$22 NLHE STT: stt bubble hand-- week 1 honorable mention

[cjatud2012]

$22 NLHESTT: stt bubble hand-- week 1 honorable mention

This was another hand I received, thought it deserved to be discussed. Thanks to cardplayer52 for contributing to the contest!

In this spot we're up against a reg, one of the best for this level. We're in a virtual tie for 2nd with about 10bb's.

full tilt poker No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t150.00/t300.00 Blinds - 4 players - View hand 978189
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): t3136.00 10.45 BBs
CO: t5243.00 17.48 BBs
BTN: t2281.00 7.60 BBs
SB: t2840.00 9.47 BBs

Pre Flop: (t450) Hero is BB with A :diamond: 9 :spade:
1 fold, BTN raises to t2281, 1 fold, Hero ???

 

[baudib1]

i fold

 

[atlantafalcons0]

Yea, seems like an easy fold.

 

[Rldetheflop]

man you guys dont call anything! To me this is a snap call and I will tell you why I think this. Villain should be shoving very wide here ATC really. If we fold we are the shortstack(virtual tie for shortstackedism) and the chip leader is right behind us so It will be more difficult for us to steal blinds than the other 2.

 

[WiZZiM]

man you guys dont call anything! To me this is a snap call and I will tell you why I think this. Villain should be shoving very wide here ATC really. If we fold we are the shortstack(virtual tie for shortstackedism) and the chip leader is right behind us so It will be more difficult for us to steal blinds than the other 2.

Unfortunately no solid player is going to be shoving anytwo in this spot, if he is, he aint solid most probably. i'd struggle to get a good regular past a range of 40% here. SNG Wiz is most probably saying call here still, however, this is certainly a spot where i'm disagreeing with it and folding. I'd much prefer shoving into the bigger stack as opposed to calling off for 1. The equity we have left over if we call and lose isn't a lot. We also know that ICM overvalues short stacks, which skews data when we reveiw in SNG WIZ, this is one of those spots where our diff is skewed.

In summary, calling off with equal stacks is going to be really bad. As a good player we can certainly find a much better spot that this one, one where we are not guaranteed a showdown.

 

[Rldetheflop]

Unfortunately no solid player is going to be shoving anytwo in this spot, if he is, he aint solid most probably. i'd struggle to get a good regular past a range of 40% here. SNG Wiz is most probably saying call here still, however, this is certainly a spot where i'm disagreeing with it and folding. I'd much prefer shoving into the bigger stack as opposed to calling off for 1. The equity we have left over if we call and lose isn't a lot. We also know that ICM overvalues short stacks, which skews data when we reveiw in SNG WIZ, this is one of those spots where our diff is skewed.

In summary, calling off with equal stacks is going to be really bad. As a good player we can certainly find a much better spot that this one, one where we are not guaranteed a showdown.

well i think were we are going to disagree here is on villains range. Why would you not shove into these two stacks here? I absolutely agree that calling off equal stacks normally is not good but we have to consider that the chip leader is behind us so we may not find a better spot.

 

[WiZZiM]

I guess it's kind of blind dependant. There is a severe lack of information in the OP unfortunately. But, lets assume the SB is a random bad player. I guess the BTN knows the BB is super tight here, so that would widen the range. But still, he's shoving into two equal stacks. I guess his range can be a little wider as well to account for future blind concerns. But anytwo? I guess i can accept a wider range, something around a good nash BVB range, 65%. That seems to be really wide, but probably realistic, considering most good regs err toward shoving wider. Against that wide a range, i guess it's a good ICM call. However, i'm still not happy risking it in this spot. I'll be much happier shoving wide vs the BB in most cases, the BB still should be very risk averse vs our shoves, and we can also shove wide on the button, so there are plenty of good spots to come.

 

[only_bridge]

man you guys dont call anything! To me this is a snap call and I will tell you why I think this. Villain should be shoving very wide here ATC really. If we fold we are the shortstack(virtual tie for shortstackedism) and the chip leader is right behind us so It will be more difficult for us to steal blinds than the other 2.

I am kind of a loose player I think, but even to me, this is an instafold.

 

[polingpower]

i would fold and wait for a better spot .. me shoving... not calling one..
at best its a coin flip for your tournament

 

[Poker Orifice]

man you guys dont call anything! To me this is a snap call and I will tell you why I think this. Villain should be shoving very wide here ATC really. If we fold we are the shortstack(virtual tie for shortstackedism) and the chip leader is right behind us so It will be more difficult for us to steal blinds than the other 2.

This is an easy fold imo.
Even if you can see villain's cards & know you're ahead.. still an easy fold imo due to ICM considerations.
If we fold I'm pretty sure it's a 3-way tie for 2nd.
Just because the chip leader will be BB when we're SB doesn't necessarily equate to it being difficult to steal (I mean I doubt he's going to call us down real light because we still take a decent chunk out of his stack if he calls & loses.... also he 'might' be less likely to believe that we'll be shoving wide in BvB situation). I'd rather fold the A9 in BB & shove with 87s on the next hand (just sayin' as means for comparison).

 

[WiZZiM]

i would fold and wait for a better spot .. me shoving... not calling one..
at best its a coin flip for your tournament

Not really a coin flip. we have a lot more equity vs his range than you might think, we dominate a lot of his range, and we are rarely less than a 60/40 here.

 

[Rldetheflop]

ok ok I will concede this one. I would like to state however that Greg Jones in his ABC's of sit n' go he talks about pivot points. a call from the BB from a 7.5 blind shove from btn/SB is A7s+ A9+ 55+KQs. He did say you can make slight adjustments for things such as bubble play but cautioned against over adjusting. Also this calling range comes from a shoving range of 30% and While I did overstate ATC I still think you should be shoving wider then 30 percent here with the table dynamics the way they are. It just seems hard to give up the fact that we are pretty solid against his range here and a win bursts the bubble and gives us the chip lead.

I am very open minded to this being a fold though and would more than welcome continued discussion.

 

[atlantafalcons0]

This is an easy fold imo.
Even if you can see villain's cards & know you're ahead.. still an easy fold imo due to ICM considerations.
If we fold I'm pretty sure it's a 3-way tie for 2nd.
Just because the chip leader will be BB when we're SB doesn't necessarily equate to it being difficult to steal (I mean I doubt he's going to call us down real light because we still take a decent chunk out of his stack if he calls & loses.... also he 'might' be less likely to believe that we'll be shoving wide in BvB situation). I'd rather fold the A9 in BB & shove with 87s on the next hand (just sayin' as means for comparison).

So you would rather shove with 87s over calling all in with A9o because of fold equity.....

me too.

 

[cjatud2012]

Lemme include what cardplayer wrote about the villain:

the button is a reg not sure his stats as they are blocked but he can't be losing. he's always top of leader board. anyway my reads are he's never out of line. my default here if i were him is 30%+ but not sure his is that wide. looked it up on nash its a fold.

 

[Rldetheflop]

Ok was hoping someone would do some math that clearly showed this is a fold so I decided to do some math of my own. exact ICM calculations are not my forte so If I screw this up someone please let me know.

equity in tourney if we fold=.230
equity if we call/win=.360
equity if we call/lose=.092

if we give villain 30% shoving range(which I have stated I believe would be higher)our A9o is 52.25/47.75.

average equity on a call would be .36(52.25%)+.092(47.75%)=.232


.232>.230=call>fold

Now It is so close that I guess we can fold as we would prefer some fold equity but like I said this is with a 30 percent shoving range which I firmly believe should be higher.

If I have missed something or messed up some math somewhere someone please let me know.

 

[WiZZiM]

It's definately one of those times where ICM is going to overvalue the short stack. Just to give you an example using SNG wiz. Basically if we call and lose, we're left with ~800 chips, with little to no fold equity and we're going to have to probably double up twice or get a lot of shoves through to stand any chance in the tournament.

So in the first example, it shows that A9 is a clear call, but watch what happens when i set the two stacks to nearly equal, it becomes a clear fold. why? As mentioned above, ICM is overvaluing the shortstack we have left over. Sure 800 chips is still some equity, but our chances of cashing are very low.

FOr me, this is one of those situations where we are just stuck in the middle, if i have a lot more chips, i'm calling and if i have a lot less i'm calling, but here we're kind of stuck in the middle.

So, for my final responce, the true calling range lies somewhere between these two diagrams. It's a fine line between making a good call and making a bad one.

 

[WiZZiM]

And as for the button shoving range, if a guy is shoving anytwo here, they have to be pretty bad. Nash suggests around a 28% range, i had no idea what hands CO is calling with, perhaps that range is a little wide, i'm not sure. A lot of it depends on the SB here, we know the BB should be calling very tight, but if the button folds how often does the SB shove and info like that we are missing. If the SB is shoving a lot then the button stands to gain a lot from the two blinds possibly getting it in vs each other.

 

[Rldetheflop]

I already retracted the ATC statement but I dont think 40% is an unreasonable range. If you look at the table dynamics the button shouldnt be doing a great deal of folding as the next hand has the chip leader on the BB then the blinds hit, perhaps the blinds increase during this and then fold equity has diminished greatly.

as far as overvalueing the shortstack Im not sure how that is accurate. approx 800 in chips has little equity but some .09 equity is little but some so sounds on line to me. What I am saying is you cant just equivilate 800 chips to 0 chips cause sometimes we will cash(even win) from 800 in chips the .09 equity indicates that.

and one last point if its a fine line can it really be considered good or bad?

 

[WiZZiM]

I already retracted the ATC statement but I dont think 40% is an unreasonable range. If you look at the table dynamics the button shouldnt be doing a great deal of folding as the next hand has the chip leader on the BB then the blinds hit, perhaps the blinds increase during this and then fold equity has diminished greatly. Yeah i agree with that. Future blind issues are a problem. However i believe this is a non-turbo, so we may have a little more time here.

as far as overvalueing the shortstack Im not sure how that is accurate. approx 800 in chips has little equity but some .09 equity is little but some so sounds on line to me. What I am saying is you cant just equivilate 800 chips to 0 chips cause sometimes we will cash(even win) from 800 in chips the .09 equity indicates that.
Your misunderstanding what i'm getting at. I'm in no way saying we have no equity left over if we call and lose. You right that 800 chips is still a chunk of equity, albeit not very much. ICM overvalues the stack remaining over. So why am i mentioning this? well because it has an effect on the range we can profitably call with. I'm basically trying to overcome an ICM flaw by checking the range when the stacks are set to equal, and sort of finding middle ground between the graphs to determine what range we can call with, or what range is probably the most profitable to call with.
and one last point if its a fine line can it really be considered good or bad?
Yeah i don't think this is ever going to be a clear cut good call or bad call, especially with missing info.

So it looks like A9 is super close, if we find a middle ground between those ranges.

 

[baudib1]

did you read the reads on villain? he's not shoving 30%

 

[Rldetheflop]

did you read the reads on villain? he's not shoving 30%

yea he said solid reg that he didnt think would be shoving wider than 30 percent. In fact he said more than solid constantly on the leaderboard and I am saying that that player will be shoving 40 percent here.

 

[cjatud2012]

this spot, while not really cut and dry, is a little simpler to answer than the winning hand because SNGWiz can help us out. We can figure out what our calling range is pretty easily based on villain's shoving range, although there are other factors to consider, such as ICM flaws, table dynamics/game flow, etc.

So lemme see if I can't ask some more questions and get some responses:
1) what if BTN folds and SB shoves into us? Then what's our range?
2) how would we act if we were chip leader? what if we were the short stack and not an equal medium stack? Give ranges for both.
3) what if villain was a short stack, say t1350?

 

[WiZZiM]

this spot, while not really cut and dry, is a little simpler to answer than the winning hand because SNGWiz can help us out. We can figure out what our calling range is pretty easily based on villain's shoving range, although there are other factors to consider, such as ICM flaws, table dynamics/game flow, etc.

So lemme see if I can't ask some more questions and get some responses:
1) what if BTN folds and SB shoves into us? Then what's our range?Highly dependant on villain shoving range, he should be shoving reasonably wide, but who knows really. Against a really loose range, we can call, against a range similar to the 30-40% it's a fold.
2) how would we act if we were chip leader? If we're the chip leader we can widen our ranges up a lot, it of course depends on how many chips we're left with after we call, but if we have a big cushion to fall back on, we can widen our range up a lot to try and burst the bubble/gain a huge equity boost taking that ITM what if we were the short stack and not an equal medium stack?Makes our range tighter, depending on how short we actually are, but now calling an all in we're left with 0 equity if we lose. Give ranges for both.Can't really give accurate ranges or guessing without villian shoving info, generally call wider when we have tons of equity left over, and tighter when we have none, if we're really short then we call as we're not going to have any better spots, can't really answer it any other way apart from generally, lots of small factors can change things completely.
3) what if villain was a short stack, say t1350?If he's much shorter than he is, we can call much wider, as if we call and lose, we will still be left with a decent amount of equity, we basically switch equity positions if we lose, which isn't ideal, but ~1500 is a workable stack ~800 isn't so much.

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