Common Tourney Concept: Medium Behind Situation

[Jason Strasser]

Say you have a stack specifically in the ranges of 12bb-20bb, which is very common in a multi-table tournament especially online. Typically, this is like 1.5-2.5 hours into a typical non-rebuy tournament on party or stars. You get to a position, where you have this medium stack and everyone left to act in a certain hand also has this stack.

Typically, you are in a situation when it is your turn to act where you have two options: raise or fold.

Duh. You can't really do much else. Limping I suppose could be used occasionally (when you are closer to 20bb then 12bb), but for the purposes of this concept lets assume limping is not an option. And if you raise, lets assume also that your opponents will either fold, or reraise. This is extremely common especially in the higher buy in tournaments. I suppose in some really horrible 5+1 fields or whatever you see awful calls like this all the time. Again, lets ignore the possibility of that.

Now, if you raise a standard 3xbb, and your opponent makes a standard reraise, when the player has a medium stack he will often have to put in at least 1/2 his stack to make a reraise. Typically, players will just go all in, because if you are going to raise 1/2 your stack you have no business folding at any point, so you might as well go all in.

Ok. So you basically, if you decide to raise, players behind you in this medium range will almost always raise all in for your stack, or fold. It really never makes sense to flat call more than 10% of your stack (the famous 5-10 rule), and although many people flagrantly violate this, lets assume they play well enough where if you raise, they will all in or fold.

Ok, this was all boring, here's the point. When you are dividing up your hands to steal, in this specific spot, you just need to split them into 2 groups.

1) Will call an all in.
2) Will fold to an all in.

So many players make the mistake of having it folded to them in the cutoff or some obvious steal position with a hand that is a standard "steal" hand like 44, A8o, whatever, and saying, "Meh, this is good enough to steal here". Then they promptly gets abused by some crazy fool like me from the blinds.

BULLCRAP. You are either going to take the blinds, in which case it doesnt matter what you had, or you're going to face an all in, getting a ballpark of 2-1 on your money... You shouldnt often be calling 2-1 with 44 or A9 or whatever.

So, when you decide to steal, and you have a medium stack and everyone else behind you had a medium stack (this is more common then you'd think), remember this idea. When you decide to steal, there is absolutely no need to wait for 55 or KT or whatever, just pick good spots with any cards in the entire deck and raise. Look for good spots to steal. Sometimes this is UTG. If the "medium" stack conditions are met, then there is no harm in raising 94o up from early position when you notice a particularly tight blind. Your raises will get more respect, and you wont ever have to showdown your 94o or whatever unless someone calls, which is very very rare.

Obviously the ideas here go out the window when there is a very short stack left to act. In that spot, having 44 or A9 makes a huge difference over garbage. But in the medium behind case, there is absolutely NO harm in folding 55 on the button, if you dont plan to call an all in with it. It would be like folding 23o, they are the same hand. Often, if there is one big stack left to act, the principle still holds because the big stack really has no business calling your raise PF and folding the flop. If he does, then maybe my idea doesnt work as well.

I've been sorting this idea out in my head for a while, what do you all think? Some moves like a stop and go quite dont fit into the whole idea, but that's basically a modified reraise all in just with different asthetic value.

-Jason

[fnord_too]

I think with 12BB it is clearly push or fold, but with more it is not. For instance, you raise 3BB with 15BB total and someone (who has you covered) pushes behind you. Now you are getting 18:12 (a little more with blind money included) which is only 1.5:1. Moreover folding leaves you with 12BB, which is still a playable stack.

With much more than 12BB I think you need to make standard raises (and the BB requirement drops as standard raises drop. I mean 3BB should not be the standard raise when the blind/average stack gets above a certain point. I usually drop to 2.5 somewhere between the first and third hour depending on structure). The reason this is ok is that a reraise won't necessarily brutalize you. If it's me, and I know you like to resteal, I am going to be calling you in particular a lot more. That is, there is a good chance I am not just on a steal with a standard raise, and depending on who is the reraiser my calling standards may surprise you. (I just have to be +EV against your average reraise hand). (Actually, with chip ev not equal to cashing ev, it gets complicated, but I already have a headache and don't want to think about that).

In short, I think you are giving up too much by extending the push or steal area to 20BB. I think in specific spots, you should be open pushing with a bigger stack, but those are exceptions, not rules.

[LearnedfromTV]

Very nice post. I'm struggling a lot with how to play in this stage of the tournament. You have to steal to stay afloat, but you don't get enough hands to stand reraises every time you steal. I think your key idea is this bit about there being no difference between 55 and 23o.

Because the structure dictates that you raise with hands that would fold to an allin, the real question is how to choose them. And the message is to choose situations, not cards, because the cards are irrelevant. i think the real message is to know BEFORE you raise if you plan to call an allin. If the answer is no, make sure you are raising for situational reasons, because the fact that you have 55 (or whatever) is irrelevant.

[Jason Strasser]

The 12bb-20bb range was kinda just an estimate. If you push/fold with 12bb then this is not a medium stack in the argument I made. Assume medium stack is this range I discussed above where, when you raise, you are likely going to have to play for all your chips and you have enough stack to fold. But, you are not deep enough to cold call raises and play flops. That is my definition of medium stack above.


-Jason

[Jason Strasser]

Yes.

[MLG]

Great points on the whole, but I have some quibbles.

1. I think you get called more than you think (not that this makes a huge difference as your gonna find yourself in a bad spot with 44 or A8o on most flops when somebody calls behind you).

2. I don't think calling a steal raise on the button with a medium stack is as awful as you think it is. I do it in two spots. I occasionally call 77/88/99 in this spot because if I do push I'm only getting called by better hands/coinflips. I'd much rather look at a flop before pushing, even though I will be pushing many flops. Sometimes you will shut overs out from the turn and river, sometimes you will take a bigger PP off their hand, and the times you don't you are no worse off than preflop generally against the right type of raiser. Sometimes I will also call with the intention of stealing the pot on the flop if the raiser is aggresive preflop but gives up on a lot of flops.

Those are minor arguments, on the whole it is a very important concept to understand. That is, there is nothing wrong with folding hands that are pretty good but not good enough to call a push with.

[fnord_too]

I am not sure I follow what you are getting at or what your point is exactly.

Are you saying that when in push or fold mode your cards are irrelevant? I agree that when in this mode you can push with any two, but it is usually better to wait until you have a hand that is decent hot and cold against a hand that would call you. (Something like small suited cards).

Are you saying that when everyone has about a medium, precarious stack there is sort of pseudo bubble effect you can take advantage of? That's a pretty interesting idea and I need to think about that some.

If you have enough stack to fold to a reraise, I think pushing any hand you play is bad policy. I don't think the risk/reward is there. I may just be being dense, I have a splitting headache, and your original post is hard for me to follow.

[MLG]

No, he's looking at the second step. He's looking at a time when after an open raise everybody is in reraise all-in or fold mode. In those situations decent hands that can't call an all-in (A6o, 22 stuff like that) are no different than 32o if you want to open raise because either you are going to take the blinds or somebody behind you is going to push and you will fold. Therefore you shouldnt open raise simply because you get these mediocre hands, rather you should open raise in specific situations regardless of your cards (planning on folding to an all-in).

[schwza]

sklansky makes a similar assumption in TPFAP about steal-raising from the BB - that you'll never be flat called. but my experience is that in both cases (stealing in LP and from the BB), that's just not true. there are people who will will defend their blind regularly but never 3bet, almost regardless of stack sizes. it would be a mistake to assume that a group of unknown players does not include one or two of these types.

however, i think once you've seen people enough to believe that they will push or fold almost every time, i think that your post is spot on. it's certainly something i need to keep in mind - that just because my hand is "pretty good" does not mean that i'm obligated to steal as it will turn into 23o as soon as i raise with it.

[fnord_too]

[ QUOTE ]
No, he's looking at the second step. He's looking at a time when after an open raise everybody is in reraise all-in or fold mode. In those situations decent hands that can't call an all-in (A6o, 22 stuff like that) are no different than 32o if you want to open raise because either you are going to take the blinds or somebody behind you is going to push and you will fold. Therefore you shouldnt open raise simply because you get these mediocre hands, rather you should open raise in specific situations regardless of your cards (planning on folding to an all-in).

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh. I agree with that totally.

[Ulysses]

I think a lot of what Jason has to say can be crystallized into "If you aren't going to steal w/ J2o in this spot, then you probably shouldn't be stealing w/ 44."

[Jason Strasser]

[ QUOTE ]
1. I think you get called more than you think (not that this makes a huge difference as your gonna find yourself in a bad spot with 44 or A8o on most flops when somebody calls behind you).

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair. This analysis obviously becomes a lot more complicated if you account for this. I assumed most people wont call. I cant really think of spots that involve calling and not seeing a showdown.

Your second point is good too, they just point to loopholes in my "they will not call" assumption. Its a bit faulty, but I believe it definitely is worth simplifying this situation for these purposes.

-Jason

[CardSharpCook]

I think you are ignoring too many variables. Stack sizes matter. If you have a 8BB stack behind you, yes, you can call his push with 44 (after your 3BB raise). Players don't always push. If an uber stack is sitting on 76s, he maay decide this is a perfect opportunity to steal your stack. Calling makes perfect sense to him. Calls happen, and when they do, it is nice to have some seblance of a hand. When I'm steal-raising, what I like most is one caller. It gives me the opportunity to either take down an entire stack, or just take an extra 3BBs (yes there is risk involved). However, I can't have people calling me every time I raise. It creates problems. So, yes, I like to have some hand when I steal-raise. 96s will suffice. Waiting for these halfway decent hands keeps the action I get (or don't get) at a tolerable level. Think of it as a timing mechanism.

Your theory has some validity to it. I think Diablo's summation of it is better (though he could have easily said the reverse - "if you're willing to steal with 44, be willing with J2o").

CSC

[durron597]

I really don't think calling is all that rare. What do you think of the following situation Jason:

You are in the hijack (CO-1) with 72o and 12 BB. The SB is LAGgy (15 BB) but not stupid and the BB (10 BB) is very tight. You raise to 3 BB and the SB calls and the BB folds. Flop J73rb. SB moves in. Action?

--------------------------------

Also in an unrelated to the above note, in one tournament I was in a satellite where a LAG who had me covered was sitting behind me and would cold call every single raise I ever made (something like 3-5 in a row). Who won the pot in the end was split approximately evenly amongst us; it certainly stopped me from trying to steal with garbage. Then this hand happened... what do you think of my line:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (8 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

MP1 (t4678)
Hero (t9230)
CO (t12196)
Button (t9735)
SB (t1365)
BB (t8100)
UTG (t13748)
UTG+1 (t13218)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with T/images/graemlins/heart.gif, T/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
<font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t600</font>, CO calls t600, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">SB raises to t1340</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t9205</font>,

[dmk]

[ QUOTE ]
I think a lot of what Jason has to say can be crystallized into "If you aren't going to steal w/ J2o in this spot, then you probably shouldn't be stealing w/ 44."

[/ QUOTE ]

you post good.

[curtains]

The point is that your hand value means nothing if you are going to fold to a reraise and you don't expect any flat calls, meaning that your hand in effect doesn't really matter, unless it can stand a reraise.

[Chief911]

Jason,

I forbid you from posting elsewhere for a month. You must post more often. Value = 2 Contents of the post, and the discussion it sparks (Whats this, discussion of strategy instead of "Official" threads?).

Thanks.

Nick

[PrayingMantis]

Jason,

There's a lot to say of course about the criteria for open-raising in those common situations you mention. Fully understanding the value of raising/folding specific hands for different stacks/positions/dynamics is probably the single most important characterstic of a strong (on-line) MTT player.

Anyway, you make some great points, but I'd like to add something that usually takes this thing another level. This is understanding when certain hands have enough value for raise/call-all-in against certain aggressive players who are acting behind, because FOLDING them after the reraise all-in could be a very significant mistake. These are tricky situations, because you'll find yourself raising with a marginal hand (usually it's some problematic aces, some high kings, pairs, etc), that you'll have to fold if a player X pushes behind, but will have to call if player Y is pushing behind.

I believe that most of the time you should know it before you raise to begin with. This whole idea makes open-raising with certain hands more complicated to handle, because now, there are certainly hands that are in the middle-ground in between complete garbage (raise and fold to reraise) and easy calls to all-in. Knowing how to walk through all these shades of not-so-good-hands-but-good-enough, could mean a lot.

[EnderIII]

Not that it adds that much to the strategic depth of the discussion, but I like to use the terms "stealing the blinds" vs "taking the blinds" to further differentiate the categories of hands.

You take the blinds when you have a hand that is somewhat likely to be best and raise, ie. 44 or A8o on the button, but steal when you raise with 93s utg+1. Any hand that you are willing to call an all-in with seems to be a case of trying to take the blinds and failing, while any hand you would fold could be either one.

Thanks for the post about this topic, i've been using these terms without thinking about them this clearly before, so this helps crystalize an important concept.

[MarkD]

Jason,

I really like this type of throught process and is something that I have been mulling over in my head for a while. (Although, not nearly as well thought out or as concret). My question is that if you do find yourself stealing in this spots and it's working a lot how far do you take it?

For example: You raise in late middle position and steal the blinds (starting with a 15BB stack). The next hand it's folded to you and the situation looks good again - raise again? What about the next hand?

I would like to look at the discussion abit in the direction of how to adjust your steal frequency in these situations and what your general steal frequency should be.

[Jason Strasser]

Really good points to add. I hope I didnt advocate ALWAYS folding 44 in a 2-1 situation. Of course different situations dictate different actions.

-Jason