Stormswa
11-05-2008, 10:11 AM
ok im going to dig and find some articles on shoving ranges, M etc and why folding to like 3bb is real bad.
If you find yourself getting short stacked, then do not let yourself blind out. This is horrible play and people are constnatly busted doing so. You need to find the next opportunity to make a big steal preflop, or to double up with a premium.
15bb stacks are the best!
15bb stacks have the most fold equity for shoving. If there is someone on the BTN or CO who has been raising 15% of the time preflop and he raises your big blind, you should be shoving back at him with a big range. The best cards to do so are hands like 45 suited to 9T suited. Anything higher and you will be dominated if you are called and may be a 30% dog or less. 45 may only be 5-high, but it has a better chance against AK than A5 does. Think about it, the BTN has raised 3bbs and you shove 15bbs from the big blind with 45s. The pot before your shove is 3bbs + sb+bb+ante. At semi-deep stages you could be earning yourself 5bbs for that 15bb stack of yours. That's 33% increase. If villain raises from the BTN or CO a lot then chances are he is doing it with air and will fold. And if he does call, then you're still not bad odds for a double up. Just because you have a bad hand preflop, doesn't mean you can't win and double up. Everyone needs a bit of luck at some stage in an MTT.
A member recently posted this question in the forum, and me being mostly a MTT tournament player, figured I'd try to write a good blog on the topic. My ROI isn't amazing, and I haven't put in a lot of volume this year, but in 2004 and 2005 I had pretty good success in MTT's online. I'm up this year, but not by much, I think my MTT ROI is pretty good on OPR though.
Here's the question:
So heres my problem right now in the later stages of MTTs. I keep finding myself in tough spots where i'm not sure what the right play is when im in like the 18-23 BB range. I know you can never raise fold w < 20bbs so what am I supposed to do w hands like A10-AQ, or mid pairs in middle pos?? Keep finding myself in spots where I feel like a fold is too nitty but a raise is bad becasue its likely to put me in a tough spot post flop and an open shove seems like a bit of an overshove??
- 100mile
100mile, the right answer is, there is no ONE right answer.
The fact of the matter is late-game variance is one of the hardest to deal with in MTT's. If you haven't been running good and playing well enough in a MTT to have a large stack (More than 50BB in the last 20% of the field), then you're going to have to view the rest of the tournament as a war. It's a battle between you and the other players. You want their chips, they want yours. When you watch hands that you're not a part of, pay close attention to who is folding their blinds a lot, who isn't raising when people limp in, things like that. Try to pick out people that limp with big hands. You need to realize these things in order to ever be successful late in tournaments, or else, your more observant opponents are going to pick the table apart and take all the free chips while you sit there watching their stacks double and triple, and yours shrink.
If you can do this well enough, you can raise and shove even wider than A10 profitably, because you know the people you're shoving on either:
1. Play too many hands from what you've seen, or
2. They fold more often than the other opponents at the table that may actually make you show down a winner, or
3. They play too passive in spots where they have limped in or play too passive in the blinds.
Granted, there will be times you shove AQ and get snap called by AA in the blind. Tough luck. It happened to me six times yesterday (well not AQ vs AA, but something similar). There's going to be times people make a stand with K10 vs your AK and whack it, oh well, you built a huge pot and got it in good.
The thing you have to remember though is not to CALL your chips off lightly with hands like A10 or AJ. Don't ever be a hero unless you are 200% (yes 200% OMG!) sure that your opponent is laying it down, or your opponent is full of ****. Be careful in those spots, and only reshove on people you see opening more than their fair share of pots. You need more to call than you need to raise with. (Gap concept, per Sklansky)
Don't be afraid to race late though. I've watched myself time and time again fold hands I KNOW I should be shoving. If when you're about to click fold, you feel something inside you scream "NO OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT," you should probably stick your chips in.
Don't wear your stack down, don't let the blinds kill you.
Be your own maker, and in the end, eventually, you're going to see your results improve.
Good luck, and see you at the Final Table!
credit to authors is written in the quote.
If you find yourself getting short stacked, then do not let yourself blind out. This is horrible play and people are constnatly busted doing so. You need to find the next opportunity to make a big steal preflop, or to double up with a premium.
15bb stacks are the best!
15bb stacks have the most fold equity for shoving. If there is someone on the BTN or CO who has been raising 15% of the time preflop and he raises your big blind, you should be shoving back at him with a big range. The best cards to do so are hands like 45 suited to 9T suited. Anything higher and you will be dominated if you are called and may be a 30% dog or less. 45 may only be 5-high, but it has a better chance against AK than A5 does. Think about it, the BTN has raised 3bbs and you shove 15bbs from the big blind with 45s. The pot before your shove is 3bbs + sb+bb+ante. At semi-deep stages you could be earning yourself 5bbs for that 15bb stack of yours. That's 33% increase. If villain raises from the BTN or CO a lot then chances are he is doing it with air and will fold. And if he does call, then you're still not bad odds for a double up. Just because you have a bad hand preflop, doesn't mean you can't win and double up. Everyone needs a bit of luck at some stage in an MTT.
A member recently posted this question in the forum, and me being mostly a MTT tournament player, figured I'd try to write a good blog on the topic. My ROI isn't amazing, and I haven't put in a lot of volume this year, but in 2004 and 2005 I had pretty good success in MTT's online. I'm up this year, but not by much, I think my MTT ROI is pretty good on OPR though.
Here's the question:
So heres my problem right now in the later stages of MTTs. I keep finding myself in tough spots where i'm not sure what the right play is when im in like the 18-23 BB range. I know you can never raise fold w < 20bbs so what am I supposed to do w hands like A10-AQ, or mid pairs in middle pos?? Keep finding myself in spots where I feel like a fold is too nitty but a raise is bad becasue its likely to put me in a tough spot post flop and an open shove seems like a bit of an overshove??
- 100mile
100mile, the right answer is, there is no ONE right answer.
The fact of the matter is late-game variance is one of the hardest to deal with in MTT's. If you haven't been running good and playing well enough in a MTT to have a large stack (More than 50BB in the last 20% of the field), then you're going to have to view the rest of the tournament as a war. It's a battle between you and the other players. You want their chips, they want yours. When you watch hands that you're not a part of, pay close attention to who is folding their blinds a lot, who isn't raising when people limp in, things like that. Try to pick out people that limp with big hands. You need to realize these things in order to ever be successful late in tournaments, or else, your more observant opponents are going to pick the table apart and take all the free chips while you sit there watching their stacks double and triple, and yours shrink.
If you can do this well enough, you can raise and shove even wider than A10 profitably, because you know the people you're shoving on either:
1. Play too many hands from what you've seen, or
2. They fold more often than the other opponents at the table that may actually make you show down a winner, or
3. They play too passive in spots where they have limped in or play too passive in the blinds.
Granted, there will be times you shove AQ and get snap called by AA in the blind. Tough luck. It happened to me six times yesterday (well not AQ vs AA, but something similar). There's going to be times people make a stand with K10 vs your AK and whack it, oh well, you built a huge pot and got it in good.
The thing you have to remember though is not to CALL your chips off lightly with hands like A10 or AJ. Don't ever be a hero unless you are 200% (yes 200% OMG!) sure that your opponent is laying it down, or your opponent is full of ****. Be careful in those spots, and only reshove on people you see opening more than their fair share of pots. You need more to call than you need to raise with. (Gap concept, per Sklansky)
Don't be afraid to race late though. I've watched myself time and time again fold hands I KNOW I should be shoving. If when you're about to click fold, you feel something inside you scream "NO OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT," you should probably stick your chips in.
Don't wear your stack down, don't let the blinds kill you.
Be your own maker, and in the end, eventually, you're going to see your results improve.
Good luck, and see you at the Final Table!
credit to authors is written in the quote.