About Stealing

[vindikation]

Fold equity

[Afterh0urs]

On a flop of QJ8 and I have A8,I'm folding to a bet, because I rather use my chips to push allin with.

The reason I didn't address the second part of your question is because this problem goes away when you play the first part of the hand correctly by pushing allin.

Of course you're gonna run into big hands occasionally, but your EV from pushing still outweighs your other options. Remember, to make money in SNGs, you need to play for 1st. All your other ITM finishes are just icing on the cake.

[Dafoe]

Great link, vindication.
Just since reading it today this has made a big difference in my play. I kept hearing about all the hands that get pushed, and i was doing it, and getting killed by loose callers in the lower limits. Buy-In REALLY MATTERS.

thanks for diggin it up.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with most of the situations you list but, generally, pushing UTG with low chips is a bad play as it screams desperation to me. Sure, you can have a monster, but to a lot of players it looks like you just feel that your two cards are better than the ones you expect to see on the BB next hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are two problems with your counterpoint here.

1) Even if it does scream desperation, there is this thing call "The Gap Concept." The only stacks that might be willing to take a chance on calling you are stacks that are quite big, and have a pocket pair (or AJ+). You start putting these probabilities together, you'll see that pushing is still better than mini-betting. You do not want to draw others into this pot. Your primary interest is to steal the blinds.

2) Even if I have a premium hand like AK or JJ, in general (when shortstacked) you'd like to see a showdown, but they have to pay the price. Don't price in a "stop-N-shop" for the bigger stacks.

[Scuba Chuck]

Although many have learned much from this post, recognize that the points in this post refer to the bubble, not when it's 5,6,7 handed or more, which is what OP is referring to.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
Great posts all. How about the second part of my question,however. I don't think stealing in online low buy-in tournaments is as easy as the textbook writers make in seem to be. My experience is that you can only make stealing a source of decent chip growth if:
1. There are no truly large stacks or
2. The large stack(s) are trying to coast into the money(which is rare)

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, if you are single-tabling, you should be able to tell how to play here based on your table reads. Are bigstacks waiting to slide into the money, or, do they like to "play." There is no "one answer fits all" answer for your question. I'm pretty sure you can intuitively figure out what is best. When you start playing many (hundreds and thousands) of games, you'll begin to recognize this. Start paying attention to calling standards. Do players defend their blinds?