Punishing limpers

[pzhon]

Online NL £200, 10-handed.

Hero is BB, with a 17.5 BB short stack.
The rest of the table has at 30-160 BB. I've played for one orbit, and the table seems loose preflop, with a lot of underbets postflop.

Preflop:
CO posts 1+0.5 BB.
UTG calls, 2 folds, MP1 calls, fold, MP3 calls, CO checks, fold, SB completes, Hero raises to 17.5 BB (all-in).

With which hands will people call in each position? If I haven't looked at my cards, what is the probability someone will call?

[pzhon]

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Online NL £200, 10-handed.

Hero is BB, with a 17.5 BB short stack.
The rest of the table has at 30-160 BB. I've played for one orbit, and the table seems loose preflop, with a lot of underbets postflop.

Preflop:
CO posts 1+0.5 BB.
UTG calls, 2 folds, MP1 calls, fold, MP3 calls, CO checks, fold, SB completes, Hero raises to 17.5 BB (all-in).

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Everyone folded. Hero wins 6.5 BB with Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].

I was disappointed not to see any comments. This type of push is not common in cash games, where the stacks are usually too deep to make it profitable. It is much more common in tournaments. Indeed, some people feel that in a SNG (say with 10 BB stacks), it is quite profitable to push with any two from the BB if no one raises. Few people feel comfortable calling such a push with a limping hand, particularly if they are not last to act. Being able to push like this, without paying too much if someone was trapping or makes a big call, is one of the advantages of having a short stack.

I risked 16.5 BB to gain about 6 BB (counting my equity if I check to be about 0.5 BB). If this were a pure bluff, I would be happy if I were to get called up to 27% of the time.

This is a semi-bluff. If I do get called, I retain some winning chances. Suppose I'll get called by any pair, AK, AQs, and KQs, and for simplicity, assume these are all equally likely. I win 31% of the time against this range. When that happens, I expect to get back 12.4 BB for my 16.5 BB investment, so I regret pushing by 4.1+0.5 BB. Thus, I'm happy to push if I get called less than 57% of the time.

I think the chance of getting called was under 30%. The last people to act are the CO, who posted, and the small blind. The push should be very profitable on average, worth about 3 BB. If that 30% estimate is correct, it would be right to push with 32o.

[AllIn3High]

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Online NL £200, 10-handed.

Hero is BB, with a 17.5 BB short stack.
The rest of the table has at 30-160 BB. I've played for one orbit, and the table seems loose preflop, with a lot of underbets postflop.

Preflop:
CO posts 1+0.5 BB.
UTG calls, 2 folds, MP1 calls, fold, MP3 calls, CO checks, fold, SB completes, Hero raises to 17.5 BB (all-in).

[/ QUOTE ]
Everyone folded. Hero wins 6.5 BB with Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].

I was disappointed not to see any comments. This type of push is not common in cash games, where the stacks are usually too deep to make it profitable. It is much more common in tournaments. Indeed, some people feel that in a SNG (say with 10 BB stacks), it is quite profitable to push with any two from the BB if no one raises. Few people feel comfortable calling such a push with a limping hand, particularly if they are not last to act. Being able to push like this, without paying too much if someone was trapping or makes a big call, is one of the advantages of having a short stack.

I risked 16.5 BB to gain about 6 BB (counting my equity if I check to be about 0.5 BB). If this were a pure bluff, I would be happy if I were to get called up to 27% of the time.

This is a semi-bluff. If I do get called, I retain some winning chances. Suppose I'll get called by any pair, AK, AQs, and KQs, and for simplicity, assume these are all equally likely. I win 31% of the time against this range. When that happens, I expect to get back 12.4 BB for my 16.5 BB investment, so I regret pushing by 4.1+0.5 BB. Thus, I'm happy to push if I get called less than 57% of the time.

I think the chance of getting called was under 30%. The last people to act are the CO, who posted, and the small blind. The push should be very profitable on average, worth about 3 BB. If that 30% estimate is correct, it would be right to push with 32o.

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Unless UTG was going for a limp-reraise, SB was playing JJ/AK/AQ timidly or someone feels like gamb00ling I don't think you're getting called very often.

But don't you think you think you would make more profit in this game if you bought in for more and out-played them post-flop? You don't sound like you're a novice, and by your desciption the game should be profitable.

[pzhon]

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The push should be very profitable on average, worth about 3 BB.

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But don't you think you think you would make more profit in this game if you bought in for more and out-played them post-flop?

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I don't think I could outplay my opponents worth 3 BB postflop with garbage in the big blind. I don't think anyone else can, either.

Contrary to popular belief, being a short stack is an intrinsic advantage. Maybe it would be worth it to give up this advantage to try to outplay people more postflop, but that shouldn't be obvious.

Here, I thought a short stack was the most profitable way to play because of a combination of two factors:
[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] I could punish the loose limpers by stealing the limps or value betting, and
[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] My connection was flaky.

[ajmargarine]

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Contrary to popular belief, being a short stack is an intrinsic advantage.

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Wrong, wrong, wrong. A primary advantage NLHE has over LHE is that you can manipulate bet sizes so that opponents do not have proper odds to call your bets. As a matter of fact, this is where much of a NLHE player's profits come from: players mistakedly making bad calls against a good players bets. If you buy in short stacked, and lose a portion of your stack early, often you cannot bet enough to make it bad enough for players to fold to your bet. They will have the odds to draw, knowing you can't put any more pressure on them, and they know how much the next 2 cards are going to cost them. Also, you don't get paid off well on your monsters (If you are afraid of losing your medium sized stack to someone else's big hand, poker's not for you). You're often all in, in coin flip situations, win half, lose half. Etc. etc. etc.

We all get the same cards in the long run. A small stack limits what can be won when you are dealt those good cards that we all want to get.

[Voltron87]

1. there are advantages (limited) to being a shortstack

2. there are advantages to having a deep stack

3, most of your profit should come from people overplaying their hands, not from charging people for flushdraws. until a player gets to this point theyre not really playing nl

[pzhon]

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Contrary to popular belief, being a short stack is an intrinsic advantage.

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Wrong, wrong, wrong.

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The idea that a big stack has an intrinsic advantage is a common misconception. If you are going to try to defend it, add something new. You didn't.

Note that I am not alone in pointing out the advantages of short stacks. Numerous theorists and successful players have also pointed them out.

It may be possible to make more money with a big stack. It is possible that a grandmaster would make more money playing chess by spotting all comers a bishop than he would playing with no disadvantage. This does not mean losing a bishop is an advantage.

The point of this thread was that a short stack allows you to outplay your opponents in some situations many players don't expect. If you disagree with my analysis of the push from the big blind here, I'd like to hear it. If you just want to say that I must be a fish for buying in short and not sharing your misconceptions about NL play, save it.

[AllIn3High]

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I don't think I could outplay my opponents worth 3 BB postflop with garbage in the big blind. I don't think anyone else can, either.


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I think you could have accomplished the same thing with a bigger stack raising to say £16 pre-flop.

My comment about outplaying them was in general. Judging from your descirption of your opponents it sounded like they were calling stations.

I agree that your move was profitable, but buy-in in short against bad opponents isn't maximizing your EV. Sure you can make a few BB here and there, but i think you can make far more by buying in for more and outplaying them. That's all I'm saying.

[pzhon]

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I think you could have accomplished the same thing with a bigger stack raising to say £16 pre-flop.

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Did you mean £32? The big blind was £2. Raising to only 8 BB with a deep stack would not have had nearly as much of a chance to win the pot, as any speculative hand could call with position.

In case someone has a real hand or makes a big call, I'm relying on being all-in. That allows me to get back a substantial fraction of the pot even against a dominating hand, which I why I only needed everyone to fold about 43% of the time instead of 73%. With a deep stack, I have to fold after a limp-reraise, giving me nothing. If I get called, I'm out of position with garbage, so I'm usually in deep trouble.

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buying in short against bad opponents isn't maximizing your EV. Sure you can make a few BB here and there, but i think you can make far more by buying in for more and outplaying them. That's all I'm saying.

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It is a possibility. I sometimes buy in for the maximum, and keep playing with multiple buy-ins. Sometimes I play short-stacked. It's not clear to me which is more profitable. I hope PokerTracker will let us filter by stack size in the future.

At higher online levels, the win rates of good players are much lower than at lower online levels. You can't count on someone with top pair doubling you up most of the time you hit a monster. At higher levels, picking up the limps once an hour would be a significant addition to anyone's win rate.

[Nathan183]

What do you do, sit down, wait for some limpers then hit-and-run and move on to another table?

You can't do this more than once or twice, and buying in that short is terrible in general. I can't see this being a good strategy.