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September 27, 2014
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So here is a spot from a Borgata tournament yesterday.
I have been playing for six hours and have literally had six broadway hands all day. (Subtle bad “beat story” perhaps, but primarily just background for where I’m at in this hand.) I have ~15 BB’s, get pocket 7’s in EP, raise ~2.3x. Two callers. Flop Jd7d4d, so I have the effective nuts now but am very vulnerable.
My remaining stack is almost twice the pot on the flop, and I am first to act.
So what is my priority? Maximize value (damn the torpedos, full speed ahead)? Or just jam and take it down now?
August 10, 2014
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I don’t think you’re actually maximizing value by overbet jamming the flop.
What do you expect your opponent’s calling ranges to be when you do this? How do you think you’ll be perceived doing this?
I think best case scenario is that we get called by the Ace of diamonds (mayyybe Jx).
Stacks are a touch awkward, but I think there are hands we can target that will be calling a normal cbet on this flop. Betting something around 1/3 may also give the impression that we’re interested in folding to a jam, though that may be wishful thinking.
Bet/calling with the intention of jamming non diamond turns sounds fine.
Check/jamming could be a superior line here if you expect villains to bet when checked to, though I do think there are worse hands calling a flop cbet.
Also, I’m shoving this pre.
September 27, 2014
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The overbet jam option on the flop is not intended to maximize value, that would be the opposite approach. Jamming is to take down what is in the pot now rather than take the risk of the pot getting away from me. I was thinking that if the hand went to the river, I would lose it about 1/3 of the time. (I realize now it is slightly less than that. It is possible that neither opponent has a diamond, and if a diamond does hit, there is a 20% chance I will beat the flush anyway.)
The “maximize value” approach would be to play it slow and just get as many chips in the pot as possible.
One question I was asking myself was, what is the value of the additional chips I might win, compared to the value of the chips in the pot now, that are arguably mine, but could get away from me?
Regarding shoving pre: I might have shoved pre if I was in later position and there were some chips in the pot, but I thought I was a little too deep to jeopardize my whole stack with 77 to win 1.5 BB’s. If called, I’m either flipping or way behind. I may well be mathematically wrong on this, but it “seems” like that makes sense at 9 or 10 bb’s but not at 15. (I need to study Nash, never have.)
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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Your priority should always be to make the play that has the highest EV. There’s no such thing as ‘risk vs value’ – both of these concepts are hard to pin down mathematically and thus difficult to factor into any kind of actual calculation. In this case it would be a surprise if the highest EV play was to just shove the flop, since that play wouldn’t give opponents a chance to shove over you with a hand like KdQx or something – I imagine just betting a standard sizing on the flop is going to have higher EV.
Worth mentioning also that I imagine shoving preflop is likely to have higher EV than raising (77 plays awkwardly postflop and people in live tournaments don’t pay attention to stacks, so you will get flatted here fairly often), and that when you’re this short-stacked, you can’t really afford to be raising any bigger than a minraise. You need to maximise maneuverability by keeping your raises as small as possible at short stacks.
September 27, 2014
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Thank you both so much for your responses. First, I understand you both would have shoved pre, but let’s leave that as a separate discussion if you don’t mind.
Please help me understand something, though, about EV, specifically regarding the statement, “Your priority should always be to make the play that has the highest EV.” Obviously you understand this far better than I do. Let me state what I thought I understood, please help me see what I am missing:
In a cash game, each hand should be played to maximize EV. Because all chips have the same value, that calculation is pretty straightforward. But in a tournament, since chips do not all have the same value, we may pass on spots where our edge is small. If I am chip leader and the second stack shoves, and I have AQ, and his stack is two-thirds of my stack, I may be a slight favorite against his range (10% of hands?) but I should fold. (Maybe my example is not quite right, but you get the point.)
That said, is it not at least conceivable that the line with the highest EV for the hand is not the same as the play with the highest EV for the tournament?
I used the generic terms risk and value. In poker parlance, we talk about the implied odds of a hand and the reverse implied odds of that hand.
Here is another way to look at this decision on the flop. First, suppose that it is very unlikely a flop overbet shove would be called. If that is true, we can think of the chips in the pot as being already won, because I have to option to end the hand right now. So, imagine that the chips in the pot are already in my stack. I can either end the hand and keep those chips which I have already won, or I can try to win more of my opponents chips. But if I try to win more of them, I have to remove the “figuratively won” chips back out of my stack and place them in jeopardy. So, the reverse implied odds are that I can lose the initial pot plus the amount of my flop and turn bets. That is something like ~17 BB’s I would be risking by taking this line. Realistically, what can I hope to win (what are the implied odds) by extending the hand? Suppose I can get a flop and a turn bet called by one of my opponents, and that I win with a river bet or at showdown. I will win maybe 8 BB’s more with this line than I would win by ending it on the flop. But as stated, I have to risk 17 BB’s to get there.
And, again, being this short-stacked magnifies the discrepancy in value between chips lost and chips won. I would be risking 17 enormously valuable blinds to win 8 much less valuable blinds.
(Please don’t get too hung up on the exact chip counts because I am sure I don’t have them exactly right, but they should be good enough to illustrate my point….which is not that shoving would be the right line to take, but simply, that there are valid justifications for shoving, even if it is not the highest EV play for that individual hand.)
July 21, 2015
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Just to point out, as far as I understand, reverse implied odds refer to the odds of you hitting you hand but still having second best hand (like defending A5o, when an Axx flops you will have second best good amount of the time) and not the odds of your opponent to beat you at Showdown.
Regarding the hand, I think that EV should be your only concern here. If you are shoving here and get folds 90%, but the other 10% you only get called by best, you are winning 7,2 – 1,5 = +5,7bb on the long run (rough numbers, if you had 15bb behind and pot was 8bb).
On the other hand, by betting 1/2 flop y shoving turn many things can happen and it’s a bit harder to compute. (2 folds on flop, 1 caller flop to fold turn, 2 callers flop and 2 callers in turn, etc…). So to simplify it, let’s imagine this time you get it in a higher amount of time, let’s say 50%, but now you are losing 35% of the time this happens (you have 70% equity vs flush draws and 35% vs flushes, estimating 10% of time they have a flush as before 0,9*0,7+0,1*0,35=0,66 equity). So:
50% you take the 8bb pot, 33% you double up, and 17% of the time you lose you whole stack.
0,5*8 + 0,33*23 – 0,17*15 = 4 + 7,59 – 2,55 = +9bb which is doing pretty better.
I just made up all these numbers as we have not taken into account villian’s ranges and didn’t even think about many other situations that could happen, but you hand is doing really well against any type of hand (discarding JJ that would probably 3bet), you even have a 35% to beat the nuts of the flop. I don’t think you need to overprotect your hand by shoving here.
Yes, you may be called and bust, and then maybe go home thinking “I should have shoved the flop”, but you have to know that in the long run, the bet flop – shove turn line is much more profitable.
Please someone correct me if I got anything wrong, which is very likely 🙂
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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Very nice post Thomps, we need more people quantifying things around here!
The whole “risk vs profit” thing is kind of a false choice IMO. Not winning chips by taking maximally +EV lines is itself risky. It means you won’t have those chips later to invest in other profitable spots, you won’t have chips to survive a dry spell of cards or a bad beat or a cooler, etc. People focus too much on their risk in a given hand/spot and are too worried about busting or getting drawn out on in the current hand, without realizing that giving away chips in spots like this increases their likelihood of busting at some point in the tournament.
December 24, 2013
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As played, with stacks around what you’ve described-
I think your bets will be called by the same range regardless of size up to a reasonable amount. Youll get called or shoved on by like 3 combos of JTs, QJs, KJs, AJs, all flushes which really can’t be that many combos, AdQ AdJ AdT maybe?, KdQ KdT (I just saw a borgata ft where a guy was calling raises with KTo and J9o sometimes, otherwise seemed to at least be trying to play solid and stuff). The only hands I can see reacting differently to bet size are the KQ with a diamond or JT, but really I think unless you give off some live tell, I think youll get a full stack in. Some of those hands may be content checking when given the chance so I don’t think ck/shoving would be the best, as you don’t really get more hands improving (beyond a flush) that would then decide to get it in in some manner on the turn, save for like AQ/AK with no diamond and an AQK turns. But all diamonds on the turn are bad since there are plenty of hands that will have rando diamonds, like pocket pairs that call and overcall.
So like bet more than 1/3, but enough that when called, there’s no other bet size options on the next street. If you have 15bb this could be like 40% even and turn is less than a pot size bet. If it’s bigger, I think anything less than like 60% will get the same reaction from those ranges, and anything else in their preflop range is likely folding regardless what you do.
December 24, 2013
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for preflop though,
Is shoving really preferred here in a live tournament? If stack sizes aren’t really paid too much attention to, would it make sense to give yourself more opportunities by folding? If there are 5 people behind for example, top 5% of hands would mean hero is called 23% of the time. (.95^5= .77) It feels like you could take more late position spots where you have call % of a lot lower. I don’t think it would be wise to pass on +ev spots, but since this is a live tournament and people’s ranges end up differing because they don’t pay attention to stacks, maybe folding is better? Idk. Thoughts?
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