Calling off chips with the big stack
 

I am not sure if this is a leak in my game or not. When I am a big stack and close to the money (4 or 5 handed), I will typically call off up to 1/3 of my stack against a shorty if I can guarantee heads up play. I will do this with less than premium hands. My thinking is that elimination is more important than preserving my stack advantage. I have read different opinions on this (harrington for elimination, juanda for preservation). What is more important?

Re: Calling off chips with the big stack
 

Hi,
I think this primarily depends on how tight the other 2 (edit: 3, 4, 5 -- however many are left) players are in calling raises. If they fold too much to your raises as big stack, then you should be inclined to preserve chips to take advantage of this fact. If they play optimally, and don't fold too much, I still err on the side of chip preservation -- from ICM... they should often fold many hands when they are ahead, depending on the stack situation. However, if they are loose with their calls, I sometimes will call to try and knock them out since it won't risk elimination (that, or I will still have a big stack if I lose or something).

Re: Calling off chips with the big stack
 

[ QUOTE ]
I am not sure if this is a leak in my game or not. When I am a big stack and close to the money (4 or 5 handed), I will typically call off up to 1/3 of my stack against a shorty if I can guarantee heads up play. I will do this with less than premium hands. My thinking is that elimination is more important than preserving my stack advantage. I have read different opinions on this (harrington for elimination, juanda for preservation). What is more important?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, let's see. You have a big stack, so you're in great shape to finish in the money.

What would be the most efficient way to screw up this situation?

Hmmm... you want to donk off your chips when you have no fold equity... maybe calling with less than premium hands? Yeah, that's it.

Re: Calling off chips with the big stack
 

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My thinking is that elimination is more important than preserving my stack advantage.

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This makes no sense. First of all, as long as you have a 'stack advantage', you cannot immediately bust (you cover everybody), you can put great pressure on your opponents, etc. You want to use the fold equity you have.

Secondly, you say 'elimination is more important than preserving my stack advantage'. By this you mean that you will call raises/all-ins of short(er) stacks with marginal hands, because you want to bust them. BUT if you call an all-in with a marginal hand, you are usually the underdog. You give the short stack great odds to double up, and you will lose 1/3 of your stack. It's like you 'help them'. >> very -EV.

Re: Calling off chips with the big stack
 

OK...OK....Look up in the poker dictionary under donk and find a picture of me. I get it. I read in HOH 2 that he will call off with any two cards from the big stack in this situation. Am I reading this wrong? What you have posted makes sense to me and I think I will continue to be aggressive on the bubble but not so much with the donking off chips with crappy calls.

Re: Calling off chips with the big stack
 

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I read in HOH 2 that he will call off with any two cards from the big stack in this situation.

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Of course there are situations where it makes sense. For example, you are in the big blind and have pot odds to call.

Maybe his point was that you can squeeze out a call with *slightly* worse than pot odds because of the benefit of eliminating a player? I guess I could see that.

Anyway, you should find the exact passage, think about it, then post if it's still not clear.

Re: Calling off chips with the big stack
 

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I read in HOH 2 that he will call off with any two cards from the big stack in this situation.

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Harrington was referring specifically to situations in which he outchipped the opponent 10-to-1. In these cases he felt it was important to call with any two given the chance to eliminate a shorty.

Re: Calling off chips with the big stack
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I read in HOH 2 that he will call off with any two cards from the big stack in this situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Harrington was referring specifically to situations in which he outchipped the opponent 10-to-1. In these cases he felt it was important to call with any two given the chance to eliminate a shorty.

[/ QUOTE ]

that still seems really really dumb. does anyone have an exact quote?

Re: Calling off chips with the big stack
 

That is what Harrington says. He calls it the 10-to-1 rule. He is only talking about situations where the guaranteed prize with each elimination is increasing significantly; this is in short-table play section.

Re: Calling off chips with the big stack
 

Thanks for posting this question.

This is a real leak in my end game. I do this far too often. Leaks like this keep me at the 11s and one-tabling, because at this point, I'm still working on my game more than trying to make a lot of money.

I think much of this giving away chips comes from a common human misperception: Everybody thinks like I think.

We expect our opponents late in the game to be doing the correct thing, i.e. loosening their hand requirements. Very often they are not doing the correct thing and we run into better hands that we thought they'd be playing. Players improve once they learn (either taught or are lucky enough to realize it on their own) that the secret to winning is tightening up the hands they play. They start doing better, naturally. Until they learn to loosen up, and when, they win some, sometimes often since they aren't playing us much of the time-- [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]--and this reinforces their keeping a tight rein on their hands, not as often as we win, but often enough for them. (I think this is why we are seeing more and more 7-8-9 players at the higher blind levels.) We start getting aggressive, which is correct, and we win more than they win. That's how we end up busting out in 4th, being shortstacked in 3rd, and not winning even more often than we are. Perhaps herein lies our Achilles' Heel? We're giving them a far higher range of starting hands than they are actually playing!

When we load up SNG-PT, we're giving them more credit than they deserve. The lower end of the range is not the hands they would play. This throws off the entire model? (I'm not sure, because I don't have enough experience with it, and sure as hell don't have the math skills many (ok, MOST) here do. I could be totally off in my thinking.

What I need to do is really study those bubble hands they are playing, seeing how often I'm calling with worse hands in situations where I'm trying to put them out. I think I'm simply giving them too much credit for playing correctly.

I am giving away too much of my advantage here. As I said, this is a leak that's not always so apparent. I'm anxious to hear more experienced players give me more feedback here.

Good post.

CJ