Shoving small pocket-pairs into open-raises.

Hi,

yesterday I cashed for the first time in a live tournament ( 175e buy-in ), just above a min-cash, 358e. Placed 129th out of 1563. It was my second live tournament and my first live multi-day tournament. I busted shoving a small pocket pair into an open-raise with 8bbs, the details are not important because I just want to know what are your opinions about this kind of play as I do it often in online tournaments as well when I'm on a short stack. I have noticed that this 'strategy' hasn't been working well in general, so I have begun to question it.
My thought process with this play is that a lot of the times the open-raiser has a wide range of suited connectors and high cards, which a pocket pair would have a 50% chance of winning against. And as I only do this with a short stack, the open-raise will call my shove pretty widely, if instead the open-raiser folds, well then I just saved myself from a flip, and scooped up the blinds and his raise, which is pretty huge with a short stack. With a really short stack, I think it is worth it to take a flip, as waiting for better hands might lead into blinding out.
When I say 'small pocket pairs' I mean 44-66 depending on the stack, because of course, if you have only 8bbs I don't see a problem shoving 77 into an open raise, as the open raiser might still have some smaller pocket pairs that will call the shove. But what about 55 for example?
Of course, the open raiser is sometimes going to have a bigger pocket pair, where we are only going to have a 20% chance to win.

So yeah... what do you think about this kind of play?

I think you called it yourself - you have no fold-equity with 8bbs so you're always going to be called. There's literally no hand that you're ahead of (except if the caller has an even smaller pp) so AT BEST you're flipping.

With that stack size it's better to open shove - than you may have some fold equity and that makes the hand profitable.

krezip said:

I think you called it yourself - you have no fold-equity with 8bbs so you're always going to be called. There's literally no hand that you're ahead of (except if the caller has an even smaller pp) so AT BEST you're flipping.

With that stack size it's better to open shove - than you may have some fold equity and that makes the hand profitable.

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I agree with Krezip. Shoving here doesn't work often enough to be a profitable move. The problem for some folk, though, is finding it difficult to pass on a small pair with a short stack late in the tournament. Patience is the key.

For me it depends on the situation, If I am really sitting on 8BB stack and am far away from the pay jump, I am shoving that pair all day long.
However, If the payjump is near, and I feel like I can survive long enough to get there, I am placing my shove line on 88s, meaning 77s fold, 88s shove.
That is because of all the Ax and Kx hands where X can really be lower then 8 (in case I am looking at pocket 55s, it is hard for opponent to have A2-A4 or K2-K4 or a smaller pocket-pair)

Shoving small pairs depends of the open raiser, if he's very tight that's not good idea at all, if open raiser is a loose player I shove small pairs all day!

eh you are crushed 20% of the time even though pocket pairs get dealt 6% of time and at best flipping 57% the other 80% of the time. If you got 8BB then I would just JAM it but realize small pocket pairs weakness is all ins.

I like to go in with a funk suited hand but that is just me at 8BB.