Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 35
BVB play in MTTSNGs is a place where a lot of people are pretty uncomfortable and I think a place where if you make improvements you can really improve your ROI. Because of this I think employing a strictly pushfold stategy is, while an unexploitably winning play, one that will cut your winnings in the blinds compared to what they could be. While people can really mess up play in the blinds when it goes postflop, if you play pushfold people are pretty comfortable calling off relatively correctly. This is in stark contrast to later stage micro MTTs and especially micro MTTs on smaller sites than stars where a lot of people will call off much too tight.
There are a few factors that affect how to play from SB:
Stack Size
Hand Raw Equity/Postflop Playability
Opponents Tendencies
ICM Pressure
Stack Size:
Shorter Stack size should push you to be jamming more, especially 8bb and below. However arguments can be made for opening to 2.1ishbb at this stack size (ultra tight V or the open looks very strong). There is a thread somewhere where people explaining jamming ATC SB vs BB for <10bb is pretty much always +EV.
Hand Raw Equity/Postflop Playability:
The higher the equity and lower the postflop playability, the more a hand should be shoved. e.g. shoving A6o/K5o vs open 2.1x w/76s,K9s.
Opponents Tendencies:
Rather self explanatory but if V is a nit liberally jam, if V is weaker postflop then open 2.1x more. Side note: people know not to fold to a min from SB but will fold huge amounts to 2.1x/2.15x.
ICM Pressure:
Not much of an issue here but can become a reason to fold or shove depending on how deep the table and V and H are if we are late in the SNG.
In this exact situation I think both shoving and open raising to 2.1x with K8s are both fine but I would lean towards shoving. I think the most important question to be asking yourself here is what would you expect V to do with different categories of hands if you raise.