I honestly have no idea what that means relating to my question. Lets say this tournament is somehow special and doesn’t reflect how others play though - you see the same stack depths in all the rest as well.
I look at this from the perspective of M-ratio, as detailed by Dan Harrington in his book “Harrington on Hold’em.” Basically, this is the number of orbits you have left in your stack. To me, anything below M6 is shove or fold territory, though this is modified by the number of people at the table.
The lower your M number, the wider you should shove. You can’t always wait for premium hands, and need to get it in while you still have enough chips to get decent fold equity. Remember that any time you get the field to fold, you have gained another orbit. When you get short, every chip counts.
Here’s a good article on the concept…
I refuse to linger and slowly blind out. Get me back into the game or get me out of it. This attitude makes it easy for me to go into shove/fold mode when I have to. A lot of the people I see cringe at the thought, but it’s an important part of tournament poker.
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I’m with you on this. I start my push/fold play very early compared to most people I see here. I understand M-ratios and they are helpful with antes in play. Is it safe to assume that you can get shallower here than elsewhere or are you using the same ration here and for cash? I’m wondering if I’m starting too early here when I realistically could get another orbit or two in and wait on a better hand? Using BB’s, say shift my push/fold from 8-15BB (depending on game) to 6-10BB? That would give me more time if I’m running cold but would it be as effective considering the loose calls and all the rest?
Generally speaking, I would expect a lot less fold equity here than in a cash game. On the other hand, I would also expect to get called lighter here. I haven’t really looked at this in detail, but the 2 should cancel each out, at least to some extent. So I guess I’m not going to change ratios until I knew more.
Wait for a better hand that may never come? Dump another 2 orbits of chips, leaving you less ammo if that better hand does come? Not my style, but OK.
Maybe start a little earlier and keep doing it a little longer. I base this, in part, on my stack relative to the tourney average. If I get much below average, I start considering insanity immediately.
I think you should also consider where you are in the tourney. Pre-bubble, post-bubble, and final table, for example, all play a little differently, and adjustments must be made.
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@Comicguy ,
This is a direct result in the layout of the MTT/SnG/Ring table
Most all Ring tables allow a buyin from 50-200 BBs … the auto-buyin is 125 BB.
In order for that to transfer over to MTTs and SnGs, you have to apply the same logic.
Turbo is the 50BB format
Regular would be 100BB format
Deepstack would be 200BB format…
But thats not how they are structured around here, I’m guessing for time considerations… but then you sacrifice maybe 25-33% extra time overall, … for alot of people’s standard strategies or play styles. Just as LBs can distort standard play, so does starting stack.
If I use your quote, and the MTT only starts with 50 BBs, then by “trying” to play 2-3 hands, I’m prolly already down to that 30BB threshold… So why not try and dbbl up your 1st hand that you decide to play, so you have “playability” in your chipstack ???
Sassy
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Hey Sassy - When I was using the 20-30BB number, I was talking about online tournaments where the starting stacks are 100-150BB. I wouldn’t be open shoving 30BB but there are spots where I’d shove over an open with that stack size, say with TT/JJ/AKo … Here, I don’t play anything with a 50BB starting stack as that would be just a bingofest. If I did play one of them, it still wouldn’t increase playability vs the field because effective stacks would still be tiny. It doesn’t matter just what your stack is - the effective stack is the stack of the shortest player in the hand.
The SnG’s I’ve been playing start with about 83BB but they are turbos in that the blinds increase every 6 minutes. There is a lot of nut-hunting going on and much of the game is limp 'n see. I pick spots to overcall in position or to open or isolate for the most part. Depends on the table. No point in trying to isolate a table of stations with less than a premium hand. Its also odd that people will limp in all sorts of garbage but will call a shove with much of it. Huh? So, I’m just trying to figure out where the sweet spot is where I can no longer effectively open raise and just have to shove. Between the turbo format, the lack of fold equity and the advantages of actually playing pots with some of these people, deciding when to shove becomes an interesting question for me. I’m going to experiment a bit and see what happens.
BTW, ring games don’t have push/fold strategies unless you are playing with people who stay at the table really short stacked. Happens so rarely for cash that its not even worth considering.
When you said, “are you using the same ratio here and for cash,” I took it to mean free vs real money tournaments.
I think the fact that there’s a 50K bounty on staff and 10K on all volunteers changes the strategies somewhat in a BtS…as opposed to what you would find in a regular tourney.
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Betting a lot when i have a good hand and folding with a bad hand seems to work for me…YMMV
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Sounds like a plan. Needs fleshing out.
When you have a good hand, do you start betting a lot pre-flop or do you save the big guns for post flop and later?
I did - I think things are getting mixed up a bit. I was talking about there not being a relevant push/fold strategy in ring games, for cash or for play chips. The question I was asking you was about whether you had different multiples for play chips than you do for money games.
I’ve given it some thought and I think I may need to adjust ranges and ratios depending on who is left to act more than I would for online tournaments. There aren’t that many players here so if I know someone is calling with any 2 cards, I’m going to use a different choice of hands and stack depths than if the guy in the BB was a nit that folded anything but the top 3% of hands. Work in progress and thanks for the help.
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You need to start shoving before the point at which your shoves will be swatted like flied by the bigger stacks. In other words you need to still have a stack that is big enough that people who still have hopes of getting into the money will be reluctant to call you with anything less than QQ. If you have only 2000 chips left, any stack with 10.000 chips or more is going to call you with any pocket pair or any two paint cards. Also remember that in the event of getting called, you only want one caller, getting two or three callers is disastrous, because even though you might triple up, your chances of winning are reduced.
This will vary from tournament to tournament, depending on the size of stacks, blinds, and the number of players per table,but if the blinds are too high for you to play drawing hands, then it is probably time to shove.
The really tricky hands are hands like AA. Do you want everyone to fold, or would you prefer one caller. With AA, AK, or KK, you might not want to price the BB out of the hand preflop.
Another factor is who is in the Big Blind. Are they likely to fold. Last night I played in the Hijack tournament and finished in 6th place, which was not too bad, but I had a lot of trouble with a player who seemed to specialize in calling huge raises, calling continuation bets on the flop, then raising all-in on the turn. Obviously some of it was bluffing and I took half his stack one time when I spotted an obvious bluff, but if you are up against this type of player in the BB, then all in preflop is a better option, because even if you have AK and make top pair on the flop, you can never be sure that the 4 that comes on the turn has not given your opponent the set that he is representing with his betting. Shoving negates this problem when the flop misses you, or you do not flop the nuts, which is nearly always.
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Yes, but you also need to keep an eye on the schedule for blind increases, because if you are less than a minute away from a blind and ante increase, you may have less orbits in hand than you think.
You really need to play a whole tournament with an eye on your stack size relative to the blinds at all points of the tournament, and if you start to get behind schedule, and get no hands, start to look for bluffing opportunites like shoves and other types of bluff to stay in the running until the real thing comes along.
I agree pretty much across the board. I was looking for a general template to use and then to adjust off of. I really get the feeling that I’m starting my push/fold a little early and could maybe get in 1 more raise or even a limp to speculate before I go to shoving. Of course it all depends on the remaining players at the table and my position and all that. Still, having a general rule of thumb is always a good idea, especially in case you don’t have a read on the other players (if you were just rebalanced or something).
Has anyone else noticed that some people are more likely to call the all-in shove than they are the raise, even a min-raise? Its a really odd thing but I’m noticing it more and more now that I’m looking at this part of the game here. I’m guessing it has to do with post-flop skills. People who don’t play well post flop are happy to just get it all in pre rather than have to play a big pot over 3 more streets. Just a thought but I have a feeling I’m not far off the mark here.
This is actually a good example - at the start of a 25K SnG, the initial raiser is 3-bet jammed on for 83BB and makes the call with 77 rather than mucking them. The 3-bet jam was of course AA. Does he know he’s getting a call or is this a move so that he doesn’t have to play a big pot postflop? https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/445932053
Who knows? Some players will never fold a pocket pair preflop. In the early stages of a tournament or sit n go if you get AA and raise all in, someone will nearly always call the bet.
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