Ask Collin Moshman and Katie Dozier About Sit ‘n Goes!

Katie Dozier

Katie Dozier

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I tried Sng's but hang mostly in tourneys as it easier to avoid those all-in slot players. got tired of getting AA/KK/QQ cracked with 9/3 suited or J2 off. Is there a strategy to improve your odds against crazy Ivans? or just a crap shot every time on poker sites?

The strategy is just to keep getting it in with the correct odds :) , and it is true that shove/fold is a very important component of tournament poker, especially when it comes to SNGs.

As frustrating as it is to get sucked out on versus a weak holding especially when we have a premium hand, try to keep in mind that we win that all-in the vast majority of the time. We want to see other players making mistakes even when it works out for them in the short term because it certainly won’t in the long run. Hope your luck turns around soon! [emoji106]
 
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Roger Moore

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Collin is my HERO!

Hello!

Collin your book and videos taught me the game and Ill always love you for it. I was wondering if you guys know where I can find shove charts for the 500 hyper turbo game on ACR? Id be happy to make my own but am not certain how. Any advice is appreciated.

Cheers!
 
Collin Moshman

Collin Moshman

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Thanks for the nice words Roger!

Good question. I'm not sure if charts exist specifically for those, but for sure you could make your own using ICM software like Holdem Resources or ICMizer. There's also plenty of room for postflop play in the ACR hypers when stacks are at or near 25bb so I agree it's a great format. For the open-shove and call portion of the chart, you could use this free tool. Hope that helps!
 
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Roger Moore

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Ooh that is a nice tool. Thank you for the reply. Ill get started grinding out my charts.

Cheers
 
Killdalimper

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Hey Colin!
I got a question about mid game strategy. As we all know stealing blinds is an important factor when blinds are 100-200 or so. During that stage people are usually 15-20bb deep. Say we have 15bb left and we get KQ on BTN. Is it optimal to min raise to steal the blinds given the fact that we're short stacked ? Isn't it better to just jam our stronger hands instead of min raising and hoping that people would fold their mediocre hands? Im a bit lost with blind stealing in 6-9 handed SNG where almost everybody's short stacked during mid stage. In MTTs I either push or fold when im <20 but Im not sure if the same strategy can be applied to SNGs.
Thank You!
 
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Roger Moore

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Im no Collin but personally I tend toward a shove if out of position and min raise when in position. If you feel confident in your post flop play I would min raise, if not then shove it. Both are +EV I believe.
Generally if the defender checks on the flop then I raise half pot to see where Im at. Most times they will just fold. I hope this helps.
 
Collin Moshman

Collin Moshman

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Hey Killdalimper! Good question and it depends on a few factors.

More ICM -> More inclined to shove. That way people can't take away your fold equity. (By more ICM, I mean closer to bubble and/or us being more mid-stacked.)

Weaker/Passive Opponents -> More inclined to min-raise. The reason here being that we can exploit their passivity by raise/folding more often and saving a huge amount of equity when they have big hands.

Roger Moore also makes a great point about the importance of position in this decision.

Most commonly by the way, I would be open-shoving KQo on the button for 15bb at 100-200 since I'd be fairly mid-stacked at least fairly close to the bubble.
 
Killdalimper

Killdalimper

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Hey Killdalimper! Good question and it depends on a few factors.

More ICM -> More inclined to shove. That way people can't take away your fold equity. (By more ICM, I mean closer to bubble and/or us being more mid-stacked.)

Weaker/Passive Opponents -> More inclined to min-raise. The reason here being that we can exploit their passivity by raise/folding more often and saving a huge amount of equity when they have big hands.

Roger Moore also makes a great point about the importance of position in this decision.

Most commonly by the way, I would be open-shoving KQo on the button for 15bb at 100-200 since I'd be fairly mid-stacked at least fairly close to the bubble.

Thanks a lot for the great insight! One more thing tho, at what stack size are we deep enough to start min raising in position to steal the blinds ? is 20bb deep enough for min raising instead of open shoving?
 
Collin Moshman

Collin Moshman

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No problem!

The stack size where we min-raise instead of jam depends on these factors like ICM and opponents. In MTTs, the change would normally be around 10-12 bb without an ante and 15bb with an ante. In 9-man SNGs it's often reasonable to shove bigger stacks, occasionally 20bb or more with an ante, for example if we're near the bubble against opponents who play well.

To answer your last question though:

In the vast majority of SNG situations, 20bb is definitely enough to make a min-raise steal instead of jamming.
 
Olinosterfant

Olinosterfant

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Just started reading the book. I need some tips on surviving in tourneys and sit and go's.
 
Katie Dozier

Katie Dozier

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Just started reading the book. I need some tips on surviving in tourneys and sit and go's.

That’s awesome! I may be slightly biased [emoji847]but I think you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for in terms of tournament survival in Collin’s book! :)
 
Amanda A

Amanda A

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Hi Katie and Collin, I hope I'm posting this in the right thread. Thanks so much to both of you for your great advice. I loved your video on shove/fold. I've heard similar stuff but not stated in that way before and it makes a lot of sense. I think too many people only start shove or fold poker when they have 10BB regardless of antes and raises. Collin, I'm reading your book on sit and go strategy and learning a lot. I'm also working with ICMizer and it really opened my eyes to how wide it is correct to push or call with in certain situations. In the example where if someone raises before you and you are looking at a shove of 20 BB how much do you tighten up your shoving range given that you are facing a raise? I know it is opponent dependent, but generally? Also if you give your opponent an opening range of say 30 per cent, what kind of range should you have to shove over the top with? Top 20 per cent of hands? Is it useful to think in these terms - I want my range to be 10 % tighter than his opening range, or is it more useful to think about opponent's calling range after your shove? Thanks!
 
Collin Moshman

Collin Moshman

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Good questions Amanda!

You would generally shove a lot tighter facing a raise compared to open-shoving. At 20bb, you wouldn't normally have an open-shove range, but at around 15bb you could jam wider than you would if someone had raised before you. So for example, at 15bb on the button, you can definitely open-shove A2o, whereas if the cutoff raised and you had 15 or 20bb, it would usually be much too loose to shove this hand. (ATo might be the bottom of your range.)

That's a cool idea to think in terms of: Villain raises 30% so I'll shove 15%, etc. But for me at least, that's not how I normally think about it because the profitability of your shove also depends on other factors like his calling range, state of tournament, and other active players.

E.g. if he opens 30% and calls 5% then usually you can shove ATC. If he opens 30% and calls 30% then you would only shove hands you wanted action with which might be 10-15% depending on effective stack, other players, and state of tourney. My advice is to play around with ICMizer a lot, get used to the results, and then begin actively quizzing yourself. Remember that you don't need to memorize perfectly and just want to make sure that you're playing pretty good ranges for the situation and making better decisions than your opponents.

Also, if you're ever not sure what to shove over a raise: Most pocket pairs, most suited aces, and all suited broadway hands. You'll never go too wrong this way :)
 
Amanda A

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Hi Katie and Collin, I know I just posted, but I would love your advice. I'm playing $3.3 reg sit and go's on ACR and I lost 3 in a row early in the tourneys! Ahhhh! Terrible! Please help :) I'm just wondering if I made some mistakes. First game: 7 players left I'm in Big Blind with AQo and have 11 BB after posting. UTG shoves for 11 bigs, all fold and I call. I'm against A10o and 10 comes, I'm out. Second game: 8 players left. I'm in BB with QQ I have (t1385 ) blinds are 25/50, UTG+2 (t1443) raises to 113 and button (t1344) puts in 113. I complete. I maybe should have raised here but I thought that both players were a little sticky and I didn't want to create a large pot out of position. What was I going too do if a K or A came? So I thought, I'm underplaying my hand, but maybe that will be a little trappy and work out. Flop 78J rainbow. I bet 273 UTG+2 folds but button re-raises to 573. Button is loose, and I think fairly aggressive and I've underplayed my hand so I move my last 1049 into the center and go all in. I felt I can't fold with an overpair to this flop having taken the line I took and calling will leave me with only 700 chips with 2 streets to come so I may as well put them in now. He calls and has 88 for a set. Oooops. Not sure what I could have done here because even if I raised fairly big pre flop I don't think button would have folded 88. Game 3: 9 players blinds 25/50 I'm in BB with Q10 o. Player from mid position opens to 100. Action folds to me and I put in the extra 50. Flop KK9 (2 spades) I figure it's a hit or miss flop let me take a stab so I bet 125 into 250 pot. Player calls. At this point I'm thinking he could have a K. I would just call if I had a K. I'm ready to slow down then a beautiful J comes on the turn giving me a straight. I want to look weak and just bet 125 hoping he will come over the top, he just calls. 7 of spades on river brings a possible flush, but I'm not too concerned about that. I bet 563 and he re-raises me all in. I call and he turns over KJ for a boat. The card that made my straight gave him a full house. Out again! Would love to hear your thoughts on how I messed up. :) Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Amanda A

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Just wanted to follow up and say I won the next reg $3.30 sit and go I played after posting. Yay! I was big stack and prolonged the bubble. It was really fun!
 
Collin Moshman

Collin Moshman

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I think you're definitely playing well from these hands. With AQ for example, you for sure have to call an 11bb shove from the small blind. You got it in as a 70/30 favorite which is all you can do. Sometimes luck works against you in the short-term, but if you play a large sample of games it will even out.

Good luck and glad you won the last game!
 
Katie Dozier

Katie Dozier

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Just wanted to follow up and say I won the next reg $3.30 sit and go I played after posting. Yay! I was big stack and prolonged the bubble. It was really fun!

Hooray, congrats! So glad you won and had a blast on the bubble especially! [emoji322]
 
Amanda A

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Thanks so much! GL to you both. Katie I love the video of you playing 40 games at once. Unbelievable! Blows me away. Collin, have to say your book is very excellent and everyone should buy it.
Something I found interesting and wanted to share with others and see if they agree - when I put the game I won into icmizer I had a lot of wrong decisions with 4 players left because I was deliberately prolonging the bubble as big stack and it wanted me to shove and take players out. I wanted to keep the micro stack alive who I thought was a fairly passive player and no real threat, while I chipped away at other larger staked more aggressive players who might have been a threat if they doubled up or if they were in the money and not playing safe on the bubble. Anyway, that worked as a strategy for me even though it wasn't correct in icm terms. I guess icm doesn't take into account that if you are big stack, it can be correct to not take out the weakest players with very small stacks on the bubble.
 
Katie Dozier

Katie Dozier

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Thanks so much! GL to you both. Katie I love the video of you playing 40 games at once. Unbelievable! Blows me away. Collin, have to say your book is very excellent and everyone should buy it.

Thanks so much, Amanda, that’s extremely kind of you! [emoji4]

As for your question about prolonging the bubble, in general we’ll want to be making the shoves that ICM software agrees with, but keep in mind that they’re also based on the assumption that others will be calling/shoving/folding optimally as well. So in your example for instance, the short stack was passive which often goes hand-in-hand with calling station type tendencies. If that type of opponent is calling wider than he should be, then our range would ideally adjust to not be quite as wide in order to exploitively compensate for that.

Hope your games are going well and that you have a fun weekend of poker ahead! [emoji4]
 
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Enplo650

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VPIP-PRF

Hello guys again. Another one question. When a player has statistics like 30/23 or 27/22 or32/25 or 24/19 is lag or loose pasive???

And also 16/14 or 17/15 or 15/13 is lag or tag???
 
Collin Moshman

Collin Moshman

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The top line of stats you give are loose-aggressive. You can have gaps that wide between your VPIP and PFR and still be considered LAG.

The bottom line is tight-aggressive for the most part, although I'm not sure by a 17% VPIP if I'd still classify the player as particularly tight. Either way though, for the most part these are now fairly TAG stats.
 
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fundiver199

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The top line of stats you give are loose-aggressive. You can have gaps that wide between your VPIP and PFR and still be considered LAG.

The bottom line is tight-aggressive for the most part, although I'm not sure by a 17% VPIP if I'd still classify the player as particularly tight. Either way though, for the most part these are now fairly TAG stats.


Assuming that most of these hands were played at a 9-handed table, I agree. However if its a SnG player, we have to remember, that there might be some short handed play as well, which will bring the numbers up.

Without further info I would therefore be hesitant to conclude more, than we seem to be looking at 7 different players, who are all solid regulars. They are certainly not fish with those small gaps between VPIP and PFR.
 
Collin Moshman

Collin Moshman

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Solid point Fundiver. I was assuming 9-handed throughout, or possibly filtered for 9-handed. But if it's mixing in shorter-handed play that really changes things so you make a great distinction.
 
AlexBlefer

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great stream last night Collin :)
 
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