Open pushing with ~10M

[Rizen]

Making a new post for this, but this came up in my Empire sweat thread last night. Here is Jurollo's last reply in that thread:

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yea those were the plays rizen was talking about in the thread where he posted his tourney HH. He pushed i think KQo for 16 or so BB's, and said (i think) that he does it a lot w/ aorund an M of 10.

Maybe there should be discussion about it, i dont think i' mtoo crazy about it either.

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I think there are much better ways to play hands like mid PP's at that level, pushing here nets you 6K+antes but you are only going to get called by hands which dominate you or that you a at best 55% against, open pushing better hands like that I could see an argument for for deception but I don't like doing it with weaker holding, especially mid to low pocket pairs.

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I've said in a couple of threads that this may be a bit of a crutch for me, but I'd like to hear what you all think are truly superior plays to this. If I remember correctly I had a little under 70k and the blinds were 2k/4k with antes making the initial pot somewhere around 8kish to start with. Quite honestly, I don't think the #s exactly matter that much except the M figure.

I'll give you my line of thinking, but I would certainly like to hear your thoughts. I'll list what I consider the the viable options as well as some thoughts on them:

Open limping: I won't do this very often in the middle/late stages of a tournament unless I have a hand I don't mind playing for a raise. I certainly don't like doing it with ~10M for sure. I really don't think this is an option.

Standard 3-4x raise: I'm not a big fan of raising 15-25% of my chips pre-flop very often. It would create a pot only slightly smaller than what's left of your entire stack and generally makes post-flop play difficult. The advantage is that it allows you to toss your hand if the action behind you looks bad. Although I'm not quite sure that raising that much and then folding is always correct.

Raise around 2.5x: I like this a lot better than a standard raise when I'm ~10M. It usually is equal to about 10% of your stack which allows you to make a c-bet or value bet at the flop if you think it warrants it, but also allows you to get away from your hand with a reasonable amount of chips left.

Pushing all in: Adding 10%+ to your chip stack is never a bad thing, but there is the question of how often you're ahead when called. I will admit the push with 88 was a bit of a frustration push, and was probably wrong. That being said, I often think pushing with TT-QQ and AK/AQ here can often be the best play. You would be surprised how often you are called by a weaker holding, and even when you are called you often end up in a coin flip situation. With ~10M in the middle-late stages of a tournament (by this, I usually mean about half way through the second hour until the bubble period) I'm not terribly upset to be involved in probably coin flips. I generally don't like flipping a lot during a tournament, but between 5M-10M I'm generally okay with taking a flip for all my chips in these stages, and I'm not terribly upset to add 10%+ chips to my stack as well.

Folding: I can't see folding 88 here, although I have been known to fold 66 or weaker here, and 77 can be close depending on the table.

I obviously tend to believe that with ~10M you should be either raising 2.5x or pushing a vast majority of your hands in pots that you open. I tend to do both and mix it up but it's often dependant on the table I'm at and the likelihood at that particular table of getting called by a weaker hand. If I think it is reasonable that I will get called by weaker holdings, even if my table is relatively passive, I will push.

FWIW - I don't really like my 88 push last night, but had it been TT and I'd run into QQ and QQ I would be fine with it. About midway through the second hour up until the bubble I personally think is the time to be aggressive and accumulate chips for a FT run. If I have 15-20M I'm typically more concerned with preserving my stack and taking some high % steal opportunities combined with trying to get some value out of my good hands. Once I get in the 5-10M range though I'm perfectly happy to gambool a bit in an effort to build a stack that can let me go deep.

I tend to get a lot of people who think I'm too aggressive with ~10M, particularly with my open pushing. I still stand behind that I think open pushing as a part of your overall strategy is correct here, but I tend to be in the minority who think this way. FWIW I also don't think the open pushing would be smart in a typical large live event, but in your standard online tournament I believe it can be correct.

-Rizen

Shameless plug for my poker blog:

http://rizenpoker.blogspot.com

[ansky451]

Overall I think you make some good points, but I have a few bones to pick.

First of all, one glaring absence from your post is... the other players! When you open a pot on the button regardless of your holding you have to consider who is in the blinds. If there are very aggro players in the blinds, I'd be much more likely too push something like a small pair, whereas if they are passive id just make a small raise.

Secondly, I think this is real bad: [ QUOTE ]
That being said, I often think pushing with TT-QQ and AK/AQ here can often be the best play

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With 15 bbs or 20 bbs, I think you are missing out on an insane amount of value by raising all in here with QQ. Mainly for reasons stated above. If there is a very aggro big blind, WHY let him off this easy, if he would resteal with A9o otherwise?

Overall I just see a lot of words, but no real explanation here: [ QUOTE ]
Pushing all in: Adding 10%+ to your chip stack is never a bad thing, but there is the question of how often you're ahead when called. I will admit the push with 88 was a bit of a frustration push, and was probably wrong. That being said, I often think pushing with TT-QQ and AK/AQ here can often be the best play. You would be surprised how often you are called by a weaker holding, and even when you are called you often end up in a coin flip situation. With ~10M in the middle-late stages of a tournament (by this, I usually mean about half way through the second hour until the bubble period) I'm not terribly upset to be involved in probably coin flips. I generally don't like flipping a lot during a tournament, but between 5M-10M I'm generally okay with taking a flip for all my chips in these stages, and I'm not terribly upset to add 10%+ chips to my stack as well.


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So if you push with AQ for 18 big blinds, you think AJ calls more often than it reraises if you had just made it 3x? That definitely just isn't true.

Overall I like the concept of your post, in that you should be overbetting all in sometimes, but I don't really think some of the hands you said it with are applicable, or really make much sense.

[Firefly]

I'd also like to comment on the lack of Shania that you have when doing this. Even the most inexperienced players can put you on a range when you open push for that much (of course they see it as a doesn't want to play a flop hand)

You would never do this with AA or KK so you are occasionally giving your opponents more information than necessary.

Overall, occasionally i will open push with that amount (usually after being 'tilted') it's a change of pace, certainly, but just be wary about telegraphing the strength of your hand.

[Roman]

Honestly, I think you are running really well and it is clouding your judgement on some of these points.

[Rizen]

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Honestly, I think you are running really well and it is clouding your judgement on some of these points.

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This could easily be very true. That being said, a few of the replies seem to imply that I recommend open pushing often. This is not the case, but I certainly think you should use it sometimes. I think my original post alluded to this, but the table and players in question often impact my decision on if this is a wise move or not.

I disagree a bit about the Shania factor, while I gave an example hand range, I often adjust that based on position and players. Sometimes I dumb things down for the sake of making a point, and in poker everything is situational, so I suppose dumbing it down can actually hurt my arguement rather than hinder it.

Please keep in mind I don't advocate always open pushing when at ~10M with a reasonable hand. I *DO* however think that doing it occasionally gives you a lot of advantages, not the least of which is the fact that when you do end up shoving it in with a monster people are liable to give you less credit than you deserve.

Honestly, I'll be curious to see how I feel about this in 5-6 months. As I prefaced in my original post, sometimes I feel the pushing may be a bit of a crutch for sometimes not wanting to play tricky hands post flop with a below avg stack.

-Rizen

Shameless plug for my poker blog:

http://rizenpoker.blogspot.com

[ansky451]

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That being said, I often think pushing with TT-QQ and AK/AQ here can often be the best play

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Im still waiting for a response to my beef with that.


I think you'd be hard pressed to find a single cirumstance at all in which open pushing QQ for >10 bbs from the button is maximizing your EV.

[Rizen]

And FYI - the point of my post here is really to get some feedback on how other people handle similar situations and their reasoning for doing so. I honestly think that this may be a leak for me, but everyone just likes to tell me that open pushing is wrong, but they rarely tell me why or give me alternative plays, they just say they 'don't like it'. A few people have given me some feedback, and to those people I say 'thank you'.

-Rizen

Shameless plug for my poker blog:

http://rizenpoker.blogspot.com

[Rizen]

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That being said, I often think pushing with TT-QQ and AK/AQ here can often be the best play

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Im still waiting for a response to my beef with that.


I think you'd be hard pressed to find a single cirumstance at all in which open pushing QQ for >10 bbs from the button is maximizing your EV.

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I would never do it from the button, I would do it from EP/MP on the right table though. You are right though, I would never do this on the button with ~10M.

-Rizen

Shameless plug for my poker blog:

http://rizenpoker.blogspot.com

[bugstud]

you probably want to remove the shameless plug, and just put it in your location or something

[MLG]

1. Make a normal raise and basically push any flop.
2. Make a smaller 2.5x raise (thats my standard preflop raise now anyway) and play poker on the flop.

The only time I'm ok with these overbets is when you are shortstacked so everybody else is much deeper, and consequently more willing to make loose calls, because then you won't loose much value if you are also pushing with AA/KK.