Adapting for OTHER player's inflection points

[nightlyraver]

I wanted to get some feedback about adapting your play when other players at the table start hitting their inflection points. Here is an example from a MTT that I played yesterday: 277 start, 27 get paid, blinds are 50/100. Myself and two other players have an M > 30; one player's M is about 22; one is about 14; 4 players have M's somewhere between 3 and 8. Certainly there is no pressure on the big stacks at this point. However, how should we adapt our play to combat so many small stacks the most effectively?

I think that the first step is to determine who at the table understands M, pot odds and such and who does not. I have a few more ideas, but I want to hear some feedback first.

[zambonidrivr]

a. you can figure out who understands this farily quickly by monitoring their betting. anyone with an M of under 10 that is not pushing, does not have a clue, unless they are getting cute with aces.

b. giving the short stacks, my calling ranges change given their position, whether or not they are opening the pot, and any history I have on them from prior hands.

[nightlyraver]

Do you really think that not pushing/folding with an M less than 10 really is dispositive? A push may be a good move if others are in the pot or the blinds/antes are huge, but sometimes I think it's a huge overbet. For example, Hero has a stack of about 1250 and the blinds are 50/100. Hero picks up a playable hand in seat 5 and no one has yet entered the pot. I think that 1250 into a pot of 150 isn't really mandatory. Thoughts?

[ekky]

It certainly doesn't mean they dont have a clue, as per the previous posters comment.

[zambonidrivr]

yes, my words were poorly choosen. perhaps.... on the surface appear to be playing with less information.

[zambonidrivr]

alright, so you put in a bet/raise, and get called. You are left with 5-6x bb. the flop misses you and villan has you covered by a mile... now what? check/fold and wait for a better spot?

[ekky]

Just shove it in

Villain misses the flop a lot more then he hits, (assuming he is unpaired) and if he has a big pair, he would call you pre flop anyway...so that makes no difference

If he has a smaller pair, the board mite scare him off the pot.

Betting this way allows average hands to flop draws, and at this stage in a tourney.. you would much prefer to get all your stack in as a reasonable favorite, rather then just pinching the blinds

stealing the blinds just lets to survive, you aren't accumulating. (unless you are stealing at a crazy rate, which with a small stack isn't too likely to result in a high success rate)


Also, for the purpose of the comments above, I was talking as though I had AK. I much prefer the above line to just jamming it all in.

I think the pre-flop push gets entirely too much respect on 2+2. It's useful when you've got a hand that you won't mind showing down, like AK or 8's, but for a pure steal, I think there are often ways to accomplish much the same thing without jeopardizing anywhere near as much of your stack.

And that's a key adjustment to make at inflection point time: recognizing when you can force other players to make decisions for all of their chips while spending only a fraction of yours. Here's a hand I played in last night's 10+1 on Party:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t6000 (10 handed) converter

SB (t31912)
BB (t18764)
UTG (t46815)
UTG+1 (t8970)
UTG+2 (t72446)
MP1 (t109596)
MP2 (t77414)
MP3 (t40956)
CO (t119932)
Hero (t72697)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">7 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t12000</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333"> SB re-raises to 18764 and is all-in </font>, Hero calls t6764.

Flop: (t27764) A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

Turn: (t27764) T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

River: (t27764) J[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

Final Pot: t27764

I could have just pushed here, both blinds had less than 10BB's. But I'm not looking to mess with the small blind here, because he can put a sizeable dent in my stack and I don't trust him to fold a bunch of hands I don't want to play against. A min raise pretty much forces him either to come over the top of me or fold, and it shows the big blind that I'm going to see the river if he pushes. Yes, there are some hands that the SB might fold to a push but might try to re-steal with here (though I hadn't once seen him do anything as sophisticated as re-stealing- my read was that he'd push or call with pretty much the same, small range of hands), but since I don't think he's likely to come over the top without a premium hand, I'm not going to feel about folding if he does. Even if a push would be +EV, even if I'd have reasonable odds against something like AK, I still don't want half my stack going into the pot with the worst hand at this point if I can avoid it. I'd push a hand like AK or 8's in this spot because I don't mind showing those down against his range, but I'd also min-raise a hand like A's or K's.

Does that make sense?

[nightlyraver]

I like this line a lot actually. It reminds me of some of the plays described in the TC The Table Coach series from the magazine. This is one line that I don't think I have ever used in actual play, but now that you cited a good, live example I can definately see how it works.

[justT]

[ QUOTE ]
<font color="#CC3333"> SB re-raises to 18764 and is all-in </font>
...
Does that make sense?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not until I figured out it was the BB who was allin and not the SB.