How light do you call short stack shoves?

#1 October 7th, 2020, 2:08 AM

How light do you call short stack shoves say when you are 25-35bb on the button and the sb is right at 10ish bigs? Folds around to sb and he shoves.
Position of the tourney is commonly when late reg is closing or lets say nearing money bubble, not FT bubble.
What percentage should I be calling down with?
I know player tendency also plays a factor in this, but lets say vs an unknown how lose are you normally calling?

Hands like K/9 off, A/8, 9/T o, are particularly marginal hands - that have marginal/losing equity vs 20% ranges, however I play vs a lot of "hopeful" players who are looking to double with any playable hand. Ya'll know the type.

Thanks for all input.

#2 October 7th, 2020, 9:20 AM

Questions like this is exactly, what a Nash equilibrium program like ICMizer is for. You can subscribe for 100$ per year, or you can use your daily free calculation to analyse an actual hand history and see, what range you were supposed to give action with. Please note though that the Nash equilibrium calculation suppose, that your opponents are playing perfect, and that they play purely push or fold. If this is not true, then it will change the range of hands, you can profitably push or call.

By the way something is off in your post. If you are BTN, and it folds around to SB, then per definition you have already folded and have no more decision to make. But maybe you mean, that you min-raised, and then SB jammed. This is a common situation, which ICMizer has the answer for. If its a 10BB jam, you generally have to call with more than half your range simply because of the price. You are paying 8BB to win a pot of 22BB, and their range should be wide. So often its one of those, where you are not exactly loving it, but you have to press "call" and gamble with them.

#3 October 7th, 2020, 12:28 PM

The push-fold game is always a coin. In your situation, risking for 10bb was not worth it. A better situation for a reasonable risk is certainly possible.

#4 October 7th, 2020, 1:17 PM

Originally Posted by alien666dj

The push-fold game is always a coin. In your situation, risking for 10bb was not worth it. A better situation for a reasonable risk is certainly possible.

You cant look at it like this. You need to estimate your equity against their range and compare it to pot odds with some allowance for ICM. Which by the way is, what ICMizer does. If you only give action with the nuts, you will lose 2-2,5BB every time, you open, and a short stack rejam. Which will also eventually send you out of the tournament. If the poker site allow HUDs, and you play regularly, you will also show up on other peoples HUDs as someone with a very high fold to 3-bet. And then you will be targeted for further exploitation, until you adjust and start to defend correctly.

here · #5 October 7th, 2020, 1:26 PM

Originally Posted by theANMATOR

How light do you call short stack shoves say when you are 25-35bb on the button and the sb is right at 10ish bigs? Folds around to sb and he shoves.
Position of the tourney is commonly when late reg is closing or lets say nearing money bubble, not FT bubble.
What percentage should I be calling down with?
I know player tendency also plays a factor in this, but lets say vs an unknown how lose are you normally calling?

Hands like K/9 off, A/8, 9/T o, are particularly marginal hands - that have marginal/losing equity vs 20% ranges, however I play vs a lot of "hopeful" players who are looking to double with any playable hand. Ya'll know the type.

Thanks for all input.

There are other factors beyond your stack size and their stack size..

Also there's pretty much a gulf between 25bb and 35bb when talking about calling off 10bb.

Being left with 15bb or 25bb after calling & losing makes quite a difference, to me at least.. How light do you call short stack shoves?

All that being said, you're looking for cold, hard percentages, so I'll say you've probably got to call it off with your top 33-50% of hands..

Originally Posted by fundiver199

Questions like this is exactly, what a Nash equilibrium program like ICMizer is for. You can subscribe for 100$ per year, or you can use your daily free calculation to analyse an actual hand history and see, what range you were supposed to give action with. Please note though that the Nash equilibrium calculation suppose, that your opponents are playing perfect, and that they play purely push or fold. If this is not true, then it will change the range of hands, you can profitably push or call.

By the way something is off in your post. If you are BTN, and it folds around to SB, then per definition you have already folded and have no more decision to make. But maybe you mean, that you min-raised, and then SB jammed. This is a common situation, which ICMizer has the answer for. If its a 10BB jam, you generally have to call with more than half your range simply because of the price. You are paying 8BB to win a pot of 22BB, and their range should be wide. So often its one of those, where you are not exactly loving it, but you have to press "call" and gamble with them.

You might be right r.e. the button but I assumed OP meant in the big blind instead of button..

Guess it's much of a muchness really...

#6 October 7th, 2020, 1:30 PM

Just to give an example of an ICMizer simulation.

27 places pay, 81 people left
Average stack 25BB
Hero stack 25BB

Hero min-raise on BTN, SB rejam for 10BB

Hero opening range 44% of hands, SB jamming range 29% of hands, Hero calling range 33% of hands. Hero calling range include any pair, any ace, K9+, JT+, K3s+, T8s+, 97s+, 76s+. K9o and JTo are marginal calls and can be folded to reduce variance, but A8o is to high in our distribution, unless we have a solid read, SB is a nit and not jamming nearly as wide, as he should.

#7 October 7th, 2020, 1:54 PM

If the villain did this only once, I prefer to use a strong range.
JJ+, AJs+, AQo+, KJs+, KQo

But if he did it several times I prefer to open it up a bit and pay with average hands.
TT+ (maybe 99+), A8s+, ATo+, K9+, broadway cards and some connected and suited cards above 8.

Against a maniac I can open more and pay with almost all pairs, most aces and kings.

#8 October 7th, 2020, 2:18 PM

Originally Posted by fundiver199

You cant look at it like this. You need to estimate your equity against their range and compare it to pot odds with some allowance for ICM. Which by the way is, what ICMizer does. If you only give action with the nuts, you will lose 2-2,5BB every time, you open, and a short stack rejam. Which will also eventually send you out of the tournament. If the poker site allow HUDs, and you play regularly, you will also show up on other peoples HUDs as someone with a very high fold to 3-bet. And then you will be targeted for further exploitation, until you adjust and start to defend correctly.

On this point, I completely agree with you that if the game is tight, I will lose my stack. I also do not argue that ICMizer is a reputable program, but sometimes you need to question something. After all, using ICM I can also lose my stack.

#9 October 7th, 2020, 4:46 PM

If this is my first steal attempt against this unknown player, I will give then some credit (25% range) and would fold off the marginal part of my range. We start the hand with a 25bb to 10bb stack difference and I would not risk swapping places with this player on a coin flip - a loss is now a 15bb to 20bb stack difference and I am now the desperate player - all for a coin flip? To maintain 60%+ range equity vs. a 25% range we could only play the top 10% of hands.

Now, if this is the third time I tried a steal against this particular player and he has pushed back all three times, now I know that he is capable of doing this a little wider. Lets say 40% instead of 20% range, my calling range to still have 60%+ range equity is still only about 15%.

I know that solvers and ICM would not necessarily agree, but I can't get my head around a coin flip for my tournament life. Having a 60%-40% range advantage guarantees me nothing, but it is better than a coin flip. We will play coin flips all the time. I prefer to show some patience when there is a serious implication to my tournament life.

Good luck and God bless.

#10 October 11th, 2020, 7:30 PM

I like to imagine what my stack will look like if I win or lose the hand, to me it really boils down to how does calling effect my tournament equity. Another thing to consider is if you go from 30bbs to 20bbs you really dont have much room to play poker ie you are more in push/fold avoidance mode.

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How light do you call short stack shoves?

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