duggs
Killing me softly
Silver Level
Hey this is my first post so go easy.
Fold equity is one of our most effective tools in building and maintaining a stack during tournament poker. It is the equity gained from chance of your opponents folding the hand and you winning the pot uncontested.
There are a number of factors that affect our ability to steal and take down pots using fold equity.
Personally the ones i focus most on are:
My table image
I consider playing very tight aggressive poker early in tournaments as an investment into my future ability to pressurize our opponents. Showing down early with marginal hands allows other players to put us on a wider range than we would like.
Relative stack sizes
Generally speaking the size of the blinds and ante often determine the pot odds given to a player considering a reraise or call.
Stealing across very short stacks may invite them to push all in, at which point you are priced in with a marginal hand for a chunk of your stack.
Big stacks a much more likely to reraise than mid stacks, whose stacks are much more vulnerable.
Position
Raises from early positions represent a much tighter raising range than those from SB and Button, which are often not respected. raising from cutoff and before will lead to a much tighter range being assigned to you
Stage of tournament
In the early stages of a tournament the blinds are too small to make uncontested pots a great enough reward for raising with a wide range of hands. Mid and Late stages are much more effective, but the bubble is easily when it is easiest to pressure players into folding, either by shoving postflop or raising pre. Most weak players are looking to make it ITM before continuing to play poker.
Opponents
Your opponents playing styles and ranges can be noted. I tend to note the players that will flat call a lot from bb or reraise light, and adjust my play against them by either betting higher against their blind with a tighter range, or 3 betting with marginal hand if stack sizes permit a fold for your opponent. It's also worth noting the players that don't give up a hand post flop, and those that fold to cbets often after calling out of position.
So i guess my question is what do you take into account when considering steals or resteals? I'm keen to get some other opinions.
Fold equity is one of our most effective tools in building and maintaining a stack during tournament poker. It is the equity gained from chance of your opponents folding the hand and you winning the pot uncontested.
There are a number of factors that affect our ability to steal and take down pots using fold equity.
Personally the ones i focus most on are:
My table image
I consider playing very tight aggressive poker early in tournaments as an investment into my future ability to pressurize our opponents. Showing down early with marginal hands allows other players to put us on a wider range than we would like.
Relative stack sizes
Generally speaking the size of the blinds and ante often determine the pot odds given to a player considering a reraise or call.
Stealing across very short stacks may invite them to push all in, at which point you are priced in with a marginal hand for a chunk of your stack.
Big stacks a much more likely to reraise than mid stacks, whose stacks are much more vulnerable.
Position
Raises from early positions represent a much tighter raising range than those from SB and Button, which are often not respected. raising from cutoff and before will lead to a much tighter range being assigned to you
Stage of tournament
In the early stages of a tournament the blinds are too small to make uncontested pots a great enough reward for raising with a wide range of hands. Mid and Late stages are much more effective, but the bubble is easily when it is easiest to pressure players into folding, either by shoving postflop or raising pre. Most weak players are looking to make it ITM before continuing to play poker.
Opponents
Your opponents playing styles and ranges can be noted. I tend to note the players that will flat call a lot from bb or reraise light, and adjust my play against them by either betting higher against their blind with a tighter range, or 3 betting with marginal hand if stack sizes permit a fold for your opponent. It's also worth noting the players that don't give up a hand post flop, and those that fold to cbets often after calling out of position.
So i guess my question is what do you take into account when considering steals or resteals? I'm keen to get some other opinions.