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

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http://rizenpoker.blogspot.com