Had a very odd villain today, OOP was calling 8% and 3b shoving 20%. No raise size at all, just shoving, and doing this with full stacks, too. $6 HUSNG Turbo on Merge FWIW.

For the curious, yes, I asked for a rematch. =)

So I started thinking about what hands I'd call that shove with and fully stacked I was thinking AJs+,AQo+,66+, which, when stoved vs. what I perceive that 20% shove range to be (AJs+,AQo+,66+ vs. 22+,A2s+,KTs+,QJs,A6o+,KJo+,QJo), I'm a 61% fave.

Then I started wondering about where my b/e line is, started adding hands, basically got to all suited aces, all broadways, all pairs and then it was like 49%.

THEN I started to wonder, "do I really want my shove calling range to be b/e here? Should I treat it like a cash game and just take anything that is +EV? Or do I want to be doing better than b/e and if so, how far ahead (in equity should I want to create my shove calling range?"

And I didn't know the answer to this question.

Halp?

So villain folds 72% OOP? Right there you have a huge edge with tons of fold equity, no need to look for b/e at all. 2x raise IP 100% and you are gold. When he calls, be cautious, TP+ or let him have it. When he 3bet-shoves, your calling range of AJs+, AQo+, 66+ is good, no need to widen it anymore since he folds 72%. Print money.

Not sure why we should be cautious when he calls pf. If anything, I'd be ecstatic that we are in position against such a small, defined range and go from there. No need to wait for TP+ - just keep attacking when that range is weak.

^sure, but when he folds so much I don't see the point risking anything...certainly if you have J7 on 752 I say go for it, but J5 on 752 and I'd be cautious to any postflop aggression on his part, that's all i'm saying.

So in a spot like this what we want to do is maximize our equity.
Our equity is a sum of Fold equity and Pot equity when we call his allin jam (plus small amount of pot equity when he flats us).

So IP we minraise open 100% to maximize fold equity.
This means that when we minraise we earn .12bb per hand from start of hand from pure fold equity.

After that we maximize our equity when he flats us by playing well post flop--I'll leave this up to you as that's a whole other discussion imo from your question and has very little baring since it's only 6% of the time.

Lastly when he 3b jams we want to maximize our pot equity in that situation. In order to do this we call with as good of a range as possible--ie all hands that have pot equity to call.

So it just depends on effective stacks what pot odds you are given. like 75bb deep you need 48.7%, 60bb deep 48.3%.

Folding hands that have more equity than this % will be -EV compared to calling them so it will lower our overall expectation vs our villain, which = lower bb/hand winrate which = lower winrate% which = more variance and less $$$

Lastly, when deep I think there is some room to account a bit for growth optimization--however 75bb really is not that deep, and so I think that probably all you need to do is round up a bit with your pot equity needed number. like 50-75bb just use 49%, 40-50 use 48%--but shorter than that just use the correct pot equity.

And that's it when deciding on the calling range. Rake is meaningless, as is 50% equity, being "b/e", who has chip lead, whether moon is full, how he plays post flop when he flats, etc. All that matters is maximizing our return and that means just individually trying to maximize all parts of the equity equation which just means making correct calls according to pot odds. Yes we can adjust a bit for optimizing growth (kinda like kelly betting we in general want to be too cautious rather than too agressive in bankroll management and we don't take any +EV bet without consulting our bankroll) but really don't think that 75bb we should take it too far.

JSpazz once calculated a bit the growth optimization stuff perhaps he can chime in here and make the adjustment a bit more precise.

I'm sorry for the bump, I just read this article and I was wondering if JSpazz could argument more on this interesting stuff (only if he wants obv).