This is a concept I know I am not grasping 100% yet, or at least not comfortable in game with it.
Say were one of the smaller stacks in a SNG tournament and our stack is only like 6< big blinds left, and it's 100/200+
When in an EP or MP, what range of hands should we be shoving with? i.e we have a hand that SNGWIZ will tell us is -ev to shove, how do you know it's still better to shove now, than wait etc... sorry doesn't make much sense but hopefully somebody can help me out.
Push if its close and/or blinds about to go up. need to keep fold equity.
This kinda puts it together. You can make a slightly -cEV push if ur about to go trough the blinds and so will lose that tiny bit of fold equity you had.
In an 18m you will lose most of your fold equity when your stack drops below around 4-5bbs. Therefore when you are in late position with 5-6bbs and its folded to you, you need to push wider than SNGwiz says is +EV because in most cases if you fold you wont get another chance to push with any fold equity. Next round someone can push before you, the blinds can go up etc. Then youre stuck with a tiny stack with no fold equity which means you either have to make a –EV push without fold equity, or wait for a +EV push and often be blinded out in the process. You are better off making that slightly –EV push and either double or bust or win the blinds uncontested and thereby keep your FE. Its important to have fold equity so that you can win the blinds uncontested. That said you don’t need to shove trash.
The key is to remember that SNGWiz and EV calcs in general are made in a vacuum, they only look at the particular hand and do not take into consideration what might happen in the future.
To put it in reference, a -EV shove is the equivalent of the first games a pool shark plays with a mark. The small amount of money lost in the first games sets the shark up to win larger amounts later on.
So if a shove is -EV, but the preserved or increased FE will increase the EV of the hands you will play after the push enough (in comparison to the EV the future hands would have if you'd folded), then while your expactation in that particular moment is negative, your expectation for the tournament as a whole actually goes up by doing the play.
There are no hard and fast rules and doing the math even for only one hand in the future could be somewhat tedious if there are too many players behind you, so you have to make your decision based on estimates and expirience.
With 6bbs there is probably no hand you are shoving that is -Cev. In these situations it's more a case of what you should fold that wiz says you can push.
Great topic. This is one that gets discussed a lllllllllllllllllot. Basically, to sum it up, there are much more important things to think about than what a program says. So the "deal" (as you said) is that sometimes it's better to not do something even though someone or something says you should. Sometimes perserving future shoving opportunities can be done through folding. Think of it as "I'm folding now as an investment for the future" or "I'm shoving now as an investment for the future."
I will tell you EXACTLY where I learned this for the first time.
I was playing a game of solitaire, and I couldn't make anymore moves. But then I realized, if I took a card from the top right pile and placed it on the bottom cards (-10 points), I could continue the game. Afterwards, I earned 1000 points and won the game. BUT if I restricted myself to not being able to lose points on purpose, I would never have earned the future 990 points and won the game.
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