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downtown
12-28-2005, 04:20 PM
There's an interesting discussion among the fracas in GtrHtr's post $22: Push or wait with an uber short stack (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=4294177&page=0&fpart=all &vc=1).

I've been thinking about making a post that addressed a similar situation, and maybe the same in theory. It stemmed from playing the hand below, and hands similar to it since.

$55 PP SNG
PartyPoker, Big Blind is t300 (5 handed) Converter on pregopoker.com (http://www.pregopoker.com/hhconv/convert)

UTG (t1813)
Hero (t499)
Button (t2544)
SB (t2848)
BB (t2296)

Preflop: Hero is in CO with K/images/graemlins/diamond.gif 2/images/graemlins/club.gif
<font color="gray">UTG folds</font>, <font color="red">Hero raises t499</font>

Button was a 2p2er (Degen), and said I made a bad push, referring to this section in Darse's No-Limit Hold'em Tournament Primer (http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~darse/Papers/no-limit-tnmt-primer.html):

[ QUOTE ]
Rule 8: Treat your last few chips as though they were precious, because
they are.

If your stack is so small that you do not even have enough for a decent
raise of the big blind, then you actually need a stronger hand to call,
since you don't have that added chance of winning the hand uncontested.
Now you are simply waiting for cards which you fully expect to be the
best hand going in. If it doesn't come, keep waiting until the big
blind forces you all-in (or close to it), and let your luck decide the
issue. The mathematics of tournament poker show that your last few
chips are actually worth more than each of the chips in a tall stack, so
entering into a border-line situation is not in your favour. For more
on this phenomenon, the reader is again referred to Mason Malmuth's
studies of tournament strategies.

If you are in the blinds, it will often be correct to call even with a
very weak hand. For example, if you are in the small blind and calling
the big blind will put you all-in, you should call with _any two cards_
(unless there was a raise indicating a very strong hand, and even then it
may be correct to call).

[/ QUOTE ]

First, I think this has different implecations for MTT play, where it is more likely that sticking around with a short stack will make you more money... and taking your chances in the BB is likely to give you life for another round at a full table, which could make all the difference in the world. In a STT though, I'm not so sure.

Since I/'m a big fan of SNG Power Tools, I countered Degen's argument at the time with some SNGPT numbers, showing that it was always +EV to push, regardless of calling ranges. Now in retrospect, I realize that it is likely that I will be called in more than one spot here being so short, and therefore I may need to be stronger Than K2o to push here. Though I see the merits of the Darse argument, I am not convinced it applies to STTs that well.

I like to think of the fact that should I double there, I have much more FE with a bigger stack, and another chance to push UTG on the next hand and be right back in the hunt for the money.

It is an interesting problem, and therefore I ask you the 2p2 STTer your approach to this situation, and &lt;2BB play in general in a SNG.

This is something I have definitely glossed over in the past, much to my detriment. It's too easy to say, "[censored] it, I've got 6 other tables left to worry about." It's leaving money on the table (or the 2001FPs) to not treat the table where you are shortie with as much thought as you would the table where you have a huge stack. So I ask you...

Push on your first opportunity?

Wait for the SB/BB?

Totally depends on the table? (I'll admit it at least somewhat depends on stack sizes, etc., but there is still a valuable discussion here in general.)

To me it seems this could be worth a lot of $EV in the long run, especially for us multi-tablers that frequently run into this spot. Interested to hear your responses. -DT

Sciolist
12-28-2005, 04:24 PM
I think there's a bit of a difference between having 2.2 BB and having 1.65 BB. I'm probably going to wait for the BB here, unless I get given TT+, AK+, AQs+. I think that the J8 push in the other thread is right though. I also think that that his a lot closer to being a hand I want to push if I were the button, or the BB might be thinking of folding (say he has 2 or 3 BB himself and is thick).

I stick around and cross my fingers a lot in these situations, though generally 4 handed rather than 5. Hey, you never know, the next hand the blinds could get AA vs KK :]

Sciolist
12-28-2005, 04:25 PM
I just realised that the fact I'm thinking about ranges here means that a push with anything is probably right due to the size of the pot and the value of one player already being gone.

OK, I'm more interested in what the better players have to say now :]

pooh74
12-28-2005, 04:34 PM
In the J8 hand, hero has a little over 2BBs. SB has 75 invested and would need to call around 25% of his stack to get involved. Add to this that BB might wake up with a hand in SB's mind and SB will fold more often than you guys think. Therefore....having this sort of FE over half the players left in the hand is a HUGE deal to me, and way more than one should typically expect from a situation when you have 2.2 BBs.

Your hand is a little different because your FE is less and the # of players to go thorugh are more. Although I wouldnt fault this push either off the top of my head.

microbet
12-28-2005, 04:36 PM
In general I don't mind the sentiment of treating your last chips as precious and I'm not pushing just anything in this spot, but K2o seems good enough.

I know there was a retraction in the post with the really tight pushing range, but passing on something like AJ or AT or any PP here would be criminal.

UMTerp
12-28-2005, 04:42 PM
In a spot like this, I sometimes like to get in behind an open-pusher with any two, usually giving me a chance to triple up or better. Of course, I'll still open-push any ace, faces, etc. I think pushing the K2 is fine. It's one of the next three hands.

Sciolist
12-28-2005, 04:45 PM
Yes, I quite often find myself sorely tempted there too. I guess this needs a SNGPT fiddle to work out his pushing ranges. Five handed it's a lot better for you of course. Four handed it's only good if he has the whole table covered, otherwise he's probably got something worth playing.

I guess ideally you want someone on 5 or 6 BB to be pushing just before you here, with decent FE over the BB.

rvg72
12-28-2005, 04:57 PM
The push was good IMO in a $55+ - lower buyins it might not be since you will often get multiple callers.

Button and SB will generally play this tightly because of the risk of someone coming over the top. BB will be forced to call this and you're very likely ahead. If it was Q2 then it is too weak here but K2 is easy push for me in this scenario.

rvg

microbet
12-28-2005, 04:59 PM
Good idea. I don't really do that. I don't know about any two, but like little suited and/or connected cards sound good. I'll look at the numbers on some of these spots.

Shillx
12-28-2005, 05:16 PM
It is pretty easy to run the numbers for these spots. They will be a bit ambitious due to the fact that SNGPT doesn't account for overcallers, but here is what I'm getting on the button.

5 players, 4 BB and covered 5 fold in all spots = push top 36%

It goes up a little bit as you get shorter, but the calling ranges become so wide that you have to account for getting called in 2 spots (tougher to do). The top 1/3 of all hands is a good estimate for when you have 2 BB in an SNG (in an MTT it would be 33% &lt; x% &lt; 50%). As your position gets worse, you have to tighten up a little bit. As you add more people, you can widen your range somewhat. So you might push the top 40% with 2 bb and 10 people left while you would only push the top 25% on the bubble. With an infinate number of people still in, you would shove very close to 50% of the time.

ilya
12-28-2005, 05:17 PM
I think this is an important question and I also haven't spent as much time as I should have thinking about it.

One obvious observation:

When you're short, but not so short that you've run out of FE, it's often correct to push a very weak hand even when you will be first to act next hand and your next hand figures, on average, to be significantly stronger. This of course is because you have one fewer player to go through if you push now, and this is usually more valuable than having a stronger hand.

However, when your stack has fallen under 2xbb, this may flip. It may now be more valuable to have the stronger hand than to have fewer players to go through, simply because you figure to get called anyway, unless perhaps the BB has something like 2.5-3.5xbb after posting. So compared to a 4-5xbb short-stack situation, I tend to give a lot less weight to position and a lot more weight to the strength of my hand and the BB's chip position.

Well, this seems real obvious to me, but I'll post it anyway for 2 reasons. 1, it might seem more wrong than obvious to someone else, in which case i'll learn something. 2, i never got to be the Section Guy in college.

Degen
12-28-2005, 11:36 PM
I didn't see anybody in this thread refute why Darse's strategy does not apply here. People just gave what they would do, but without much explanation for why (mathematically as opposed to opinion).

BB should be calling w/ any two right here (granted people do not always do what they are supposed to).

Don't have a lot of time right now to think this through and give a better reply but I'd sure like to see a math guy go to town on this one. IMO disproving my claim that this apply's to an SNG is the same as disproving Darse's claim that it applys to a MTT. The principles are the same (huge pot odds, waiting for the money, you bust your dead etc).

downtown
12-28-2005, 11:44 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I didn't see anybody in this thread refute why Darse's strategy does not apply here. People just gave what they would do, but without much explanation for why (mathematically as opposed to opinion).

BB should be calling w/ any two right here (granted people do not always do what they are supposed to).

Don't have a lot of time right now to think this through and give a better reply but I'd sure like to see a math guy go to town on this one. IMO disproving my claim that this apply's to an SNG is the same as disproving Darse's claim that it applys to a MTT. The principles are the same (huge pot odds, waiting for the money, you bust your dead etc).

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm right there with you Degen. I would like to see it proved or disproved as well.

Here is something I was thinking about as far as this concept in MTT v. STT goes. Unless the MTT is very small, or every table on the bubble is observed by each participant, the avg. size stack that busts may not be paying much if any attention to what's happening with the short stack, which is massively +EV for the shorty's survival. However, in a STT that shorty is sitting right there, and everyone knows it. It's the fundamental reason we're able to abuse the bubble so effectively, but it also means that we are unlikely to reap the same benefits Darse writes about.

ZeroPointMachine
12-29-2005, 01:42 AM
See what you think of this concept.

I believe that ICM overstates your EVfold in these super shortstack situations. When you have ~2 BB and a few hands between you and the BB it is a given that you are calling from the big blind if you don’t push first. Right? I would argue that the true Evfold from UTG is actually the EV of calling from the BB. You pickup a tiny bit of EV for each position better than UTG due to the chance of picking up a real hand.

Calculating the EV of calling from your future BB hand is difficult, but a couple of examples give a pretty good idea of what your looking at.

Here’s a fairly optimistic scenario for your 499t stack in the 300 BB. You get put all-in by one player with a top 50% hand. Your random hand has 35% chance of winning and an EV of 12.9% if you win. This gives you an EV of 4.5% equity.

Against two players who put you in and check it down things are worse even if they only have top 50% hands. Your random hand has only an 18% of winning and an EV of 21.2% if you win. This gives you an EV of 3.8% equity.

These numbers are way below the 6.1% equity you supposedly had by folding in the cutoff.

In the hand from OP if you put the BB on a call any 2 range and the SB and BTN on “maniac” you still get an EV for pushing of 5.8%. I suggest that this is far greater than your “real” EV for folding.

caretaker1
12-29-2005, 04:48 AM
[ QUOTE ]
In a spot like this, I sometimes like to get in behind an open-pusher with any two, usually giving me a chance to triple up or better. Of course, I'll still open-push any ace, faces, etc. I think pushing the K2 is fine. It's one of the next three hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm big on that as well, chance to triple against one opponent.

12-29-2005, 05:36 AM
I don't like the K2 push from the CO either.

I'm perplexed by your statement that SNGPT says that it's a good push... I don't see it, though maybe I entered something wrong.

For BB calling any two, SB maniac, Button maniac, it's -EV. It's possible that these hand ranges are incorrect, but I think that it can be argued that they are at least reasonable.

An interesting thing about this is that if BB is any two, SB is any two, and Button is maniac--- it's +EV.

The OP says "Now in retrospect, I realize that it is likely that I will be called in more than one spot here being so short, and therefore I may need to be stronger Than K2o to push here."

This appears to be wrong. The more spots that you get called in, the more +EV it becomes.

tigerite
12-29-2005, 11:14 AM
[ QUOTE ]
I didn't see anybody in this thread refute why Darse's strategy does not apply here. People just gave what they would do, but without much explanation for why (mathematically as opposed to opinion).

BB should be calling w/ any two right here (granted people do not always do what they are supposed to).

Don't have a lot of time right now to think this through and give a better reply but I'd sure like to see a math guy go to town on this one. IMO disproving my claim that this apply's to an SNG is the same as disproving Darse's claim that it applys to a MTT. The principles are the same (huge pot odds, waiting for the money, you bust your dead etc).

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, in this situation, it really is unexploitable to push, because whatever they call with it's +$EV for the Hero, so if we are to argue that a push is wrong (and the only alternative is to fold, of course) then we have to come up with some kind of argument whereby folding will be more +$EV. If it was on the bubble, then perhaps, maybe, I could see some kind of argument for it as two stacks might get into a battle later on in the piece, and one might knock the other out giving us ITM by default - and doubling from 499 to just over 1k wouldn't help us a great lot anyway. The problem is, this is still 5 handed, and we are two people away from that situation.. so we need chips, very quickly, or else we're going to be out anyway. Solving this mathematically is pretty damn tough because the next hand we're going to be in the same boat - possibly even worse - than in this hand (and a large proportion of the time with a hand that isn't as strong as well), and then there's the BB which is in the lap of the gods as well. Unless they are very weak players who will fold to the BB because they don't want to "double the short stack up" (we've all seen tables like that I am sure), then it's imperative to make a move before the BB hits us. For that reason I'd move in now, simply because there are no guarantees for the next two hands, and realistically, the next hand is our best chance bar this one. Kx is good enough, and I'd push without much of a thought.