Villain dependent, but against most regs i might call like AQs+,88+

Plenty of profitable spots to shove middle pairs with over 10BBs from SB, BTN, CO, and even MP. Don't just wait until you hit 10BBs to decide if you should push/fold.

What about when you miss the flop with a hand like AK? I find that c-betting doesn't work nearly as often as it does in cash games.

Depends on villian/Flop texture.

I think you have a generally good feel for the correct "general strategy"(if there is such a thing) for fifty50s.To give you some slight background on me,
I made supernova last year playing highstakes SNG's. I also was a winning player even w/o rakeback) What is different about me is I did this in a strange way, I never play more than 1 table at a time. At this point I have switched completely over to $100 fifty/50s and am doing extremely well(although as you correctly point out with a sample size of only 400 or so games the results don't mean that much) again, I still only play only 1 table at a time. If I continue at this pace I will again make supernova.

Anyway, the point I am trying to get to is that although obviouly lower rake would help everyone, I firmly believe that what is holding someone like yourself(and countless other potentially very good players) back is mass multitabling. My suggestion to you is this. Start playing just one $10 table at a time. Study your HH with the SNGWizard program that I believe you already have. My belief is that after some reasonable number of games you will 1) be winning and 2) have to confidence to do the same at the 20s and so on up the ladder.

I wish you the best of luck and if you have any questions feel free to PM me or just post them in this thread. By the way,I think your English is just fine.

I have to say i'm pretty shocked by this, I thought you were a mass multi tabler like everybody else, I'm probably going to start talking to you at the tables if you only play 1 at a time

umm...that will be pretty difficult for you to do since I think it's more important to know when the blinds are moving than to see/participate in the chat. Be happy to talk to you either here or via PM. Just curious, have we played together, whats your SN,etc.?

We have played together 13 times.

My screen name is ilu_xxxxx_7.

I like to chat at the tables it's more fun than actually paying attention and trying to win

hehe...I understand completely(As a matter of fact my wife and I met chatting while playing backgammon online; but the games were not for money). On a serious note, the main reason I love to only singletable and not chat is that my I really play much better and enjoy the game more when I can totally focus on one thing at a time, neanderthal as that may sound in todays age of multitasking.

Kzk, i ran your three hands.

KQo in the big blind - interestingly, running the ICM Nash Calculator Results and running sngwiz with sb's range at 100% produce two different results, albeit not by much (sngwiz says 19.9%). they both say call, but i think with any inclination that sb isn't pushing atc at you, you're letting go of KQ.

the next hand is an atc push if villain is calling only top 33% or tighter. ICM Nash Calculator Results says push 43, get called by 40

AJo -ICM Nash Calculator Results has us calling when utg is pushing 91%. i'm trying to think how wide i'd be pwning with that set up, and it's probably nowhere near 90%. my guess is i'm pwning with closer to 40%, possibly even tighter considering how the short stacks are playing. and i'm probably typical. even then, AJo is still enough to call, although not by much.

for those of you who want to see the equity calculations:
let us assume utg+1 will bust on his big blind. in that case, our stack would be worth $18.45 at end of tournament if we fold here.

if we call here, let's say bb overcalls with top 5%. in that case, 95% of the time, our equity at EOT would be $19.35 (ajo has 60.13% equity vs top 40%), 5% of the time, our equity would be $10.22 (ajo has 25% equity vs top 40% and top 5%), for a total of $18.89. and would be higher in practice due to the fact that we'd be a virtual lock to steal the blinds on the next hand the times we double up. so, basically, eqp is at least $.50 better than folding, and often up to like 3 bucks better. qed. who wants to check my math?

Guys,this is my first post so i am not quite familiar with all posting things.
I play 20$ turbos and have played only about 80 tournaments,so i am still learning.
I have a pretty decent experience with don's (about 4500 tourney's 10 and 20 level),but obviously strategy in fifty50 is a bit different.
What do you all think about this hand?


Hero ($3,845)
BB ($2,535)
UTG ($1,010)
UTG+1 ($975)
CO ($3,630)
BTN ($3,005)

Dealt to Hero T T

Pre Flop:UTG push,CO push,everybody else fold

Now in DoN this is a clear fold,but i am not sure what is correct play here?

Please post your thoughts.

Need to know the blind level, it's probably going to be a fold, but if the blinds were 250/500 for example then i'd call.

Sorry, blinds were 150/300

Very interesting hand. I plugged it into the SNG Wizard program (I'm going to stress an oft-mentioned disclaimer that ICM has its limitations esp. with short stacks/high blinds involved)

Results

With Wiz "average" ranges call with TT+,ak
If everyone were playing Nash Eq. call with 99+,AQs,Ako

could you post the ranges wiz used? I feel like wiz has ppl push way too loose "on average" in these situations...

tnx for the analysys twistedbeats
will mp u

Yes,i feel that the ranges are a little too wide,but i could be wrong.Funny thing is that i actually folded,but BB called as well with AKo.
So my next question is if i have called there,what hand range would be correct to call for BB?

Also, iluvsheesh,i was intrigued with your post about one tabling.I have a few questions for you,but i would like to pm you if you don't mind.

What were the stats of CO? UTG would be pushing alot hands because of his little short stack, only against him I would go easy call but I am not sure if I want to play against three players on bubble and there is another one shortstacker and we have sure already made some profit with that stack. I would participate in that hand only with QQ+,
For me its fold.

CO is a tight regular on 20$ DoN's.I knew he wouldn't be out of line for sure,but still made me wondering what my calling range is there.

For the cases I ran, ranges were as follows:
Wiz avg UTG push 36% Cutoff call 7.1%
Nash EQ UTG push 13.1% Cutoff call 8.0%
Interestingly, your calling range is very senstitive to calling of cutoff and very insensititive to pushing range of small stack(UTG)

Now if you had also called ,I don't think wiz can handle that case but it seems intuitive that BB range should be extremly tight and that ako would be clear fold.

Finally, yes please free free to PM me with questions anytime

Except that with only 1500 chips to start you don't have the room to maneuver that you do in a cash game.

It looks like the ideal late-game strategy is to use a big stack to accumulate chips, but if you're a midstack you want to bully the small stacks who are looking to sneak into the money. In a sense, it's kind of like an MTT strategy crammed into a STT: tight early, open up in the middle, and then play the mid-late/bubble phase depending on your stack. If you're big, you can put pressure on smaller stacks to accumulate chips (with the one exception being you want to keep the bubble alive); if you're mid, you want to avoid the bigstacks and target the smaller ones; if you're the small stack, you might want to turtle in order to squeak out a mincash.

I agree but i would add that at the low buy in levels if you are a mid stack you can bully the other mid stacks if you have them pegged as scared money players who are just trying to fold into the money. You just need to make sure that the big stack is already out of the hand. Just last night i was a midstack with 2 mid stacks in my blinds and was able to triple my stack by raising every time i was on the button and the one big stack had folded. The fact that he big stack had clearly mailed it in made things easier. We were down to 6 with one dude holding on for dear life and it was obvious that the 2 guys in my blinds were just waiting for the shorty to bust

I don't have sngwiz but would like to know the following. Say shoving hand x with 9+ players left yields me a 200 dollar increase to my stack on average is it actually a good idea to shove hand x as i'm risking a bustout for a small gain? i know ever 100 chips increases my payout by 3 cents. So thats a .6 cents increase in actual money. Not much but if i double up it is much easier to play the rest of the tourney.

Agree, and again it's very similar to MTTs where you try to pick on stacks you have FE against but avoid tangling with the bigstack. Should also work at higher buyins, perhaps not because those villains are trying to sneak into the money but because higher buyin players will appreciate that the risk of calling raises with a midstack isn't worth the reward.

Another thing that should be an effective move here that is -ev in DONs is resteal-shoving against other midstacks. The reward-risk ratio for such moves is much more favorable in 50-50's than in DONs.

who out there is killing these?

about to put in sick vol at the 1.08s, will report back