blonde poker forum

Blinds 50/100 6man Sng

Me 2.5k
Chippy 3.6
Lowstack 1k

I am on BB  Ahrt  Tc

Small blind and chip leader rasies to 300.

I call.

flop  Th 8d 2s

Chippy checks, I push he calls with  8h 8c

gg me.

Should I have pushed there? or is this a no brainer

Looks like a shove pre to me. Low stack isn't low enough to wait for him to get ko'd so passing is bad here without reads on raiser.

Possibly a pass if we know raiser is an absolute rock but it's never ever a call for me.

There's a decent case for folding pre here, are we 35/65 or 30/70 on the payout and how is the shortie playing?
Shoving pre is prolly kak. Peeling isn't bad.

On flop pot is 600 and you push 2.2k? That looks kak
Bet call is fine.

I would call pre and play it cautiously unless villain has been overly active, shoving flop is playing a little scared imo.  Check behind if feeling he may be trapping.  If you bet flop, he crai, you have a tough decision especially if he's been tricky and 'at it' before.

The stacks you've given don't add up, unless it's some really odd starting stack on some random site.

This is very dependent on the big stack's tendencies and on the 'game-flow'. Some big stacks will be raising almost everything here, while others will only raise the top 10%, say, of hands into the second stack, as their mentality is basically to wait for one of the other two to get knocked out so they can make the money.

In general I don't much like shoving this pre, as we're pretty deep and it's pretty hard to get called by worse. It's miles away in that sense from shoving AK/AQ, where he's liable to call with dominated hands a lot. Would be interesting to see what ranges he'd need to be opening and folding to make this work, but obviously Wiz needs stack sizes for that...

When the blinds are going up is also important, as the short stack who isn't currently very short could be about to become very short if blinds are going to 100/200 sharpish.

So without really knowing anything about the situation, I probably don't mind flatting pre-flop, with the intention of playing a smallish pot in position with a decent hand. An average big stack will often let you do this, as while they might be aware of their power over the second stack, they also don't want to lose a big pot against you here and jeopardise their own position. So you'll often see the big stack raise and c-bet smallish, and then check the turn, whether they have some sort of hand or not.

Unless big stack is some kind of lunatic and will snap with bottom pair I really don't like the flop shove, as you're going to be badly behind a lot of the time you're called and you're probably folding out JT-type hands that you want to call. He probably doesn't have a T though as he checked the flop, which looks really strong, since why not just c-bet here and make you fold most of the time. Together with the fact that, dependent on stats/reads, quite a lot of his raising range out of the SB might have your top-pair crushed here anyway, I think I'd check this back and try to encourage him to stab at the pot on turn or river. Playing a small pot that doesn't threaten your whole stack, and getting some value when he's missed, is more important than protecting a hand that could be screwed anyway, basically.

stacks are rough from what I remember give or take a few 100's.

Yeah alot to think about thanks for advice.

Kind of rough yeah lol - think they add up to 7100, should presumably be 9000.

peeling is terrible - you lose every time you miss and possibly when you hit

I shove pre here - a 600 chip pot is plenty when you have 2.5k - shoving in sng's is all about fold equity in these spots

to be fair - he prob calls anyway - but you arent in bad shape pre

the shorty has 10bb's so isnt short enough for you to be folding to the money yet.

With the stacks as given, Wiz suggests you can't shove this if he's opening 50% and only calling with 10%. Or if he's opening 100% and calling 100%. Or opening 60% and calling 20%. Or opening 30% and calling 8%. Basically, you need him to be opening wide and calling tight, or else shoving doesn't work.

Doesn't this make anybody who 100% relies on wiz very exploitable on bubble situations? Basically you raise them with atc and they only shove with better than A10 or presumably pairs in the region of 88+

Surely we have to mix our range up a little bit or we're gonna get muffed by any half decent player?

This is kind of an odd question - you're sort of saying, 'doesn't this make anybody who 100% does the right thing very exploitable'.

The second stack on the bubble is always very exploitable by the big stack, because in any all-in confrontation between the two, the second stack is risking more equity than the big stack is. In the case of the OP, the second stack is out if he loses, while the big stack can lose and still be level with the current shorty. So when you're playing the second stack, and the big stack is playing correctly, you're not playing correctly yourself if you're not in a sense being 'exploited' to some extent. That is to say, you'll often have to give up chips because just folding your blinds to the big stack is the line that maximises your tournament equity.

So yes, the big stack should be raising the second stack a lot and exploiting him. Obviously if the second stack knows that the big stack is raising very wide but doesn't really want to call, then he can play back at the big stack. Wiz - or anyone who relies on it - wouldn't disagree with that... Obviously the problem in the spot from OP, and the problem in these spots often against randoms, is that we have no real idea what his opening and calling ranges are, and a lot of combinations of those ranges - ie if he's opening tight or if he's calling widish - are no good for a plan of shoving 25bbs with AT.

How about a 400 chip pot? That's how much is in there prior to our pre-flop desicion

Yeah I dont think I like the shove pre, were still pretty deep considering its a sng.

Meh calling is fine pre, but shoving the flop is all kinds of bad with the stack sizes. You are losing so much value and basically stopping him from spazzing out with weak hands as a bluff. Do you do this often as you are shoving about 2x pot and I can't think of many situation where this is anywhere near optimal.

Yeah its a crapola play now I look over it.

I dont play SnG's alot, mainly for fun on stars while i play cash.

Remeber that this is an odd situation here (blinds are really low 50/100) Most bubble situations in online SNGs you won't be nearly this deep (relative to the blinds). It is a fallacy to think that being deep is always an advantage, that we can always somehow bring our post flop skillz to bear. The bubble dynamic here forces us to play much weaker than we'd like to post flop and so we won't be able to get any edge. We'd actually make more money if we were slightly shallower here relative to the blinds.

Versus a strong or a lagtarded opponent who is going to ask us questions on the flop pretty much 100% of the time, folding pre is the line. I fold pre vs a whole load of regs here.

You might think that's excessively weak but believe me when I tell you there will be plenty of oppurtunity to give the opponents headaches, to play back at them, in other (far more commonly occuring) scenarios in SNGs.


Some weaker opponents will check till the turn or river then throw out a weak bluff that you can snap off. Peeling pre vs these guys is fine.


I hate the shove here, far too deep. Even if there is scenarios whereby ICM says it's profitable bear in mind that the ICM model works best with 10 BBs and below. ICM here would only tell us if something is definately wrong.

The input to an ICM calculation always requires putting a value on what opponents are shoving or calling with. This depends on at table reads, intuition, feel, all the rest of it.

For this reason, I'm not to sure what you mean when you talk about a player who "100% relies on wiz". Wiz can't tell them who is on tilt, which regs push too loose from MP, who has rocked up to fuck etc.

Adjustment to their adjustments and all the rest of it gets very interesting.

Worth checking out, particularly for heads up play, is the concept of the nash equilibrium. It's born of the whole...

I'm shoving with range X, he knows that therfore he's calling with range B. Range B is optimal to call with if I'm shoving range X.
I then know he's calling with range B so I'm going to shove with range Y. Range Y is the optimal shoving range if he's calling with range B.
Then he knows I'm shoving with range Y so starts calling with range C.

...etc etc till an equilibrium is reached.