Common situations I struggle with w 13-15bb's

[surviva316]

after playing enough low buy-in SnG's i've come across a few situations that i struggle with repeatedly. thanks to tight is right, at least half the times that the blinds get up to 50/100 or more i'm still floating around the original buy-in (not complaining because my ROI is healthy as a result). ok so we still have way too many chips to just go in push or fold mode and risk our substantial stack, but here are a few situations where i'm starting to think standard raising is wrong and need to adapt somehow.

discuss, and be sure to let me know where my thinking is flawed on top of just telling me what the right move is in each given scenario:

ONE: The situation: I have 1400 chips and the blinds are at 50/100. I'm in the CO and am dealt 66. let's say that BB is 40/8 and has only folded to 1/4 cbets. it folds to me. i used to pump my fist and raise 4bb's, but now i just freeze up.

My dilemna: i could raise less but i'd hate to have the BU call (let's say he's a standard player). it sounds like a great situation to have the donk in the BB to call 4bb's when our hand has great equity against his range and we are in positon, but our equity is going to fly out the window by the time the flop comes (almost NO board improves our hand). a cbet is a shove and it doesn't seem +EV to put your tournament life on a bet that's getting called so often. we can try to check all the way down to get to the show down but i've found myself being bet of the hand doing this and being left with 1000 chips enough to make me feel it's profitable.

Possible solution: Just shove it here? again we have decent equity against the any 6 cards of the people left to act, and our FE isn't non-existent. also how are things affected if both the blinds are TAggs? (rare at these buy-ins but worth asking) just make a standard raise assuming it'll be folded to and pray for a set or an OESD on the flop?

TWO: The situation: 1350 chips and 50/100 blinds still. Now we're on the BU w AJo. i'm limped into by a donk whom i've seen limp/call on 4 separate occasions showing down QTo one of those times (completely hypothetical but you get what i'm saying). i used to raise 5bb's here and think that was standard

The dilemna: the limper calls my raise, the BB or SB pushes, the limper folds but the BB calls, there are a lot of things that put me in a pickle. my hand's missing most flops and even a flop that's good to cbet isn't all that common against stations like this, and i'd hate to be left with 850 chips here. should i just raise less here and accept the fact that he's calling often here knowing that i have position and likely better cards? i can't imagine pushing in this instance especially if the limper has a 0 PFR (is capable of limp/calling AQ+, JJ+).

Possible solution: just raise 3.5bb's?

THREE: The situation: I have 1500 chips and blinds are 50/100. I'm dealt AKs in the SB and a couple of random players limp.

my converted cash game self wants to raise 6bb's here but i've begun to find that a retarded strategy.

just push here i assume? what if a 15/3 player min-raises and it folds to me in the BB? still a push?

thanks for everything. sorry for such a long post for someone who has such few skins on the wall. i find the SnG forum to be one of the best-mannered of the bunch though, so i hope i can get some help

[baudib]

Hey:
First I'd recommend that you get SnG Wiz or a similar ICM calculator. Play around with various calling ranges for players left to act and I think you will be shocked at how many hands you should be pushing.

In general I would not open-raise more than 2.5xBB when the BB hits 100. Obviously this changes if you have AA and you've seen the BB call off 1/3 his stack preflop with 98o.

And basically, when, as you say, your cbet is a shove, you should just shove it preflop or make smaller preflop raises.

[Kijjo]

Since you haven't gotten much feedback, here's my two cents.

ONE:

I'm not sure there's a fantastic answer for this one. Best I can say is it depends on the opponents. My open limping is probably around 1% of hands now and this would be one of the cases where I would consider it depending on how the table's playing. Other than that, I'm doing my standard 3xbb raise.

TWO:

i just raise less here and accept the fact that he's calling often here knowing that i have position and likely better cards

THREE:

just push here

Yes I cut and pasted quotes, I'm too lazy to type - in fact, now that I'm done this sentence, I think I better go lie down.

[BlueBull]

15bbs and less.... ship it ftw imo!

[DaGrinch]

Good topic! I share your pain. I think it is hard to have any set rules in these situations. Playing low buy in SNG's you run into a wide range of opponents. At some tables I have seen a 2.5x BB raise pre flop carry more weight than a shove ... it looks like you want action. You really need to know what you are up against aggression wise.

[TLR]

Situation 2 is an easy shove IMO, the limper with our read makes the shove easier

Situation 1 is a bit more intersting, I can see arguments for both shoving and raising 2.5-3BB preflop

[drmcboy]

1

when our hand has great equity against his range

what do you consider great? run some poker stove numbers

we are in positon,

A common problem for learning players is knowing being IP is good but not understanding why. Usually it is good, but it can also be a disadvantage.

Do you think being IP helps or hurts you here if you raise?

2 is a shove

3 I would make it 500 and shove any flop if it's HU.

[surviva316]

dr mc, your point about understanding WHY position is USUALLY good is well taken. i have learned through being in this situation that it isn't good here and i was hinting at that in my reasoning for not wanting to standard raise in sitch one, but you're probably correct in pointing out that i don't consider it every time i make a blind steal with or against a 12-18bb stack.

this leads me to another question i've pondered. let's say we're in SB with a big stack and we're attempting to steal blinds from a player w a 10bb stack (i know that we shouldn't often gun at small stakes for this very problem). is this push or shove?

i guess this gets a problem with me FULLY grasping why hero push or shoves if we are down to 10bb's. i know we can't afford to raise/fold or raise and fold on a later street because it'll cripple our stack. i also know that you don't have much "room to maneuver" with a short stack but the direct connection between this and EV is still a bit hazy, which leads me to uncertainty about when the situations occur that i "might as well just push" other than when my stack is <10bb or when i only have like 4/3's the pot left. does this have to do with pressure points? i also know that we end up being pot committed by the flop in a lot of situations so we have to call our whole stack away when we were just better of pushing in the first place.

so how does this all apply when villain has a short stack? now it doens't cripple our stack if we raise and end up folding on a later street and people at these buy-in's don't understand that it's easy to "play right" in these scenarios by just pushing or folding. we still don't have room to maneuver, though and we're still gonna end up in pot-committed situations often.

can we just raise 3bb's from the SB in a bvb with a passive player w just 8bb's left when we have 44 and shove any flop?

i know this is all situational dependent like times 30 but didn't know if there were any immediate thoughts on the subject.

[Bradley]

That's why I raise ~2.5xbb when the blinds hit 50/100. so there's room to cbet, imo you get enough chips in for your premium hand from the 2.5xbb call. It's better than raising 3-5x bb, then missing your flop and getting your cbet flatcalled/reraised = pissing away chips. If your opp calls an open raise a lot and has high vpip you can bet more with hands like AA KK etc..

Just my two cents.. Still learning myself but this is what I figured out

[Kijjo]

I get most of the stuff you're saying and the questions you're asking, but read what you wrote here...

can we just raise 3bb's from the SB in a bvb with a passive player w just 8bb's left when we have 44 and shove any flop?

IMO is this is a horrible plan. This is exactly when you DON'T want to raise 3bb's. He's only going to continue if you let him connect with the flop and ANYTHING is going to be better than your 44 (unless you hit your set ofcourse). So shoving this you're almost always at least guaranteeing yourself a flip if called, and maximizing the chance that he'll just fold pre to ya.

[GatorJH]

One of the key aspects to tournament play is fold equity, which drops dramatically when you raise instead of pushing with 8BB's then shove the flop.

[drmcboy]

I'm struggling with the math Gator and KJ. What am I missing?

shoving we risk 8bbs to win 1.5BBs

raising 3x then shoving we risk 8bbs to win 4.5 BBs

He'll make a pair 1/3. So 2/3 times, we win 3 more bets by open raising vs shoving. If he calls without a pair it's even better since we have one. There are times of course he'll flop a draw but we're ignoring our chances to flop a set so I think these are fair numbers.

If he is going to always call a shove or 3x then shove on flop - or always fold to 3x or 8x -it doesn't matter which one we choose.

Even if he only calls then folds a small % of the time what are we losing?

I think the only spot we 'lose' money is if he has a hand that he'll shove over 3x with but will not call 8x - I am not sure this hand exists but if they do some of them for sure will be 2x and 3x hands we would love him to play so I would argue this adds value to the play.

[surviva316]

it sounds dumb because we're not maximizing our FE, but if you look at it from a different perspective, it might make more sense...
there is almost nothing you can do in a tourney that's more -EV than calling a PFR for half your stack and then folding on the flop, right? well it stands to logic that all value goes somewhere to someone at the table, and that somebody stands to gain for someone else's mistakes (especially in a tournament where there is no rake for individual pots so the value can't go to Full Tilt as it can sometimes in ring games).

in the scenario where i give him the opportunity to call 3bb's of his 8bb stack and then fold on the flop i am maximizing his opportunity to make the most -EV decision possible and thus gaining value from the $5 he spent to get into the tournament, whereas putting him in a push or fold decision forces him to make a better decision (the only way he could make a bigger mistake and surrender more value is if he calls with like 23o).

all of this is irrelavent at higher buy-in's because far less people up there are capable of doing something as retarded as calling for half your stack and then folding to a cbet, but it is possible to induce that mistake at the lower limits.

be sure to let me know if everything i just said is just retarded psychobabble