$80 NLHE MTT Rebuy: SB shoving against BB

[LeGenie]

Hi guys I mainly play 2/5 NL but lately I started playing tourneys and would like some feedback on the way I approached this hand at an $80 10K guaranteed MTT. The blinds 1,500/3,000 with 300 ante.

Starting stacks:

Hero: 40,000
Villain: 30,000

The action gets folded around to Hero in the SB holding 97o. I ponder a little then decide to shove against the BB since there is plenty of fold equity given that he only has 10BB left and will fold a ton of hands that have me crushed in this spot. Would you guys consider this play to be standard at these stack levels? By the way I just got transferred to this table so no info on villain.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

 

[horizon12]

Its ITM or how far away bubble ? It is very important , because change our range hands for steal...

 

[deluns28]

I would just raise it to 3BB or fold since I do not have info or history on the villain.

 

[horizon12]

I would just raise it to 3BB or fold since I do not have info or history on the villain.

Here only shove or fold because stack only 10bb... raise will be big mistake, because villain can call or shove, and we need fold , disappears also fold equity...

 

[deluns28]

Here only shove or fold because stack only 10bb... raise will be big mistake, because villain can call or shove, and we need fold , disappears also fold equity...

I would not open shove on that range. So minraise and hope that the villain will fold. Insta-fold when he shove. I can still find a spot in 1 orbit since I am already in SB.

2/3 of the time I will fold this.

 

[suby_rafael]

I would simply fold this as shoving 9 high is very risky here. We have no info on villain and he has an even smaller stack than us. We can still be patient and and wait for a betters spot with around 13 big blinds.

 

[pokrjoker]

im likely folding here. you just paid for your next round so no real reason to piss it away with 9 hi and get snapped of by KJ or A10.

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

I would jam it. You have lots of fold equity and when he calls you'll usually be live.

Occasionally in a spot like this with no info on villain, I'll limp and donk the flop.

The other option is fold.

I think raising is the worst option.


for me in this spot:

60% jam
20% limp, fold to a raise, donk any flop
20% fold

If I had recently been raising, I would fold. If I had reads that villain was passive straightforward I'd definitely limp/donk.

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

Let's analyze the math.

Pot contains 300*9= 2,700+ 1500 +3000=7,200

Which picking up the pot preflop increases our stack by 18%

How much FE do we have? With unknown players I just assign them my own range and I'd be calling here fairly wide because I only have 10bbs. Something like 44+, A2+, KJ+, K9s+, QTs+. That is a 23% calling range.

So 77% of the time he'll just fold and you'll win the pot which is 7,200*.77=5,544 is your fold equity

The other 23% of the time he'll call which costs you 28,500 more than just folding.

Facing his calling range 97o has 35% equity meaning:

Of the 23% he calls 65% of the time you'll lose 28,500
28500* 0.23 * 0.65= 4,260 lost

Of the 23% he calls 35% of the time you'll win 28,500+7,200=35,700
35,700 *0.23*0.35=2,873 won

now add your fold equity plus your win equity and subtract your loss
5,544+2,873=8417 - 4260= +4157 is the profitability of the move as a whole which is better than 0 (0 is always the equity of folding)

An average increase to your stack of roughly 10%.

Is that an adequate reward to overcome the ICM reality? Depends on where you are in the tourney, but clearly if he's only calling 23% of the time pushing here is never WRONG.

Notice most if your profit in that move comes from fold equity; so increasing his calling range drastically changes the profitability of the move.

Obviously the tighter the BB the wider you should push and the looser the BB you should be pushing for value (hands you suspect are ahead). For instance if you think he is calling wide with hands like K3 or 68 then increase you high card pushing hands and decrease your low card pushing hands.
Ex: Push with K6 and Q7 instead of 98s or 67s

Hope this helps. Plug in different calling ranges to see how it affects the profitability of your shove. Plug n Play.

 

[duggs]

pretty clear shove especially v an unknown. we can probably shove like 70%-80% extremely comfortably, and i honestly don't mind ATC

 

[bkniefel]

You didn't describe the persons play. If you noticed that they are a quick fold than most times you will take that home. That being said you can also count on someone calling that because they want to double up and they know that it is heads up and you shoved (meaning you're not trying to downplay your hand).

I think I would call if I had anything respectable because it's difficult to find exactly what you did. They want to double up by eliminating the risk of other factors (people) in the hand.

I hope this helps

 

[rumsey182]

4M(9.6bb)
sb 22+ Qx+ J2s+ J4o+ T2s+ T6o+ 93s+ 96o+ 84s+ 86o+ 74s+ 76o 63s+ 53s+ 43s

this is an unexploitable shove range vs the BB he could know your range and still not increase his EV against you

Now should you shove this range depends on players left, payouts, structure and other assorted things

 

[duggs]

Unexploitable range can still be way way from optimal

 

[rumsey182]

Unexploitable range can still be way way from optimal

it is cute and good that you know that but your wrong in this case

By the way I just got transferred to this table so no info on villain.

this means we have zero context so the best you can do with zero context is insure we are +ev and keep paying attention so we can adapt when we gain more info assuming there is no crazy ICM in this situation

so why would you feel this is not optimal? I'm just curious bc your using some fine logic out of context

 

[duggs]

Haha wow, pretty condescending given you are making some underlying assumptions,

 

[duggs]

You are assuming an unknown in the field calls Nash which is a big assumption, would be much better to determine the aggregate/representative players calling range and go from there

Especially in a live low stakes tournamebt

 

[RamdeeBen]

You are assuming an unknown in the field calls Nash which is a big assumption, would be much better to determine the aggregate/representative players calling range and go from there

Especially in a live low stakes tournamebt

This.

 

[rumsey182]

Haha wow, pretty condescending given you are making some underlying assumptions,

i wanted to rub your face in it very lightly because you just threw out " unexploitable is not always optimal" which can be true plenty of times but we have no info ( see OP it says such) so all we have is our ability to make an unexploitable shove because anything else has a chance to be exploitable, and therefor could be lower EV. You have no way of knowing

You are assuming an unknown in the field calls Nash which is a big assumption, would be much better to determine the aggregate/representative players calling range and go from there

Especially in a live low stakes tournamebt

you don't understand an unexploitable push range then. If he calls perfectly ( highly doubt it) he can not be +EV. Any tighter is +EV because we win the blinds for free more then we "should" in an optimized sense. Any wider we are still +EV against a wider then correct range given our hands and the amount of time he still folds. We could tell him what our shove range is exactly and still profit. The only thing we can't do is turn our hand over lol.

i suggest you guys read up on what a Nash equilibrium is. And Poker is a game of limited information, that is why we have the ability to model things when we don't have info. From a game theory sense, when we have no info pushing a Nash range ( short of any big payout jumps and very small stacks at the table throwing ICM for a loop) is the optimal play at the time. You had no way of knowing anything else otherwise short of seeing someones cards or them looking like they are about to jump out of their chair reaching for chips before you shove,...


Also it scares me that someone agreed here,..... let me say this again to hammer the point home: 0 EV is the best they can do by calling exactly correct,...... anything else is just better for us. Unexploitable push ranges is somewhat similar to a negative freeroll. Long term it is at best 0 ev and your freerolling the times they are making huge mistakes. Yes you can still lose the hand and run into a monster, but that is revisionist thinking to look back and say your shove was wrong if the math supports it. Also equities run similar longterm, variance is going to happen. 5-10% edge feels like a lot when you say it in a theoretical sense, but a failure rate of 40-45% is still freaking huge. You just have to accept that. Trust in the longterm outcomes

You guys are trying to make assumptions by assuming we have any info here, and we do not.

Also duggs if i really wanted to be a douche to you,... i would let you stay ignorant on this, sometimes you need to poke people a little to get them thinking about something

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

Alright gentlemen; I want a good clean fight. No low blows. Ding! Let the games begin! I'm laying 3:2 odds that duggs wins this bout by KO

 

[duggs]

i wanted to rub your face in it very lightly because you just threw out " unexploitable is not always optimal" which can be true plenty of times but we have no info ( see OP it says such) so all we have is our ability to make an unexploitable shove because anything else has a chance to be exploitable, and therefor could be lower EV. You have no way of knowing



you don't understand an unexploitable push range then. If he calls perfectly ( highly doubt it) he can not be +EV. Any tighter is +EV because we win the blinds for free more then we "should" in an optimized sense. Any wider we are still +EV against a wider then correct range given our hands and the amount of time he still folds. We could tell him what our shove range is exactly and still profit. The only thing we can't do is turn our hand over lol.

i suggest you guys read up on what a Nash equilibrium is. And Poker is a game of limited information, that is why we have the ability to model things when we don't have info. From a game theory sense, when we have no info pushing a Nash range ( short of any big payout jumps and very small stacks at the table throwing ICM for a loop) is the optimal play at the time. You had no way of knowing anything else otherwise short of seeing someones cards or them looking like they are about to jump out of their chair reaching for chips before you shove,...


Also it scares me that someone agreed here,..... let me say this again to hammer the point home: 0 EV is the best they can do by calling exactly correct,...... anything else is just better for us. Unexploitable push ranges is somewhat similar to a negative freeroll. Long term it is at best 0 ev and your freerolling the times they are making huge mistakes. Yes you can still lose the hand and run into a monster, but that is revisionist thinking to look back and say your shove was wrong if the math supports it. Also equities run similar longterm, variance is going to happen. 5-10% edge feels like a lot when you say it in a theoretical sense, but a failure rate of 40-45% is still freaking huge. You just have to accept that. Trust in the longterm outcomes

You guys are trying to make assumptions by assuming we have any info here, and we do not.

Also duggs if i really wanted to be a douche to you,... i would let you stay ignorant on this, sometimes you need to poke people a little to get them thinking about something

lots of points so ill address them individually.

1/ you failed to address why we should assume that the calling range on a representative player in this player pool will call sufficiently wide enough to make nash shoving better than exploitably wide shoving.

2/ if he calls optimally he will be +EV, both players will be. owing to the fact there is money in the pot. his worst calling hand will be indifferent between calling and folding meaning the equity of the two will be equal, given folding is 0 EV. therefore his expectation must be positive or he would be indifferent between folding all hands.

3/ I am aware of what a nash equilibrium is, I am a masters student studying economics. your assumption about nash being optimal is fundamentally incorrect. provided there are identifiable player pool tendencies it would be optimal to construct a representative agent and make exploitable plays against that model. or better yet we could weight that model appropriately with different calling ranges and create an aggregate.

4/ let me hammer this point home, this is not a a bluff/nuts v bluff catcher situation. the calling ev is definitely not 0. if it were zero, they could increase their profit by calling with less hands. and the consequence is to imply that they are indifferent between folding 100% and calling nash, which is patently absurd when their range is uncapped and they could choose to call with only KK+ and show (an admittedly infrequent) yet clear profit.

5/ just because you shoved a nash range does not mean it was optimal, assuming the representative player calls too tightly, which seems a very very very conservative assumption to make, that means that we are folding hands that have a positive expectation when shoved.

 

[duggs]

just to nail the read less point home, assuming calling ranges are correct from a random isn't fundamentally different from assuming that they balance every other street in their game, so we need to give them properly balanced ranges in every single analysis if readless? we are going to assume that a random in an 80 buck live tourney is going to c/r flop an appropriate amount of bluffs and assume the same when facing a call call shove line posflop?

 

[hffjd2000]

Is this a live tourney?

Anyway, I would say you would probably have less fold equity with him having 10BB.

 

[duggs]

no response?

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

no response?

ding ding ding
match over by forfeit.

 

[rumsey182]

ding ding ding
match over by forfeit.

hhaaa sorry i was hung over for most of the weekend (guess that is a KO)