hey guys,

got a question regarding a shortstack (10 BB) pushing range on the button for WSOP events in the 1500s to 3000s.

Shortstack villain: mid to young age guy. competent but not great. basically average knowledgable person who knows he needs to push light but is not a super pro or anything.

I assume playing for big amounts and at the WSOP will tighten up this average dude's pushing range a bit compared to if he were playing online.

is my range too tight or too loose? or too lol overall or in any sub category of hands i listed?

villians range: 88+, A5s+, K8s+, Q9s+, JTs, T9s, A8o+, JTo, T9o

also, i'm trying real hard to construct a range where A8o is callable (assume hero is on the BB with like 40 BBs). am i too optimistic thinkin that A8o should be an auto call in these wsop middle buy in live events?

apologies if i posted in wrong forum. saw a lot of wsop posts so figure heres the good spot.

appreciate any help i can get. total tourny noob.

So player has 10bb on the button and nobody has opened and i assume its antes time also so 2.625bb are at blinds and antes usually.

Absolutely any pair will do here of course.

First of all try 22 and lets say they call you with any range you can imagine and see what happens. Try 20% first.

You will get called 36% of the time and have 43.7% equity for a result of 9.56*0.36+12.625*0.64=11.52 so +1.52 for pushing with 22.

Try calling ranges of 10% (real tight) and this goes to 8.7*0.19+12.625*.81=11.88 for +1.88bb gain.

Try 30% ranges and its 9.95*0.51+12.625*0.49=11.26 or +1.26bb

You cant go wider than 30% because its bs for the SB to do such a call and then face a push by the BB with some 10% hand because it will not have any decent advantage vs pusher's range anyway but it will also endure a disaster when BB over shoves or calls.

This indicates an avg 30% range for callers is not far from the final result.

So most definitely all pairs are in the range basically because the chance of an over pair is small 11% and all other hands are not ahead of 22 in any material way if no behind a bit typically. Plus they cant call wider than 30% anyway because it gets ugly for them especially the sb.

Now with same logic you can try A2o and still it will pass ok plus it has some removal effect.

so all AX will do.

Lets try to find the worse equity you need to have anyway when called if they are near 30% ranges. You probably need at least 0.3bb edge for ICM reasons so look for them if they call around 30% range to leave you with equity near 37% when called.

So you create the following list that passes this threshold;

22+,A2s+,K2s+,Q2s+,J7s+,T7s+,98s,87s,76s,65s,A2o+, K2o+,Q8o+,J9o+
ie 45% push range roughly

This then for confirmation forces BB at near 35% and the SB at around 25%. Of course it is a lot tighter for the BB if SB calls, say 10% or less then.


To verify this use a Nash equilibrium numerical approach like;


http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sn...10&s8=30&s9=30


Which indeed shows without above explanation that it is more like ;

45.4%, 22+ Ax+ K2s+ K5o+ Q4s+ Q9o+ J6s+ J9o+ T6s+ T9o 96s+ 98o 85s+ 75s+ 65s 54s for the 10bb pusher

and SB calls/overshoves 19.5%, 44+ A2s+ A7o+ K9s+ KTo+ QTs+ with BB then calling only 7.1%, 88+ ATs+ AJo+

otherwise if SB folded BB calls with;

35.4%, 22+ Ax+ K2s+ K7o+ Q7s+ Q9o+ J8s+ JTo T9s



Result;

So overall i suppose going for
45.4%, 22+ Ax+ K2s+ K5o+ Q4s+ Q9o+ J6s+ J9o+ T6s+ T9o 96s+ 98o 85s+ 75s+ 65s 54s

seems reasonable especially since if the image of pusher is not very loose from prior history the blinds will definitely not call as optimally as above but rather a bit tighter if not a lot tighter.

The above assumed the blinds are ~3 times bigger stacks or better.


If the BB is a small stack too it may get a bit tighter for the pusher and the BB, say 40% push vs 30% call for BB 25% for SB etc.

holy crap, thank you!

and lol at me for doing my own calcs (albeit a bit incorrectly) and not assuming antes already kicked in... sighs... gotta redo various scenarios now.

Of course it's all about at what point in the tournament this happens.

Up until maybe the middle of Day 2, unless I'm a big stack and can afford to throw away a few chips, I don't see it as my responsibility to be calling these short stacks. If my decision isn't automatic-obvious-call, let someone else take care of it. If not this hand, then the next. Someone will get him, eventually.

If its not in antes area and its like only 1.5bb then most likely all involved but the pushing guy will have 50-100-150 bb etc. Additionally if far from the money one can possibly use simple chip EV arguments although for a very good player (unless they have better things to do than the tourney) this fails but only as the pusher not as the caller (by that i mean the pusher must be tighter if very good because the errors others make are usually on the loose side if so loaded and why make it too easy for them when you have no antes to pay and 9 hands = 1.5bb = decent chance for a better spot although button push is ideal anyway but then doing it with a 35-40% may be somewhat bad, its probably better to be tighter say 30% vs worse players unless they are worse in the tight nit sense not the gambling loose bully/maniac i want to get you happily out of the tournament sense (which many big stacks play like because thats why they are big stacks early, they gamble or are good = call lighter than nits). Basically its know the situation and opponents every time and those suggested ranges are fine tuned to fit reality.


But in any case in such avg skill far from antes case lets try chip EV for something like;

http://www.holdemresources.net/hr/sn...&s8=150&s9=100

or push 36.0%, 22+ Ax+ K3s+ K9o+ Q7s+ QTo+ J7s+ JTo T7s+ T9o 97s+ 86s+ 76s 65s

and then probably get called by SB some 10-15% and BB 30% or so.

(one must usually ignore the push option for sb here as they are deep they dont reshove just call/raise and fold possibly which may make things interesting for the pusher and more lucrative so the SB better be tighter than before to avoid wasting chips to an BB reraise/shove)


Another reason to be tight without antes and big overall stacks for the others (= loose style of mood and playing tendencies with limited risk for them) is that if your hand is not good as button the fact the other 6 folded before you elevates the chance the blinds have AK,AX,AA,KK type hands (because the guys before didnt) which is a small but material effect that might take safely a pushing range to 25-30% as they will be calling you a bit more often now due to that boost and with a bit better spectrum of top hands.

No, it's all about the range of hands you think he is jamming and whether or not your hand has enough equity to profitably call against that range.

OP, just use PokerStove and a calculator to figure this stuff out.

Something else here to be considered is that the small stack may elect to raise rather than push with top hands like JJ-AA so a push may be seen as the other decent but dont give me action kind of hands. That of course requires balancing so he may add a few bluffs in the raise and try some 2.25-2.5bb raise size (to get 2.625 pot) hoping it looks strong for 7.5bb left back and position post flop prepared to fold only if heavy action/reads emerge (tough as this is).

To be honest the full raise or push vs push only debate is not solved yet for 3 players or i havent seen it solved anywhere for 2 of the 3 stacks real big. It definitely looks like a bad choice to push AA,KK,QQ here especially if the blinds are not very loose.

Usually a raise with only 10bb stack ought to be strong because why do it with say A9s or KQ or KTs etc. I mean these hands play better as shoves. The fact however that raising only top 3-4 is predictable invites some bluffs there too probably with blockers that may fold if pushed or have a decent chance post flop.

Some people when you have AA will call with top 20-25% as big blind if you push but will easily make errors as SB to call light or BB to push light or call wide generating dead chips or trapping post flop. Getting called by both blinds at 2.5bb with AA (or the BB with 50% range) seems a lot better than pushing.

It is not going to matter a lot i think the difference between push/fold and mixed strategies but i am fairly confident the real optimal solution is not a simplistic push/fold when you have position like that vs big stacks even at 10bb.

well.. I would raise with something like A9 because I prefer to be all-in against more than one player, and would want to avoid isolating anyone. Someone on the edge might pay to see the flop.
Sure it's gotta be worse odds against like 2 or 3 people, but intuitively, it seems like the chance for a triple-up makes it worthwhile.

if it's not too difficult or time consuming to figure the math, i'd appreciate it if someone worked it out. Maybe I been doing it all wrong.

oops..
edit.. "...To be honest the full raise or push vs push only debate is not solved yet for 3 players.."
And after re-reading that, i might have asked for the impossible.

I dont think raising with A9s instead of pushing is a good idea from btn. I mean if it is a good idea we need to show that raise/call (because fold is terrible for this hand unless the 2blinds go all in rapidly back to back) is better than the push which has an EV of ( basically see next);

A9s vs avg 30% range has 54.8% equity on an avg pot of 10+10+2.625-1.5/2=21.88 vs 1 player 49% of the time or vs 2 say 1% of the time with top 12% and top 7% respectively say and you have 23.8% equity on a 31.1bb pot or 1 % of the time SB calls then folds to a BB push and you have equity 35.4% vs a 7% BB in a pot of 31.1bb or 49% of the time they both fold and you pick up 2.625.

So;

1) +2.625 49% (2 folds)
2)+1 1% (1 call 1 push 1 fold)
3)-2.6 1% (2 pushes/calls)
4)+2 49% (1 call)

for a net result of 2.25bb

So basically a push with A9s gives you 2.25bb

Now if you do not push what happens?

I will try to estimate next in another post and others can debate this in the meantime.

PS: The above may actually end up a bit better in the sense that our A,9 put some removal effect on their top 30% ranges and especially their top 10% (to not come as often as 30%/10% i mean) but lets say its balanced by the fact the other 6 have folded. So i ignored it for now.

To be fair of course if one were to make an exhaustive study how to play hands like say A9s ,ATo, KJs, etc post flop in position with stack at flop just a bit larger than the pot and were against weak opponents that tend to push predictably tight and mostly call wide preflop just to see a "cheap" flop and end up losing more that way vs folding with those extra hands, and who tend to not push wide and prefer to call instead with some of the hands they would have called an all with or if the SB calls the raise wide and gets squeezed by the BB providing dead chips , i mean then there is an argument for raising too (even better). But it will definitely take some very advanced post flop skills because you will clearly miss the flop over 65% of the time and you need to know what to do then (because as big stacks they may like to push you around) and how often their semi good to mediocre ranges will connect when you dont or the spot will be good for you even without anyone connecting etc (also if they tend to bet first when they have something and only then or they tend to bet always and bluff a lot to bully providing extra chips when we connect and then we push and they call light with bottom pairs etc). There are all kinds of opponents and if a raise is not usually far from the all in option in EV with these non ultra top hands then certainly the value one gets from JJ-AA part of the raising range is massive vs shove option and it becomes an argument for raising even with such tiny stack.


Basically proper research will classify what hands to use as a raise added to JJ-AA and what hands to leave for push depending on the type of opponents we have. Obviously they do not know what our strategy is and they may think we push always or raise always (or fold after their raise) until they find otherwise when its too late to establish a pattern. Or we may mix our style if we find ourselves in similar spots often. There is also some hidden tilt value or loose perception if we get caught on a light but mathematically sensible hand that they perceive as ridiculous and they then call us light next time if we get lucky to win it.

Those are all very interesting little details that may affect how to play such seemingly desperate 10bb stacks. Small stack poker skill is a very important part of the game as being able to recover and exploit images in tough times is very critical especially in weaker fields.


Just know what hands are push and what the EV is and then study how to play a raise to see if its a decent alternative. The push can never go wrong but obviously if opponents are weak it may not be ideal value because it tends to restrict their errors and eliminate any position benefit moreover the tiny stack. For earlier positions this argument is very different and push becomes much safer.

i really appreciate your effort and will do my best to decrypt the math and study the concepts over the next many hours, and then try to reply in some thoughtful way.. for now, just thanks.

also hope the OP doesn't feel like I hijacked the thread. After thinking on it, i sorta did, which I'd never do consciously, and am sorry about that.

naw no probs.


thanks for the help masque

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