had passed, what the antes are etc but hmmmf - I don't like flipping "this" early anyway. Hell, after only 5 levels of play if you hadn't accumulated any chips you quite often are within the 20-25 range.

Ram - re shoving ranges, it depends on antes in play and antes not in play, and how tight/loose the table is

For example, if I'm UTG with AJo with 4.5k at 150/300/25, and it's a tight table, I probably shove AQ+ and 99+

If it was 3k at 100/200 on a tight table, I probably shove TT+ and I think even AQs there is pretty close...

As your stack decreases you can obv widen range, and I'll start shoving low pairs from ~13bb on really tight tables but on tables with standard calling range I don't think shoving UTG even with antes is good with 55 and below until you're down to about 8bb or so.

23bb is a great reshoving stack, but I'm very rarely shoving pre. Only times I think I would open shove pre is when I'm in like MP with 66-99 and a bunch of laggy players behind me, just because there are so many bad flops, I get called by worse, and I retain a ton of fold equity. I think it's also better to do this more often when you are deep in tournaments than at the start because even laggy players tend to nit up when the money starts getting bigger.

^^this. That`s very much what I was saying in post #9 above.

Yah.. this ^ (if I'd bothered to read down thru the thread in the first place).
Ram, 23bb stack is ideal size to re-shove with. Maybe try watchin' some of the higher buyin MTTs & see what range they're re-shoving with (obv. need to make adjustments at lower buyins & micros), it's not unusual to see players getting their chips in over raises as they don't tend to sit with stacks of <30bb's much. Not unusual to see a player with 23bb's shove over a raise with stuff like J9s,QTs, etc. (even much less... depending upon player reads/situation).

TT is an easy shove in that spot as far as I'm concerned. We hate pretty much all overcards on the flop but if we shove worse hands can call. Flatting turns the hand into a naked set mine.