ty a lot for doing this

i recently watched a tpe vid by hitthepanda about 180 men and how do adapt strategies. a main part of his early game strategy in these is to preserve the stack of 1500 for those 50/100 75/150 100/200 levels, maintaining fe. idea behind this is chips we lose are more valueable than chips we gain cause its all about being able to effectively p/f later.

therefore his style in the early levels is quite passive, a lot of limping behind, not much isolating and rlly tight opening requirements. what are your thoughts on this?

Although you don't do much Stop'N'Go, I'd like to ask what are the merits of this play and when(stacksizes) it's the best time to use this type of play. Also, what is the lowest eff. stack size there we still have FE when we do reshove/resteal approximately? Thanks.

Yes in the 3r/180 I would defintiely call tighter than optimal, as I would in the 35 as well. However the 35 random is much more likely to shoving well so I call much closer to optimal. The problem is its not really a continuum, i.e. either its a fish shoving way too tight, or its a competent player who just happens to play other games, is taking a shot etc, and you just haven't seen him before. You just have to accept you're not going to call perfectly against randoms and just try your best to pay attention to the distributions of too tight vs competent randoms at your stakes.

+1

Thanks for doing this MUD. I have a few questions...

1. When first learning push/fold, did you make your own chart or go off Nash? How important is Nash in push/fold?

2. What hands would you raise in the example below, with the intention of folding to the big stacks and calling the shorties? How do you generally know which hands to r/c shorties with, is there a way to work it out mathematically?



3. When someone shoves into you and you're deciding whether to call, are you looking at the pot odds or the # of BBs they're shoving?

4. Last one. You're on a full table at 125/250/25, a random in MP with a stack of 2500 limps and it folds around to you in the BB also with 2500. What would be your default shove range here, and what factors play a part in your decision? What about if you had 1500?

Thanks man

Very astute observation stinbag. Your absolutely right that cEV does not work w/ 15 players or less in a 45man and probably 24 players or less in 180 mans (actually there is no magic cutoff, cEV doesnt work right from the very beginning but its close enough to be a good guide for the first half of the tourney). The problem there is no great solution using SNGwiz at least that I know of. The best way you can see the problem is to put the 18 man payout structure in and mess around w/ $EV vs. cEV with 9 or 8 players left and see how much cEV and $EV diverge. This situation is somewhat equivalent to 14 left in a 45man and say 18 left in a 180 man. Do that and you'll see why you have to be tighter than cEV in SNGwiz w/ 2 tables left

Definitely that they are too tight in every situation in the middle stages, (also in the beginning stages but that doesn't cost em much money), and too loose w/ calls in the late stages. Better put: if they push well late they often call too loose, or if they call correctly they push too tight.

Hey MUD

Do you think there is a lot of money to be made after the money bubble and into the "mini bubbles" in MTT SNGs ? A lot of people seem to completely loosen up after the bubble bursts and disregard all ICM

Interesting, never heard this talked about before but not sure I agree w/ panda here. I'm not trying to get into huge pots in marginal spots, however but I've found when I played super super tight early my stats for the 50/100 blinds were horrific b/c I would often have 1300 chips, or 13bb w/o ante and due to the aversion to raise/folding (although you do need to have a small r/f range there I think) that stack you just cant play it profitably very well. However if you stole some pots and are at 1500-2000 chips you have more fold equity on resteals, and also r/f doesnt feel so wrong even though it might be for the same effective chip stack. On the other hand say you lose a showdown and you got 900, now you can push fold profitably.

But he does have a point, every chip you lose is worth more than each one you gain, such is the nature of tournament poker

Sure adrenaline is a factor, if it doesn't kick in at a big final table then you might want to find another job/hobby. But I think its just like any professional athlete, their training and practice helps keep them focused. MTTSNGs were a great practice for that final table as it got pretty shallow and I had a big stack, i knew how most of the players would react to the pay jumps and such, esp. given it was a $30 tourney and I dont think any of the last 8 were pros.

What is your early position Shoverange if you have only 5-6 BBs left?
I have allways problems in this Spot. I know some players who shove ATC, but i dont think thats profitable. But its very bad to go through the Blinds once more especially with the Ante. I shove like 50%, but i have no clue if thats good or not.

thanks in advance

I was 'teh das' on stars, I'm the very definition of a mediocre reg and I still think like 90% of regs suck. You were an exception though always respected your game! Always a good time when I got to sit with you You done with poker for the time being or just taking a break?

When I first learned push fold ranges I was playing STTs circa 2005 and we didnt have Nash Equilibrium charts or anything, just played w/ SNGPT and tweaked it from there.

2) at a $2 or a 15 for that matter, that is a great steal spot. I would be raising nearly all better than average suited hands Q8s+, obv calling the guy next to you but would only call QJs+ against the SB

3) # of BBs and also the stack sizes they shoved thru

4) at small stakes if I have ever seen him limp from MP before you can shove any2. I might click the hand history and see if his name is in green a lot, shove really wide then too. but no reads at all maybe K10, A7

ICM is way more important post bubble. The "mini bubbles" at FTs are way bigger than the first one in SNGMTTs

Hope its just a break from online poker. But I'm traveling to some live MTTs and playing cash games at my local casino. Considering moving to start next since I had 200k VPPs and they will let you start back w/ that balance whenever you move. But I'm a little older than most of you guys I'm sure, so not sure I want to move just to push/fold correctly

I think you have it right I shove 50% if I think I got a decent amount of FE from the blinds. I take the big blind and call pretty wide a lot (if not at the FT that is). But sometimes you just get a bunch of bad hands in a row, and you have to take the buttonw/ 4bbs. Not the end of the world

What games/stakes specifically did you play when BF hit?(Which MTTSNGs were your favorite?) How many tables and what was your hourly?

How do you know which hands to do this with? I mean, is there a way to figure out which hands would be profitable against each guy or do you just go by feel?

I'm plugging some serious leaks right now so thanks again

How closely do you follow ICM on a 180 final table? I've heard good players say they've never used an ICM program before and others that say they're essential.
Thanks

Played every 60 and 38/45, every 36/180, every 100/18, then I would add 60/18 and 27/45s as needed. Most of the time I was playing a few MTTs as well. Tried to average 16 at a time although I used to play 20-24 until last year. Hourly was ~$200, probably ~$150 if I only played SNGMTTs (including rewards)

Very closely

Ya you can adjust SNGwiz to put a certain range on each of them. Also you can just do it by hand using the percentage each one would resteal and then finding the equity needed against that range to make r/c ok. But ya I just go by feel now.

Say youre utg in a 45 man blinds are 200/400 with how many bbs are you shoving pretty much atc? In the same vein how many bbs are u willing to fold something like 87o utg and go thru the blinds. Say you have 8bbs or even 9bbs are you folding 87o utg?

most interesting replies for me yet, ty for them, it`s something to think over . playing 45s - generally, until final table, i strictly follow wiz in push/fold spots, and even slightly +cEV spot is good spot... on ft, i ofc follow icm and take only +$EV spots.
for example, in the middle stage, do you pass up slightly +cEV spots? why? edge?

How do you think, what is best for training push/fold, using SNG wiz and sklansky-karlson hand ranking, or maybe using holdemresources.net offered shove/call hand rankings, they are really different, so it's difficult for me to find best solution for training push/fold.

Maybe you know some other program that allows to configure hand rankings as i want to?