The ripple effect in SNGs

This relates to the late push/fold part of the game. I have here an example of hands played by a friend of mine, and it illistrates how missing one +EV shove can have a negative effect on the rest of the tournament.

So here is a series of missed shoves, that if taken can have a huge effect on cashing in SNGs, and of course, winning more SNGs.

I didn’t want to post the whole HH here as I wanted the Hero to have anonymity. So I’ve selected crucial hands throughout this tournament and trying to show how a few missed shoves can be so important in SNGs.


pokerstars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds 25 Ante (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t2215)
SB (t1505)
BB (t4060)
Hero (UTG) (t1765)
MP (t1690)
CO (t2265)

Hero's M: 3.92

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A , 10
4 folds, SB bets t1480 (All-In), BB calls t1280

Flop: (t3110) 4 , Q , 10 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t3110) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t3110) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t3110

So here’s the first missed spot. With the antes the blinds are effectively 150/300. We’re UTG shoving into a full table, but ATs here is easily a shove. If we miss this shove, we are then put through the blinds, and most of the time, we’re not going to find a good spot to call someone down in the blinds. Taking this shove, we either win the blinds right then, or we get called, sometimes we lose and we’re out of the tournament, sure. But sometimes we double up, which is obviously a significant boost to our equity. Either way, when we shove here, we win more than we lose, we gain 450 chips, adding to our stack which can lead to better more +EV spots in the future. Think about it like this, we fold here, we leave our 1740 stack, we pick up say AA next hand in the blinds, we get shoved on and we call. We increase our stack from 1740 to 3400 roughly, nice. If we made the shove with ATs, and took down the blinds, we now have ~2100, we get shoved on, we call and increase from 2100 to around 4200
3400-4200=1000 chips we just cost ourselves by not making that initial shove.



PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t2040)
BB (t3300)
Hero (UTG) (t5345)
Button (t2815)

Hero's M: 7.64

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 10 , J
1 fold, Button bets t800, 1 fold, BB raises to t3275 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: t1900



Here’s another clear cut shove in my opinion. We have the dominant stack on the bubble, with two absolute nits, and one who may call us down lighter than the average player. Even so, the calling ranges on all villains here are extremely tight, we need to capitalize on having the big stack here by shoving all in and taking down the blinds. Reads wise, the button and SB are nits, so it’s highly likely that they both fold to the BB, The BB here is one of the main competition, and is the one who will be shoving into us most likely. So we kind of want him to lose chips. If we shove here, we increase our stack by a good margin, and we put more distance between us, and the rest of the stacks. Sure we get called sometimes, and we may lose, even if that happens, we still have a decent stack left. I’m not saying this is an ATC shove here, but TJs is certainly in my range for shoving. If we take this thin shove here, we can now “own” the bubble. If we fold a few things can now happen, the worst is when both players fold to the BB, and he picks up the pot, then next hand, both Nits fold, and the SB shoves into us, all of a sudden in the space of two hands, he is now the chip leader! If we shove now, and put a considerable distance between ourselves and the other stacks, we may actually get more folds from the SB as he might be worried that we will call him.



PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 25 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t1340)
BB (t3400)
Hero (UTG) (t7445)
Button (t1315)

Hero's M: 10.64

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q , 4
3 folds

Total pot: t500


Here’s another one, in the same shoving situation before, two nits on the button and SB and another player who wont be able to call wide enough due to the two shortstacks, the difference now is the BB is the only competition to us at the moment, this is certainly and ATC shove spot, the other one stacks we’re a touch closer and I could understand folding out a chunk of our range, here, Q4s is an easy peasy shove. Again as stated before, worse case scenario is that both nits fold to the BB, which happens often as they both seem to be in survival mode Vs each other. We shove and take this down, it’s highly likely everyone folds to us again, and we get to shove ATC against anyone. And of course the BB may shove into us wider now that he has a stack that can hurt us ( I know I certainly would).
It so happened that the BB raised on our blinds the very next hand, Hero made a suspect play by re-shoving against a very tight SB raiser with Ax and the BB in this hand doubled up. So lets look at some math from the BB’s perspective.
This hand if we shove, he folds most of his range. So he’s left with 2975 so now when he doubles through us, he gets ~6000, if we don’t shove and nits fold to him, he gets left with ~3500, now when he doubles he has 7000, Yep, we just gave him an extra 1000 chips than we needed too, he is now the dominant chip leader, and we have to tighten significantly. I hope you’re beginning to see a pattern here, and why it’s called the “ripple effect”



PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 50 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG (t690)
Button (t7400)
Hero (SB) (t2645)
BB (t2765)

Hero's M: 2.40

Preflop: Hero is SB with 6 , 5
3 folds

Total pot: t800


Here is the one that I labeled the most crucial and probably worst fold of all.
We’re covered by the BB here, sure. But this guy is a nit, (nit or not, we’re shoving ATC regardless). Some will make an argument here that, “oh I’ll fold this very thin shove, because I have heaps more chips that the Shortstack at the table, and it’s likely he will bust out”.
When people offer that as a rationale it makes very little sense to me. Firstly, if we shove here and take the pot down, we put ourselves in much better +EV spots later on, The villain to our immediate right may think twice about shoving into us. And we can now shove really wide on the two villains to our left. Secondly, Getting into the money with a 2k, stack isn’t something that really pleases me, we’re going to be left with a lot of third/second placings. But we ITMed you say? Awesome. It should be our goal to get ITM with a chip stack that gives us a chance to win a tournament, It’s pretty much common sense if we enter ITM as a bigger stack, we have more of a shot to win it, right?
Folding to this guy also makes us a little risk averse vs that player, we are now covered by more, and he might call us down lighter later on in the tournament.

Lastly, sure the shortstacked villain is short, but one double up, and he’s now really close to us in chip count, which, is exactly what happens the very next hand.


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 50 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB (t640)
UTG (t7350)
Hero (Button) (t2295)
SB (t3215)

Hero's M: 2.09

Preflop: Hero is Button with 5 , J
UTG bets t1200, 2 folds

Flop: (t1680) 9 , 9 , Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t1680) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t1680) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t1680
Yes, that just happened! And now we kind of put ourselves into a situation where the blinds are about to hit our very small stack.


So what ended up happening was the guy to our immediate right starting shoving every hand(what we should have been doing earlier) and started “owning” the bubble. We get left in this truly ugly situation of trying to outlast the remaining shortstacks trying to get ITM.



PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 50 Ante (4 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t2210)
SB (t9360)
Hero (BB) (t1095)
UTG (t835)

Hero's M: 1.00

Preflop: Hero is BB with A , 2
2 folds, SB bets t1200, 1 fold

Total pot: t1400


This is another clear cut call in my opinion. If we don’t take a risk here, with a hand that is likely ahead, we have simply given up our chance of winning, and we still don’t have a huge % chance of making the money.

Anyways what happens is the hero, somehow, manages to cash in this tournament. But it could have gone a lot better, and it starts way earlier on in the tournament. Making these thin +ev shoves earlier on, can help set us up to make much better +EV decisions later on in the tournament. It can also stop us from being in really ugly bubble spots. Sure we will bust out a lot more and probably have a much lower ITM %, but it means that when we get ITM, we have a much larger stack compared to the remaining players, and that’s something we shouldn’t ever underestimate. As it translates into winning more tournaments.

And hopefully you can see how not taking a thin +EV spot can really have more of an effect that you could ever imagine.

Great post mate, I think this is (possibly) the most important aspect of stts, im just hoping this doesnt make my compition too much tougher

great stuff. I know im totally guilty of folding in all the above situations just waiting for the ss to bust, which usually never happens and i end up bubbling. Might also explain a majority of my 2nd/3rd place finishes. Will add these to the list of things i need to work on.

This is very good stuff here, these are the spots where most of your money is made in SNG's. Want to clarify a couple of things though:

1) in the first hand, our stack in the hand history is t945, but you said we have t1740? One of us has the stack sizes confused lol.

2) in the fourth hand did the short stack just double up? The results were left out (this time they matter haha). anyway, what is your suggestion in this situation? I agree we never want to get to this point, where we're short-stacked and can't really steal the blinds because the player to our right is bullying, and he's probably calling our UTG shove. But we aren't 3-betting J5 here are we?

Everything else looks very good, I think a lot of people aren't aware that these spots make/cost you the most money in a SNG, and many people who are aware miss these spots because they're multi-tabling, on cruise control, etc. Thanks for the great post!

cjatud2012 said:

This is very good stuff here, these are the spots where most of your money is made in SNG's. Want to clarify a couple of things though:

1) in the first hand, our stack in the hand history is t945, but you said we have t1740? One of us has the stack sizes confused lol.

2) in the fourth hand did the short stack just double up? The results were left out (this time they matter haha). anyway, what is your suggestion in this situation? I agree we never want to get to this point, where we're short-stacked and can't really steal the blinds because the player to our right is bullying, and he's probably calling our UTG shove. But we aren't 3-betting J5 here are we?

Everything else looks very good, I think a lot of people aren't aware that these spots make/cost you the most money in a SNG, and many people who are aware miss these spots because they're multi-tabling, on cruise control, etc. Thanks for the great post!

Click to expand...

Oops, i posted the wrong ATs hand, any chance you can change it if i find the real one?

And number 2. i'm just showing that the short stack doubled up, pretty much what i was saying might happen did actually happen, putting us in an even worse position.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 3.4 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds 25 Ante (6 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t2215)
SB (t1505)
BB (t4060)
Hero (UTG) (t1765)
MP (t1690)
CO (t2265)

Hero's M: 3.92

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A , 10
4 folds, SB bets t1480 (All-In), BB calls t1280

Flop: (t3110) 4 , Q , 10 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t3110) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t3110) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t3110


Flex that magic mods wand!

Just missed a very simple math spot in that too 4200-3400 does not = 1000, lol.

WiZZiM said:

Oops, i posted the wrong ATs hand, any chance you can change it if i find the real one?

And number 2. i'm just showing that the short stack doubled up, pretty much what i was saying might happen did actually happen, putting us in an even worse position.

Click to expand...

edited it into OP.

so for the 2nd point, we need to prevent ourselves from getting into this spot, because there are pretty much no +$EV moves we can make at that point. So I guess we just need to be more aggressive before we put ourselves in this situation?

Yeah, well the 65 hand was the one just before the short stack doubles, so that was probably the most crucial missed shove of them all, and the one that put us into the 'survival' mode later on in the tournament. Those hands run back to back, should have made it clearer, but i like to do half assed jobs of everything.

Great information Wizz. Adjusting your game is very important and taking opportunity to get some chips. The bubble is a scary place thought. CM

Wow, This sounds like you used my Hand history. I gotta work on that. Great post, very useful!

Great post man. One thing though, I actually don't think that making these shoves will lower your ITM% by much, if at all. Just think of it this way: he makes just one of the aforementioned shoves and he essentially has a lazy stroll to ITM. People are playing so tight in these spots that you're walking away with the steal like 70% of the time from UTG and winning the race 11-12% of the time.

Basically, the hit your ITM% will take from running into a big hand and losing is balanced by the chips you get from people folding. Admittedly, my experience is more from 45-man+ SNGs, but since I've become more aggressive my ITM% hasn't really gone down (maybe it's even gone up). Having a stack people will respect is just soooooo important.

Lofwyr said:

Great post man. One thing though, I actually don't think that making these shoves will lower your ITM% by much, if at all. Just think of it this way: he makes just one of the aforementioned shoves and he essentially has a lazy stroll to ITM. People are playing so tight in these spots that you're walking away with the steal like 70% of the time from UTG and winning the race 11-12% of the time.

Basically, the hit your ITM% will take from running into a big hand and losing is balanced by the chips you get from people folding. Admittedly, my experience is more from 45-man+ SNGs, but since I've become more aggressive my ITM% hasn't really gone down (maybe it's even gone up). Having a stack people will respect is just soooooo important.

Click to expand...

You might be suprised how much a few % here and there can change. A 1% ITM change can drop ROI's by 1-2%. But a 1% shift in % from 3rd to first can boost ROI's by 3-6%.

What i'm getting at is, you can have an ITM % of 43% and still be a breakeven player, but you also have the players who have 38% ITM and go at 10%.

JEP712 said:

Hi,

Who ever this player is in this SNG is a donk.

bye
JEP712

Click to expand...

Such a considerate, productive comment

Going to elaborate a bit on this

When the stack sizes ever get like this:

SB (t1340)
BB (t3400)
Hero (UTG) (t7445)
Button (t1315)

Are opponents can't really call us with much at all. The button and SB are both trying to outlast each other. The BB won't(well shouldn't) risk busting here without a very strong hand, probably JJ+ if he suspects you're going ATC. If you suspect that your opponents are aware of ICM then you can truly run over the bubble in these spots. That's why we take marginal +EV spots(even though the ones shown are far from marginal imo) You want to be the one who is forcing your opponents to give up on huge +cEV spots because of ICM

Another example

100/200/25
Hero (t6000)
BB (t600)
Cut Off(UTG) (2000)
Button (t2000)

Folded to

If you know that you're opponents are ICM aware than this spot is actually a fold. The reason is because we're the big stack on the bubble. We want the bubble to be around for as long as possible because it allows us to make huge +EV pushes. Conversely, if we are the short stack we want it to end. If we fold this, shorty will have 1000 chips, 2.5 M. The other 2 opponents are not going to want to risk busting when shorty is around, meaning we can push ATC twice for a huge +EV.

JEP712 said:

hi,

no need for much prosaic comments most of the time.

bye
JEP712

Click to expand...

Huh? Not familar with the word "prosaic"