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November 4, 2013
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Good evening,
I can tell that TPE information has been amazingly valuable to me. Most of what I read/hear/learn here either shows itself to be valuable in game very quickly, or makes enough sense logically that I can feel confident in the information long enough to see the bigger picture truths coming out.
Recently, there is one aspect of one general concept that I am failing to swallow. Perhaps it's the combination of it seeming untrue to me logically combined with not seeing positive results when trying to incorporate this concept: Pushing with the section of our range that includes Ace-Rag, and sometimes King-Rag with smallish stacks, when sitting in an obvious steal position, and especially after having just shoved or shown down a hand or two.
I hear the information that it is +EV because the chips you gain from folds + the chips you gain from showdown wins are greater than the chips you lose from showdown losses. I understand that we need to maintain our stack and fold equity. But I'm having difficulty seeing this concept play itself out. I know we sometimes have selective memory, and I suppose it's possible that I'm not remembering enough times that I've gotten simple folds by shoving A2o from mid position, but it's more than that.
I feel as though I'm also remembering plenty of wins (either MTT or SNG) that I managed after specifically deciding NOT to follow this logic. I make a tight open fold from mid/late position, maybe because I've just played the previous hand, and because the current BB player has been very stationy. Before I know it I've picked up some good spots and half an hour later I've taken 1st. So not only do I feel I'm busting out plenty by shoving these Ace Rag hands, I also feel I've been doing quite well by avoiding these spots.
Of course, I know of the phenomenon of players worrying too much about busting on the bubble – that some of the nittier styles lend themselves to mincashing, and that we need to be willing to bubble more so that we can ship 1st more often.
But something is just not settling properly in me with regards to these somewhat short stacked pushes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not waiting a full two orbits after these moments and then wondering what to do with Ace Rag when I have 6BB. I am just wondering about the 9-13BB mark, if we have reason to believe we don't have the usual amount of fold equity. It's also not like I'm just waiting for premiums .. I kind of feel like there are plenty of spots with technically worse cards than A4o that I like better. I have been feeling that 10BB stacks can get good respect when shoving in positions like UTG+1 or UTG+2.
Am I really very wrong, and is it really too tight to fold Ace Rag from mid position, maybe even late position if you feel you're not going to get many folds, whether because you've just been active for a few hands, or because the blinds are sticky? I've heard it said that if you can get your villains to play back at you light, that's a good thing, but I don't actually think this seems true with hands like A2o that generally don't do well against ranges that play back.
Am I just not seeing this corner of the matrix? Thanks for any input.
November 18, 2014
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Math can be a little bit of a bitch but you have to trust it. Ax is a extraordinary good hand to be shoving when you have only 10BB. If you want some of the math stats:
– You're 55-45 ahead of anything that is not a pair or a better Ax. And I mean, anything, 89s, KQs you're ahead, if only slightly.
– You're about 50% against any smaller pair (i.e. A5o is 45-53 underdog against 33)
– Even when dominated or against a big pair (QQ, a higher Ax) you still have a reasonable 25-30% even against AK or KK
Summarizing, mathematically speaking with 10BB you don't really have “moves” to make, you're commiting yourself to any pot you play so shoving with Ax its a profitable move. Here, with Ax you have your FE and if you get called you're going to be flipping most of the time, and even when you're dominated you still have a fair chance.
January 16, 2014
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With 10bb and 5 left to act I’m shoving A9+ typically. So I’m with you, and it feels like we’re in the minority. I became super frustrated busting out late by getting called by slightly better ace-rag hands. I don’t think it’s something that can really be explained with short, simple, logical statements. I think you just have to plug in stack sizes and estimated calling ranges into a tool like ICMizer and just do the math. I’m a bit lazy when it comes to that kind of stuff so I’ve never done that, however I did start to follow the shove ranges from …..charts.com. I’m not saying I blindly follow those charts. If I expect to get more calls than normal I would shove a bit more narrow than the charts suggests, and if I expect more folds than normal (particularly if there is a nit in the blinds) then I would widen the charts ranges a little bit. With bubble dynamics and FT ICM considerations I’ll adjust further. Or if I haven’t played a hand in a while I’ll widen it, and if I shoved 2 or 3 times recently I’ll narrow it. So the question I’m always asking myself is how much do I adjust from the charts. I now feel a lot more comfortable with my late stage shove game, and I’ve had a lot more success too. I could be doing it wrong and just been getting lucky with variance, but that’s just what I do.
November 18, 2014
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One thing to keep in mind is that humans are not really good at grasping probability accurately (…..abilities/) so even if it feels wrong to you that basically means nothing.
While the optimal result of a push with Ax is a fold, the purpose of the movement is to maximize the combination of FE and odds in case you go to showdown.
This is a case of selective memory where you only remember the times you were you shoved and were called by a better Ax, that’s because our memory tends to work that way… but let’s do the math (I’m not using ICM consideration or in the bubble considerations here, I’ll assume we’re either far away from the bubble or already in the money).
Since we are either doubling up or losing I’m going to treat this as a win-lose scenario. If we win more times than we lose, it is the right move.
We win when
They fold. That’s our FE.
They don’t fold but we still win: (1-FE) * Equity of our range against his.
So what we want is the amount of times we win to be higher than 50% of the time.
FE + (1 – FE) * Equity > 0.5
FE + Equity – FE * Equity > 0.5
Now, there’re two variables there. FE as the fold equity and E as the equity of our range against his range.
Let’s start with Equity.
Our range: A8s-A2s,A9o-A2o –> All Ax, with x being lower than T if it’s of or lower than 9 if it’s suited
His call range: 22+,A4s+,KTs+,QJs,JTs,T9s,98s,87s,A6o+,KJo+ –> The higher Ax, all pairs, all suited connectors and KJo+
That gives us an equity of 40.3% and with that we can extract the value of the FE that we need for the move to be profitable:
FE + 0.403 – 0.403*FE > 0.5
FE – 0.403*FE > 0.097
0.593*FE > 0.097
FE > 0.1635 –> FE > 17%
That is, as long as we have a fold equity greater than 17% the movement is profitable. And in most occasions with have more than that in FE, so the movement itself is profitable. Of course, if you have 4 maniacs behind you that are call friendly and there’s no way they are going to fold it changes, but as a general thing it should always be a good move.
Of course there’re a lot of simplifications there, like whether you’re in the bubble or not, your table image, what other guys are doing and the fact that your push does have to get through different guys and different stacks but generally (and most importantly mathematically) speaking, it’s the right move.
Sorry about the math here, it’s difficult to properly express math in a forum but let me know if I’ve made any mistake.
PS: By the way the formula itself is:
FE > (0.5 – equity) / 1 – equity
In case you want to adjust based on different ranges
November 4, 2013
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Thank you for the responses.
Yeah, I do believe the math will probably support shoving these spots especially in a vacuum, and surely that's why I want to really see it.
But I wonder how much the factors I listed could even produce mathematically different answers to the question of when to shove or fold these borderline hands.
As a side note to my OP, I didn't mention the fact that my intention is to avoid deceptively -EV or break even spots not just by opting to fold for the two reasons I listed (sticky players forcing flips or because I just played hands) but also because I weigh in heavily that obvious chance of running into primo hands. I would be willing to construct my math problem with the loss divided into two categories, and multiply those categories by the probability that the villain will call.
-chance of running into villains' range that is premium (say TT+ and AK) *1 (because there is a 100% chance they'll call with those hands, and that situation busts us 70% of the time, and sure we double 30% of the time)
-chance of running into villains' range that he might call with and we are sometimes, 45% to bust, sometimes 70% to bust * SOMETHING, a number to represent a curve that goes down rapidly from 1 but might average at 0.7 or something, because there's like a 98% chance the villain will call with 99, 93% he'll call with 88, 79% chance he'll call with 77, and so on (all theoretical).
It would be tedious to do this math problem – I would have to construct all the factors for the ways we win but truth be told I’m sure it is exactly what I should try to do today.
On that note chaos, I appreciate your input. You are probably right about these shoves, and math certainly can be deceptive. I had trouble following your calculations though. We are not just dealing with double up or bust, because that only accounts for the results from showdowns. When we get folds, it's great, but we don't double up, we just win the initial pot. So I think that boosts our required fold equity up a lot higher than 17%, doesn't it?
Another note: we will only have 55% equity against him a minority of the time he calls .. a lot of those hands he is folding and we are picking up initial pots, which is good. When he calls though, we are commonly dominated, 30% and worse, IMO
September 14, 2014
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yeah you can't really argue with maths 😉
If u read the book Kill everyone it shows which hands you should be shoving at certain stack sizes.
with 9-13bb I jam Ax type of hands from late postion , so pretty much from hijack or cutoff I'm shoving these. As for mid postion i think you should be shoving stronger aces like A7s+.
depending on the looseness/tendencies of your table and the opponents on the blinds you could obv shove wider/tighter so you really just have to try to exploit this and play accordingly.
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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Schwartz,
Take a look at the calling range Chaos posted. If you are shoving, say, A5o, then that range already contains all hands that dominate you. So the only thing a sticky Villain could do is start calling with hands against which you are a (small) favorite. An unexploitable shoving range is one that you can shove no matter what the Villains behind you call with, because they simply won't be dealt hands better than yours often enough to make your shove unprofitable.
November 18, 2014
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Just to add to that, the possibility of a villain after you having a better ace than you is when you have Ax:
N of Villans * 3/48 * (13- x)/12
Note: This is an aproximation and it’s the number of one of them getting one of the 3 remaining aces and then the chance of the other card being higher than yours, with your being x. So making some numbers
Ie. If you have A5 on your hand and 5 villans still to talk then:
5 * 3/48 * (13-5)/12 = 0.20 = 20%
If you have A2 then you’re almost always dominated when they have the ace, which isn’t that often anyway:
5* 3/48 * (13-2)/12 = 0.286 = 28.6%
If you have AT then
5*3/48 * (13-10)/12 = 0.078 = 7.8%
That’s just to give you an estimation of how likely it is you’re going to be dominated when you push your ace rag. Obviously if your UTG with 9 people still to talk the probability goes up considerably:
9 * 3/48 * (13-5) / 12 = 0.375 = 37.5%
But this is still to prove that “perceptions” are misleading, in reality, even with A2 and 5 guys still to talk after you, there’s only a 28% chance that they have a better ace in their hand (and even if they do they may not call with something like A3 or A4).
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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For anyone struggling with preflop shoving ranges and push-fold, I recommend HoldemResources Calculator. It's a fantastic tool for exploring unexploitable ranges, and subsequently identifying spots where our awareness of villains' tendencies can lead us to deviate significantly from those ranges and make more money. With a tool like that, you don't need to force yourself to believe a shove is profitable – the evidence as to whether it is or not is right in front of you.
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