The Key to the PVS....

[durron597]

... is to watch your opponents. There are two key ingredients:

1) They limp often
2) They tend not to limp with the very best hands

Basically you want to have some evidence to put their range of hands to not include TT+ and AK/AQ. If you can't do that, just check and take a flop.

What I'm saying here is that I would not use the PVS when 12-tabling. I only 3/4 table, which means I can keep my eye on my opponents somewhat. In the following hand, I wasn't paying close enough attention to my opponent and I didn't realize that he was limping every single hand he got involved in (which means his range included both weak hands AND the top end of his range).

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (8 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

UTG+1 (t2860)
MP1 (t1005)
MP2 (t685)
CO (t710)
Button (t2230)
Hero (t1625)
BB (t1625)
UTG (t2760)

Preflop: Hero is SB with T/images/graemlins/club.gif, 4/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, UTG+1 calls t100, MP1 calls t100, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t1625</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, UTG+1 calls t1525, MP1 folds.

Flop: (t3450) T/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, J/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 3/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

Turn: (t3450) 3/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

River: (t3450) 9/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

Final Pot: t3450

[Newt_Buggs]

A loose opponent who is also passive is definitly someone to be worried about with this play, but if he's limping every hand the chance that he has a strong hand that he "should" have raised is quite small.

Also, my fundamental concern with the PVS is that it really only works against bad players since good players don't usually limp once the blinds are big enough for this to be worthwhile. I find it difficult to identify the opponents that are bad enough to limp a wide range of hands, but "good" enough to lay them down to a push, as was illustrated in my post where my 10/images/graemlins/diamond.gif8/images/graemlins/diamond.gif push got called by Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gifJ/images/graemlins/diamond.gif.

[citanul]

Jeebus people, there's a ton of threads about this stuff lately, and seemingly the only person who's really posting corrections that make sense is the man PVS himself. All these single hand examples of whatever it is people are doing in their sudden rush to join in the "in crowd" of PVSers really aren't going so well. I'd recommend at least a moratorium on starting NEW threads about an individual PVS. If someone wants to use a thread, say this one, for people to dump their PVS hands into WITH THEIR REASONING, so that people can critique them one at a time, that would be fine by me. But the senseless dozen PVS posts a day is really getting a bit out of control.

I'll now attempt to help, in some small way, I guess.

The "key" to the PVS is to use it in a situations where you feel like you have a significant chance to pick up the dead chips in the pot. You are absolutely not playing the hand "to be called." The strength of your hand should have very little to do with what you do with your chips.

All these hands where someone posts that they pushed from the small blind with 55 after a MP limper, well, those aren't quite the same concept. You've still *likely* got the best hand and an overlay when you're called at most buyins. Again, the strength of hand has nothing to do with it.

Knowledge of your opponents is indeed paramount, as you well, aren't looking to get called. Knowing that if they limped, it is unlikely that they are going to call for whatever the number of chips is that you are sliding in there, that's the key.

To throw on top of this, in my opinion, the PVS is best executed when there is more than one limper, and ideally, when there is no EP limper. The EP limper should be clear, people who limp conspicuously in EP with significant blinds are generally more likely to have a real hand. The more than one limper should be obvious as well: with each limp, it becomes less likely that the next person limping has a real hand, so each one in turn is more and more likely to fold, rather than looking you up. Seemingly paradoxically, because you're pushing over more people, they think often that you'll have a bigger hand.

The last comment I want to make right now about this play is that it really is risky. Because of that, ideally you want to use it a) when you have to b) when there is not much for you to lose. Sometimes a and b here coincide. If you are a short stack with 580 chips or so at 50/100 and there's a few limpers to you, those are chips now in the pot (with the blinds) that genuinely help your chances to win the tournament a significant amount! You're possibly looking at doubling up without seeing a flop.

That's the short stacked ideal. On the other end of the spectrum is when you have a comfortably large amount of chips, say 2500, and several players with middling stacks limp to you, again at a level like 50/100 or 100/200. Ideally, players that cover you should not be involved in a hand like this, when you're going to risk it all to pick up some limps.

So yes, what you're looking for is signs of weakness from players who you actually believe to play weakly when they are weak, and chips that actually help you.

There's been a lot of talk lately about playing more hands, playing them more aggressively, and skillfully, than your opponents. Taking more chances, etc. While it's probably +EV to push with any two cards over one limper with 1000 chips at 50/100 from the sb, it makes so much more sense when you have 600 chips and you think it's likely the guy will fold.

Alright, I'm out for now, feel free to post your attempts at PVSes in this thread, so that they don't wind up in 30 different threads today.

citanul

[citanul]

Even good players limp BEHIND OTHER LIMPERS when the blinds are semi significant if they have a stack. This is because they believe they can play post flop well. If a good player limps off 1/9 of his stack first in, then there's a problem. If he limps off 1/25th of it behind 3 limpers, well, it's a whole different story.

citanul

[NYCNative]

In summary:

You will make a PVS if the following conditions meet:

1) Several limpers the pot.
2) A solid feeling that nobody limped with a monster.
3) Enough chips in your push to give bad odds and/or cause a limper to bust out of the tournament (high FE).
4) You could be holding anything but cards are irrelevant.

In these circumstances, a push into a pot of limpers in order to take down a lot of dead money is a solid play. Just don't get called...

[durron597]

Yes, but on the bubble you only need one limper.

[PokerCat69]

what is PVS?

[Newt_Buggs]

thanks for the post citanul
[ QUOTE ]
If you are a short stack with 580 chips or so at 50/100 and there's a few limpers to you, those are chips now in the pot (with the blinds) that genuinely help your chances to win the tournament a significant amount! You're possibly looking at doubling up without seeing a flop.

[/ QUOTE ]
I really don't see this working, at least not at the $50s where I play. As I said earlier, if they are stupid enough to limp then they are probably going to call and in this situation its probably correct for them to call even if they think that they have a weak hand given the pot odds.

[pokerlaw]

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
If you are a short stack with 580 chips or so at 50/100 and there's a few limpers to you, those are chips now in the pot (with the blinds) that genuinely help your chances to win the tournament a significant amount! You're possibly looking at doubling up without seeing a flop.

[/ QUOTE ]
I really don't see this working, at least not at the $50s where I play. As I said earlier, if they are stupid enough to limp then they are probably going to call and in this situation its probably correct for them to call even if they think that they have a weak hand given the pot odds.

[/ QUOTE ]

I find that an all in for 6X BB with some limpers that have 15XBB or so work pretty well on the $5 and $10 tables I play on UB and Stars.

By the time the game gets to 6 or so, the typical game has a lot of players who are tight, but too tight. They raise w their good hands and limp w the hands they want to "see a cheap flop with." Do it against them.

Of course, the more you were playing like a maniac earlier in the tourney, the greater your chances of getting called.

[elonkra]

[ QUOTE ]
what is PVS?

[/ QUOTE ]

Go to this page and use Ctrl+F function to search for PVS. Bookmark the page too, lots of good info.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Board=singletable&amp;Number=2540909 &amp;Forum=All_Forums&amp;Words=pvs&amp;Searchpage=0&amp;Limit=99&amp; Main=2540909&amp;Search=true&amp;where=bodysub&amp;Name=&amp;dater ange=1&amp;newerval=1&amp;newertype=m&amp;olderval=&amp;oldertype= &amp;bodyprev=#Post2540909

[Phill S]

Yuk.

This might be an interesting thread
but i have to horizontal scroll to
read it, im not doing that.

Edit the link and in future use the
URL under instant UBB code to post links.

Phill

[dfscott]

[ QUOTE ]
Yuk.

This might be an interesting thread
but i have to horizontal scroll to
read it, im not doing that.

Edit the link and in future use the
URL under instant UBB code to post links.

Phill

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto.

[Lefthander]

You can always ignore the user. Clears that scroll thing right up.

[dfscott]

[ QUOTE ]
You can always ignore the user. Clears that scroll thing right up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Amazing -- I had no idea.

You are my hero.

[wuwei]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You can always ignore the user. Clears that scroll thing right up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Amazing -- I had no idea.

You are my hero.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can also view things in threaded mode, which is a much more sensible way to look at a message board /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

[Shillx]

I make this play fairly often, and it almost never works (small sample). I usually do it in Lvl. 3 after any number of limpers and I almost always get called by AQ or 66 or something. For this reason, I only do it with a hand that can get called and still win a decent % of the time. T4o isn't the type of hand that you are looking for in this spot. IMO you should do it with a hand that is a flip against a small pair and has slightly better odds against AK or AQ. Something like T9s seems to be the optimal hand.

Brad

[dfscott]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You can always ignore the user. Clears that scroll thing right up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Amazing -- I had no idea.

You are my hero.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can also view things in threaded mode, which is a much more sensible way to look at a message board /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

And click to read each post? To each his own, I guess.

[elonkra]

[ QUOTE ]
Yuk.

This might be an interesting thread
but i have to horizontal scroll to
read it, im not doing that.

Edit the link and in future use the
URL under instant UBB code to post links.

Phill

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry about that. I tried editing it using Instant UBB Code a couple of times, to no avail. I'd delete the link now but the alotted time has passed. If there are any mods around, please feel free to delete the post.

[elonkra]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You can always ignore the user. Clears that scroll thing right up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Amazing -- I had no idea.

You are my hero.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can also view things in threaded mode, which is a much more sensible way to look at a message board /images/graemlins/shocked.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

And click to read each post? To each his own, I guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm with you on this one. Threaded mode is a much more sensible way of looking at a messageboard only where the majority of posters fill out their subject line and also use threaded mode. That ain't the case here.

[DasLeben]

Ewwwww...

Threaded mode makes baby Jesus cry. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[curtains]

[ QUOTE ]
Even good players limp BEHIND OTHER LIMPERS when the blinds are semi significant if they have a stack. This is because they believe they can play post flop well. If a good player limps off 1/9 of his stack first in, then there's a problem. If he limps off 1/25th of it behind 3 limpers, well, it's a whole different story.

citanul

[/ QUOTE ]

One thing that might interest people is that I do this PVS thing about zero percent of the time unless I feel like the blinds+dead money are extremely important to my stack, and there is a very good chance they will fold and I usually have a pretty good hand as well just in case.

I don't know if this is optimal, but I mean the flood of people posting these "PVS's" and failing miserably because they get called leads me to believe that people are overdoing it drastically.

[elonkra]

Ok, seriously, can someone delete my earlier post that F'd up this thread? What's the purpose of having an edit time-limit anyway?

[DasLeben]

[ QUOTE ]
What's the purpose of having an edit time-limit anyway?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's so people can't be dishonest with their posts. I've been on message boards where you'll call someone out on a certain subject, he'll go back and edit his post all sneaky-like, and then make you look like an idiot. Not fun.

[Phill S]

Nice thread. Glad i took the time to read it.

And thank you whoever pointed out he ignore thing, didnt think of that. Now to take the guy off ignore.

Phill

[elonkra]

That's what ticks me off about this. I'd really like NOT to get accidentally permanently ignored by some of the better posters on 2+2, if possible.

[durron597]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know if this is optimal, but I mean the flood of people posting these "PVS's" and failing miserably because they get called leads me to believe that people are overdoing it drastically.

[/ QUOTE ]

I posted this hand as an example of a time where it was wrong for me to push in the first place - because I knew (or should have known) that UTG was willing to call me. However the PVS has probably added a non-insignificant amount to my ROI.

[pergesu]

It was wrong in the first place because you had 16 BB. How could you possibly need that dead money when you've got that many chips?

[DasLeben]

[ QUOTE ]
It was wrong in the first place because you had 16 BB. How could you possibly need that dead money when you've got that many chips?

[/ QUOTE ]

This was my original thought as well. I won't make plays like this if I'm stacked well enough. I believe Lorinda 3:16 is the correct reference here. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[durron597]

Results: He had AQo and I doubled up. *shrug*, PVSing here was still wrong.

[Gramps]

[ QUOTE ]
PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (8 handed) converter

UTG+1 (t2860)
MP1 (t1005)
MP2 (t685)
CO (t710)
Button (t2230)
Hero (t1625)
BB (t1625)
UTG (t2760)

Preflop: <font color="red"> Hero is SB with T, 4 </font>.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls t100, MP1 calls t100, 3 folds, <font color="red"> Hero raises to t1625</font>,

[/ QUOTE ]

Depending on the players behind you, this is why it can be a good play at times (in a situation similar to this where the blinds are big enough to tempt people to push over limpers) to limp behind a limper with TT/AK, or even AQ (if you're not so short that pushing is clearly the better play). You'll see players push over limpers for this amount with AK sometimes, and once in a while a big pair, but usually this push screams "I have crap/semi-crap/a decent Ace/not-so-big pair" and the aforementioned hands are a big favorite against crap/semi-crap/a decent Ace/not-so-big-pair.

And if there is no raise, seeing a flop with good position ain't so bad either.

FWIW, pushing with total crap here with 16 BB at 50/100 is just not a good play. Even the frequent limpers will make spite calls on you a fair amount of the time, and the push over limpers play is so common, that limping fishies will call you with a pair or KQ, etc., knowing the odds they're getting against the pusher's range of hands isn't that bad.

[adanthar]

Having a 1920x1200 laptop is the nuts.

[curtains]

Is there any laptop where you can 6 table without overlap (or 8 table??).

[durron597]

[ QUOTE ]

Is there any laptop where you can 6 table without overlap (or 8 table??).

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be crazy.....

[adanthar]

I wish. Maybe next year when Dell has another $750 deal off their new 19 inch something or other. Drool.

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Even good players limp BEHIND OTHER LIMPERS when the blinds are semi significant if they have a stack. This is because they believe they can play post flop well. If a good player limps off 1/9 of his stack first in, then there's a problem. If he limps off 1/25th of it behind 3 limpers, well, it's a whole different story.

citanul

[/ QUOTE ]

One thing that might interest people is that I do this PVS thing about zero percent of the time unless I feel like the blinds+dead money are extremely important to my stack, and there is a very good chance they will fold and I usually have a pretty good hand as well just in case.

I don't know if this is optimal, but I mean the flood of people posting these "PVS's" and failing miserably because they get called leads me to believe that people are overdoing it drastically.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am with you on this one. I rarely pull this play unless my stack size is equal to or smaller the #xPot that it would have taken for me to open-push my hand from a position that 's one worse than the one I'm actually in. Or something like that. And even then I might just complete if I'm in the SB and have something that can flop a bunch of monsters.

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]

Is there any laptop where you can 6 table without overlap (or 8 table??).

[/ QUOTE ]

Not for people of my lap size.

[pergesu]

I've done the PVS a ton of times with great success lately. Over the past week, I've gotten called three times, done it at least 50.

I still wanna know why OP felt the need to do it here anyway. He has a bunch of chips, there's no need to risk his tourney here.

As I understand it, it should only be done when the dead chips are going to make a significant increase to your chances of winning. Going into level 4 with 800-900 chips vs 600 is a big difference. Going into level 4 with 1500 vs 1300 isn't that great of a difference.