Heads-Up Poll (1 Viewer)

[Ronoh]

Personally I think it is a shove as Hero's first action, not a call.

Are you basing this on M or on his cards? If it has anything to do with his cards, why? Hero is behind 100% of the time when called, so if shoving are you shoving any two here? If not, why?

 

[k9dr]

I have to differ with Dr. Strange here - this is not a RIO situation, this is a BAC situation - blood alcohol content

 

[ChaosRock]

Are you basing this on M or on his cards? If it has anything to do with his cards, why? Hero is behind 100% of the time when called, so if shoving are you shoving any two here? If not, why?

I'll speak for myself: Both M and cards.

Let's assume Villain calls with top 10% of hands. Hero will profit 1.5BB 90% of the time. When called, JTo has about 32% equity. So his EV on the shove is -3.1BB 10% of the time. So 1.35BB - 0.31BB = +1.04BB. Still a positive EV play (not taking into account ICM).

Obviously, if Villan's calling frequency increases, Hero's equity when called increases also. At 10BB, that calculation is true for almost any 2 cards (to your point). It is a balancing act. If that calc is good for almost any 2 cards, then Villain will start calling a LOT wider. Which would lower Hero's fold equity but increases his equity when called.

I know all I'm writing you know by heart.

 

[DrStrange]

Heads up and short stacked has been mathematically solved. There is an optimal list of hands to shove as the first aggressor and a somewhat smaller list of hands to call facing a shove. Any other action is inferior aside from checking in the BB with bad cards. JTo is on the shove list, so Hero should shove. Yes Hero can adapt the list to account for villain behavior - say villain is overly tight, so Hero shoves any two cards for example.

It has been years since I bothered to be knowledgeable about this part of game theory. As noted before, I don't often play tournament poker, my players don't like it and will not come to participate very often. There once was a day I kept this information at my fingertips. That was three computers before in a different house. It is worth looking up if you are playing a significant number of tournaments. Any time effective stacks are under an "M" of 10, this shove or fold strategy is dominating.

Every hand has 90,000 chips in the blinds vs 500,000 in each stack. Taking a few of those pots is a huge deal. Give villain a five hand cold run and hero ends up with something like a 3-1 chip advantage. Tight villains easily get blinded off facing this type of strategy. Sure villain will sometimes get a top 5% hand and have a trivial call - like this hand. More often they get something like K8o and fold to a shove from JTo even thought K8 is a slight favorite.

Aggression and fold equity are everything here. No limping, no 'fancy play' micro bets .

Kick the villain in the balls till he cries uncle -=- DrStrange

 

[colter ripton]

Yeah I didn't realize stack sizes were so short when I skimmed through the comments. I still don't mind calling, but now I don't mind the shove or fold as much either. If I think he is raising because I have been aggressive and then I limped I'm probably shoving too. If I think he's just overly tight and only raising premium then I fold. Instill call sometimes and try to get lucky, but know I am behind. If you flop top or probably even middle pair you have to go with it if you call.

 

[Steve Birrer]

Well I did play the poll the right way. I voted before I read any of the responses. I was in the call boat and after reading all the responses I still think that is the right play. Bottom line is I am getting 4-1 to call and see a flop (and yes out of position). But I like J 10o well enough here.

I also would have no problem folding but I really dislike shoving because I am only called by hands that are probably dominating me. Rather see a flop and check fold if need be.

 

[JustinInMN]

I don't hate the limp shove, but I probably would just open raise to 140-150k. If he's that passive he might just call with a hand like ak, and fold some better hands. Problem is you have to fold to a shove on this line. But you should pick up the blinds more than enough to make up for that.