A stop-and-go hand that actually worked

[jcm4ccc]

Nothing really special about this hand, but man it was fun so I’m posting it. We were basically on the bubble. 32 players left, top 27 are paid. At the beginning of this hand, I was in 30th place. At the end of the hand, I was in 16th place.


PokerStars Game #3091655800: Tournament #15015568, Hold'em No Limit - Level X (400/800) - 2005/11/18 - 14:29:23 (ET)
Table '15015568 23' Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: padillao (7792 in chips)
Seat 2: GoodGuyDoll (12643 in chips)
Seat 3: VAMAN14 (8791 in chips)
Seat 4: leoslions (6630 in chips)
Seat 5: jcm4ccc (4852 in chips)
Seat 6: winemo (20857 in chips)
Seat 8: jonmontag (7917 in chips)
Seat 9: dapaver (21830 in chips)

leoslions: posts small blind 400
jcm4ccc: posts big blind 800

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to jcm4ccc J/images/graemlins/club.gif T/images/graemlins/diamond.gif
winemo: folds
jonmontag: folds
dapaver: folds
padillao: folds
GoodGuyDoll: raises 1600 to 2400
VAMAN14: folds
leoslions: folds
jcm4ccc: calls 1600

*** FLOP ***
Q/images/graemlins/club.gif 3/images/graemlins/heart.gif 5/images/graemlins/diamond.gif
jcm4ccc: bets 2402 and is all-in
GoodGuyDoll: folds

[zambonidrivr]

horrible fold by villian. horrible call by you. just push it in pre, or fold. great, so it worked. a skilled player would have sent your ass to the cleaners. so good going getting over on a chump

[jcm4ccc]

[ QUOTE ]
horrible fold by villian. horrible call by you. just push it in pre, or fold. great, so it worked. a skilled player would have sent your ass to the cleaners. so good going getting over on a chump

[/ QUOTE ] so if you were me, you would have folded JTo and been down to 4K chips (less than 3M?)

[Melchiades]

I saw someone fold to a stop-and-go, having to call 70 into a 1200 pot yesterday at the 3+R. Nearly fell of my chair.

[UMTerp]

[ QUOTE ]
just push it in pre, or fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's no way pushing preflop is better than the line OP took. What advantage does push have over a stop and go??

I could see merits for a fold, but it's debateable.

[rwanger]

[ QUOTE ]
horrible fold by villian. horrible call by you. just push it in pre, or fold. great, so it worked. a skilled player would have sent your ass to the cleaners. so good going getting over on a chump

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't be silly, you cannot push preflop here. Fold or stop and go. If you push, 100% chance villian calls your reraise preflop, and he's almost certain to have you beat.

If you stop and go he might fold a lonely A or low PP on the flop (if he's lame) or a lone K, Q if he's being more reasonable.

He cannot make a mistake if you go all in preflop, he calls with any two cards. With the stop and go, you are giving him a chance to make a mistake by folding the best hand.

Stop and go is something that doesnt work very often..You need to have enough chips to give the caller bad odds, in which case usually you would be better off with straight up post-flop play, unless your pretty sure your hand is best now but might not be the best by the river.

I agree, its either fold or pre flop all in.

[zambonidrivr]

Yes, I would rather push any 2 in an unopened pot, than make a call here.

I think the problem here is that Hero didn't have a big enough stack to effectively stop and go. Any reasonable Villain almost has to call at this point. Stop and go works better when you really have some FE and can at least give the Villain bad odds to make a hand if he whiffs on the flop. Here, even with the stop and go, the Villain is still getting 3:1.

[jcm4ccc]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the problem here is that Hero didn't have a big enough stack to effectively stop and go. Any reasonable Villain almost has to call at this point. Stop and go works better when you really have some FE and can at least give the Villain bad odds to make a hand if he whiffs on the flop. Here, even with the stop and go, the Villain is still getting 3:1.

[/ QUOTE ] did you happen to notice that the villian folded?

1 chip is enough to do a stop-and-go

[UMTerp]

All I said was that a stop and go was better than a push preflop.

[zambonidrivr]

this is a correct statement. this stop and go should not have worked. the only thing you should have gotten out of this hand was a note on villian.

[ QUOTE ]
I think the problem here is that Hero didn't have a big enough stack to effectively stop and go. Any reasonable Villain almost has to call at this point. Stop and go works better when you really have some FE and can at least give the Villain bad odds to make a hand if he whiffs on the flop. Here, even with the stop and go, the Villain is still getting 3:1.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are assuming every player knows basic pot odds. That isnt true. "Most" opponents say "Well, my hand didnt hit, he went all-in, I got to fold".

Of course I noticed. I think most players wouldn't have folded in Villain's place. But I've seen this work, and there's no reason it can't. Wouldn't make a habit of it. It's very situational and read dependent. Given this situation, it might well have been your best option. I'll concede that you probably have a slightly better chance of getting Villain to fold with the stop and go than you would have with a straight preflop push...but I think that 90% of the time you commit to the hand by calling the preflop raise, you're not getting out of the hand without ending up all-in and called.

I'll try to guess at some hypothetical numbers, at work right now so I can't run anything really accurate.

Push preflop:
40% win if called (gain t4500)
5% chance Villain folds (gain t2400)
55% lose if called (eliminated)

Stop and go:
30% to win if called (gain t4500)
10% Villain folds (gain t2400)
60% lose if called (eliminated)

Maybe I'm underestimating the chance of the villain folding on the stop and go or overestimating the villain folding preflop. He'd have to be on a total steal with a trash hand to fold preflop. Which he might have been, given his fold on the flop.

Obviously the numbers are hypotheticals, maybe someone who has could do something more concrete, but that feels reasonable to me.

[elmitchbo]

i totally disagree. i think this is about as ideal a situation as you can get for a stop-n-go. one important thing to remember here is that the stop-n-go is a desperation type of play. it's not really supposed to work that often. the same thing can be said for pushing any 2 with a short stack.... it's far from an ideal situation.

the OP's line gets him maximum value on his hand if it works. i think when you need to make up some ground a high reward move for the same amount of risk is the best play. when you get short stacked the risk of any play is the same, the pay off if your move is succesful is what really needs to be the deciding factor.

as far as the fold goes.... 3:1 odds facing an all-in that will cost you 25% of your stack when you have absolutely nothing? i can't say that's an automatic call. that's the point of the stop-n-go... to give your opponent a chance to have zilch on the flop so he can fold.

[nsj]

pushing this preflop is ridiculous, it guarantees a call from standard raising hands, all of which are ahead of TJo preflop.

your stack looks a little too shallow for a stop/go to me here, but it worked out. Fold preflop is fine as well.

[jcm4ccc]

Just finished in 2nd place in the tournament in which this hand occurred. $2100. My biggest payday yet. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Congrats and well done!

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
All I said was that a stop and go was better than a push preflop.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, it's MUCH better. With your push you have 0 fold equity, you will ALWAYS be called. If you stop n go, even if the villian calls you 99 times out of 100 (since hero is short, he WILL get called often by a reasonable player) you have gained. If you gain an ounce of fold equity with the stop n go, you have gained.

So what if this stop n go fails 99 times out of 100?? Maybe 9,999,999 times out of 10,000,000?? Even if so, you have still gained from the stop n go, even if the gain is slight.

By the fundamental theorum of poker, any time our opponent makes a mistake, you gain. Give your opponent that opportunity.

-Rizen

[KneeCo]

I'm with Rizen, once we've conceded that the Hero had 0 FE pf (which I think is clear in this case), this must be a fold or stop and go situation, we can debate which of those two it is, but I can't see how pushing pre-flop is better than the stop and go.

I can't think of one advantage of pushing pf over the stop and go, can anyone else?

If the villain was on a total steal with a trash hand (as he may have been in order to fold to this stop and go), why would he not have considered folding pre-flop? I think if he was willing to fold at this point, he may have been willing to fold preflop too.

[Melchiades]

[ QUOTE ]
I think if he was willing to fold at this point, he may have been willing to fold preflop too.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think that this is wrong. Villain always calls. Even if he hates calling and having to show trash here, he still makes the call.

Well, to the same argument used against why the stop and go doesn't make sense, you're assuming a rational villain following reasonable strategy. That villain doesn't fold on the flop. It's a pretty narrow range of hands AND of villains who would consistently raise preflop and fold to the stop and go in this situation.

I guess I'm saying that if someone is willing to fold on this flop to this bet, then you aren't ALWAYS going to get called if you go all-in preflop against the same villain in the same situation.

If there's a margin of difference in who is willing to fold the flop to an all-in vs. fold the obvious stop and go, it's a thin one.

Easy fold. You've got 400 after the bb is posted. If you have to fold your sb next hand then you've got 4k on the button. I'll take that. No way you can push PF here. Maybe you get lucky and pf raiser is on a small pair and u can race PF with your overs. But I like my chances better on the button with 4k. Like was stated the stop and go gives you a better chance to win the pot without a showdown but I call you there with one card no matter the flop.

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, to the same argument used against why the stop and go doesn't make sense, you're assuming a rational villain following reasonable strategy. That villain doesn't fold on the flop. It's a pretty narrow range of hands AND of villains who would consistently raise preflop and fold to the stop and go in this situation.

I guess I'm saying that if someone is willing to fold on this flop to this bet, then you aren't ALWAYS going to get called if you go all-in preflop against the same villain in the same situation.

If there's a margin of difference in who is willing to fold the flop to an all-in vs. fold the obvious stop and go, it's a thin one.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would agree it's thin. I would also say that even a thin difference is worth exploiting every time. Also, if your reads/table image make you believe that pushing gives you more FE, then that's what you need to do.

The key to me is thinking about the hand, and doing the option that gives you the most FE. I firmly believe that against an avg opponent here a stop n go gives you a little extra FE. The thing I don't like is when players blindly push saying 'well, he'd never fold on the flop anyways'.

The truth is, there is no never in poker. I believe that villian might occasionally throw away a hand here PF (and wrongly do so). I also believe that villian will toss a lot of hands you are behind on this flop (again, wrongly so). The key is, which move gives him the greatest opportunity to make a mistake?? I firmly believe the stop n go does here.

-Rizen

[Exitonly]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
just push it in pre, or fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's no way pushing preflop is better than the line OP took. What advantage does push have over a stop and go??

I could see merits for a fold, but it's debateable.

[/ QUOTE ]