22 facing raise deepstacked HU at end of $6.50

This guy has been ABC. Raising sometimes, calling my raises sometimes. When he gets a hand he bets it for value. Hasnt shoved over, raises have been std. That kind of thing.


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (2 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Button (t3655)
Hero (t9845)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2, 2.
Button raises to t600, Hero ???

Tough spot. On the one hand, your read is that opp raises his good hands and folds his bad ones and hasn't been overly LAggy. On the other hand, you have terrific fold equity, pocket pairs play really well HU if you happen to get called and even if you do get called and lose you're still well in the game.

All that considered, I think I shove it.

I'd say he's raising appropriately. So not only premium hands, but decent 'stealing' hands as well that he may fold to a push. We were even when we got ITM and I got the feeling his raising range was much the same as mine (I managed to check my way into some flushes he paid off on river).

My feeling was the same, I have the bigstack, lets use it. I wont give results yet. I know PP are nice HU, but 22 is SOOO easily dominated, I wasnt sure on this.

Lets say he's raising with top 25% of hands, limping with another 10%. I expect a call from top 10% of hands.

A call from that range makes me a 40:60 dog.

Deuces are too much of a coin flip.
The blinds are small, and you got a big lead.
Can't call a raise w/o giving villain more chips in face of his inevitable flop c-bet or push.
I'd fold this.

Re-raise to 1200, shove any flop.

Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer

Deuces are too much of a coin flip.

WTF, I'll flip coins for stacks here every time.

Yeah, with these stacks a coinflip results in:

50% I win tourney
50% Even stacks.

I like those odds. I pushed.


Can you walk me through why we raise PF and push flop instead of just pushing PF Fnord?

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Can you walk me through why we raise PF and push flop instead of just pushing PF Fnord?

Gives him 3 cards to make his hand and a chance to fold something like 88 when big cards flop.

You can work out mathematically whether to shove using the second example in this post. If you have trouble working through the example I can have a go later.

Two points to think about.

If he showed JTo pre-flop and you showed 22, both face up, one of you would push, the other would call and you both would have played your hand well.

Also, if a maniac sits down at your cash game table and starts raising most of his hands pre-flop, what is stopping his strategy from working?

In my mind, if he showed me his cards I'm pushing against anything other than a PP, so I'm shoving against the big majority of the range he would have made his PF raise with.

Sounds interesting. I'll work it through here and you can correct any mistakes .

[edit] I made heaps and heaps of mistakes. Edited while I try again .

OK, heres the reworked ICM calc. First time I was using chip equity instead of prizepool equity for my calcs. Interestingly with chip equity it was an easy push, but prizepool was very even. I'm not sure how that works.
[edit]Fixed some maths which had minor effect on result turning a very small -EV into a very small +EV.


1) - I'll stick with the ranges I mentioned about. He's raising with 25% of hands and will call with 10%.

2)
a (hero folds) - 9645
b (hero pushes, villian folds) - 10445
c (hero pushes, villian calls, hero wins) - 13500
d (hero pushes, villian calls, hero loses) - 6190

3)
a - 44.29%
b - 45.47%
c - 50%
d - 39.17%

4) Probably my weak point, but using pokerstove gives this as top 25% hands: 66+,A2s+,K6s+,Q8s+,J8s+,T8s+,A7o+,K9o+,QTo+,JTo
and this as top 10% hands: 77+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,AJo+,KQo
Which both look reasonable for me based on my reads.

Based on these %s then I put villian at folding 60% of the time. The seems reasonable, he's played fairly ABC so far, so I can see him folding more hands than not here.

5) If he calls, I'm only 40% to win against that range.

6) So:
60% of the time villian folds and hero has 45.47% of equity.
(40% * 40%) = 16% of the time villian calls and hero wins 50% of equity.
(40% * 60%) = 24% of the villian calls and hero loses and is left with 39.17% of equity.

So Hero’s % of the prize pool by pushing is (60% * 45.47%) + (16% * 50%) + (24% * 39.17%) = 44.68%

So hero has 44.68% of prizepool if he pushes, and 44.29% of prizepool if he folds.

So ICM takes a tough position shows me its a tough position :P. Its 0.004% to push, if I get numbers and ranges exactly right.

If anything I would widen villians raising range to include all pocket pairs and some suited connectors as well, so if anything he folds more than estimated here, which may tip the balance.

Overall, given the chance to win the tourney here and now, and whats almost an even decision according to ICM, and likely a coinflip if called, I still push, but theres room to argue thats a mistake.

Heads-up chips roughly equal cash.

Thats what I thought, and why I ran it that way, however its not how ICM works.

For instance winning 100% of chips, only wins me 50% of the cash. Even though technically I win 60% of the remaining cash, I only win 50% of the initial cash equity.

I'm not sure I agree with the ICM model here, but I'm prepared to be corrected on that.

I'm pretty sure I read DS saying that chips ~= cash heads-up (the difference between 1rst and 2nd) and that there is a trival proof. I'll have to dig that up sometime this week.

Cool, I'd appreciate that. It seems that would make more sense.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Can you walk me through why we raise PF and push flop instead of just pushing PF Fnord?

Gives him 3 cards to make his hand and a chance to fold something like 88 when big cards flop.

I've never even thought about considering this line.

Originally Posted by givememyleg

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Can you walk me through why we raise PF and push flop instead of just pushing PF Fnord?

Gives him 3 cards to make his hand and a chance to fold something like 88 when big cards flop.

I've never even thought about considering this line.

Me neither. Small pocket pairs play well in heads up AI situations but really badly after the flop. Personally I can't see any other move than AI or fold preflop here (and I vote for AI).

Originally Posted by taipan168

Originally Posted by givememyleg

Originally Posted by Fnord

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Can you walk me through why we raise PF and push flop instead of just pushing PF Fnord?

Gives him 3 cards to make his hand and a chance to fold something like 88 when big cards flop.

I've never even thought about considering this line.

Me neither. Small pocket pairs play well in heads up AI situations but really badly after the flop. Personally I can't see any other move than AI or fold preflop here (and I vote for AI).

Well, Fnord's line as some merit. Even if he spikes a pair and calls, he was probably calling anyway.. so why not let him miss or get his mid-pair scared. I think it is something that I may add into my bag 'o tricks sometime. However, most of the time I probably just shove over here.