SnG Wiz Hand Questions

[Ryski]

So I downloaded SnG Wizard the other day and went through the quiz section scoring pretty well in the easy and average ( 90%+ ) but only so-so ( 70% ) in Expert. I then loaded up a bunch of my tournaments from yesterday and wanted to ask questions on 3 hands.

Some of the stuff SnG Wiz tells me to do just flat out feels wrong...

Hand #1:

SnG Wiz Suggests: Push
My Action: Push but felt wrong with stacks so close together

Poker Stars, $10 + $1 NL Hold'em Tournament, 200/400 Blinds, 3 Players

BB: 4,338
BTN: 4,792
Hero (SB): 4,370

Pre-Flop: (675) Q J dealt to Hero (SB)
BTN folds, Hero raises to 4,345 and is All-In, BB calls 3,913 and is All-In

Flop: (8,701) 2 9 K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: (8,701) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: (8,701) 8 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Hand #2:

SnG Wiz Suggests: Push even with opponents range on very tight, average, or very loose
My Action: Push but felt wrong as well.

Poker Stars, $10 + $1 NL Hold'em Tournament, 300/600 Blinds, 2 Players

BB: 8,948
Hero (SB): 4,552

Pre-Flop: (1,000) T 8 dealt to Hero (SB)
Hero raises to 4,502 and is All-In, BB calls 3,902

Flop: (9,104) 3 K A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: (9,104) 8 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: (9,104) A (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Hand #3:

SnG Wiz Suggest: Call both all ins
My Action: Fold
Reason: There is no way my 44 is going outdraw the clash of two high card hands or the fact that one of them could very well already have a higher pair which is definitely going to be above 44. Also, one of these players is going to get crippled here so why should I get involved?

Poker Stars, $10 + $1 NL Hold'em Tournament, 200/400 Blinds, 3 Players

BTN: 2,771
SB: 3,431
Hero (BB): 7,298

Pre-Flop: (675) 4 4 dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to 2,746 and is All-In, SB raises to 3,406 and is All-In, Hero folds

Flop: (5,967) J 9 J (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Turn: (5,967) Q (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: (5,967) K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Can you guys give me your take on these hands and maybe explain in English why the hell SnG Wiz is telling me to do some absurd things? Or maybe I'm looking at it incorrectly and am just too result oriented? Thanks.

[Monty3038]

Ok, I'm not a tool guy, I have SNG Wiz but didn't buy the subscription so I only played with it shortly... but here are my thoughts for the little they are worth...

Hand 1, Shove it. You are down to 3 players, they all are playing for 1st and likely will tighten up a bit, you should loosen up.

I think you are right on the other two hands. I fold both.

[fjuanl]

Hand 1 - With even stacks most people in the BB are calling your push with a tight range. SNGWiz probably recommends pushing close to any two cards against a tight range

Hand 2 - Most people don't call this push loose enough to make it incorrect. Notice you increase your stack by 20% if you don't get called

Hand 3 - You probably don't have accurate ranges for the 2 players left. This is pretty much always a fold I think

[bjsaust]

Stacks being close together is not a deterrent to pushing. Villain will have to put his whole tourney on the line to call you, meaning he'll generally call fairly tight. People are more likely to call wider if they have a big stack and feel they can gambool, or if they have a short stack and feel they need to take a chance to double up. In hand 1 BB can fold and still be in good shape.

[Ryski]

Yeah I was a little surprised that my QJ push was called by A7o ( yeah I omitted the results ) literally the first and everyone made it ITM.

Also the thing that SNG Wiz obviously can't take into account is your table image so if you've been pushing a lot many people may loosen their calling range. There are times I've folded a clear push hand because I had pushed the last 3 times and was afraid of being called. That *might* have something to do with some of the loose calls I've seen on me.

[bjsaust]

Thats not SNGWiz, thats you. Its your responsibility to make sure its using correct calling ranges, dont just use the defaults.

[fjuanl]

Even if BB is calling with hands like A7, its still correct to push. Click the icon that looks like a graph in SNGWiz. It will show you your EV as villians calling range changes. For this specific hand, its an unexplotable push. For any calling range BB has, it will be correct for you to push. The lowest EV is 0.10 when BB is calling with 40% (A2+, K2s+, K3+, Q5s+, Q9+, J8s+, JT+, T9s+), which is actually very close to a fold but wouldnt be a terrible push. Theres no way the BB is calling this wide even if you have a bad table image

[taipan168]

Yeah I was a little surprised that my QJ push was called by A7o ( yeah I omitted the results ) literally the first and everyone made it ITM.

I would snap call with A7o if I was in the BB's position, particularly if you had been shoving a lot (and probably even if you hadn't been shoving a lot). That said, I would shove QJo every time in your shoes.

Hand 2 - when blinds are so huge, you don't have a lot of choice but to shove. If opp had really been calling me wide I could see a fold here however.

Hand 3 - something wrong with the ranges you're using in SNG Wiz if it thinks this is a call.

[Ryski]

So here's the thing...

Dropped down to $5 and played 4 games tonight. Lost all 4 of them pushing on the bubble, AA, AA, KK, KK. I'm not quite sure I like the push/fold all the time under or around 10bb. Last game I was at was stacks, ~4k, ~4k, me ( 2300 ) and some other guy 2500, this is roughly. Blinds were 100/200 with antes. I saw A9 suited in the SB, pushed, and he snapped with KK..

Yeah yeah variance and just bad luck and im sure it was a good push but still I can't keep thinking if I had only raised from 200->600 I woulda been able to get away from it if he re-raised preflop or I got a bad flop.

Just sick of going broke especially near the bubble on shoves.

Edit: Kinda coming to the conclusion that sometimes I probably push too much and eventually run into a huge hand. Just because it *might* be a good idea to push a hand doesn't necessarily mean you should because after you push a couple times your table image changes and those calling ranges are going to loosen.

I got SnG Wiz only a couple days ago and was playing with it. Ive had a horrible streak lately that knocked my profit down more than 100 in the last week and my ROI from 30 to 25 and I'm really looking for advice on how to balance the pushes I guess. Do you balance between push, raise, fold when you are on 10bb? Or is any raise supposed to be a push at that stage?

Btw bjsaust - I am adjusting the ranges and they still say push no matter what the range is.

[bjsaust]

Raising with anything other than AA/KK and planning to fold to a resteal when you have around 10bbs is an ENORMOUS leak. Please never do that.

People calling you with AA and KK has nothing to do with table image, it has to do with them having the nuts. You could have never played a hand all tournament and they'll still call you.

I will occassionally make a fold when it would be +EV to push, just to show I'm not pushing literally every hand to try to gain some respect for later pushes, but its definately the exception. Generally if its +EV then I push, that simple. Remember whether something is +EV could depend on opps calling ranges, so if you think they'll call loose or spite call you, then you need to factor that in. Play around with sngwiz and see whether something thats +EV with a 15% calling range is also +EV if they have a 50% calling range (fjuanl is right, that graph function is awesome for quickly checking this stuff out).

Remember, sometimes you suckout too. Take that A9 hand. Lets say opp is calling 15% of his hands, that means 85% of the time you win 400 chips (almost 20% of your stack). Of the other 15% of the time, you win 1/3 of the time. So 90% of the time you win the hand and only 10% of the time do you lose. Thats if he has exactly KK. If you run it against his whole 15% range, you now win over 40% of the time, so now you only lose 9% of the time or less. Most of the time you earn 20% extra chips, and around 7-8% of the time you double up.

Thats huge on the bubble.

Btw bjsaust - I am adjusting the ranges and they still say push no matter what the range is.

Thats great. As fjuanl mentioned, that means a push there is unexploitable. No matter what BB does (call or fold), pushing there is ALWAYS +EV. Makes the decision very easy .