All-in hand rankings for short stacks

[Supern]

Does anyone have a link to a chart with hand rankings for all-in?

I know the first two:
1. AA
2. KK /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Then I guess it goes something like this:
3. QQ
4. AKs
5. JJ
6. TT
7. AK
8. 99
10. AQs

I want a chart that takes into consideration that KQ usually are a better all-in hand than A3 because you will often be called by an A or a pair.

[Exitonly]

If you search, Sklanksy asked someone to make a chart of this and i think payed a guy money for doing it..

wish i remembered any details at all about what forum i read it in. Maybe General Hold'em?

I'll search for it now, cause i wanna see it.

[Exitonly]

errr... so i just looked through all of David's posts that they let me look through.. and i didnt see anyythign similar to what i was talking about..


i couldn't have dreamed something like that up could i?

anyone else remember anything like that?

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Stop dreaming, and make an LL-thread for tonights deep stack tourney /images/graemlins/tongue.gif.

[Exitonly]

lol, i remember that far too vividly to have completely dreamt it up.. i'll find it.


i'll post the LL later this afternoon.

[betgo]

The value of the hand depends on the situation. I don't think you can really make a numerical hand ranking like Sklansky did for limit holdem.

Suited connectors are better for open pushing from early position whereas Ax and Kx are OK from very late position.

It also depends on stack size. With 15xBB in middle position, you can open push 33 or AJ. There are various considerations for pushing with a very small stack.

The requirements are different to push at limpers, reraise allin, and open push. If you are reraising, you need a different type of hand to reraise an early position raiser than to make a smeibluff resteal from the button or blinds at a mid to late position raiser.

[Supern]

I'm talking about open pushing.

[kuro]

Are you thinking about Karlson-Sklansky rankings (http://www.decf.berkeley.edu/~chubukov/rankings.html)? They are the specific answer to what hand should you push headsup with a given stack size given that villain sees your cards face up and calls optimally. It's not really telling you what's the best hand to push with a short stack and multiple people yet to act though.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm talking about open pushing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Still it varies by position and stack size or M. You could make a chart for pushing with M of 5 from early position, but it would be different from that for pushing with M or 8 from late position.

[Exitonly]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you thinking about Karlson-Sklansky rankings (http://www.decf.berkeley.edu/~chubukov/rankings.html)? They are the specific answer to what hand should you push headsup with a given stack size given that villain sees your cards face up and calls optimally. It's not really telling you what's the best hand to push with a short stack and multiple people yet to act though.

[/ QUOTE ]


Aha! I knew i wasn't nuts.

Yea that's what i'm talking about, just happens that it doesn't matter here at all.

thanks though.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
Are you thinking about Karlson-Sklansky rankings? They are the specific answer to what hand should you push headsup with a given stack size given that villain sees your cards face up and calls optimally.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have never played holdem with the hole cards face up. Is this some new game I don't know about? I don't think hand rankings from this different game would apply to secret card holdem.

[Che]

[ QUOTE ]
I have never played holdem with the hole cards face up. Is this some new game I don't know about? I don't think hand rankings from this different game would apply to secret card holdem.

[/ QUOTE ]

They definitely apply to NHL. They are most frequently useful in SNG's, but are sometimes useful in MTT's as well.

The rankings tell you what hands you can push and still be profitable if your opponent plays perfectly (i.e. calls when he has odds to call, folds when he should fold). Since your opponents in "secret card holdem" do not play perfectly, you can actually be profitable by pushing a wider range than the rankings recommend, but you have to guesstimate how much wider that range is based on how overly tight your opponent plays.

But the good news is: even if you are not sure how tight your opponent is, you still have a range of hands you can push that you *know* is +CEV.

Later,
Che

[ChrisW]

[ QUOTE ]
It also depends on stack size.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very true.

[ QUOTE ]
With 15xBB in middle position, you can open push 33 or AJ.

[/ QUOTE ]

Very untrue. Once you hold meaningfully more than 10BB, open-pushing is virtually never correct. Basically, this is a game-theory issue. If you push on decent hands but not excellent ones, your opponents will figure it out and call you too often for your pushes to show a profit. If you push on all decent+ hands, you will lose more EV by killing action on your excellent hands than you will gain by stealing the blinds on your mediocre hands.

With 15 BB, AJ is a MP raise, planning to fold to a push from a non-maniac who has you covered. 33 is a MP fold if there are no limpers.

http://wizardofodds.com/holdem
This site has it for 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 players.

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
With 15xBB in middle position, you can open push 33 or AJ.


[/ QUOTE ]

Very untrue. Once you hold meaningfully more than 10BB, open-pushing is virtually never correct. Basically, this is a game-theory issue. If you push on decent hands but not excellent ones, your opponents will figure it out and call you too often for your pushes to show a profit. If you push on all decent+ hands, you will lose more EV by killing action on your excellent hands than you will gain by stealing the blinds on your mediocre hands.

With 15 BB, AJ is a MP raise, planning to fold to a push from a non-maniac who has you covered. 33 is a MP fold if there are no limpers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pushing for 15xBB without ante from 6th position with AJ or 33 is EV+. You could standard raise with a small pair, but pushing is better than folding. It is very favorable if you get called by AQo or AKo. You are a significant favorite plus pot odds.

In general, it is probably better to standard raise with most hands. However, if I raised with AJ from mid position, I would usually call/push a reraise.

If you are thinking of folding a small pair, you are better off pushing it, even if people know what you have.

It is not necessarily bad to push some hands, standard raise some hands, and limp others. Your opponents may not be able to tell what type of hand you have by your actions. Say you push from mid position with small pairs, ATs AJ, KQ, KJs, and some suited connectors. You standard raise with AQ-AK, 99-KK, and various speculative hands and mediocre hands, particularly if you think you can steal the blinds. You limp with some speculative hands and AA. You could mix this up a little, sometimes standard raising with AA, sometimes pushing with AK, sometimes limping, raising or pushing with JTs or 77.

It becomes hard for opponents to put you on a hand. They can't get out of the way of your standard raises, because you mix in enough raises with speculative hands with the premium hands. If they come over top of your limps, you may have a big pair. You can also play AK or JJ for a limpriase sometimes, so it is harder to read a limpraise as a big pair. When you open push, you probably have a marginal raising hand, but it could be a pp, high cards, or a suited connector.

An overbet open push is much more playable in live tournaments where there is 3xBB is blinds and antes. This is different from Party Poker with 1.5xBB in blinds. With a large ante, you could just open push or reraise allin most of the hands you want to play with 15xBB. This approach is most useful if you are one of the shorter stacks and/or you are not as good a player as the others postflop.

[Paragon]

[ QUOTE ]
Pushing for 15xBB without ante from 6th position with AJ or 33 is EV+.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is misleading. Since AJ and 33 are likely to be the best hands with 4 people remaining to act, as long as you don't fold it's +EV almost regardless of your play. Certainly you aren't arguing that it's optimal to open push... right?

I think pushing is the safe, small gain. In sng's maybe that would be best because your +$EV can rise substantially by just surviving... But from my simplistic point of view, MTTs seem more oriented towards accumulating. It is rare that someone gets down to 10 bb's early in a MTT and actually push/folds his way to victory for 5 more hours... And I doubt anyone would claim it was more than pure variance if he did win that way. I do suck at MTTs though, so I could be wrong /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[tshak]

[ QUOTE ]


Very untrue. Once you hold meaningfully more than 10BB, open-pushing is virtually never correct...

With 15 BB, AJ is a MP raise, planning to fold to a push from a non-maniac who has you covered. 33 is a MP fold if there are no limpers.

[/ QUOTE ]

If I have 15K in chips and the blinds are 1000/500 with a 125 ante, I will open-push with quite a few hands in MP. I know there's been some sensativity towards the "M" word around here, but I think that this is a great example of where M is a much more important consideration than BB. Once the ante's come into play, the numbers change dramatically. In my illustration, your M is a bit over 5 at a full table (10 players). This means that in 5 orbits you're blinded out - less if the blinds go up between now and then. This paints a *much* more desperate picture than BB does. In this situation you're getting desperate with 15BB. Making a move to increase your stack by almost 20% is very attractive here.

[ChrisW]

[ QUOTE ]
If you are thinking of folding a small pair, you are better off pushing it, even if people know what you have.

It is not necessarily bad to push some hands, standard raise some hands, and limp others. Your opponents may not be able to tell what type of hand you have by your actions. Say you push from mid position with small pairs, ATs AJ, KQ, KJs, and some suited connectors.

[/ QUOTE ]

After an hour of math, I have determined that if we assume

a) five players yet to act

b) antes totalling 1 BB

c) that the opponents will figure out approximately what you are doing and call you on a range of about 77+, AQs+

d) that a third player will enter the pot only with JJ+

moving in on the hands in your range (I assumed "some suited connectors" included QJs to 76s) would show a profit of .8 BB over folding. Tweaking the calling ranges slightly does not really affect the number, as the increased/decreased chance of being called virtually cancels out the decreased/increased chance of winning when called.

Of course, the alternative to the betgo all-in strategy is not to fold all of these hands. With five players yet to act, most players would raise AJo and ATs, with 88/77 possible at tight tables. Those are very effective raising hands when they are the weakest in your range . If your range is 88+, ATs+, KQs, the only hands which are preflop favorites against your range are AK and JJ+, so the opponents will often be forced to fold and concede the pot.

88, AJo, and ATs make up almost 25% of betgo's move-in hands. So, if making a normal raise with those hands would show a 1.25 BB profit on average (that is, half of the dead money in the pot), the real chip EV of the betgo all-in strategy is only .5 BBs, a 3.33% increase in stack size.

All-in with 15 BB is an unacceptable risk for such a small gain. You're out of the tournament about 1/5 of the time on this play. So, you risk losing the opportunity to make later +EV plays, plus your edge is not signifigant enough to overcome the rake in the long term.

I do agree that a player who is weaker than the game might want to play in the way that betgo describes. However, no consistent winners will play this way.

[Exitonly]

[ QUOTE ]

I do agree that a player who is weaker than the game might want to play in the way that betgo describes. However, no consistent winners will play this way.

[/ QUOTE ]


Er... that is so not true. And same goes for what you said about pushing w/ 15BB's.

Pushing is
A) A lower variance play, which often is the better choice in tournamnets
B) Alright because w/ normal raises a normal continuation bet will put you into critical mode if you get raised. Not a fun situation
C) Depending on the table, you'll get called by much worse hands. (i.e. you've stolen the blinds two hands ina row by pushing to get up to 15bb's, if you pick up QQ+/AK i'm pretty sure the best play would be to push again, you'll get called by a bunch of inferior hands that you dominate.

---
Try not to follow rules like 'Pushing w/ 15bb's is never correct' because they generally don't always work.

[sirio11]

My favorite 20 (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=tourn&Number=1541633&Forum =,,,,,,,,,,,,,All_Forums,,,,,,,,,,,,,&Words=&Searc hpage=12&Limit=25&Main=1541633&Search=true&where=& Name=4354&daterange=&newerval=&newertype=&olderval =&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post1541633)

[ChrisW]

[ QUOTE ]
Pushing [with 15 BBs] is
A) A lower variance play, which often is the better choice in tournamnets

[/ QUOTE ]

Uhh... no it's not? Variance is a measure of the the disbursement of results in a distribution. By definition, moving in has more variance associated with it.


[ QUOTE ]
B) Alright because w/ normal raises a normal continuation bet will put you into critical mode if you get raised. Not a fun situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

After raising, I'll have 12 BB left. I can make a probe bet of 3BB on the flop and still have enough to threaten other players if I'm forced out. Also, there's no rule that says I must always continuation-bet. I'd see your point more if I had 12 BB instead of 15.

[ QUOTE ]
C) Depending on the table, you'll get called by much worse hands. (i.e. you've stolen the blinds two hands ina row by pushing to get up to 15bb's, if you pick up QQ+/AK i'm pretty sure the best play would be to push again, you'll get called by a bunch of inferior hands that you dominate.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a specious argument. Of course you'll be happy if you pick up a big hand after the table views you as a LAG, but what if you pick up one of the (much more frequent) marginal raising hands? You might have to avoid rasing because you know that your opponents are likely to take a shot at you. When in middle position, I think most players would prefer a tight image to a loose one, even though the loose image could work out great if you pick up the right hand at the right time.

[ QUOTE ]
Try not to follow rules like 'Pushing w/ 15bb's is never correct' because they generally don't always work.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the best comment of all. How about the rule, 'pushing with 30 BB is never correct.' Does your free-thinking philosophy allow you to agree with that one? There's some line at which pushing (against competent opponents) becomes unprofitable. Perhaps I don't know enough about it to offer an opinion on the location of that line, although I do have a 44% ITM over a few thousand 109s and 215s. My opinion from that experience is that pushes from MP with over 12 BBs are -EV. Of course, one could push a touch more aggressively in a tournament with antes; I'd guess about 13.5 BBs would be the "point of EV no return" in that case. In addition, if I were pushing with a given stack size, I'd be pushing on all playable hands. The strategy of pushing with mediocre hands but raising with good hands will not be successful outside of the low limits IMO.

[Exitonly]

alright for the variance comment i guess i don't know variance well enough to argue this, but a play that 65%+ of the time takes the pot uncontested seems like it would have lower variance. But i'll assume you know more than i do about that.


As for pushing w/ 15bb from BB.. it definitely is not always -EV, and i'd like to see your math that says a push with AJo is bad w/ 5 left to act, 2BB's in the pot. Same goes for 33, beccause unless there are 5 loose players left to act behind you, 33 from MP is a +EV push too.

As for the 30bb rule,yea i guess i'll agree that pushing w/ 30bb is probably never the best play.

[tshak]

[ QUOTE ]
alright for the variance comment i guess i don't know variance well enough to argue this, but a play that 65%+ of the time takes the pot uncontested seems like it would have lower variance. But i'll assume you know more than i do about that.


As for pushing w/ 15bb from BB.. it definitely is not always -EV, and i'd like to see your math that says a push with AJo is bad w/ 5 left to act, 2BB's in the pot.


[/ QUOTE ]

Stack: 15K
SB/BB/Ante: 500/1000/125
Pot: 2750
Position: MP3
Players: 10
Hole Cards: AsJc

Avg. Calling Range: 77+,ATs+,KQs,ATo+,KQo
You will be called: 48.5%
Expectation: -1044

Fold: 51.5%
Expectation: 2750

Net Expectation: ~910

Someone please check my math - I'm pretty new at this.

[Exitonly]

calling range is too wide, but that's the general idea.. according to my spreadsheet i use to do the math for me.. AJo w/ 5 left to act 15 BB stack, should have an EV of about .8BB, AJS, 1.2 BB