Hi,

I'm pretty new so bare with me :-) But recently I came to realise something, which I can't believe it is true:

Imagine we are playing in a MTT and we are sitting in the Big blind. Blinds are 100/200/20.

UTG opens for 600, folds all around to me in the Big blind. There are now 1080 $ in the pot (open + blinds + 9 handes antes) and I have to call 400 more.
If my math is correct I need 27 % equity.

I give UTG a tight range of 99+, AJs, AQ+, KQs.

Then, according to equilab it would mean, it would be right to call the open with hands as weak as 62s, which has 27,44 % equity. Is it true that a call would be correct or are there any other things to consider?

Cheers

You only get to realize a fraction of the equity, depending on how often they bet post flop. Vs very passive players you can defend wider.

still, if you have an edge over your opponent (which isnt hard in mtts), you often get to overrealise your equity. So, yeah, you should be defending big blind pretty wide when there are antes in play, wider than it would seem intuitively correct.

Also, most players (correctly) use between 2x and 2,5x raise size pre in tournaments, making bb defending even more profitable

Unbelievable....I mean 62s is really a heck of a nothing.
Thanks guys, I will change my play from now on :-)

Impossible to answer without knowing anything about stacksizes. I defend very wide but against a tight player who is raising from utg there is little to no implied value either.

As indicated by Bob148 you are not likely to realize the 27% equity for it is a showdown equity. How likely are you to continue on the flop if you don’t get a flush draw and villain shows some aggression? Not very, IMO.

Yes ... those equities are for when you get to see all 5 cards without putting in anymore chips!! GL

Yes, there are other things to consider. You also have to think about the actual play of the hand. Imagine your opponent actually has AJ and you have 62. The total board runs out (if allowed) KQ972. Your hand wins and you realize your equity. But would you have called any bets in order to get there? What if it is KQ279. Would you have called on the flop because you hit bottom pair?

You are going to play the entire hand out of position against someone whose range is way ahead of you. Unless you flop a monster, you are probably going to have to give it up, and if you do flop a monster it is unlikely that you will get paid off because it probably missed your opponent. Being out of position also makes it harder to extract value when you do hit.

Miikka Anttonen (Chuck Bass on 2+2) wrote some excellent articles on this topic for Upswing Poker. There's a whole series of them at https://www.upswingpoker.com/guide-b...rt-stack-play/

I think tourneys require a unique combination of skills that is different from cashgames. The most important factor being the one that is stated the least imo:

You are not allowed to quit.

Thus the skills that make a good cashgame player like game selection and tilt avoidance for example, are not really useful skills in a tournament setting. Much more important tourney skills and attributes include but are not limited to:

patience

well timed aggression

quick math skills

general fearlessness*

using reads to your advantage**

closing skills***

I'll be back later to expand on the last three, but hey look a tourney is starting that I wanna play.

Thanks again guys. That's a lot to consider....I'm going into practise mode right now ;-)

Short stack play in particular requires that you get all of your chips in the pot with some seemingly bad hands, but the requisite fearlessness isn't exclusive to short stack play. I see many players that try to fold their way into the money and they consistently min cash or bubble tourneys, while rarely winning. Knowledge is power here; knowing that shoving your last 6 big blinds with JTs on the button is the correct play, with rare exception, will help one to deal with the natural fear of busting out of the tourney.

I'm a firm believer that the mind is the most powerful weapon at the poker table and that this will always be true. It's a mind game that we play with our hands and as such, there will always be room for exploitation. As you get deep into tourneys, you'll hopefully have developed reads on your opponents that you can use to your advantage. Folding vs nits. Calling vs overaggressive bettors. Shoving over foldy limpers. Shoving over limpers that love to limp call all in with lol Ax. The list goes on and on. It leads into the most important tourney skill imo:

I could go on and on about this topic, but instead I'll just say that once it gets down to heads up, you should have some really strong reads to act on. If you don't, then you probably got really lucky to make it to heads up play.

Once you're heads up, your tourney ev is usually huge no matter how you play, which leads many players to play rather carelessly. You'll see lots of poor stack offs, weak 3 bet shoves, light calldowns, etc.

Let's talk math:

A prime example of huge tourney ev comes from a game I played last night:

$130 gtd $2 + $0.20 rebuy tourney; three spots pay for 19 entrants; 17 rebuys and 12 add ons made for a big $34 overlay. So when I got down to heads up after taking out the third place finisher with a 5:3 chiplead, I was really liking the spot. Looking at my raw expected value readless:

1st place = $65
2nd place = $39
-----------------------
total prizepool: $104
difference: $26

Look at the $26 difference and assume that my ev is 62.5% (5:3 = 5/8 = 62.5%)

$26 * 62.5% = $16.25

$16.25 + $39 = $55.25 tourney ev not considering my edge vs my lone opponent. Seems like an awesome spot for me after just one rebuy and one add on at $2.20 each. For my $6.60 investment, my expected profit margin was +$48.65.

Good spot imo.

I think this illustrates the importance of being a good closer.

Of course, it would take a whole chapter, at least, to explain heads up play. Thus I won't go into detail on what actually makes a good closer.

cheers and good luck.

Great article. I really need to improve in this area.

I read those articles that was posted and have few questions.


So when someone min raises even UTG and it folds to you with a hand like 106 offsuit, that is still a standard call? The reason because you are getting close more than 4:1 on the flop call and 106 offsuit is rarely going to be a 4:1 dog or worst preflop? This is of course if villains has a big pair. But even if he has 2 big cards, you are 2:1 dog right? When is big blind defense starting to come out? Back then i recalled everyone just folded their BB because if they have junk hand they fold since they are out of position.


Also when you call the raise from the BB, at what bb do you not call? I mean are you going to call the raise with 50bb, 100bb, 150bb stack etc? Also you should be more likely to call it assuming the raise comes from middle or late position right? I mean what hands does an early position raiser raises when you fold the BB? I assume all suited hands you have to call 100 percent? But if its like complete junk like 93o, you fold? Or you still defend that? Also wouldn't it be better to 3bet as oppose to flat from middle and late position raiser because a 3bet makes more likely you take the pot down without action?

The short answer to all the questions in the post above is "It depends". Yes, you should play tighter vs UTG than vs the BTN (because you have lower equity, and it's even harder to realize it when villain has a strong range that will be c-betting for value more often), and yes, stack sizes have a major effect on hand selection, but exactly where you draw the line on which hands are calls is very hard to discern. Top players are defending the BB much more often than they used to, though.