Open shoving AQ with a short stack. Not as great as you might think.

Four Dogs

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I was fiddling around with HH's this morning. I was curious about how good a hand AQ was to open shove in short stack situations. I just assumed that it would be crushing opponents ranges when called. Surprisingly that was not the case. I don't really have the time right now to provide an in depth report but here's the break down.

At full tables I have open shoved AQs and AQo 190 times from all positions. Of those 190 times I have been called 88 times. Of those 88 times, I have only been a clear favorite 23 times. In only 26% of the instances have I been more than a 1% or 2% favorite. That's it! You'd think there would have been alot of dominated Ax hands, or KQ, KJ type of hands but not so. I did see more of that when I shoved from late position or the blinds, as you would expect but for the most part it was AK, AQ or any pair types of hands that I found myself up against.

All together I won only 59% of all the hands I shoved, including the times where I won without seeing a flop. I really expected this number to be more like 75% to 85%.

Here's the breakdown by position where the first number is the times I've been called by a worse hand and the second number is the total instances.

SB 3/3
6OB 0/7
5OB 3/19
4OB 4/14
3OB 3/8
2OB 5/14
1OB 2/9
BTN 3/14
Total 23/88

Wish I could spend a little more time on this but I knew that if I didn't post it now it would just get shelved and I'd probably never get back to it.
 
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WiZZiM

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so 23 out of 88 you have been called with worse? the rest you have been called with better? or does that include folds as well? also what stack size are we talking here? 5-10BBs?
 
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Tgen

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Dude when you shove you are supposed to get called by better hands , rarely the initiator has the advantage in the coinflip.

The money you make when you shove are mostly when everyone folds and you steal the blinds.
 
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I still believe the situation above is a force one.

You cant wait for a better hand than AQ couple it with a desperate short stack. In chess, we call it a force move.
 
rifflemao

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All together I won only 59% of all the hands I shoved, including the times where I won without seeing a flop. I really expected this number to be more like 75% to 85%.

AQ is basically a coinflip against a top 10%-ish range, according to Equilab. You have more pf equity though against villains who call you wider. You get almost 59% equity against a top 20% hand range, for example.
 
Four Dogs

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so 23 out of 88 you have been called with worse? the rest you have been called with better? or does that include folds as well? also what stack size are we talking here? 5-10BBs?
Dosnt include folds. This is only when im called. I didnt filter for stack sizes but if im open shoving you can be sure im under 20bb's.
 
Four Dogs

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AQ is basically a coinflip against a top 10%-ish range, according to Equilab. You have more pf equity though against villains who call you wider. You get almost 59% equity against a top 20% hand range, for example.

The 59% includes all the hands ive won without seeing a flop. When called my winrate dropped to about 51%. I would have assumed there would be alot of A9-AJ hands calling, but the range was actually way tilted towards pairs and AK hands.
 
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Dosnt include folds. This is only when im called. I didnt filter for stack sizes but if im open shoving you can be sure im under 20bb's.

you would open shove an 18BB stack in preflop?



fwiw, lets filter for 12bb stacks and below, you can probably jam 14-15bbs with antes, but you still should probably raise/call with that stack size. The reason i like raise/calling so much is it allows people to make mistakes by jamming with AJ-AT, but also smaller pocket pairs which would have called all in preflop may make a mistake and just call, allowing us to c-bet them off the hand postflop.

If you regularly jam 12+BB stacks, you will get called by better a lot of the time, it's not hard, since pairs are technically better than AQ. You are basically allowing them to play well against you.

if you have the time to filter it down and work out if you are still making profit from the jam, i'd be interested to see the results. however they are at the mercy of a small sample i would assume. yes, 190 is a small sample.
 
Four Dogs

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AQ is basically a coinflip against a top 10%-ish range, according to Equilab. You have more pf equity though against villains who call you wider. You get almost 59% equity against a top 20% hand range, for example.

The 59% includes all the hands ive won without seeing a flop. When called my winrate dropped to about 51%. I would have assumed tgere woukd be alot of A9-AJ hands calling, but the range was actually way tilted towards pairs and AK hands.
 
Four Dogs

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you would open shove an 18BB stack in preflop?



fwiw, lets filter for 12bb stacks and below, you can probably jam 14-15bbs with antes, but you still should probably raise/call with that stack size. The reason i like raise/calling so much is it allows people to make mistakes by jamming with AJ-AT, but also smaller pocket pairs which would have called all in preflop may make a mistake and just call, allowing us to c-bet them off the hand postflop.

If you regularly jam 12+BB stacks, you will get called by better a lot of the time, it's not hard, since pairs are technically better than AQ. You are basically allowing them to play well against you.

if you have the time to filter it down and work out if you are still making profit from the jam, i'd be interested to see the results. however they are at the mercy of a small sample i would assume. yes, 190 is a small sample.

Darnit! I just spent 20 minutes replying to this on my tablet and lost the whole thing. Anyway, excellent post WiZZ. Very helpfull.

Lets see if i can sumarize. 20 bb's is about the shortest stack ill raise with preflop before I start open shoving any pair or AT+ hand from any position. My late position shoving range is wider. Anything shorter than that and I just dont feel like there's enough left in the tank to get anyone off a hand post flop that would call preflop. Id rather take full advantage of preflop fold equity with a hand that's battle ready when I do get called. AQ certainly meets the requirement but i was surprised that it wasn't more of a favorite.

Yes, 190 instances is a small sample size, but that is still almost 3000 tournaments. And yes it is still profitable. Im actually sitting on a beach drinking coffee on the Maine coast right now (life is good) so I dont have access to my database.

There's alot of merit to what you wrote and im going to look into this further. a couple of thoughts though, it seems like by only raise / c-betting im not taking full advantage of the strength of the hand. Basically I should have the same success rate with any 2 cards. There must be a cutoff where one play is optimal over another. Is it AQ, AJs, AK? I dont know but I'm definately going to look into this further.

This turned out to be alot different from my earlier reply. For the better I think.
 
Martinez

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I think I'm right in saying that Daniel Negrano said he has lost more money with AQ than any other.
I have to aggree with that as I seem to loose 80% of the time with the same hand, lol.
 
Four Dogs

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I think I'm right in saying that Daniel Negrano said he has lost more money with AQ than any other.
I have to aggree with that as I seem to loose 80% of the time with the same hand, lol.
Its one of Doyle Brunsons trouble hands and yes its true that most players either lose money overall with this hand or don't win as much as they should based on hand strength alone. That's due to reverse implied odds, over playing the hand. But what we're talking about here is really another animal altogether. Where RIO's get you is in deap stack, usually cash game situations where you flop top pair vs a set or two pair or something where it takes some snooping around before you realize your pair is no good.
What we're talking about here is short stack tournament situations where shoving with AQ is pretty much unexploitable. Nobody's set mining you or chasing a draw or at least they shouldn't be. Problem hand or not i doubt Negranue or Doyle would toss AQ in the muck when they're nursing a short stack. How to play it is all that's in question.
 
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Darnit! I just spent 20 minutes replying to this on my tablet and lost the whole thing. Anyway, excellent post WiZZ. Very helpfull.hah, i've done that so many times!!

Lets see if i can sumarize. 20 bb's is about the shortest stack ill raise with preflop before I start open shoving any pair or AT+ hand from any position. My late position shoving range is wider. Anything shorter than that and I just dont feel like there's enough left in the tank to get anyone off a hand post flop that would call preflop. Id rather take full advantage of preflop fold equity with a hand that's battle ready when I do get called. AQ certainly meets the requirement but i was surprised that it wasn't more of a favorite.
yeah i mean it can never be bad, but I personally feel the value we get from raising even a 14BB stack outweighs the negatives. It lets us get away if it goes raise/shove-call-call, it allows villians to make bad mistakes against us, either calling preflop with a weaker range, or 3betting preflop with a weaker range, all of which add value to us. But yes, the negatives include sometimes having to fold postflop, and sometimes being put in a really difficult decision with a lot of stack tension, so i understand the rationale behind just shoving it, just thought i'd offer my 2 cents on where you can extract more value with it.
Yes, 190 instances is a small sample size, but that is still almost 3000 tournaments. And yes it is still profitable. Im actually sitting on a beach drinking coffee on the Maine coast right now (life is good) so I dont have access to my database.This should be in the brags section :p

There's alot of merit to what you wrote and im going to look into this further. a couple of thoughts though, it seems like by only raise / c-betting im not taking full advantage of the strength of the hand. Basically I should have the same success rate with any 2 cards. There must be a cutoff where one play is optimal over another. Is it AQ, AJs, AK? I dont know but I'm definately going to look into this further.didn't read this before i wrote above, but hopefully that will give you some insight, it's more difficult to play it that way, but i think it's more profitable too.

This turned out to be alot different from my earlier reply. For the better I think.
...
 
A2345Razz

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I was fiddling around with HH's this morning. I was curious about how good a hand AQ was to open shove in short stack situations. I just assumed that it would be crushing opponents ranges when called. Surprisingly that was not the case. I don't really have the time right now to provide an in depth report but here's the break down.

At full tables I have open shoved AQs and AQo 190 times from all positions. Of those 190 times I have been called 88 times. Of those 88 times, I have only been a clear favorite 23 times. In only 26% of the instances have I been more than a 1% or 2% favorite. That's it! You'd think there would have been alot of dominated Ax hands, or KQ, KJ type of hands but not so. I did see more of that when I shoved from late position or the blinds, as you would expect but for the most part it was AK, AQ or any pair types of hands that I found myself up against.

All together I won only 59% of all the hands I shoved, including the times where I won without seeing a flop. I really expected this number to be more like 75% to 85%.

Here's the breakdown by position where the first number is the times I've been called by a worse hand and the second number is the total instances.

SB 3/3
6OB 0/7
5OB 3/19
4OB 4/14
3OB 3/8
2OB 5/14
1OB 2/9
BTN 3/14
Total 23/88

Wish I could spend a little more time on this but I knew that if I didn't post it now it would just get shelved and I'd probably never get back to it.

Why would you assume this??? Gap Theorem.....look it iup.

Also, you have so much free equity bc of folds....

Also, WHAT THE HELL IS "SHORTSTACKED" defined as??...without knowing this this whole post is useless.
 
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There's a general rule in Poker that you have to be stronger to call a shove compared to stacking off yourself.

Don't expect to be ahead every time someone calls your shove. It also depends on your stack - the smaller it is, the lighter your opponent's will call you.
 
teh_colonel_saigon

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Only winning 59% including folds pre is a scary thought. I don't think you have enough data to gather much more than that.
23/88 you were called by worse... then how often were you called by better? and how many folds were you getting?

26% of the time being around a 70% favorite is pretty good considering the situation if you ask me, I'm not sure how to do the math on this... 26x .7? Would it add 18.2 to your win rate? someone please correct me if I'm just being an idiot here... :(

This may show more about when you chose to shove than anything else. And it looks like you shove any stack less than 20 BB... this gives your opponents plenty of time to adjust and call with better. And they do, lol.

And then, ofc, not a large enough sample. WiZZ pretty much summed it up. You'd also have to do it by BB won, you could still be profiting off this play if you are shoving shallow enough. if 18% you double up plus blinds, 40% you gain blinds, 40% you lose everything... ehh nvm... lol. Considering you are just looking at one hand, you need a larger sample to see if you are playing it w/ position properly.

Enjoy your coffee and the beach :)
 
Four Dogs

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Why would you assume this??? Gap Theorem.....look it iup.

Also, you have so much free equity bc of folds....

Also, WHAT THE HELL IS "SHORTSTACKED" defined as??...without knowing this this whole post is useless.

Oh yeah, The Gap Theory! Wow, That's from like 1976. I feel like I'm in a time warp.

Useless huh? Do I really have to explain what short stacked is in a tournament?
 
Four Dogs

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Only winning 59% including folds pre is a scary thought. I don't think you have enough data to gather much more than that.
23/88 you were called by worse... then how often were you called by better? and how many folds were you getting?

26% of the time being around a 70% favorite is pretty good considering the situation if you ask me, I'm not sure how to do the math on this... 26x .7? Would it add 18.2 to your win rate? someone please correct me if I'm just being an idiot here... :(

This may show more about when you chose to shove than anything else. And it looks like you shove any stack less than 20 BB... this gives your opponents plenty of time to adjust and call with better. And they do, lol.

And then, ofc, not a large enough sample. WiZZ pretty much summed it up. You'd also have to do it by BB won, you could still be profiting off this play if you are shoving shallow enough. if 18% you double up plus blinds, 40% you gain blinds, 40% you lose everything... ehh nvm... lol. Considering you are just looking at one hand, you need a larger sample to see if you are playing it w/ position properly.

Enjoy your coffee and the beach :)
I think I covered it above in my WiZZ reply but there were 190 instances of this particular situation, open shoving a short stack (we all know what that means) with AQ. of the 190, I was called 88 times. Of the 88 times I only had a dominant hand 23 times. The other 65 times I was called by a pair, another AQ or AK.

It's still a profitable play but I really thought there would be alot more dominated Ax hands, KQ, Broadways, Suited Connectors and such. And there really should be too. At the late stages of a tournament the blinds and Antes make up such a large percentage of the effective stack sizes that it's correct to call with almost any hand. I can understand other short stacks waiting for their own opportunity to open shove, but big stacks should be calling 1-15 BB's with a very wide range.

And thank you sir, the coffee was just ok but the scenery was unparrallelled.
 
Four Dogs

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There's a general rule in Poker that you have to be stronger to call a shove compared to stacking off yourself.

Don't expect to be ahead every time someone calls your shove. It also depends on your stack - the smaller it is, the lighter your opponent's will call you.

That's just the thing, I'm not getting called light but I should be.
 
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That's just the thing, I'm not getting called light but I should be.
Well, adapt to the table and shove looser if your opponents are nits and aren't willing to call you off. FE will compensate the times you do get called.
 
Four Dogs

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Well, adapt to the table and shove looser if your opponents are nits and aren't willing to call you off. FE will compensate the times you do get called.

This isn't a bad beat story. Just something I found interesting and thought I might share. I actually do shove with a much wider range than this. When I get below 20bb's I start looking for an opportunity to open shove, and hopefully get through. Hand strength really isn't as important to me as position but I do try to find something with at least a little suck-out value like 89s KJ, etc. AQ is really about the top of my range.
 
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Oh, it did seem to me like you were complaining about not being called light, my bad.

This looks like a too small of a sample to make accurate conclusions out of.

Then again, as with most shortstacked situations, you're hoping for a flip at best when someone calls you. Dominating someone who calls your shove is a rare occasion, even more rare with a hand like AQ unless your stack is so short that one of the blinds called you because of the favourable pot odds.
 
Four Dogs

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Oh, it did seem to me like you were complaining about not being called light, my bad.

This looks like a too small of a sample to make accurate conclusions out of.
Oh no, nothing like that just an interesting little stat. Still, I don't think the sample size is all that small. I mean it is 190 instances in almost 4000 on-line tournaments. I think it's enough to start drawing conclusions about the types of hands you get called by.
 
A2345Razz

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Oh yeah, The Gap Theory! Wow, That's from like 1976. I feel like I'm in a time warp.

Useless huh? Do I really have to explain what short stacked is in a tournament?

Since you pulled hands and are quoting stats- yep.

I can see a variety of people defining it in vastly different ways....from 1-10BB to 1-20BB.

I am obviously fist pump jamming with 10 or less in any position...with say, 19.5 BB in EP, this becomes a much more adventurous jam.

So ya, you do.
 
loafes

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FWIW I think at the 13-20bb range and dependant on position/stack dynamics ect. A slightly more profitable way to play AQ is to raise call off. 12-16bb is a good time to still min bet call off your value hands and open jam some of the more venerable ones like small PPs and hands you're just going with anyway but aren't too happy about calling off with. I.e A9, A10 maybe AJ


As for your stats, they really need to be filters more. If you're jamming AQ with 17+bbs then it's really not surprising that you're mostly getting called by better hands. At any rate shoving with AQ when short is still going to show profit even if a large portion of opponents calling range is ahead of you.
 
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