Does this shove look okay?

I had been playing tightly and felt this hand plays well with 17BBs effective vs a CO open. On review, I feel 17BBs might be a bit deep here...
Villian was 15/5 over 21 hands.

Full Tilt - |250/500 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 24.69 BB (VPIP: 20.83, PFR: 13.04, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 24)
UTG+1: 14.95 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
MP: 36.86 BB (VPIP: 28.57, PFR: 28.57, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 7)
MP+1: 16.68 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 4.17, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 24)
MP+2: 4.74 BB (VPIP: 8.33, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 12)
CO: 18.2 BB (VPIP: 15.00, PFR: 5.26, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
Hero (BTN): 17.5 BB
SB: 36.49 BB (VPIP: 17.39, PFR: 18.18, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 23)
BB: 40.18 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 27.27, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 24)

9 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.4 BB) Hero has A 9

fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, CO raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 17.4 BB and is all-in,

Bad shove vs villain with 5% opening range. If he's only raising 1/20 hands he's not raising light ever..

Good shove vs villains playing wider ranges though

with 17.5BB this is a clear fold to an opened pot, if the pot was not opened then shoving is ok.

if villain was 20+ PFR then maybe this is a shove but your equity vs most ranges that call you is pretty bad.

Our stack size is perfect to reshove, it's the villain/stats that makes the shove bad, not our stack size or the fact It gets opened from LP

Agree, but if you are going to re-shove in a spot like this you don't want to be doing it with a mediocre Ace because you'll be in terrible shape against his range. Better to shove a hand like T9s than A9...IF you're going to re-shove over a nit.

looks fine, cant take much from his PFR with 20 hands. Prob the bottom on my Ax shove range tho

I think it matters, like a ton, where your at in the tourney and structure... most of the time a 85% pot 3bet will work if hes poking around.. u really didn't want a race right?? ALso depending on structure and such with 17ish biggs theres probably better spots around the corner.. considering a fresh table too, I think shove is light on reward vs. risk.

oh man the BB is really gambling it up too... might callu off for ****s and gigs.. that's no good..

3 bet with this stack size is bad FYI it's shove our entire range for balance

Looking back, I don't like the shove.
What stack size are you shoving here?

17bb is too small for a standard 3b, it's perfect for 3b-shoving. You can't 3b-fold with that stack so might as well use the full force of your fold equity and shove.

Lol sample size, perfect reshove IMO.

A9o vs 77,ATs-A7s,KJs-K9s,Q9s+,JTs,AQo-ATo,KTo+,QJo

its coin flip

we need at least 50 hands to consider stats

this stack size is perfect to reshove. Anything 25bb and down is generally a good re shove stack.

The situation for the shove is all perfect except villain. It's a Good shove vs most regs opening correctly

I think we can wait for better spots than this.

Cheers for the feedback folks

i'd much rather be doing this on somebody with stats like 23/19 on a stack w/ at least 30 bbs. While people r/f on 18bb stacks frequently at the micro stakes (which is pretty stupid unless you are just trying to steal the blinds and antes), most players tighten up (sometimes subconsciously) when they have a short stack. Essentially, you're hand doesn't fair well against his pf raising range, and you don't have enough fold equity to make this a profitable shove, imo. dump it.

1) The sample size is way too small to make any observations on. We cannot range this player as a nit yet. Making that conclusion on a sample size of 20 hands is just ludicrous. This player is still in the unknown category. As an unknown opening from late position we have to assume he has the late position steal raise in his arsenal.

2) The best sizing for a light 3 shove is not an absolute stack size, but anything that is 5x to 10x the sizing of the steal raise, with 7x the bet being optimal. Here since he opened to 2 BBs, that sweet spot is 14 BBs with the range running from 10 - 20 BBs.

3) A9 is a perfect hand to re-steal shove with. It has a blocker to many hands that can call and have you in bad shape.

Conclusion: Your 3 bet re-steal shove here is good.

This.

I'm having a hard time reconciling two competing ideas here. One is that shoving Ax is bad because of the risk of being dominated by a better Ace, which we have to assume makes up a large portion of villain's range. The other is what you said about the blocker - having Ax makes it less likely that villain also has an Ace. It seems to me the read on villain becomes crucial here. If he's laggy and stealing with a wide range, then the risk of being dominated drops drastically. But if he's on the tighter side that risk increases. In the absence of a reliable read, wouldn't it be safer to assume a tighter range and avoid shoving potentially dominated Ax hands?

In this case, the player is unknown. My past coach used to teach me that with unknowns, assume they are close to a reasonable range for their position. Here he is opening from a steal position. Even tight players steal, because they know they are supposed to steal. The difference being a LAG may steal with 60%+ of their hands where a tight player may be around 30% - 40% neighborhood. Even the tightest steal ranges are at least about 25%. But without definite reads he won't steal it is more reasonable to assume he will steal. Why? because even tight players know they are supposed to steal from late position.

We can also use the Layne Flack matrix for analyzing this spot. He would look at 3 factors on whether it is a good spot to make a play: position of the player; image of the player; and stack sizes. He would rate each factor from 1 - 10 and make a judgment based on the score. The higher the score, the better the spot for making a play.

Here the player is unknown, so his rating would be 5. The open was from the cutoff, so the rating is 8. The effective stack is 8.5x the open, so that would rate at about an 8. The total score is 21 out of 30. Anything 15 or higher in his article was worthy of making the play. 15 out of the 30 was the marginal borderline where it started to be ok. The higher the score the more often the play should be made. So while this is a little subjective, it brings the play into subjective objectivity so to speak. And would indicate that this is an ok spot to make the play.

I notice your description of that matrix doesn't make any mention of your own cards. That suggests that with a high enough score on the matrix, your cards don't even matter. It does make me wonder if I'm still playing my cards too much and the situation not enough in spots like this.

Exactly. It is learning to spot situations where your cards do not matter. Of course, in a way cards always matter. What I mean is that if I have 72o, it really doesn't matter how good the spot is, I'm probably folding. But if my cards give me something positive for potential, just in case I get called, then I take the spot.

Explain how the effective stack puart of the matrix works. I assume there is a curve in terms of the raise size relative to the effective stack - if the effective stack is too small, you lose fold equity, but too large and you're overshoving unnecessarily. Or do you only use the matrix when effective stacks are 10x the raise or less?

No, I use this matrix for spots 200 BBs deep if I'm going to make a standard 3 bet or 15 BBs deep if I am going to make a 3 bet shove. You can use it for 4/5 betting as well.

Basically really deep the stack is more of a 5. If you get to stack sizes where you can 3 bet small, but leverage your opponents entire stack the number goes up. There are times where 3 betting can make your stack a target for a 4 bet shove, then the number goes down. For example, a 2.5BB open then a 6 BBs open with about 40 BBs stacks.

If we are talking about the 3 bet shove as in this case, 7x the open is the sweet spot. That would get the 10. The range is 5x - 10x. Anything outside of those the number goes down. As you get further from the sweet spot and closer to the limits, then the numbers goes down slightly.

But as for 3 bet shoves, if the effective stack is too small you will not have as much fold equity and if the stacks are too large, you are risking so much that when you are called the loss might over take the value gained through fold equity.

Interesting, thanks. That's a helpful concept for taking a more flexible and adaptable approach to 3-betting.