$22: Push or wait with an uber short stack

I am trying to keep an open mind while reading this thread, but I really don't see pushing as being a "sure thing" here. Certainly, if I felt strongly that SB or BB would fold with anything but the strongest of holdings, then I would push.

However, in most cases, my sense is that I would rather wait and hope for a better holding on which to risk all my chips.

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It's odd how this is all you have seen. I have seen several people with similar insight on why pushing is correct and have written several reasons of which you are choosing to ignore.

Today is the first day I have seen any of your posts (and I would assume its one of your first few days as you have so few posts), and I have seen nothing but bad commentary from you.

Whether it is you saying how wonderful your lifestyle is because you make 5k a week by one working through Wedensday, or you telling other people they are wrong, without giving any logic (despite what you may claim is logic) makes it clear to me you are just here to be confrontational. You have no desire to add to this forum in any meaningful way.

I have a strong suspicion you are just some $3 SNG player on Stars that thinks it will be fun to say you play the biggest games and are a huge winner, and clearly know the correct answer to every situation. All I know for sure is that I can correctly dismiss any of your posts as being helpful or insightful in any way. Have fun...

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Wow, nice essay. Giving me special attention, I feel all warm inside. I'm sorry that you are jealous of my lifestyle, I cannot help that. I'm also sorry that when someone goes against the braindead pushbotting strategy and actually THINKS about about the situation etc they get hammered. Maybe there should be an auto-reponse on all new posts saying "PUSH!" I dunno why people ask what to do, the answer is inevitably the same. I guess I'm not gonna learn much here, and it may even harm my game to keep reading.

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Having never seen you play, I have no idea if you are a winning or losing poker player.

Having read several of your posts, I can tell that the poker part doesn't matter. You are just a loser.

[45suited]

I think that the OP's stack is just big enough to have a very, very good chance of getting heads up. Think about it:

He pushes. SB still would have to call an additional 255 chips more in order to call. That is 23% of his stack. (He'd be down to t770 if he called and lost - not an insignificant hit to his stack.) AND he still has BB to worry about acting after him. So, the bottom line is that he needs a good hand. But most players aren't going to call off this much of their stack from the SB here. They (I should say I) would push the BB out if I had a hand that I was going to commit this many chips to.

So the bottom line is it is quite likely that the OP will end up heads-up with one of the blinds. His stack is just large enough to make this very likely, IMO.



PartyPoker, Big Blind is t150 (6 handed) Converter on pregopoker.com

UTG (t3800)
UTG+1 (t930)
CO (t610)
Hero (t330)
SB (t1100)
BB (t1230)

[pergesu]

fwiw, I'm the one that initially told him this wasn't a super easy push, and I guess that's why he posted the hand. Hopefully we can get this ish back on track and move the trolling/troll-hunting to another thread.

This hand is really close imo. I don't think he has much FE over the BB at all - BB's probably calling like 80%+ of hands. Which if we put SB on 'M' in SNGPT, and BB at 80%, it's still +EV by like 0.2% if I remember correctly. Anyway, the problem is is that whenever the SB calls, the BB is almost always calling since now he has the chance to bust you AND he has very nice pot odds. So you get called by both players a fair % of the time, and the SB might even be calling as much as 30-40% of hands. When you get called by both players it's truly disastrous, regardless of your range.

I'd rather try to wait for a hand that has at least a decent chance of doubling you up when you go UI. J8o is just not good enough when there's the chance that you're up against two players. You may or may not get this hand...but I think it's a lot better to then just take your BB (I certainly would not push from UTG with this stack since you get called by 2+ players WAY too often). Your opponents will recognize that they have no FE and often give you a walk, or at worst you're probably only going up against one player.

[45suited]

Perg, my point is that it is the best of many bad options. And for the reasoning I gave in my last post, I think that the OP's stack is just large enough that the hand doesn't turn into a call, call, check it down nightmare.

Being able to open push from the button w/ a slightly above average hand seems like as good as we can hope for, IMO.

[pergesu]

I see what you mean, and I agree that his stack is big enough that he's not going to get called in both spots all the time. But he's going to get called in both spots enough of the time that I think it's going to be -EV. I mean when I looked at this, it was only +0.2 or +0.3%, and that's of course only when you get one caller. That's very close, and when you consider the fact that sometimes you get two callers, I think it swings it into the -EV zone. Basically I'm not confident enough that a push is +EV to actually do it. It's all crappy, as you said, but I'd rather hope for a walk in the BB or just race one player.

[pooh74]

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fwiw, I'm the one that initially told him this wasn't a super easy push, and I guess that's why he posted the hand. Hopefully we can get this ish back on track and move the trolling/troll-hunting to another thread.

This hand is really close imo. I don't think he has much FE over the BB at all - BB's probably calling like 80%+ of hands. Which if we put SB on 'M' in SNGPT, and BB at 80%, it's still +EV by like 0.2% if I remember correctly. Anyway, the problem is is that whenever the SB calls, the BB is almost always calling since now he has the chance to bust you AND he has very nice pot odds. So you get called by both players a fair % of the time, and the SB might even be calling as much as 30-40% of hands. When you get called by both players it's truly disastrous, regardless of your range.

I'd rather try to wait for a hand that has at least a decent chance of doubling you up when you go UI. J8o is just not good enough when there's the chance that you're up against two players. You may or may not get this hand...but I think it's a lot better to then just take your BB (I certainly would not push from UTG with this stack since you get called by 2+ players WAY too often). Your opponents will recognize that they have no FE and often give you a walk, or at worst you're probably only going up against one player.

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What 45s said, plus, you need to apply this kind of thinking to the next two hands as well to get a feel for how crappy the situation REALLY is.

Youre not gaining any FE if you wait and only losing EV by having the possibility of MORE players in the hand.

Youre not even assured of having it folded to you again before the blinds hit you, let alone the fact that SB and BB calling is the same probability in later hands as it is now.

So the negative prognosis of your analysis is really only compounded by waiting.

At the risk of sounding clueless, is there any way to predict the EV of waiting to push later? I mean, even if the EV of pushing now with J8o is marginal or slightly negative, I would think the EV of pushing later against more potential callers (albeit with the possibility of two better cards) may be worse.

[pooh74]

wait and hope for a better holding on which to risk all my chips.

all 330 of them.