That's just complete and utter nonsense. If someone is calling with a 25%/30% range you're much better off with A7o then T9s. T9s has about 39% equity. A7o has about 46% equity.

Actually what is nonsense is your understanding of what i said. I didnt say anywhere that A7o is worse than T9s vs a 25-30% range. They must not have 25-30% for BB is the important things if they play properly. The link i submitted shows that they need to range from 7% to 23% depending on position and stack size in calling that push. Furthermore its not a typical pokerstove 7% or 9% or 13% etc for these stacks calling. Its a carefully selected eg 9% or the other numbers in terms of how often it happens not the classic range of most range calculators. You submit one hand that passes after the other and form that range adding up to eg 9%. This is why T9s comes better vs those particular ranges that are heavy in mid to higher AX and dominate our hand vs T9s standing better against those AX hands and pairs.

What i was also saying is that for the success of the push to materialize they need to fold as predicted by the proper ranges. I then said that because the stack is small and they may be influenced by chip EV ideas they may end up calling him wide from the blinds as they are both loaded big stacks. That is not helpful because A7o is still sub ~45% vs these "wrong" widened ranges. It would have preferred not to be called that wide even if it had a bit less equity on avg when called .

It is easy for people that are loaded to think in terms of chip EV and call us wide but no matter how wide they call they will always be better than A7o since they wont go crazy wide. If all play thinking chip EV, its easy to see the fold equity dropping significantly, thats all. Depending on what they actually call with (when not playing Nash) A7o may prove better or worse than T9s. That is a different issue. And that 25-30% reference was for BB only. The others are still the 7-9-12% type hands because they have different position /stacks and others left to act behind them. Thats why mostly BB and SB open up significantly if they do. The others will remain near 7-12%.

When you get called more often the overall probability to be eliminated in that hand increases even if the equity of the hand improves a bit as the ranges open. This is what hurts you, the increase in the elimination frequency.Do not think in terms of chips, think in terms of actual tournament equity (what you have if you win the all in or lose or fold or take the blinds and antes.)

A7o proves marginally below the proper push range according to this. If they call wide in the blinds because we are seen as small, the push will look even worse than it already is.

masque i don't mean to be offensive or to discredit you, but if one were to assign a label to poker players ranging from level 1 to level 10, with 1 being "feel player" and 10 being "math player", i think most would agree you'd land somewhere in the level 57 range of "math player".

i think most poker players' attitudes and thoughts incorporate some level of intuitive sense in their decisionmaking that naturally comes from experience. these thoughts cannot be easily explained objectively, and i think that's why your posts generate a lot of dissent.

your approach to poker seems to completely lack any element of intangible sensibility; it is almost as if you refuse to accept any premise or assertion unless you can logically break it down into an incontrovertible mathematical proof. i admire your pure commitment to the truth behind numbers but---at least to me---your ideology seems to completely gloss over the capricious nature of gambling and this comes off as rather presumptuous.

if you have any experience playing live, you should understand the merit of retelling a hand history to a friend and qualifying a play with a "live read" that makes sense only if you were there. i never really see you give credence to stuff like this in your posts at all.

just out of curiosity, what is your background in poker?

BLUEberLEEZ, I have explained many times that in the absence of specific information about how others play i am seeking a mathematically sensible solution as if all players are rational. In real life players will not always be rational and unexploitable heavily. Some guy may never bluff for example or they may bluff and have tells etc people tilt and give you action when you are selectively audacious and lucky etc. How can i incorporate these things here if i am not supplied with such details?

When i study a situation i do it trying to see how i would play vs a good opponent. The worse opponents are easier to play against so whats the point.


If here for example you knew that they all play perfect A7o is a fold. If you knew they play loose its a fold also. If you knew they were tight it would depend how tight to decide what to do. If very tight its a push.

My background is that i have been playing and studying mathematically poker for close to 6-7 years with emphasis on tournaments. I clearly do not use as much math as i would like when playing live or online. So i do it here instead. I have been a very easily winning player since the beginning playing initially a tight game and opening up gradually as i understood the theory of the game better. I have never had more than 2 losing weeks playing poker (i recover from any decline within 2 weeks if i play say 500 hands per day to do that). I have never played in stakes that require over a few hundreds of $ at the table risked per day though and i always used bankroll management.

In my posts you will see at various times i try to introduce deviations from proper play that i think in real life people may tend to make necessary. Even in this thread i argued that big stacks at blinds may call you wide thinking chip EV because of our small stack and antes. I try to incorporate as much detail as provided and speculate some times but my intention is not to speculate assuming the worse for people because i know how to adjust in tables they are evidently playing much better or much worse than me. I know if i can beat a table within minutes of being there regardless of outcome by how people play. So clearly i must have that which you called feel also. Its just that my feel derives more power from mathematical intuition also. My feel is not always mathematically correct or accurate even when playing live. Its not as if i am doing math calculations every hand i play, only crude ones as much as possible if the game is tough and situation allows it.

Will the blinds go up before we're the blinds? This is turbo.

Masque I like reading your posts and you're super intelligent but to me you're like a basketball fan who would argue against Michael Jordan taking the last shot from just inside the 3 point line with 4 seconds left that he should have waited because a better spot could show up.

Its late and I'm stoned so I hope the analogy can make some sense.

But it doesnt make sense because there is nothing to very little that can go your way in 4 seconds if he doesnt take the shot. And he is the best in history so why not. He has to. Here we have easily over 15 hands left anyway and the last one comes with a 25-30% chance to not lose it if all goes to hell till then (and recover back everything with 1-2 already eliminated though by then very often).

I argue that here we shouldn't be afraid to fold and have one more chance utg possibly with 15-25% chance the fact we folded allowed someone else to get eliminated in the same A7o hand. Next hand we may get a 15% hand also with 15% chance (or whatever is proper range then) . In the blinds similarly or whatever the proper Nash range ought to be. Before we lose that 1bb+0.2 antes in the next 2 hands we have over 50% chance something good happens. So why be so terrorized?

Even if we fail to do anything and we are at 3.5bb soon there is a chance in the next 7 hands we get a 5% hand (over 30% total chance) to call or to open from anywhere (and not care that they call us always) (or to call someone that is big stack bullying the table that pushed to steal the blinds from another big stack and we can get in between and know the other guy is folding very often to have a triple + result vs the bully lose range guy who forgot about us). We have no fold equity anymore with 3+bb but we have the chance we get a good hand or others are eliminated or a lucrative spot is created.

Do not ever give up in a table people make errors all the time! Even if down to your last round with some funny 1bb left you have 35-40% chance to not lose before completely reduced to nothing.

You push here what Nash says is good and if the table is loose or bad in other ways even a bit tighter. Thats all. I didnt tell you to fold everything and wait for nut hands. I told you to be a bit more selective and not desperate. There is a special art to be able to enter a final table as 9th and finish 3rd. That happens to me all the time (or more often than icm would say) when i play because i do not panic if the table is not super strong and they make errors. You would think that people are not idiots to risk a lot with someone at the table at 2-3 bb for example (although you wouldnt be the only one by then necessarily) but guess what advantage this opens for you then (whenever someone big pushes the field is open for you only to risk if you want knowing the others will stay out). You would think that they would all limp to force you to play vs many (depriving any chance for you to participate with 1 opponent) and get eliminated by collusion but apparently they cannot get it together to play this way all that often. Additionally they often forget about you because they like their own hands and get in trouble because they are not patient. Big stacks make icm suicide errors all the time. You making smaller ones if at all (not here) is little compared to the ones they make if only you survive to see them happen.