push or fold under 10 bb's rule

[schwza]

i know this is generally a good idea, but do you still apply it in cases where there are bubble considerations? e.g., this post ?

i'm worried about 1) making it too likely i'll go broke or 2) not stealing enough.

doing stuff like raising to 2.25x bb and folding to a push when you have 7.5x in stack seems like a good way to keep stealing but avoid busting.

[El Maximo]

I archive the truelly great posts and this is one of them. I cant remember off hand who wrote this but I found the article very helpful. I will say that there are some unique bubble situations where I will raise instead of push with less than 10bb. These are few are far between though.

Since I constantly cite the 10xBB rule, I feel obligated to defend it.

Here is what it comes down to for me. Sit and Gos are often not epic confrontations between two premium hands in the later rounds when it all is decided. They are generally 60/40 or closer confrontations, which ultimately decide the outcome.

With 10x the BB or less, you have options I suppose. You could raise the min with steal hands, but I think this stinks. For one, you are inviting people to come over the top with many hands (if you frequently steal this way). If you are the type to min raise with the goods as well, then you are also risking being busted by people who take advantage of the good price you have offered and see a flop from the blinds.

Min raising with big blinds and a 10xbb stack generally means you will steal blinds at a less frequent rate, but also risk less to do so. It also provides the chance for opponents to outplay you on the flop (which you will miss more than not). Frankly, I don't min raise because it always seems to put me in difficult situations. I know that difficult doesn't necessarily mean bad, but I prefer to avoid these kinds of spots.

So if you don't min raise, you are going to be raising 2.5-3xBB with 10Xbb stack. Now the problem arises here. You must raise 2.5-3xbb with all your hands, right? If you raise 2.5x-3bb when u are stealing, and do anything differently when u have the goods, then I think we could agree that this makes no sense. You must keep your opponents off balance.

If you raise 2.5-3bb with a stealing hand, and someone goes over the top for your stack, you are going to fold getting 13:7, or roughly 2:1 (usually 2+:1 because of the presence of blinds). Most stealing hands, on average, are worth this price.

The bottom line is this: If you steal enough using the 10xBB rule (you will have a higher rate of success than using any other method), then more often than not you will be doing enough work to keep your stack growing, or to at least keep it where it is. When you do get called, it won't always be by aces or kings, and it will often be an OK situation, one better than raising to 3xbb and then folding to a reraise.

The issue becomes a lot more clear with 8xBB. It should all be pushing and folding. I suppose 10xbb is kind of arbitrary, and I guess I would agree that maybe 9.5 is a better mark or so, but I really do not think raising less than all-in and folding is going to be a more +EV move than raising all-in to begin with. That is what it comes down to for me.

The 10xBB rule is a little bit of a simplification. I really believe that 9xBB works for me better, but 10x is fine too. The idea is that you can only move all in or fold when you are this shortstacked or if all the people to act after you have less than 9 or 10x BB.

Anyways, so we have this 'rule'. The real trick is deciding what to push, and what to not push. When you have 11xBB, you can afford to fold marginal hands like K8s from the CO, but if you had 6xBB, this fold would be a crime. So obviously as you lose your stack relative to the blinds, you get more desperate.

This is all simple stuff so far. The thing I wanted to say was that I think that most people think that this is a linear regression. So that at 11-14xBB you can afford to fold marginal hands (instead of opening for 3xBB), and at 8-10xBB you get more desperate, and at 6-8xBB you get even more desperate, etc.

I think that at 5-6xBB you should be the most desperate. What exactly this range of hands is, depends. But for the most part, this should be the height of your looseness. Why? Because you have folding equity, but not for long. When the blinds go up, or when you get blinded, or when both happen, you are sure to lose almost all of your folding equity, and you have no chance to survive and build a stack without showdown. If you have less than this, say, 1.5-3xBB, your folding equity is almost gone. You shouldn't be desperate now because you wont be able to make anyone fold with trash hands. So now you should be fairly selective, and worse case scenario just go down with any random two from the BB.

[J-Lo]

I think raises to 2.5x BB and then folding seems to be a easy way to lose your stack...

simple odds, if u raise to 2.5x BB and have 8x BB u will still be getting 2:1 odds on calling a push, so u hafta call based on odds.... so you would b much better off folding hands which u do not feel comfortable pushing with...

I dont mind getting my money in first w/ 67s against BB's KQo as long as i push first... or even AKo as long as i push first
Holdem Hi: 1712304 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
7s 6s 720259 42.06 985515 57.55 6530 0.38 0.423
Ac Kd 985515 57.55 720259 42.06 6530 0.38 0.577

[BigDave]

Lets assume that the big blinds is 100, you have 750, and you raise 225 on your blind steal. The biggest problem I see is that BB will call more often then if you would have pushed, negating your steal. When BB calls and bets out and/or you do not get a good flop, then I see this as the reason you should push in the first place. If you fail to steal here and have to fold, you next push won't have as much bite to it as this one does.

[Irieguy]

[ QUOTE ]

doing stuff like raising to 2.25x bb and folding to a push when you have 7.5x in stack seems like a good way to keep stealing but avoid busting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of all the types of SNG players that exist, the ones that will do this are my favorite to play against, by far.

Irieguy

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

doing stuff like raising to 2.25x bb and folding to a push when you have 7.5x in stack seems like a good way to keep stealing but avoid busting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of all the types of SNG players that exist, the ones that will do this are my favorite to play against, by far.

Irieguy

[/ QUOTE ]

thanks for the response. do you more often exploit this by moving in with a marginal hand or by calling and seeing a flop?

[Gramps]

Ditto. I will come over the top of these types of players with hands that I would not coldcall their push with, because I have a chance to fold out some coinflip hands (say with a lower mid-pair).

For those who make this "raise and fold" play with 7.5 BB, think about it - someone who has you and your 7.5 BB covered comes over the top of you and has a decent shot to pick up 4 BB for free (your raise + blinds). If they're called, they're on average probalby not much worse than 50% to win 8.25 BB for a 7.5 BB investment (assuming they're not pushing total crap).

Because you make this raise and fold a fair % of the time, it's a much bigger +EV play for people to come over the top of you now (which means attentive players will start doing it a lot).

If you push your 7.5 BB, now someone can only win by calling and showing down the best hand to win. That's a much less attractive offer.

Like Amir Vahedi said on the 2003 WSOP telecast, in NL tournies you have to be willing to die in order to live.

[Phil Van Sexton]

I don't follow the 10xBB rule and the linked post is a great example of why it shouldn't be taken as gospel.

The poster had 2900 with a BB of 400. That's about 7xBB. The SB has 3300 and the BB has 1700. Betting 900 with A6 is a great play against most 10/1 players (I think betting 1000 is slightly better). He wants to avoid a war with the SB, but puts the BB to the test for all his chips. When the SB pushes, this is clear indicator that his A6 is no good. If the SB had folded and the BB pushed, it's an easy call.

The apparent problem is that his fold leaves him with only 5xBB. This seems terrible, but is it? He still has 25% of the chips in play. He still has the 2nd biggest stack. He still has plenty of folding equity, even against the big stack, because 1 double-up will give him the chip lead.

Contrast this with having 5xBB when the BB is 100. Now you have only 500, which is pocket change for the big stacks, and not intimidating to the medium stacks.

Therefore, you shouldn't compute your folding equity simply by counting multiples of the BB. Instead, you should compare your stack to the other stacks and to the BB.

Maybe the 900 bet in the example is basically a min raise, but I doubt the BB considers it "small" or "weak" when it will cost him 50+% of his chips to call.

My "strategy" is to bet the smallest amount possible that will get the BB to fold. If the BB is Irieguy or ZeeJustin, this amount is likely to be equal to my entire stack. The original post was about 10/1 where you will rarely see these types of players.

Remember when you see advice from great players like Strassa, they are playing against more aggressive opponents, and there are more chips in play (since the higher tournament start with 1000). Because of this, small raises to 400 or 600 do not get the job done, and therefore pushing is usually the correct play. At 30/3 and below, this is not necessarily the case.

That's probably a separate discussion. My main point is: sizing raises based on the 10xBB rule is not correct. Just like any "system", it's decent for beginners and often comes up with the correct decision by accident, but I think your results will improve if you take more factors into account than the amount of BBs you have left.

[ChrisV]

It depends a lot on position and stack size.

To exploit weak raises by calling I want (1) position on the raiser (which basically means he's SB and I'm BB) and (2) a stack size which will allow me some flexibility on the flop. It's essential postflop that I have enough to make him fold should he bet out a small-medium amount.

When out of position or with a smaller stack size, the only way to exploit the raise is to go over the top straightaway.

[ChrisV]

[ QUOTE ]
When the SB pushes, this is clear indicator that his A6 is no good.

[/ QUOTE ]

My push range here is approximately any pair, any ace, KQ-KT, QJ-QT. A6o against this range of hands according to Pokerstove has 42.82% equity.

Raising 1000 and then folding leaves you with 1900. Raising 1000 and calling my push gives a pot of 6200, so your equity is 2655 chips. Your play loses 755 chips compared to raising and calling my push.

If you push instead, I'd probably fold A2-A6, 22-55, QJ and QT. For simplicity let's assume your equity against BB if I fold is 300 chips. I'll hold each of those pairs 1/220 times and all the other hands - 7 of em - show up 1/83 times. So (I can just add them together, yeah?) I'll have one of those hands 7/83 + 4/220 = 10.25% of the time. I'll hold the remaining call hands 9/83 + 9/220 = 14.93% of the time. So you've made me fold about 40% of the hands I was pushing with. Equity against the remaining hands is 36.103%. So total push equity is .4 * 2200 + .36103 * 6200 = 2223 chips.

If you've followed me this far, the results of this rambling are:

- Raising to 1000 and folding to a push is the worst.
- Versus me, raising to 1000 and calling my push has better equity than just pushing.

Note that versus a less aggressive player, say someone who only pushes with my call hands above, there's no difference between pushing and raising 1000 and calling the push (for obvious reasons) but both are still worse than pushing.

Also trying to exploit the extra equity of raising to 1000 and calling a push is dubious, because that extra equity comes at the price of putting your stack on the line more frequently.

Phew! Didn't mean for this to be an essay [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]