How are people this retarted?

[ilya]

Your $5 opponents *do* adjust, just not as much as they should. Many will fold a hand like A8s or 55 here even though they would call in another situation, thanks to a partial understanding of the payout structure implications. Remember when you first understood that some situations on the bubble make it correct for you to fold AK to a push? didn't it feel weird & counterintuitive?

You shouldn't assume that your opponents are playing perfectly, but I also think you shouldn't assume that they are clueless psychos. If you assume that, you might end up folding too many hands in a spot like this. Instead, I think it's best to make an educated guess about the extent to which your opponents understand the situation, derive likely calling ranges from that guess, and push accordingly. In this spot, you might guess that your opponents will call with something like 77+, AJs+, AQo+. That still lets you push a fair number of hands.

[protoverus]

[ QUOTE ]
Hmm... I dunno, before this I was running over the bubble, stealing blinds left and right. I got called by AJ when i had A8 once, but other than that everything was going fine.

I was open pushing A7+, K9+, 22+, QJ, JTs etc.

[/ QUOTE ]


There's your answer.
The more you push, the more people will open up their calling ranges (even ridiculously so). Especially at the lower levels, you are going to called just cause you are pissing them off. I'm surprised it took that long!

[LesJ]

Interesting thought process here. If you had been running over the table on the bubble as you indicate, I would most likely call the push here as well. If he wins this hand (that he is a 65-35 favorite in), he becomes the dominant chip leader and has a solid chance of taking down first place. If he folds this, then what else must he fold while the small stack is still around? What happens if the small stack makes it through the next orbit? Is this guy suppossed to just passively fold all his hands to your greatness? Not only do I not see this play as "retarded," given the information you provided, I consider it the CORRECT play. Why wait around and HOPE to spinelessly win $4? The push, IMHO, is what is suspect. The only callers you will get are the ones who have u dominated. You should have been down to about 1200 chips here.
Les

[bluef0x]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting thought process here. If you had been running over the table on the bubble as you indicate, I would most likely call the push here as well. If he wins this hand (that he is a 65-35 favorite in), he becomes the dominant chip leader and has a solid chance of taking down first place. If he folds this, then what else must he fold while the small stack is still around? What happens if the small stack makes it through the next orbit? Is this guy suppossed to just passively fold all his hands to your greatness? Not only do I not see this play as "retarded," given the information you provided, I consider it the CORRECT play. Why wait around and HOPE to spinelessly win $4? The push, IMHO, is what is suspect. The only callers you will get are the ones who have u dominated. You should have been down to about 1200 chips here.
Les

[/ QUOTE ]

You're risking a buy-in when you are guranteed to at least turn a profit on this SnG? Why are you thinking of it as $4? Of course that means nothing to you, but to someone who plays $6 SnG's it's a lot. BTW, it's not just $4- it's a difference of $10. Horrible reasoning

[Melchiades]

Calling with AQ here is -3.6% if he pushes any two.

If he pushes any two, you should call with TT+.

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting thought process here. If you had been running over the table on the bubble as you indicate, I would most likely call the push here as well. If he wins this hand (that he is a 65-35 favorite in), he becomes the dominant chip leader and has a solid chance of taking down first place. If he folds this, then what else must he fold while the small stack is still around? What happens if the small stack makes it through the next orbit? Is this guy suppossed to just passively fold all his hands to your greatness? Not only do I not see this play as "retarded," given the information you provided, I consider it the CORRECT play. Why wait around and HOPE to spinelessly win $4? The push, IMHO, is what is suspect. The only callers you will get are the ones who have u dominated. You should have been down to about 1200 chips here.
Les

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this line of thinking has more merit than people generally give it credit for, but in this situation you'd be giving up too big a chunk of immediate $EV by calling with AQo for not enough future +$EV.

It's true that you will be the big stack on the bubble if you win, but you are likely to not even get an opportunity to take advantage of that. The shortie will have to survive the next hand, for one. If he does, your pushes will have to go through him. He will know that your range is likely to be extremely loose, and also that he can't hope to wait out the other stacks. So he will call you liberally. When he loses, your bubble big stack advantage will be over. When he wins, the other players will have similar stacks. None of them will feel like they can wait out the others, loosening them up & forcing you to tighten up.

And even these limited advantages will only be available to you 65% of the time at best.

If you fold, shortie will still have to survive the next hand. If he busts, you will be ITM with a solid stack & a good chance of finishing 2nd or 1st. If he wins the next hand, he will often bust on the one after that. Half his stack will be in the pot after posting the SB, and he won't have much hope of outfolding the others. Even if he plays that hand and wins it, he will still be the short stack. Not insignificantly, the big stack will most likely not be able to fold to him on that second hand.

In short, a TON of things have to go wrong in succession for you to not make the money if you fold here. And when you do make the money, you will often still have enough to make a run.

[LesJ]

I am not trying to really give away a whole lot about how I play personally, but overall I am a fairly tight player when it comes to calling off all my chips. Over the last couple of weeks, my ITM is GREAT, but my ROI is alot lower than I would like, in large part because I am most likely a little TOO cautious at times, but I call this. The OP has already told us their image at the table is loose. Are you playing for 1st or to just survive? What range would u call with here. . AA only?
Les

[tewall]

No. Figure out what their likely calling range is. If they understood the theory, they'd only call you with a couple of hands. But they don't, so you can't act on the basis of what would be a good play if they understood but on the basis of reality. What will they actually call with? Then figure out what's a good push based on that.

By why push at all? The reason for pushing rather than making a smaller raise is that better players will just come over the top of you, plus you'll lose fold equity. But these aren't better players. If you can rob the blinds with small raises, why risk so much? Save your big raises for when you have a real hand. Let them call your big raises when you're the favorite, and fold to small raises when you're not.

[curtains]

lol yea I bet after calling with the AQo, your opponent went and looked it up in SNGPT and learned the errors of his ways. So push against him in the future, I bet he will never make this mistake again.

[Melchiades]

[ QUOTE ]
What range would u call with here. . AA only?
Les

[/ QUOTE ]
Like i posted. If we assume opponent is pushing any two cards, you should call with TT+.

Folding here does not mean you only play to sneak into the money. You still have a good chance of winning this thing after folding.