$5.50 NLHE STT: 16bb shove from late position w/KQs with 1 limp and 1 raise

is giving villain a calling range of 15% and FE of 20% realistic?

of course its early so its hard to tell, but villain seems to be an average reg so i i think hes calling with A4s+/A10+/KTs/77+
i say 20% FE because if hes an average reg, hes probably opening with 18 to 19% PFR and calling with 15% so he's folding roughly 1/5th of his range

blinds and MP are pretty much never calling here... unless i run into like AA or KK

I feel like calling is not an option because there are a lot of flops that I'm going to have a really hard time calling. even if i hit my K, im folding to any ace. flops like KJT are going to be hard to call.. if i miss the flop im folding...

iPoker - $5+$0.50|<> NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP: 48.56 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, hands: 9)
MP+1: 63.3 BB (VPIP: 11.11, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
CO: 8.2 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 9)
Hero (BTN): 16 BB
SB: 44.6 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
BB: 39.08 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
UTG: 32 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
UTG+1: 18.26 BB (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q:club: K:club:

fold, fold, MP calls 1 BB, MP+1 raises to 4 BB, fold, Hero raises to 16 BB ...

its not about what we think to be realistic. its what you think his range is. Being good at poker is being really good at assigning ranges to players. then with that info knowing what to do in certain spots. To know what to do in this spot, you will want to plug all the above information into an icm calculator. that will tell you what you stand to gain/lose in any situation for SNG. But don't just use these ranges, tinker with them and make them looser or tighter to see how it affects things.

Like, you say he will fold 4% of his range here, however he's a huge stack, and your stack does not threaten him at all. Also, it's way more likely this guy is a bit of a fish because he has made moves early on in the sng, this isn't always the case but without info it's a pretty safe bet. So if we assume he's more likely to be bad or loose, and he's a big stack raising 4bb, it's a pretty safe bet he's also calling with almost all of his range, so i don't really think we have folding equity here, and if we do it's a very small %.

So knowing that he basically won't fold, taking the FE away, we need to see how much of his range we dominate. There's good and bad points here about our hand, the plus side is that we dominate a fair chunk of his range, all of his KJ QJ. but the downside is that he will raise/call of his Ax hands most likely and all of his pairs, so overall we sit at like 50/50 in this spot so overall it's doesnt seem to be a great spot to jam. However if you feel that he will fold a certain % of his hand it suddenly becomes way better for us as we can win pots without showdown.

Lastly, he's raising a limper, so that means his range will be tighter than average, plus we have to consider and factor in the times the limper is trapping or calls our jam and it goes 3 way to the flop..

The ICM calc can do all this for you, and it's the best way to learn 3bet spots preflop as you can see how ranges affect the hands you can jam and vice versa.

So basically without babbling anymore crap, this type of spot heavily depends on the ranges you give villians, so it could be a jam or fold dependiing.

With my reads of what players are like at low levels i would think this is a jam but its one of those spots where you are rarely way ahead and you are more often behind and making a suicide ICM play.

the difference between an 18% calling range and a 15% calling range is about 4 hands and all the combinations of those hands at the very bottom of his range.

given a 15% range, im at about 42% equity. -75cEV without FE. factoring in 20% FE, puts me at about +5cEV

putting it into an ICM claculator, I get about +.02$EV

I think its virtually a breakeven spot and i think the play should be to fold an wait for a better spot.

I just want to see if you guys agree.

yeah without putting it in myself i would think it's around the breakeven mark, like mentioned above, it can swing wildly one way or the other based on the ranges you assign, also keep in mind you want to err on the side of making the situation worse for yourself in terms of EV, because if you make his range tighter or worse case, and it's still a breakeven or winning shove, then you KNOW it's a great shove...

So whenever you are at breakeven spots, it's almost always better to be folding unless you have a reason to take it on. Reasons are usually future game situations like lets say you're playing vs pros or you are playing vs aggressive bigger stacks and you are unlikely to get many chances to open shove in the late game, things like this are great reasons to take on breakeven spots in SNG, but in general if you have a healthy stack which you do, theres no real reason for it. Especially as you are playing a pretty low SNG on a site which is known to have plenty of fish, you should have a pretty decent edge in your games.

Thanks wizzim, that's really great advice.

I agree with a fold here. Additional reason already not mentioned:

1) It appears early and your stack is small, therefore you recently lost a big hand and your image could be damaged a little and it could appear to be a tilt shove, which gets called more.

2) The Gigabet dillemma. The Reg in MP1 has reason to call you off a little lighter than normal here. His call would give him nearly a full block of chips over anyone at the table. His losing this hand still has him fairly even with the biggest stacks. Therefore if he is a reg and understands this, he can call off with slight -cEV and still be +$EV due to the spot.

Overall, it may be slightly profitable. Probably it is more likely a $0 ev spot or maybe a small negative. Therefore, it is really hard to say conclusively what the exact proper play is here 100% of the time. either way, which ever play you choose cannot be a major mistake. If whatever choice you made was a mistake it would be a small error.

But in STTs, you are better off erring on the side of survival in these close call situations.

Woah, that's totally on another level O.O
Even if he's calling me with a wider range, I'm still flipping most of the time, but I'm probably crushed a little less often.
That's a cool way to think about it.

Fold, shove AQ+ 99+ readless.

jjpregler said:

I agree with a fold here. Additional reason already not mentioned:

1) It appears early and your stack is small, therefore you recently lost a big hand and your image could be damaged a little and it could appear to be a tilt shove, which gets called more.

2) The Gigabet dillemma. The Reg in MP1 has reason to call you off a little lighter than normal here. His call would give him nearly a full block of chips over anyone at the table. His losing this hand still has him fairly even with the biggest stacks. Therefore if he is a reg and understands this, he can call off with slight -cEV and still be +$EV due to the spot.

Overall, it may be slightly profitable. Probably it is more likely a $0 ev spot or maybe a small negative. Therefore, it is really hard to say conclusively what the exact proper play is here 100% of the time. either way, which ever play you choose cannot be a major mistake. If whatever choice you made was a mistake it would be a small error.

But in STTs, you are better off erring on the side of survival in these close call situations.

Click to expand...

nice post and welcome to the forum