Could someone please comment on the merit of these thoughts?

[DavidC]

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Myself and many other posters have noticed that in the past couple months there has been an increase in "spite callers" at the $22-$33 level. Perhaps the term itself is inappropriate, because much of the time I sincerely doubt there is any "spite" involved. But nevertheless, bad players are making incredibly loose calls on or close to the bubble, whether out of spite for us, the pushbotters, or because they honestly feel they are making a correct call, or even because they are just impatient as hell.


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This is bad. It hurts their equity, because this is clearly suboptimal bubble strategy. It hurts my equity because it makes optimal bubble strategy wrong, forcing me to tighten up and sacrifice a large part of my edge. You don't want people calling your all-ins with hands like A2o, 22, QTo, T7s, etc, you want their damn blinds.


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that's one of the flaw in the pushbotting strategy, the more you do it, the more notes that get made on you so in future games the more calls you get. Then you wonder how the hell did he know i had squat?

[Sciolist]

I haven't played for enough time to make a sensible comment to #1.

#2 is wrong though - you push hands that are +ev vs. a calling range. If he has a wider calling range, that changes your pushing range - nothing more. You do, however, need to know who these people are. This is pretty rare - these guys don't often survive past one questionable call, by definition.

[Sciolist]

It's not really pushbotting if you're pushing with squat though is it? You're pushing with a range of hands that is +ev vs. his range of calling hands. If his range of calling hands increases, your range of pushing hands changes so that you are +ev. In fact, this means that your range increases.

I don't know about anyone else, but I rarely see the same players again and again. I don't think this is something to be worried about, not in the 20 & 30 games.

[Mr_J]

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It's not really pushbotting if you're pushing with squat though is it?

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Dunno about you but I push with plenty of 'squat', knowing it is correct to do so.

[Sciolist]

Well, surely that's no longer squat? You push with a range that's +ev vs. the calling range.

[DavidC]

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I haven't played for enough time to make a sensible comment to #1.

#2 is wrong though - you push hands that are +ev vs. a calling range. If he has a wider calling range, that changes your pushing range - nothing more. You do, however, need to know who these people are. This is pretty rare - these guys don't often survive past one questionable call, by definition.

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LOL! Of course they do. If they didn't, they'd never play for as much money as they do.

However, you're right about adjusting your raising range vs specific opponents. If you adjust your raising range, will that decrease your ROI, though? I think that's what the author is getting at.

[Custer]

You need to figure out who will call with what and adjust your raising strategy accordingly. Raise less and let them call someone else. As much as its -EV when they call you, its +EV when they call someone else. You may not get as many 1sts, but your 2nds and 3rds will increase, as will your profits.

moses

Sciolist: That is not true.. You are not only pushing with hands that if called are +EV. You are taking FE into account, which means pushing hands are much worse than calling hands... It is about reaching the Nash Equalibrium....

But, I agree with the original post. The looseness makes the pushing strategy suboptimal because other people are playing suboptimally. So, when I push with 9s6s, and get called by Js2s on the bubble, I am really pissed because of his terrible call. It is a terrible call even though he was +EV because I would have pushed with a huge range of hands that would have been better than J2.

[vinyard]

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It is about reaching the Nash Equalibrium....

[/ QUOTE ] Nash equilibrium is rapidly becoming the most overused buzz word in this forum.

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It is a terrible call even though he was +EV because I would have pushed with a huge range of hands that would have been better than J2.

[/ QUOTE ] In all likelihood his call is not +$EV for him either. It hurts both you and him significantly in regards to $EV. Money in the 800 chips games is made in many ways. Getting value out of your premiumm hands is first and shortly after that is the horrible calling decision by the other players in hands that you are not playing.

Yes I agree...

[pergesu]

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Sciolist: That is not true.. You are not only pushing with hands that if called are +EV. You are taking FE into account, which means pushing hands are much worse than calling hands

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I think this is what he's saying, but perhaps what he said could be interpretted differently. Anyway, you put your opponent on a calling range, and then only push hands that are +EV, taking into account your FE. This is basic bubble theory.

This reminds me of a post a few days ago where some guy told raptor to tell his buddy bonafone to stop making loose calls late. He was like, "Tell him to stop calling with K-high, because I'm not going to stop pushing when we get there." I thought that was pretty retarded, really, continuing to make pushes that he are now -EV vs the looser range. This game would be pretty damn easy if we could tell our opponents what range of hands they should call with. This guy would be much better off adjusting his own push range vs this particular opponent.

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This is bad. It hurts their equity, because this is clearly suboptimal bubble strategy. It hurts my equity because it makes optimal bubble strategy wrong, forcing me to tighten up and sacrifice a large part of my edge. You don't want people calling your all-ins with hands like A2o, 22, QTo, T7s, etc, you want their damn blinds.

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I believe there is some sort of contradiction in that paragraph. "Optimal bubble strategy" is dependent upon the calling range of your opponent. It seems that you're saying that people are catching on and expanding their calling range which forces you to tighten you pushing range...which just means that you're approaching optimal bubble strategy from both sides. If they've forced you to give up a large part of your equity advantage, it would appear that they're doing something right, wouldn't it?

Bottom line is that optimal pushing strategy often depends upon calling ranges. (Sometimes there's nothing the opponents can do to erode your equity advantage.)

[DavidC]

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Sciolist: That is not true.. You are not only pushing with hands that if called are +EV. You are taking FE into account, which means pushing hands are much worse than calling hands

[/ QUOTE ]
I think this is what he's saying, but perhaps what he said could be interpretted differently. Anyway, you put your opponent on a calling range, and then only push hands that are +EV, taking into account your FE. This is basic bubble theory.

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My initial reaction to the OP is this:

Assume FE = 0%.

Will your ROI in this tourney increase or decrease, given your current strategy? Will you be able to make adjustments to increase your ROI after taking into consideration FE=0%? If you do, will you be left with ROI that is higher or lower than before FE became 0%?

[ QUOTE ]
Myself and many other posters have noticed that in the past couple months there has been an increase in "spite callers" at the $22-$33 level. Perhaps the term itself is inappropriate, because much of the time I sincerely doubt there is any "spite" involved. But nevertheless, bad players are making incredibly loose calls on or close to the bubble, whether out of spite for us, the pushbotters, or because they honestly feel they are making a correct call, or even because they are just impatient as hell.


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If some ane addressed this below, sorry no time to read since I should be working. First, if you are on the bubble, it seems logical to call the "pushbot" or all-in way more often. If you understand the concepts and are getting short-stacked, you are most likely reaching the critical point where if one more blind is lost, your fold equity will become non-existent. So marginal calls become necessary. Even if you don't understand fold equity, if you are short stacked, and blinds are $400, you pretty much know you have to do something fast, even if you are nearly the worst player in the world. So I wouldn't call it "spite calls". I might refer to it as a "no other choice" call. Of course this is also player dependent, but so is everything else you find here, isn't it?

Second, if you think people are calling your pushes with weak-weak cards because they are upset at your aggressiveness, isn't that a good thing? The posts about assessing a range and +EV are well put in response to this as well. Most of the time, for me at least, there is not much room for playing "poker" when you reach bubble.

Last, I would also not discount the fact that a weak-weak call may have been made with cards that were relatively strong compared with what that particular caller has seen recently. We have all had dry runs on the bubble, and if we want to be ITM, well we have to gamble too.