What do we do with spots like these at soft tables?

Poker Strategy Hand Review
1

The Hand

Obviously, it worked out this time. But I felt pretty lost when it was my turn to act.

I would like to play a hand like ATo as a raise/fold most of the time. It’s a pretty OK hand, certainly well ahead of a lot of hands in a limping range, but it’s definitely not a premium. It won’t perform very well in multi-way pots, and there aren’t many boards where we will have good clarity about “where we’re at.”

This was one of the few such boards; decisions get a lot simpler when we are only worried about sets, overpairs, and low-frequency 2pairs like T6/T5.

What if the flop had been JT3, or AQ9? Et cetera and so on.

A standard preflop 3! here will leave me with less than half a pot-sized bet on the flop. Does that make preflop a shove/fold spot? My compromise was to shrug and limp and hope to outplay the field postflop, which is more or less what happened. But I don’t feel very confident about my preflop strategy.

2

If your opponents are ok players, and if they are not the type to limp monsters on limp happy passive tables, then AT off suit is a shove, fist pump. minraiase, 2.5 x raise, 3 x raise, 4 x raise pot commits, bloats the pot, wont fold out players. folding preflop bad. Limping bad. All those other options are, is THROWING MONEY, CHIPS AWAY.

the limping range is 22 to 99, 65 suited to JT, QT, QJ, KJ, KQ, A2 to A9. TT to AA, AJ to AK is UNLIKELY. That means at semi likely worst your coinflipping if shove all in get called, and at likely best dominating a A7,A8,A9 suited call. And so you either scoop the limps, double up, or get called with about 67% chance to Tripple up, if get 1 caller, 4 times up if get 2 callers,

Now if GIGANTIC ICM implications, etc, exceptions, etc, then maybe its a limp in, but otherwise AT off in that spot is a slam dunk squeeze shove all in preflop.

3

What about min raise? I probably prefer all-in (or fold), but min raise might actually look stronger. I’d expect most players to be fairly inelastic - if they’re calling the min raise they’re probably calling the all-in too.
I’d rather play post after min raising vs limping, but you really don’t have the stack depth to maneuver much here either way, so that’s not much of a help.

4

I can’t fault your reasoning. I guess I just worry that a shove will get a lot of those hands that we do beat to just fold. I don’t know how many of these guys are gonna just call it off pre with A7s, even as shallow as 10-15bb.

5

So then the idea with the minraise being strictly to play a bigger pot in position when we feel we’re ahead of the ranges?

6

No, I’d consider it a win if everyone folded (which is why I still prefer all-in or fold). I think versus limp though, I’d rather pay the extra blind, and get a least some hands to fold. We’re likely to fold out a lot of hands like the T5/T6s, but the worse aces and low pairs we will have a lot more clarity against will stick around.
I’d be min raising AA and KK here fairly often too though. If the pool is never doing that, it becomes a lot less attractive.

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7

Gotcha. Yeah, the more we talk about it the more I like just a shove. Capturing some fold EQ here is probably worth more than all the combined downsides of any other action.

8

You would be surprised how often A8 suited, A9 suited, QJ suited, KT suited, KJ suited, 22 call in that spot, as they will never let the best hand scoop the limp ins, as that’s been my experience at the 15k to 20k to 50k to 100k buy in levels, and even if they do fold, your still scooping all those LOTS of limp ins, plus blinds, antes, which enough to double up from 4k to 8k, and if they fold, and if they all limp like that again, you can likely shove 22,33,44, A2 to A7 suited, JT suited, QT suited, QJ suited, KT suited, KJ suited, KQ all in 1,2 more times to goto 12 to 16k+. And all those things in both post mentioned make this a slam dunk shove

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9

Call your all in or if they fold to your all in pre, you really cant lose no matter what they decide to do, unless they call with AJ to AK, TT to AA, and they probably not limping those hands on such limp happy passive table. You can lose a flip or be bad beat, but that’s the only way your losing if you shove all in pre, so shove all in pre as its the right move no matter what happens and let chips fall where they may

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10

I agree with your analysis. Next time I’ll either shove if I feel good enough about my chances or just fold and wait for a better spot. I think calling was a weak option that only worked out because I got an extremely lucky flop. Most of the time I will just be throwing away 10% of my stack.

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11

Also if you are called by less, then some players will think your loose to shove AT, A9, so that when if shove tighter, they will call your tighter, better hand shoves like 99 to AA, AJ to AK, looser, leading you to stack players, and grow your stack even more.

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12

It’s cool everyone already knows I will shove K2 suited from the SB :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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13

Thats true but some may not know that, and in a generic analysis, all those things I mentioned, including setting players up, are reasons to shove AT pre generically in that kind of situation, spot.

Something else, while its ok to shove k2 suited in the right spots, I think its better to shove 65 suited, 76 suited, 87 suited, 98 suited, 97 suited, T9 suited, T8 suited, JT suited, J9 suited, Q8 suited, Q9 suited, QT suited, QJ suited, K7 suited, K8 suited, A2 suited to A7 suited, with no kicker less then 6,7, except for A rag, and only shoving A2 to A6 suited rag from MP2/Hi Jack, cut off, button, SB, BB, etc, doing that is still way wide, and less riskier, in better positions, spots, with more equity, etc, then K2 off which only about 63% to 67% to not have a player wake up with a hand good enough to call, that’s about 63% to 67% equity vs any random, unknown opponent hand range. K6, K7, K8 suited WAY better then K2 suited, get dealt those hands just about as often as K2 suited, and accomplishes the same things as K2 suited with less risk.

Kickerology is important.

1 Like
14

Only from the SB off 15bb or less. Then it’s a +EV shove at equilibrium. I don’t always shove it, either; frequency play :wink:

One of these days I will spend some time with a solver and run sims with the actual (much tighter than equilibrium) range I give most high buy-in MTT Replay regs. I suspect we may actually be able to shove even wider from the SB when short. It may be profitable to shove almost anything lol.

15

I still think you will do better only shoving kickers equal to or greater then 6, 7, unless, except A2 suited thru A6 suited, and only shoving K6 suited, K7 suited, Q7 suited, etc, or better instead of k2 suited, even if have 13 to 15 bb stack.

16

It’s marginal, to be sure. But we must remain ever mindful that when stacks are below 15bb, just winning 1.5bb represents a significant improvement to our chances of winning the tournament, which is always the primary goal. Of course with antes it’s even more incentive to steal.

K2s shoving from the SB wins 0.3bb per Upswing’s 15bb chart. That’s 30bb/100! That is significant, AND that’s assuming BB is defending as wide as theory says they should. In practice, hardly anyone is calling even HALF that wide.

Replay regs are not calling an SB shove for even 10bb with Q8 offsuit (which has +1.3bb equity as a BB call at that stack depth. +1.3!)

17

You must get all the players like that. Me I always seem to get players who call all in a lot pretty wide a lot at the 15k buy in, 20k buy in, 50k buy in, 100k buy in stakes, so because of that shoving even K6 suited on BB, SB, late tourny, let alone K2 suited is, has been very high Variance, and only shove K2 suited if 9 bb’s or less, if everybody open fold to SB, and its me on SB, facing BB, then and only then will I shove K2 suited, and even then, junk still calls a lot.

18

Anyway even if they are calling correctly, we are still winning long run, so I don’t see any reason you wouldn’t want to make the same play :smiley:

Finding and making those shoves at an appropriate frequency instead of waiting for aces is part of the skill edge we’re looking to claim

19

Dont need to wait for AA, monster hands, only need to wait for 65 suited, 76 suited, 87 suited, 86 suited, 98 suited, 97 suited, T9 suited, T8 suited, JT suited, J9 suited, J8 suited, Q7 suited, Q8 suited, Q9 suited, QT suited, QJ suited, K6 suited, K7 suited, K8 suited, K9 suited, KT, KJ, A2 suited, A3 suited, A4 suited, A5 suited, A6 suited, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, any of those hands in the right spots.

waiting for those hands or better in the right spots, is NOT waiting for MONSTERS, PREMIUMS, SEMI PREMIUMS, Not waiting for 77 to AA, AJ suited to AK, KQ suited, etc, and is just fine, and wins enough plenty fine.

20

It depends a bit on the range that calls us, but K2s usually has slightly more equity than those hands (and if not, only slightly less). It’s still good to shove with all those hands, it’s just not substantially different to shoving with K2s.