Free coaching inside!...What did I do, and why did I do it?

Bwammo

Bwammo

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Today is your lucky day! This is your chance to get a free 30 minute coaching session from, well, me lol...all you must do is post a correct answer to the below question. There is a 24 hour time limit on this, I will respond a couple times to help direct the conversation if time is passing and a sufficient answer doesn't show up.

Keep in mind: I don't really play "normal" and I have a reason(albeit sometimes totally obscure) for everything...whether it's stack sizes, HUD stats, or a positional advantage.



This screen shot is from a 9 man SNG. In this hand, the blinds are becoming relevant at 50/100 and it's folded to me on the button. I raise preflop and am 3-bet shoved on by the SB...the BB folds and the action is on me.

My HUD stats are as follows from left to right...top: VPIP, PFR, Steal, 3bet...bottom: Aggression Frequency, xBBs, Total hands.

Why did I raise the size I did preflop? How/why should we respond to the shove? What circumstances would need to change to alter our decision?

Hint: The response I'm looking for will have 4+ reasons for the first answer, 2+ reasons for the second answer, and 3+ reasons for the second answer.

If someone nails it I'll just end the discussion, but if we run the full 24 hours I'll pick the person with the closest response. If nobody is anywhere even on the same wavelength as me...well then I'll grab someone at random lol I dunno maybe some sort of names in a hat system?

I realize there are multiple correct answers to these questions...I'm just looking for what I feel is the most correct/profitable ones.

Ready...set...bwammo!
 
10058765

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wow, very generous offer and even thinking about what the right answers may be should get me to some level.
In generous I have some idea, but as not actually being a SnG player, but studying and having the intention to become one, I'm really going to dig in this.
 
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RamdeeBen

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You raise the flop minimum to on the button at an attempted poor steal, or at least have postion on the Short stack. Then again, that woulden't make sense as your holdings isn't very good. Maybe possibly opening up on the button to show a poor attempt of a steal and to maybe induce a push from the short stack all along. SS might see it as a bad PF steal and push any 2 random cards because he thinks your steal is weak and you won't call because of his high aggression factor and this was your plan from the start..and is a high possibility your King high is better than his range of steal attempts and you have seen in the short hands you have played at the table that he's been pushing quite often when someone min raised in position and taking down the pot.

You are also aware of his short BB's and high attempt in aggression in comparision to everyone else and think he will push to again try steal your poor attempt of a steal on the button. You do have very little hand histories with this shortstack so could well of been seeing where you was at, however again I belive you was inducing a push from the short stack as the whole min raise on the button would of been pointless to start with if you was never going to call the shove from shortstack and you know it's very possible for him to push in the SB as he has done previously. You therefore wouldn't of min raised to fold to a shove because it gives him a good amount of fold equity and good stack size again. Also a reason for the min raise, was to see what the BB blind would do and if he would of called the Short stack you woulden't of lost to much equity in folding. If however he folded like he did then you was always going to call shortstacks push depending on what the BB did.

I think the overall reasoning for the whole situation was purely to see what shortstack and BB stack was going to do with your small raise with the reads of the current shortstack you was hoping to induce his push and have the BB to fold and for you to call his push purely based on his overall aggression factor.

There could well be a final reasoning in my eyes and that being your min raise on the button was to maybe represent a stronger hand than you actually do. ie: Aces,Kings and was either they picked up on this and thought "he's playing a monster" OR hoping for a call, thus if he called and checked on the flop you would of possibly pushed if you didn't think it hit his range all that often, OR the same reasoning to get a flop with position and out play him by making him decide on whether he wants to put his tournament life on the line with pot committed decision post flop.


ps: What an offer so was always going to try and give what I thought was the correct answer, even though I'm probably totally off and I'm wrong I'd still like to see the actual theory behind the min raise on the bottom.
 
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absoluthamm

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Let's see a cash game player give this a go...

1. a. Not so much that you're making it so you have to call when either of the blinds shove, but more than just a min bet.
b. The blinds haven't been 3Betting very much, so they aren't showing that they will give much aggression towards any small raise.
c. Your opponents aren't exactly in the absolute dire situation yet. They are getting low with only between 12-17 BB's, but they might be thinking they can hold out for just a tad longer for something better.
d. Our Steal percentage isn't extremely high, so villains might respect any raise a larger portion of the time.

2. Fold. a. You have a pretty healthy stack right now and are being faced with a raise for a bit more than 1/3 or your stack.
b. Also, you are getting about 5:3 on your call, but against his stats, your hand is only at ~30-35% against his range(although the low sample of hands).

3.What would need to change? If our hand was a little better, that would obviously help.
a. If the opponent had a higher PFR, it would widen his range and make the call more sensible.
b. If his 3Bet was higher, that would be a bigger alarm for the call.
c. If our stack was lower maybe to around his size then the call may be in order, although in that case, it probably would have started with a shove.
 
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EDIT: Last possible solution I can think of is that.

There is the small possible chance you min raised on the button to induce a push from the SB and for the BB to call, but that I can't see happening. Or the other possible is that you min raised on the button in the hope short stack would push and you fold and then when you get position again with a better hand, you play it the same as this one with a min raise and hope he pushes again as he is thinking you will fold to a push and are weak therefore you can easily make a call and dominate his range?

Anyone can see I'm desperado for a free 30mins session from him? lol
 
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absoluthamm seems so much more advanced than mine haha..I don't think I'm going to fair well.

Can't wait to hear the reasoning for it all though! Go Go!
 
forsakenone

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You raise 2.3x from the button because you are trying to steal the blinds, or, if it doesn't work and you get called, you get to play post flop in position vs a weaker player. Also both players in the blinds are not very aggressive, as the SB has an Af of 29 and BB has 16, indicative of 2 weak tight players. Their 3 bet range is also very small, SB has 3.7 (tho very few hands on him, 83) and BB has 3.0 3bet over a decent sample size.

How should we respond to shove. My initial reaction was to snap call, however after running some numbers in pokerstove i am not so sure. I believe at this point the SB might try and resteal, therefor i gave him a range of 22+,A2s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,T9s,98s,A9o+,KJo+,QJo giving our K7o 35.7 equity and we need to win 38% of the time to make it profitable. If we call and we win we eliminate 1 player and we get to be the chip leader however not by a lot, if we lose we become the short stack with only 16BB to work with, if we fold we only lose what we already have in middle still leaving us with about 26BB, so in the end i say fold.

What circumstances would need to change to alter our decision? If we had more info on the SB, giving us the information that he is very capable of making moves like this(talking about restealing, maybe a bigger 3bet range, bigger AF, maybe some specific notes from other sngs we played together) a call would be in order, however since we can tell that he is not a regular i think it is unlikely he will shove a lot more worst hands than K7. If you ware in the SB position making this move and i ware raising with K7o from BB i would call that shove. Also i would call if i had more chips, or if he had less chips.

Can't wait for you to give us your thoughts on the hand and on everyone's comments. Good luck.
 
seanDCFC

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Why did I raise the size I did preflop?

Im guessing that you raised this amount is that both players seem pretty tight so this raise could be enough to get both to fold, also if sb shoves then you can get away from the hand cheaply. Maybe you were trying to play against the big blind with a decent hand and positional advantage as he might flat here if sb folds. There is also chance that the sb will just flat here as they arent desperately short on chips, again you would have positional advantage with a decent hand which would be desirable.

How/why should we respond to the shove?

I think that you should fold here as I dont think that k7o would be good against this players shoving judging by his. However given that you only have a small number of hands on the sb this may be the first time that you have seen him play shortstacked and he may be shoving much wider when short than his stats would suggest and k7o may be good enough.

What circumstances would need to change to alter our decision?

If sb had less chips and/or you had more chip then you could maybe call and take a chance here. If the small blind wasnt as tight then we can widen our shoving range to include hands like k7o.

Personally im folding here evertime, ill look forward to hearing your thoughts on this hand.
 
tusabes

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It's a standard steal bet
If SB 3b shoves you're not really wrong to fold or call so we're comfy either way. Call and lose...you still have 15 or 16bbs. A good working stack considering no one at the table is a big stack or small so they won't be calling light. Call and win...well your in good/great shape. That being said...I call the shove from the SB.

If BB 3b shoves you're folding b/c a loss leaves u w/10 bb and the big and gives the player 2 to your left the big stack. Plus the most aggressive player on the table is on your right and you plan on getting in good with him soon.

Things that change your decision? hmmm...if the sb chip stack is 5 or 6bb closer to ours or has us covered I fold. If sb does a call,shove and we missed the flop I fold. If BB joins the party and shoves, I fold too. I really like your position on the table and don't want to risk a lot just yet as to preserve a big pay off that's coming later.
 
cjatud2012

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Why did I raise the size I did preflop?
- makes it easier to fold if one of your opponents 3-bet
- makes your c-bet on the flop smaller
- probably has fold equity similar to a ~t250 raise, but doesn't need to succeed as often to be +EV in the long run

How/why should we respond to the shove?
- what is our image? you and the SB haven't played a ton of hands together, but it's possible that he knows we are an aggressive, creative, winning player, since we are a well known poker coach.
- does villain play any differently because of our image? players will often recognize that a villain will be on a wide range, but not play back anyway because they're afraid of getting called. is this villain that type of opponent?
- how does calling this shove affect our equity and the stack/table dynamics? if we fold we have a cool ~26bb's, but if we call and win we get up to ~41bb's and become the clear chip leader at the table. if we call and lose we'll drop to ~14bb's, which is still workable. keep in mind too that we still have the two shortest stacks to our left, so we may be able to continue to abuse them with our remaining stack if we do fold (of course they could continue to 3-bet resteal as villain may or may not have just done).

What circumstances would need to change to alter our decision?
- different hand, I suppose that's obvious though
- opponent has a higher 3b%
- different pot odds (either because we raised larger or because he has a smaller stack)
- if our own stack size was different
- if the stacks at the table were different

At first I thought this was a clear fold but there are some arguments for calling. Villain's 3-bet stat probably isn't very reliable, so he could be doing this semi-wide. Depending on whether he is a good player or not, he may also recognize that making this re-steal allows him to take down t380 chips, which represents a pretty significant boost to his equity and gives him a better chance of surviving once the blinds escalate. If we call we will have a pretty big chip advantage over the rest of the table, which is obviously pretty valuable.

It's closer than I initially thought but I think I would still fold.
 
Debi

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Nice thread! I will refrain from participating though since I know how you play....and can afford to keep paying for my coaching now. :p
 
Bwammo

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Got some great answers here...perhaps we can get a bit more specific to find the winner.

Let's see a cash game player give this a go...

1. a. Not so much that you're making it so you have to call when either of the blinds shove, but more than just a min bet.
b. The blinds haven't been 3Betting very much, so they aren't showing that they will give much aggression towards any small raise.
c. Your opponents aren't exactly in the absolute dire situation yet. They are getting low with only between 12-17 BB's, but they might be thinking they can hold out for just a tad longer for something better.
d. Our Steal percentage isn't extremely high, so villains might respect any raise a larger portion of the time. Typically it's unwise to assume players are paying that close attention to you unless you know they are regulars, and if they are regulars they will have more than just one table's worth of hands against you.

2. Fold. a. You have a pretty healthy stack right now and are being faced with a raise for a bit more than 1/3 or your stack.
b. Also, you are getting about 5:3 on your call, but against his stats, your hand is only at ~30-35% against his range(although the low sample of hands).

3.What would need to change? If our hand was a little better, that would obviously help.
a. If the opponent had a higher PFR, it would widen his range and make the call more sensible. His PFR doesn't really come into the equation, as it's an average of when he raises preflop regardless of the action before him. For all we know, he could only flat raises but still have a PFR of over 30% simply because he raises a lot of unopened pots.
b. If his 3Bet was higher, that would be a bigger alarm for the call.
c. If our stack was lower maybe to around his size then the call may be in order, although in that case, it probably would have started with a shove. If our stack was his size I would still make the small raise and fold to shoves again.

You raise 2.3x from the button because you are trying to steal the blinds, or, if it doesn't work and you get called, you get to play post flop in position vs a weaker player. Also both players in the blinds are not very aggressive, as the SB has an Af of 29 and BB has 16, indicative of 2 weak tight players. Their 3 bet range is also very small, SB has 3.7 (tho very few hands on him, 83) and BB has 3.0 3bet over a decent sample size. The aggression frequency of players helps to determine how likely they are to bet/checkraise on the flop, not necessarily how "tight" they are. Tight players can have high Aggression frequency because they only play hands they enjoy betting/raising on the flop...and similarly loose players can do the same.

How should we respond to shove. My initial reaction was to snap call, however after running some numbers in pokerstove i am not so sure. I believe at this point the SB might try and resteal, therefor i gave him a range of 22+,A2s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,T9s,98s,A9o+,KJo+,QJo giving our K7o 35.7 equity and we need to win 38% of the time to make it profitable. Winning 38% of the time will allow us to "break even" in chip value...but since we're in a STT, we would require more edge than say...in a large field MTT or in a cash game. With pot odds of 38%, we would need roughly 42-45% equity for this to be considered "profitable" in this situation. For the record, the range you put this player on is exactly in line with what I would assume. If we call and we win we eliminate 1 player and we get to be the chip leader however not by a lot, if we lose we become the short stack with only 16BB to work with, if we fold we only lose what we already have in middle still leaving us with about 26BB, so in the end i say fold. 16BB is more than enough to play poker still, even once the blinds increase we can play similarly...the issue stands more with what happens to our stack position compared to the players to our left if we lose. We will have no more free passes, no more chances to lose an all-in, like say if we get super unlucky KK vs A4o...

What circumstances would need to change to alter our decision? If we had more info on the SB, giving us the information that he is very capable of making moves like this(talking about restealing, maybe a bigger 3bet range, bigger AF, maybe some specific notes from other sngs we played together) a call would be in order, however since we can tell that he is not a regular i think it is unlikely he will shove a lot more worst hands than K7. Player specific notes would DEFINITELY qualify as an added reason to call here. Since HUD stats are by no means definite, especially at only 86 hands, if we've seen this player do something, anything, that we might consider reckless or just plain silly...we can use our own brain to create their theoretical preflop stats. If you ware in the SB position making this move and i ware raising with K7o from BB i would call that shove. Also i would call if i had more chips, or if he had less chips.

Can't wait for you to give us your thoughts on the hand and on everyone's comments. Good luck.

Why did I raise the size I did preflop?
- makes it easier to fold if one of your opponents 3-bet
- makes your c-bet on the flop smaller
- probably has fold equity similar to a ~t250 raise, but doesn't need to succeed as often to be +EV in the long run

This is the most accurate reasoning for the raise preflop...one added fact of if we raise larger we're decreasing the amount of flops we see and increasing the frequency of being 3bet. If we raise an amount that the players can potentially call, we give ourselves flops against hands that have no business continuing.

How/why should we respond to the shove?
- what is our image? you and the SB haven't played a ton of hands together, but it's possible that he knows we are an aggressive, creative, winning player, since we are a well known poker coach.
- does villain play any differently because of our image? players will often recognize that a villain will be on a wide range, but not play back anyway because they're afraid of getting called. is this villain that type of opponent?

Never assume your opponent has a functioning brain unless proven otherwise. Since there are no sharkscope stats to go with this hand, we cannot pretend in any regard that he not only knows who i am, but knows how to properly respond to me(applies to both of the last statements).


- how does calling this shove affect our equity and the stack/table dynamics? if we fold we have a cool ~26bb's, but if we call and win we get up to ~41bb's and become the clear chip leader at the table. There would be nothing clear about our chiplead, we would have a mere 1.5x 2nd/3rd place. if we call and lose we'll drop to ~14bb's, which is still workable. keep in mind too that we still have the two shortest stacks to our left, so we may be able to continue to abuse them with our remaining stack if we do fold (of course they could continue to 3-bet resteal as villain may or may not have just done).

What circumstances would need to change to alter our decision?
- different hand, I suppose that's obvious though
- opponent has a higher 3b%
- different pot odds (either because we raised larger or because he has a smaller stack) This corresponds to one of the reasons why to go smaller rather than larger...we do NOT want to price ourselves into a losing situation in a STT...MTTs and cash it's much more acceptable.
- if our own stack size was different
- if the stacks at the table were different

At first I thought this was a clear fold but there are some arguments for calling. Villain's 3-bet stat probably isn't very reliable, so he could be doing this semi-wide. Depending on whether he is a good player or not, he may also recognize that making this re-steal allows him to take down t380 chips, which represents a pretty significant boost to his equity and gives him a better chance of surviving once the blinds escalate. If we call we will have a pretty big chip advantage over the rest of the table, which is obviously pretty valuable.

It's closer than I initially thought but I think I would still fold.

Since there are multiple close answers competing right now...I'm going to make things a little more specific.

Lets pretend the player shoving is giving us 2:1 pot odds instead of 1.6:1 by having a 800 chip stack. Roughly how many chips would I need to have in my stack to make this a call? Factors to consider: I have roughly 35% equity to win this hand against his theoretical range, there are 3 other stacks with 25+ BBs.

If the player shoving is a problematic regular shoving here, with a range that we know we're exactly 38% against, should we be more or less likely to call him here? Why?

After these additional questions are answered I will estimate who deserves it most.
 
A

akcash

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sry didnt read the number of answers required part.

*IMO*

1. a. stealing
b. trying not to spew chips
c. 230 looks bigger then 225.
d. pump the pot a little bit more than a min raise.

2. a. Fold. he could be reshoving wider since he's a reg and knows a decent amount of the time. but K7 isn't strong enough to call. most of the time your probably flipping or dominated.
b. you're only getting 1.6-1 and its for about 40% of your stack.

3 a. i might call with k7 if you were gettin better than 2:1 since it would be less % of your stack , or
b. if you had a stronger hand (at+, 66+).
c. you had like 6k chips. calling would strengthen you table image and opponents you fear stealing your bb or reshove your steals.
 
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T

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OK I'm going to try and answer this without looking at the other responses - so this all my own work (feels like it's school!).

Why the raise size?

1) No need to raise higher than between 2-2.5x with blinds at this level. Raise of this level may be sufficient to take the pot on it's own - why risk more? Our steal stat shows that we haven't been overly aggressive to date so this may be sufficient to take it down early.
2) A min raise could be just seen as a cheap steal attempt and invite both the SB and BB into the pot - even though we have position we would want to be heads up with one opponent rather than 2.
2) Related to above if we did decide to fold to a shove then we minimise our losses whilst still showing sufficient strength to take down the pot (1 above)
3) Blinds have too few chips to make a 3 bet an option without going All in. So we are simply putting the blinds to a shove or fold option. If they call then K7 is a strong hand to see a flop with and we can act in position.

How / why should we respond to the shove?

We call due to:

1) This is the early bubble phase and there's no clear chip leader. Taking down the villain increases our overall equity significantly by reducing the field to 5 and establishing us as the chip leader. Losing the pot still leaves us with 1,600 chips or so and sufficient fold equity to re-establish us if we lose. All things considered it's +EV to call with K7 given these factors. Putting it simply this is a move which shows that we're going for the win and establishing an aggressive image on the middle stages of the tourney.
2) If villain is a good player then his shoving range is probably quite wide. K7 has good equity against his likely range.
3) Table image - we establish an image of someone who is prepared to call shoves which could help us later in the SNG.

What circumstances would need to change to alter our decision?

1) More history on the villain - we've only seen 83 hands so not a great sample size.
2) Recent hands - is the villain potentially on tilt from a prior hand. Does he push all in with impunity therefore widening his likely range? Or is he quite conservative and this is 'out of character' with the way he has played the rest of the tourney indicating that we should respect the shove more?
3) Different stats profile - 3 bet %, VPIP etc.
4) BB calling the shove - I'd definitely fold in that situation.

Well that's my hat in the ring anyway. Many thanks for the offer Bwammo and good luck to all others who give this a go.
 
tusabes

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Maybe consider giving a lesson to the best answer and the worst. One who deserves it and the other who needs it.:D
 
Bwammo

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Hahaha, great idea...perhaps 1/2 off the first session to the worst answer. But...I'll know if someone is just typing random crap and trying to look stupid, I read people for a living, so y'all better still try to answer correctly :p
 
cjatud2012

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Why did I raise the size I did preflop?

[snip]

This is the most accurate reasoning for the raise preflop...one added fact of if we raise larger we're decreasing the amount of flops we see and increasing the frequency of being 3bet. If we raise an amount that the players can potentially call, we give ourselves flops against hands that have no business continuing.
I think I understand what you're saying - if they feel inclined to call our raise a little wider, that means our c-bets will be more successful? I'm not sure though that I entirely understand why a bigger raise would get 3-bet more often. Is it just because they'll be less willing (although probably not much less than they would facing a smaller raise) to commit more chips OOP, so sometimes they just jam?

Never assume your opponent has a functioning brain unless proven otherwise. Since there are no sharkscope stats to go with this hand, we cannot pretend in any regard that he not only knows who i am, but knows how to properly respond to me(applies to both of the last statements).
Heh, point well taken.

[snip]

There would be nothing clear about our chiplead, we would have a mere 1.5x 2nd/3rd place.

[snip]
Yeah this is true, it wouldn't take much to put us back in last place against one of those stacks.

What circumstances would need to change to alter our decision?

[snip]

This corresponds to one of the reasons why to go smaller rather than larger...we do NOT want to price ourselves into a losing situation in a STT...MTTs and cash it's much more acceptable.

[snip]
Heh, I mean, I would never want to raise wider just to give ourselves better pot odds, because like you said we'd have to call off our stack because of pot odds (at least I would think so) with crappy equity - it's an unnecessary risk.

Since there are multiple close answers competing right now...I'm going to make things a little more specific.

Lets pretend the player shoving is giving us 2:1 pot odds instead of 1.6:1 by having a 800 chip stack. Roughly how many chips would I need to have in my stack to make this a call? Factors to consider: I have roughly 35% equity to win this hand against his theoretical range, there are 3 other stacks with 25+ BBs.

Like t3500 or so? That way if we lose we're still about equal with the other guys I guess. I'm not sure what our play would be if we had a stack smaller than the one we have at the moment, like t1600 or something.

If the player shoving is a problematic regular shoving here, with a range that we know we're exactly 38% against, should we be more or less likely to call him here? Why?

Is he still offering 2:1 or are we back to 1.6:1 now? I don't see how we could fold if we were getting 2:1 pot odds, had ~1.63:1 (38%) win odds, and also had the opportunity to knock out a good regular. But if we are getting 1.6:1 pot odds, then it's a very close call and might be slightly negative from a -$EV perspective. Still though, if we have the chance to KO a player who is more likely to create problems for you and play back at you pretty often, then it might be worth making the thin play against him. That way your future opportunities aren't limited.
 
forsakenone

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OK new answer, I believe that if he had 800 chips I would not make this play therefor I have no reason to even think if I would call a shove given that we get 2 to 1. I believe we should either fold or shove preflop if he indeed have 800 chips, i prefer shove.

"If the player shoving is a problematic regular shoving here, with a range that we know we're exactly 38% against, should we be more or less likely to call him here? Why?"

No, i would still fold. Since he is a regular i suppose he has a brain, has stats on you, and he would tigthen his range rather than shoving lighter. If he is a regular he knows he is giving you 2 to 1 and has very small fold equity, making it unlikely he would shove things like K8 or 9T, or Q5o type of crap and other, with this is mind, if he was a regular, who has 800 chips i would fold.
 
cjatud2012

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OK new answer, I believe that if he had 800 chips I would not make this play therefor I have no reason to even think if I would call a shove given that we get 2 to 1. I believe we should either fold or shove preflop if he indeed have 800 chips, i prefer shove.

This is actually a good point, short stacks don't really make good steal targets, generally speaking. I don't think we should shove though, because the opponent in the BB still has a pretty good stack.
 
jaymfc

jaymfc

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Keep in mind: I don't really play "normal"




Why did I raise the size I did preflop?
answer
to steal the blinds from position
standard size raise these days to save money over the long run (less c-bet)
still enough to make him shove or fold with his stack size
still low enough to fold to reraise

How/why should we respond to the shove?
answer
fold period

What circumstances would need to change to alter our decision?
answer
be more aggro like the rest of the poker world
be a lil more drunk
be HU


Hint: The response I'm looking for will have 4+ reasons for the first answer, 2+ reasons for the second answer, and 3+ reasons for the second answer.

response
no hud person and don't understand how the numbers affect the play , even when explained :eek: :shot: just throwing my name in the hat;) vvvvv

well then I'll grab someone at random lol I dunno maybe some sort of names in a hat system?



Ready...set...bwammo!


thanks for helping people better understand :)
 
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Lofwyr

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Why the raise & particular sizing?
1) steal raise (obv) trying to take down the pot now or on a later street
2) maintains a smaller pot-size making for smaller future bets if the raise gets flatted
3) gives you room to fold, mathematically speaking, if a player 3bet shoves on you
4) you're setting yourself up to play a pot in position against weaker players that don't appear to be overly aggressive
5) the smaller bet size also preserves your stack in the long-run by losing less each time you get called and fold post-flop or get raised and fold pre
6) in a weird inversion of the above stuff the smaller raise size will also make it easier to get action when you have a real hand

How to respond to the shove? Primarily we should be folding...why?
1) even against a loose shove range that includes non-broadway suited connectors K7o is going to be ~40% to win at best
2) given the pot odds and nature of the event (STT) we wish for more than breakeven/marginally +cEV to make this call
3) folding keeps our stack essentially tied for 1st and keeps the shove-ers stack in last place. Basically stack dynamics remain unchanged if we fold.
4) counterpart of the above: if we call and win we do not open up that many more plays for our stack, if we call and lose we become the lowest chip-stack sandwiched between the 4 players tied for 1st.

What would need to change for the above decision to change?
1) we would have to be a clearly dominant chip-stack at this point (say -700 from the other 2700 stacks and +2100 to our stack). Such that losing was basically irrelevant and calling would freeze future re-steal attempts.
2) we would have to be a horrible short-stack that was forced to gamble (though that would probably just make this an open-shove to begin with)
3) obviously having a hand with somewhat more equity could alter the decision
4) perhaps if there were still 7 or 8 players left this could be a call as raw cEV wouldl be slightly more relevant at that point
5) in less specific terms: if calling + winning created future opportunities to exploit that significantly increased expectation of a win it would be more worthwhile to call and gamble.
6) if we had more exact information on the SB...like he was a psychotic blind defender or something
 
forsakenone

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This is actually a good point, short stacks don't really make good steal targets, generally speaking. I don't think we should shove though, because the opponent in the BB still has a pretty good stack.

I didn't really explain why I believe a shove is better then a fold here, must be because it was 2:30 am, anyways, I believe if we shove both players calling ranges reduces by a lot, they actually have a bigger shoving over the top range (if we try a steal) then they have a calling range in this spot, because both players face elimination. Your concern is that the BB has a decent stack, actually I believe he has the perfect stack to do this move against and i think that the SB is way more capable of calling then the BB because the BB has a lot more to lose then the SB if he loses the pot.

I will try and give the BB (for the love of discussion) a calling range and I love any kind of input here. Ok, this is the range I am giving the BB to make a call if I shove here 55+,A8s+,KTs+,QTs+,ATo+,KJo+,QJo This is a 14.2% calling range, you guys let me know what you think about it, because I seem to make this shove a lot of the time and i might be wrong.

As I said the SB has a smaller calling range, but not by a lot, I can only think about adding some Aces and JTs, 44, giving him a range of 44+,A5s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,A7o+,KJo+,QJo, a total of 18.6% calling range.

So, if their calling ranges are rather small, I believe shoving this (keep in mind I still consider SB to have 800 chips now, given that the SB has a bigger stack, a steal is a better play) can make it profitable in the long term, and for the time we get called we still win a decent 33.8% of the time.

I know this is besides the point of the thread, but I would really love peoples thoughts on this.
 
LuckyChippy

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You're opening the button as a steal obviously, you make it 2.3X as a standard small steal. Nash equilbrium says with your open and their stack sizes you can profitably call shoves from both (assuming they both follow nash too, which i would as it's a $60 and they both have reggy stats over a fair number of hands for SB and quite a few for BB). Basically against these 2 regs we're opening to steal and even making our steal 2.3x we can profitably call a shove from either.

I snap call the SB as his stack is small enough (we'd need his stack to be more than 15.2bb's+2.3bb's to fold). Blinds are now significant. We have a decent stack but so do 3 others and there isn't any compelling reason to avoid a spot to either get rid of a short stack or use a short stack to abuse other players (our stack isn't big enough/there's aren't small enough).

Obviously if his stack was bigger to the point where it wasn't a profitable call using nash we'd fold. If he didn't seem like a reg we'd fold (doesn't know push/fold). If the stakes were smaller and it is likely an opponent doesn't have a fair grasp of push/fold (only does it with strong hands) we'd fold. If he was a super-nit we'd fold. Oh and if our hand was a tad weaker (K6) I think we fold.
 
cjatud2012

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Heh, similar hand here - villain has raised once in 33 hands (super nit!).

PokerStars - $3+$0.40|50/100 NL (9 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

BB: 2,705.00
UTG: 2,843.00
CO: 1,310.00
Hero (BTN): 5,232.00
SB: 1,410.00

SB posts SB 50.00, BB posts BB 100.00

Pre Flop: (150.00) Hero has T:heart: K:diamond:

fold, fold, Hero raises to 250.00, SB raises to 1,410.00 and is all-in, fold, Hero ???
 
Bwammo

Bwammo

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I definitely overslept and now have some coaching to do, I will read/analyze/post who the winner is soon.
 
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