A bad way to play on the bubble

[AleoMagus]

Recently my 'How to beat Party 10+1' thread was resurrected again and a very small, but new response was added that got me thinking.

In my thread, I described a very conservative approach to playing on the bubble, at least with respect to calling raises:

[ QUOTE ]
Never enter a raised pot without AA KK QQ or AK. The only exception to this is when the player raising has a very small stack and you can eliminate them without taking too big a knock if it goes awry.

[/ QUOTE ]

the response that got me thinking was this:

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I do think this is too tight, I would reraise all-in with probably 99 on up, and A-J and A-Q. At this point in the game, I really do not mind a coin flip.

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Yeah, that's it. So what's the big deal? Well, just that this sentiment about bubble play summarized to me what so many players do WRONG on the bubble.

On the bubble, you should absolutely mind a coinflip. You should hate a coinflip and do everything in your power to avoid a coinflip if it has the potential of eliminating you. If you can get a coinflip against a small stack, then go for it, but if anyone near your size or bigger is asking for a race, I say avoid it like the plague.

I'll explain my thinking here.

Suppose all remaining players are about even in stack sizes. We can also assume then that all remaining players have about equal chances of being eliminated on the bubble, taking third, getting heads up, and even winning. Ok then, so by this reasoning, I have about a 75% chance of making the money when I find myself in the final 4.

Why on earth then would I want to take 50% odds on my survival here?

I know what you are all thinking. Because I'm trying to win right? Well, sure, but a coinflip here is still not going to be the best way to do that. I'll see if I can explain why

If I take a coinflip, I have a 50% chance of busting and a 50% chance of being the big stack with three left.

So I have 50% chance of $0
and a 50% chance getting into the final 3 with about 4000 to 2000 to 2000

this should mean 1st 50% of the time I survive- $25 equity (10+1)
2nd 25% of the time - $7.5 equity (10+1)
3rd 25% of the time - $5 equity (10+1)

so all together this means .5(0)+.25(50)+.125(30)+.125(20)
or, $18.75 equity

BUT...

if I avoid confrontation when I know it's gonna mean a showdown I have the same equity (slightly less if I'm in the blind) as before. This is

1st 25% of the time - $12.5 equity
2nd 25% of the time - $7.5 equity
3rd 25% of the time - $5 equity
4th 25% of the time - $0

so all together this means .25(0)+.25(50)+.25(30)+.25(20)
or, $25 equity

Obviously then, avoiding confrontation here is the right strategy and a coinflip is not a desirable thing on the bubble. In fact, getting in with the best of it can still be undesirable! small edges are still not enough to outweigh the negative impact of busting on the bubble.

So, how do we play on the bubble? I guarantee you will get a lot of 4th place finishes if you fold 99 everytime, so what am I really saying?

Well, the point is just that if you can at all help it, do not call all-in raises. Do not even re-raise all-in if the other player is commited to the point where they must call. On the bubble, you should be trying desperately to NOT see flops and NOT to get into showdowns (unless it is against tiny stacks).

You want to be the player open raising and it is here that you should not mind potential coinflips because you have the (greatly) added value of the steal. Your all-in raise with a hand like 99 is all about getting others to fold. If you get a call from AK, you are sad, and the coinflip is just your second chance (and not a bad one).

So sure, hands like 33 can become push hands on the bubble, but even with TT, I am not going to call another players all-in, especially when against a big stack who can eliminate me. The really crazy part about this is that I wouldn't call that all-in even if I knew for certain he was holding JQ and that I was a small favorite!

This is the biggest leak I see in online bubble play. Middle to big stacks colliding and making my life easier is wonderful. Silly things like A9 and KQ getting all-in against each other with a small stack waiting to be busted happily mucking and watching.

Ok, I know occasionally the blinds get really big and it gets imperative that a call be made against really agressive players but this is more rare than people think. Besides, if there is a lot of all-in raising going on, you are not going to be the only one thinking this way and a little patience is still going to go a long way.

I can understand wanting to build a stack, but the smartest way to do this is by being the open-raiser and giving yourself the real value of the raise - the added chance of winning without a fight.

---

Ok, So it is just me here, self-proclaimed small-buy in expert. (I don't even get a 50% ITM /images/graemlins/grin.gif, but why would I want to when it would lower my ROI?)

What do the sharks think? Is my reasoning sound? Am I underestimating the effect that blind sizes have on these pots? Have at me.

Regards
Brad S

[adanthar]

Hmm...that's just about the complete opposite of how I play.

I'm a bad NL player until it gets shorthanded, at which point I tend to dominate with any sort of decent stack. However, to have that stack, I need to win a couple of coin flips or better. Therefore, I do exactly that and call all ins with 4-5 people left when I have almost any decent holding (big kings, aces, medium pairs etc., although I'll avoid hands like 22 or A3 thanks to them being so easily dominated.) [edit: I should also say I'll be far more likely to call when I'm closing the action or near it, for obvious reasons.]

The trick is that because I am a relatively bad player with 5-6 left and a very good one with 2-3 left, my equity goes drastically up with every coinflip I win. Through the last 105 30+3 tourneys (since I got PT), my place rates are 16-10-13. (My ROI sucks, but like I said, I'm a bad NL player. A good one would probably have more than a handful of tourneys out of those 105 where he wasn't under the original buyin with seven or eight people left /images/graemlins/smile.gif)

I'm really not sure what I'm getting at here, though, because it's obvious that if I could improve my game enough I wouldn't need to get into these bubble confrontations in the first place and these calls would then be -EV. Still, I think your post needs a qualifier: if you are a significantly better shorthanded player than your opponents, your bigger stack makes an enormous difference to your equity and a coinflip might now be tolerable.

Thoughts?

[T0asty]

I agree to a certain extent and have found that making a raise (3BB) to have the same effect as pushing all in (with a bigger stack). I'm also having good results with the "Stop and Go" tactic, when the bigger stacks call my 3BB raise. Unless I've been SSed I have avoided going all in PF until HU in a few of the Tourneys I have played in recently.

I'm not sure I would fold a TT to an all in though. A lot of the time you will be up against a smaller PP, or 1 overcard. sometimes of course you will be dominated or in a race, but I think overall you will have a 65/35 adv over the stealers.

[Pitcher]

Hi Aleo,

I am glad you posted this. This is clearly a hole in my game. I loose to many of these confrontations when I am a slight favorite. That said, I beleive that too often my opponents are pushing with very poor cards. I have seen pushes with 75, 64, and Q3 in the last two days (I am not sure these were all on the bubble....I will look to make sure) but given that situation, it is giving up too much equity to fold hands like 10 10 or AQ. That said, I have been tightening up my calling requirements considerably in recent days and with good result. Judgement is still required, but I am definitely close to your point of view.

Pitcher

[TheGrifter]

For the most part I agree with your sentiments, it can not be stressed enough that you must be the aggressor in SH NL.

However, your analysis is flawed slightly in my opinion. You suggest that with even stacks your chances of finishing in each position is 25%.

I would suggest that as a winning player it is higher than 25% and that you should finish in the money no less than 85% of the time. However, your strategy will result in a likely even number of 1st 2nd and 3rd place finishes as others take advantage of your tight play to steal blinds and antes.

Also, you state that should you get down to 3 people with a 2:1 chip lead your chance of winning is 50%. I feel that my biggest advantage in SnG's is when it becomes SH with high blinds because most opponents have not practiced this part of the game extensively. Therefore, when I reach the final 3 with a chip lead I expect to win closer to 75% of the time. (My actual breakdown, including all chip positions once ITM, is somewhere around 50 35 15).

That said, I will not call an all in raise with a middle pair (anything from 7's - J's) if I am in a comfortable chip position and the raise could break me. However, I WILL alway's call an all-in or re-raise an open raiser with middle pairs and big aces if the blinds are large relative to my stack.

Remeber, as the tourney continues there are many reasons to open up your game. There are fewer players, making a big hand less likely. The blinds are larger making steal attempts more likely. You pay the blinds more often which forces you to gamble. Some players tighten up on the bubble and allow you to roll over them.

When I play a SnG my goal from the first hand to the last is to win it. This is the reason that I've worked on my HU and SH game and the reason that my ROI is significantly higher than my ITM %.

[fnurt]

You have the right idea. The reason it works out this way is because of the 50/30/20 payout structure. By moving from 4th to 3rd you gain 2 units, which is a big jump. By moving from 3rd to 1st, obviously a much bigger hurdle, you merely gain an additional 3 units!

Where I think people get confused is that in MTTs the proper strategy is usually to forget about the bubble and just go for the final table or the win. That's because the payoffs are so much higher if you get there, the bubble might pay you back your entry fee but first place will be 100x the entry fee or more. In single-table tournaments, on the other hand, the right idea is to get into the money first, and then think about winning.

[PrayingMantis]

Hi Pitcher and Aleo,

I think that an interesting point should be that as the buy-in go up, and the level of players too, you'll have to reduce your criteria for calling. That's because players who are aware of the gap and bubble survival play, will tend to raise with more and more hands, when they enter a pot, especially from late position. You must adjust to that. Folding hands like TT or some medium high aces can be *sometimes* losing moves, actually more so with the TT than with the aces.

As a matter of fact, it is usefull to actually take advantage of your opponnents' willing to fold almost ALL hands on the bubble. I found myself, not once, pushing with Q3 from the button, to win just the amount of chips (blinds) that put me in the money (this is of course correct only with high blinds and certain opponents and dynamics).

In the lowest buy-ins, there is a reverse phenomena, that actually might lead to the same way of thinking: people are "bad enough" to push with mediocre hands. From my expirience, the buy-ins in which Aleo's criteria for caling will work in the best way, are maybe the medium buy-ins (for example: 22$-33$ on stars) where people are sometimes playing much too weak-tight, and you really don't need and want to call anyting, only apply strength.

Anyway, I agree that generally, calling all-ins, even with what looks like strong and nice hands, is a mistake. Simply: the EV you gain by the folding equity when YOU raise, is SO high (even for the poorest hands), that calling, almost always, becomes weaker in comparison. Yes, that's the gap.

And I'm working on my "calling" game too. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Victor]

[ QUOTE ]
I think your post needs a qualifier: if you are a <font color="blue"> </font> than your opponents, your bigger stack makes an enormous difference to your equity and <font color="blue"> </font> .


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This is terribly wrong. If you are significantly better than your opponents shorthanded then you ESPECIALLY do not want a coin flip. If you are better, then you can beat them in other less risky ways. Thats very simple.

The reason it is correct for you to call and encourage these coin flips is because your stack is so small at the endgame. IF your stack were larger you clearly would not want to follow this strategy.

[bosoxfan]

I play the low limits on party and see people calling from the button when it's down to 4. Is this play ever correct or should you always raise if you are going to enter the pot?

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ QUOTE ]
Never enter a raised pot without AA KK QQ or AK.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
You should hate a coinflip and do everything in your power to avoid a coinflip if it has the potential of eliminating you.

[/ QUOTE ]

You really give the impression to people that they should fold a hand like AQ to ANY raise.

Much later you qualify your statement that you are only talking about "calling allin raises....or re-raising if the other player is pot committed." However, this qualification is rather buried in your response and somewhat contradicts the statements above.

I know you can't cover every situation, but I think how to handle a non-pot committed raise is a very important case.

Since we are talking about a situation where you and the raiser both have medium/big stacks, it is quite common that they WILL NOT be pot committed by their raise. How often do you see someone with T2500 make a &gt;T1600 raise without going allin? Very rarely in my experience.

When I have a medium/big stack, I avoid raising all-in because I know a lot of player will use the "never enter a raised pot without AA KK QQ or AK" strategy. I'll just raise the minimum and they will fold 90% of the time. When they come back over the other 10% of the time, I just fold.

I think that the original poster had this in mind when they said that they "didnt mind a coin flip". I took that to mean "I'm not going sit back and give you my chips. I will come over the top of a raise as soon as I get a decent hand. Hopefully my opponent will fold, but if I get called I'll take my chances on the coin flip."

I think the idea of reraising with "99 on up, and A-J and A-Q" is a very reasonable approach to non-allin raises.