blonde poker forum

This is a thread I'm starting for discussion about the 20bb and under situations in tournaments, any tournaments.

I know this is the weakest part of my game personally and the truth is they are some of the biggest decisions we make,  a single cash pot might have £100/ 1k, 5k, or for some people  it can be significantly more money.... but for most of us a tournament decision can potentially be worth hundreds of times our buyin.

I know there are charts and standards and such...

But I guess I'd just like to open the floor and hope that you guys share your thoughts, opinions, ideas.......etc....

- in what bbc ranges are we only ever open shoving?
- where do we start to raise and what do we do it with?
- what other factors do we consider?
- how big do we go with our rejams over opens or limps etc...


My personal knowledge is summarised in the following:-
- we open jam 12 and below
- that can stretch upto 15/16bb depending on position and hand
- rarely open shoving 17bb or more
- rejams from 17-22bb
- very tight from the bb as that 1bb we peel is more valuable when we jam button than it is to peel Ad4d pre OOP.


However there were quite a few discussions this weekend with some of the London 'crew' that hang out with the lammings...... It further highlighted my weaknesses here.

I'm certainly not alone so let's get a few pearls in here!

Personally, the way I play 20BB or lower depends a lot on the table, and the time of the tournament.

Min raising with suited connectors pairs 22-77 as at the moment people are giving alot of respect when short stacks min raise instead of shoving as it seems so strong and people don't really 3 bet light. Helps me chip up risk free more often than not. Flipping it around, when i shove, i normally do it with 88+ AQ+ with and get called by worse often, must look weak to open shove big hands to alot of people.

That said not sure short stack play has been solved. Patience has alot to do with it i feel though.

I also think playing the 180 man turbo's on stars are a good way of improving playing 20BB and less stacks

Never folding A4dd in the bb to a min off any stack for a start and think it would be horrendous to do so. I don't have any super firm guidelines when it comes to sub 20bb but just knowing/learning the charts and understanding what is +ev to open shove from what position is a huge advantage, you don't have to take all the spots based on table/game flow etc and you can sometimes jam some -ev hands in spots where people are just calling way too tight.

I don't think anyone is going to tell you how they play sub 20bb from different positions exactly on an open forum but just learning the charts and then adjusting what you do based on game flow/learning some maths doing some calcs etc is my advice.

And never fold A4dd to a min raise, minimum see the flop.

Ok, see a K92r and cf?
Q43 and now we're cc?
What are we hoping for?
Isnt that extra bb more helpful if you were to jam btn two hands later with atc??

Id call probably every suited 4.

You're getting 4.6:1

Folding 95o and worse and that's about it

Alex has it about right for me

PokerStars Hand #132874463454: Tournament #1164585215, $10+$1 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XVI (800/1600) - 2015/03/29 21:36:02 WET [2015/03/29 16:36:02 ET]
Table '1164585215 655' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: beastwar (14888 in chips)
Seat 2: irishwitch69 (9265 in chips)
Seat 3: ked_m3 (58053 in chips)
Seat 4: Ultraballs18 (18837 in chips)
Seat 5: joesatfr (27895 in chips)
Seat 6: elka72omg (23108 in chips)
Seat 7: vilkas26 (11233 in chips)
Seat 8: zuiveraar (31300 in chips)
Seat 9: MILF GRINDER (94395 in chips)
beastwar: posts the ante 160
irishwitch69: posts the ante 160
ked_m3: posts the ante 160
Ultraballs18: posts the ante 160
joesatfr: posts the ante 160
elka72omg: posts the ante 160
vilkas26: posts the ante 160
zuiveraar: posts the ante 160
MILF GRINDER: posts the ante 160
ked_m3: posts small blind 800
Ultraballs18: posts big blind 1600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ultraballs18 [4s Ts]
joesatfr: folds
elka72omg: folds
vilkas26: folds
zuiveraar: folds
MILF GRINDER: folds
beastwar: folds
irishwitch69: folds
ked_m3: raises 1600 to 3200
Ultraballs18: calls 1600  /:-|

Dont know if anybody else saw the live stream Run it Once did last night. Really good concept actually, where there was a deep structured sit and go with a table full of their coaches.

You saw everybody's cards, and in turn could hear audio of each players thought process when the action was on them. This information was not available as the players in the game.

Anyway, there was a point where one of the players (Andy McLeod i think it was) was saying how he was using a min raise strategy from late position because people have started peeling so wide from the BB, and he was happy playing IP, with betting lead, stronger range, the ability to outplay and barrel the opponent off his weak hands.

Later on he was in a hand and min raised LP. The BB peeled, and said something along the lines of, 'I just think his min raise strategy here is terrible, hes pricing me in and allowing me to see so many cheap flops. In the hand, he peeled K6o flopped top pair and ended up having to fold it on the turn to a double barrel from Ace high. Everything that his opponent had said would happen.

Just shows that, what i imagine are both pretty good players, can differ so much on what they consider to be good play when attacking, and peeling from the blinds.

Whatever works best for you, but dont fold A4dd ;-)

Fyp