I had this guy at a live tournament say that when you're in the BB, and someones shoves with 10blinds or less, you should call with basically any two cards because you are getting the right odds.

Is this true?

In my case, BTN shoved his 9 or 10blinds, and action went to me on the BB (everyone else folded, and I had around 20blinds, still a few players to go till bubble), and I had T5off. I folded, to which this dude told me this, though I didn't really believe him.

FYI: the guy won the tournament, I ended third.


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Also, this still stands from the dumb questions thread, if anyone is willing to answer:

Analytical recipe:

First, calculate the pot odds that you are facing.

Second, convert that into a minimum equity required to call.

Third, add in ICM considerations ("bubble factors") to adjust the minimum equity required to call.

Finally, compare your estimated hand's equity vs. shover's range to the min reqd equity from step three.

Thank you for the reply. Keep in mind, this guy was speaking in general–he was not doing any particular calculations.

Anyway, I'll do that recipe for my situation:

step 1. 10blind shove+SB+BB vs 9 blinds to call, so
Pot odds: 11,5:9. About 1,28:1 (1.27778)

2. So minimum equity needs to be 1:2,2777 = 43,9%, right?

3. In this case, we were still a decent amount of players away from the bubble. I don't think there were significant ICM considerations. Yeah?
Though I did have only 20blinds, so losing half my stack would really hurt and make me the table short stack. Should I then assume that he'd raise wider to abuse this? Or should I simply fold a bit more often to not get crippled?

4. The guy wasn't as loose as he probably should be. But I threw in 35,75% of the hands in Equilab: what I would shove in that position, minus a few combos since he seemed a bit tighter in that spot.
Equilab says that T5off has 32% equity against his range. 44% needed vs 32%


So my fold was correct, and the guy was talking nonsense?

Calling ATC from the BB is a bit wide, but you can assume that under 10 BB, players will be shoving very wide. I usually put their range at an pair, A5+, KJ+ at 10 bb, and basically any two cards if they are in late position with an unraised, uncalled pot. If your hand has positive EV against these ranges, go for it.

Even if you assume he is playing ATC, anything less than the computer hand (Q7) would have negative equity against his range.

This case was an unraised and uncalled pot. But he was not a guy to be savvy enough to shove ATC on the BTN with 10 BB (making calling with ATC even more speculative).

Perhaps I gave him too little credit though. I added quite a few extra cards to his range, totalling up to 62% of possible hands...it's still nowhere near +EV for me with T5off.
Though if I put in ATC in equilab, T5off has 44,3% equity. So slightly above the minimum 43,9.
However, let's say I have 72off. 72 has 34,5% equity against ATC, nowhere near the 43,9% minimum.

So I guess you could say: if your opponent shoves on the BTN (with no previous action, and the assumption he shoves with ATC ) with under 10 BB; you should call on the BB with everything but the absolute trash hands (so a bit worse than Q7)...yeah?

You still need the 43,9% equity. The hands "a bit worse than Q7" are still numerous and you won't be calling with "everything". There certainly are more hands you can call with but 82o or T5o is almost never a call just because they lose to the average hand, no matter how wide someone is shoving.

Also never listen to advice people give in live games, especially tournaments. It's literally never good advice because most people are absolutely terrible. You might want to check if it is bull**** but it almost always is.

What you're saying is true! I meant the same, you phrased it better I guess

And that's what I am here for thanks. Did this fit fine in the Beginner's Questions section? It's my first thread.

No, it isn't true but it is an example of someone who's read/heard some theory and completely misunderstood it.

It stems from STT theory of how to play when the blinds are high and you need to avoid being blinded out.
It's based on the premise that any two cards are seldom more than a 2:1 underdog against a random hand.

equity win tie
Hand 0: 67.697% 64.63% 03.06% { random }
Hand 1: 32.303% 29.24% 03.06% { 32o }

There is a point in an STT when it can become correct to push any two to avoid blinding out.
For example, you are UTG with a 3BB stack and if you don't push this hand, you are forced to play your Big Blind for your tournament life.

So in this situation you should gamble and push all in regardless of your cards.
Best case, everyone folds and you survive another round and, if called, you may even win

The player in the Big Blind knows you are pushing all in with a random hand and he has to call 2BB to win the 4.5BB in the pot. So, in this particular situation he only needs ~30% equity to call.

Obviously, there are other factors to his decision to call such as
can he afford to call and lose
are you realistically shoving any 2 or can he narrow your range .

However against a 10BB shove, calling with any two is asking to be disappointed.

Good insight, I agree. Thanks for the help.

Also something else u might want to do is to check out nash eq tables.
In this particular example (facing a 10bb all in) its +EV to call a shove with around the top 37% of hands(ie. even K5o or Q7s are profibable calls).

I doubt he's pushing Nash into 2 players, it's more appropriate for HU.

I only play STTs now, and if I'm pushing from the BTN with 10bbs then my default range is closer to 25% than 37%.

Obviously, I adjust if I have reads on the SB and BB or if I'm in a position to abuse the bubble.

Maybe I need to revisit my push/fold ranges.

Had to look into Nash eq tables. HU is something I still need to study.

Keep in mind expat, k0rnili0s is saying to call with top 37%. If shoving from the BTN with 10bbs with top 25% is GTO, then you should also be calling from the BB with worse than top 25%, as you're getting a better price due to the SB and BB in the pot.
Calling a BTN 10bb shove with top 37% (on the BB) sounds solid to me.

Your calling range should be narrower because you don't have any fold equity.

BTNs jam is +EV for him even if he jams 100%.
We cant make a +EV play from BB in this situation but we can minimize BTN's EV.
With no ICM considerations, depending on how wide the BTN is jamming the optimal calling range would be 2/3 the shovers range for M=6.
ie. If Btn is jamming around 15% then the optimal response for BB that minimises BTNs EV is to call with a 5% range.
The shorter we get the wider we should be calling ie with M=2 vs a range of 50% or wider we need to be calling 100% of our range.

https://gyazo.com/d055c6ca5f6f39f590b225fc3e17feab

I doubt i elaborated adequately enough in my last response.
This is the graph i was referring to.

The graph shows for M=6 (M = [stack size] / [sum of blinds +antes]) the Caller EV for different shoving ranges. It provides a good visualisation on how push-fold equilibrium behaves.

The BTN could be utilising a push-fold strategy, a limp/push-fold strategy, a min-raise /push-fold strategy or a limp/min-raise/push-fold strategy...
Theoretically if the SB and/or the BB are not calling widely enough then the BTN can be pushing here 100% of his range profitably.

So the BTN has plentiful of options here but if we assume that he is employing a simple push-fold strategy when he is close to 10BB (which is a fairly reasonable assumption).
If antes are included and a structure of 6max SNG is also assumed then
optimal pushing range for BTN is 38%,
and if SB folds(SB calling range 16%) then BB calling range is supposed to be 25.5%.

With no antes we have,
BTN pushing range: 32%
SB calling range : 13%
BB calling range (if SB folds): 17%

When i first tried to answer this i thought a calling range close to Nash would be good enough as i assumed SB would be calling very tight hence we could ignore its presence. The new values makes a lot more sense.

Thanks for the update. I know I was waiting for it.

Nah, as mentioned he can push a lot wider than you can call. ICM makes it so all-in confrontations benefit every other player in the tournament -- everyone else makes a little bit of money when one of you two blows up. If you make a chip-ev-neutral call, both you and the shover come out as losers on the hand.

Maybe it was a clever little angle by this guy. If someone said that out loud, I might be inclined to shove a tighter range against his BB, worried about him making a mutually destructive light call.

This thread is very old, so I'm gonna lock it up to prevent accidental bumps.