I'm having trouble with some short stacked spots HU from the BU where my hand isnt good enough to ship, eg:

All during €5 spins on pokerstars italy

Hero on BU, Q5o, 11bb eff?
Hero on BU, T6o, 15bb eff?
Hero on BU k2o, 11bb eff?
Hero on BU, j3o 12bb eff?
Hero on BU, J2s, 10bb eff?

None of them are nash shoves and minraise/folding these hands seems terrible so should all of these hands just be limped? and if villain is isoing correctly/wide, then open folded? I just feel like anything i do in these spots is wrong

obv any answer would be opponent dependent, but against an unknown in a weak population (pokerstars italy seems to have a far weaker player pool), what is optimal?

Thanks!

All these hands are almost always limps vs almost everyone. T6o is closes to a minr at that depth (not a big deal either way), J3o is closest to a fold (but is almost always better limped by a decent margin).

Also Nash push/fold isn't relevant for any of the stack depths described.

Thanks!

If that short shoving with any k or q is an option as he will prob call with suited connectors

Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk

which we beat

what adam said, if opponent high iso at 15bb and below can mix some mr in or open folds glgl

Maybe I play spins incorrectly but once short I'll usually play shove\fold on bu. There's no real point in just calling bc bigstack should be betting ur limps so every time you limp u should be expecting a bb open. Just play your hands as if your expecting him to raise all your limps and flats [flats otf]

Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk

First off, the question was HU not 3-handed, which is clearly leading to confusion.

Second, the assumptions you, ioCross, make are terrible. Both about villain calling suited connectors >10bb deep and the assumption that villain should iso (or does iso) all the time.

3handed is ez... Fold til u get a ace n shove

Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk

lol

When you get dealt K2o or J3o - that's nothing to write home about. This deep (like 15bb) forget NASH charts - they are only relevant for push/fold game (and we are playing min-raise/limp/shove/fold game here).
So don't expect miracles when you hold K2o at 15bb deep, but let's try to do our best to squeeze as much EV as possible.
- So no NASH, no shoving k2o (that's just a spew).
- Min-raising is putting too much money into the pot and we have a hand that is not very playable (no flushes or straights in the near future and hitting 2 will produce only a bottom pair, hitting K will produce top pair with the weakest kicker).
- folding - you know what? We have only one villain and we are in position! Villain could have 72o, T5o, 42s - so often times our hand is best hand preflop and on top of that sometimes we can muscle villain out of the pot even if he happens to have a bettor hand. So folding is giving up our fair share of the pot. Folding hands is more suitable for full-ring scenario, but in heads-up, we are forced to play even subpar holdings.
- limping - sounds great - we put minimum amount of money into the pot, but we are in for a play! Yes, sometimes villain shoves and we have to fold, sometimes he iso-es and we fold, but often villain will just checks, checks again on the flop and now all you need is just a little small stab - and oftentimes the pot is yours. Limping is the best play, but the most difficult - because there will be lot of postflop play. But how else to learn the postflop play other than by playing postflop and getting experience?
So limp, limp, limp most of those hands from the original question and best luck at the tables!

Im a little confused perhaps I don't limp enough. . actually I'm pretty sure I don't. The 3rd one is within nash for a shove? especially as most at my BI ($7) don't call as wide as nash.
I do limp the button with these sometimes but mixed in with some open folds. All of these you say are limp/folds Coffeeyay?
What do you have in your limp call range presuming we must have one as not to be exploitable?
New to format. So haven't got clear defined ranges for any action yet but flying by the seat of my pants lol.
I can see limping with the very top of our range KK+ as we can allow players to see free flops as our hands are so strong as almost always going to get it in ahead on flop or pre. But do we have to widen this part of our range as to not become exploitable. Do we have to limp say JJ's allowing all the kx qx to realise most of their equity against us? (assuming Ax shoves over our limp) so as to prevent a2c being a plus EV shove over our limps?

above response was written as writing mine. But I still stand by it. how is shoving K2o spew when it is within nash and the player pool isn't calling as wide as nash! That is plus ev, even when he can cap our range as we are dealing with such wide ranges here it will make little difference to his response?

Oh ive missed op has said assuming weak read on opponent! While my response was more readless. Regarding weak players I adjust as I play to exploit what ever bad tendencies they have. We can also already have a read on success of limp stab from sb from 3 handed if they were to our left, as I believe these loosely correlate.

It's spew for the same reason open shoving AA is spew. Sure it's nash push, but nash is only comparing pushing and folding. So yeah AA (and K2o) are better shoved then folding and so you could call the shoves +EV, but that doesn't mean shove is best (or even close to best!).

11bb K2o is a limp vs almost everyone. You don't need a read villain is weak--I limp it vs readless regs (at $100 spins level!) as well.

Lastly what am I limping for value? Lots of stuff! Vs recreationals 11bb I'm limping a bit over 90% of my all hands. Doesn't really have anything to do with balance or being exploitable (particularly in the case of recreationals), it's just about taking the max EV option with all hands

Then I definitely don't limp enough and think I'll be needing your packs. I'll pm you tomorrow for details.

I think coffeeyay is pretty much spot on here. J2s hand I fold though. I think reads can definitely alter the correct action of these hands.

90% of limping seems like too much though. People will adjust by shoving very wide.

Open folding J2s 10bb deep is awful.

If villain adapts I can always adjust my strategy at that point. Plus them shoving a lot is amazing for my value hands.

so your default strategy 12-14bb is to limp 90%, fold 10%? that seems good to me vs weak populations

at 9-11bb do you start shoving some hands? like profitable shoves that don't play as well post at this depth and don't benefit a lot from limp/calling, like 65s and 22-66? and continue to limp a v wide range?

when you limp vs an unknown at say 11bb, how wide are you calling a shove? Ax, K9+, QJ?

would you recommend min raising to induce/for value with the top 10% at these depths?

thanks for all the responses

min raising doesnt induce as well as limping when short looks nutted imo

I don't open-fold, and I open-shove hands. Mostly Axo, 22-44 (depending on exact depth). Definitely not shoving 55-66 (though 55 isn't end of world) or 65s (maybe vs some regs).

Call range is somewhat close to that but values suitedness more than yours.

I don't minr much <13bb, only with very specific reads with very specific hands.

Okay yeah that makes sense, thanks a lot!

@coffeeyay at what stack depth are you shove/folding? At 10BBs I start to play a shove/fold game. If I randomly limp in with J2s that's likely to get ugly. Why do you think it is so awful to fold?

Very interesting thread. Much thanks for the interesting questions and coffeeyay for the info.

shove/fold at 10bb is way to high.. limping is a decent option down to something like 6-5bb

It's awful bc people don't ISO wide enough and ware way to bad in limped pots to justify folding hands like this..

Playing push/fold 10bb is a losing strategy in SB. Also, J2s is a really strong hand--it's not even close to the bottom of my vpip range lol.

Vs population I start playing very close to push/fold ~4.5bb. Playing push/fold 5-6bb is fine.