end-game strategy with callers

[cbloom]

I'm curious about general play in the endgame when people are calling too much. That is, something like 4-5 handed, when the blinds are very big (average stack has an M of 8, say). I've read plenty and play fine when Harrington style or Sklansky-gap works, eg. when callers are rightly folding to not risk their tournament life on close races, but if callers are willing to call allin with hands like A2 and K8, you can't play open-aggressive so much. On the other hand if you try to wait for big hands to trap, you'll be blinded off, and if you just wait for hands like AT, you may well be racing anyway, and with fewer chips since you waited.

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I'm curious about general play in the endgame when people are calling too much. That is, something like 4-5 handed, when the blinds are very big (average stack has an M of 8, say). I've read plenty and play fine when Harrington style or Sklansky-gap works, eg. when callers are rightly folding to not risk their tournament life on close races, but if callers are willing to call allin with hands like A2 and K8, you can't play open-aggressive so much. On the other hand if you try to wait for big hands to trap, you'll be blinded off, and if you just wait for hands like AT, you may well be racing anyway, and with fewer chips since you waited.

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Good post, and this is something I've been struggling with towards the end of the lower buy-in Pokerstars SNG's from which I'm trying to build a bankroll. It's folded to me in the SB with an "M" of about 5, BB is a midstack, so I open push with anything, for example 62o, as cards are irrelevant, only for the BB to call and turn over T6s...

/images/graemlins/frown.gif

I've seen M mentioned once in a while, but I've never known what it is. If I had to guess, I'd say: Average stack divided by the big blind. Close? Way off?

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I've seen M mentioned once in a while, but I've never known what it is. If I had to guess, I'd say: Average stack divided by the big blind. Close? Way off?

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The "M" theory is discussed in Harrington on Hold'Em Vol:2. He describes it as "the ratio of your current stack to the current total of blinds and antes".

So say the blinds are 100/200 with no antes, and you have 1500 chips. 1500/300 = an "M" of 5.

[tigerite]

It's not discussed here because, as has been said numerous times, it's not really applicable to SNG's.

[jb9]

When this happens, I wait as long as I can for a big hand (until I'm down to 8 or less big blinds).

If I don't get one, then I begrudgingly accept the facts that (1) the winner of this tournament is probably going to be required to win a few coinflips and (2) I don't like sitting around waiting for passive players to eliminate each other.

After that, I go all in with the first likely hand.

An alternate approach is to just see a flop and then go all in. Some players who dislike folding preflop will fold T6s on the flop.