Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 (62 page)

Here’s what happens. If your opponent calls 15 percent of the time, you will win 2,750 chips (the blinds and antes + his raise) 85 percent of the time. The remaining 15 percent of the time you will have around a 35-percent chance to win a 21,000-chip pot (your 10,000 + his 10,000 + blinds and antes), which gives you 7,350 when called for a 2,650-chip loss.

So, you make 2,750(0.85) – 2,650(0.15) = 1,940 chips in expected profit every time you do this.

That is pretty huge. It should be noted that most opponents will raise less than 100 percent of the time on the button and some of them will call with more than 15 percent of their hands. Also, you will usually have more than 35-percent equity, as you will not push 100 percent of your hands. However, situations like this come up all the time.

Now that you know you should push on loose raisers often, you need some rules to find the best spots for this play.

You want to be in as late a position as possible to minimize the risk of someone behind you waking up with a hand and cold-calling your all-in. When this happens, you usually have about 30-percent equity if one person calls and 15-percent equity if two players call. This situation will not happen too often if you push from late position.

Try to raise over players who have a very wide pre-flop raising range. Most players raise more hands in late position, so that’s a good place to start. If someone open-raises from the small blind, button, cutoff, or hijack, he’s usually a good candidate to be pushed over. Avoid pushing over very tight players—their raising and calling ranges are very similar because they only raise premium hands.

Notice how the math changes against a tight player. If a player raises with 20 percent of his hands and calls your push with half of them, you will lose a decent number of chips. If we assume the same blinds and stacks as above, here is what will happen. If your opponent calls 50 percent of the time, you will win 2,750 chips (the blinds and antes + his raise) 50 percent of the time. The other 50 percent of the time, you will have around a 30-percent chance to win a 21,000-chip pot (your 10,000 + his 10,000 + blinds and antes), which gives you 6,300 when called, for a 3,700-chip loss. So, your expectation is 2,750(0.5) – 3,700(0.5) = -475 chips. This is why you must make sure your opponent is loose.

Perhaps the most important factor, which even some professional players fail to consider, is to take stack sizes into account. You generally want to have a stack size somewhere between 5 and 10 times your opponent’s initial raise, assuming he has you covered. If he does not have you covered, then your raise should be between 5 and 10 times his starting stack. For example, if someone raises to 150 at 25/50 and I have 1300 chips, I will usually be going all in or folding whereas if I have 2000 chips, I will never go all in, as my stack is too large. You will find that good re-raise all in stacks are usually between 12 and 30bbs. The closer you can get to 7 times their raise, the better. In the initial example, you see how we were pushing for around 7 times the initial raise and it gave us a huge amount of profit. As you start pushing for more than 10 times their raise, the amount you are risking becomes too high, which means you will lose a larger amount of chips when called, making the play –EV and when you are pushing for only a small amount more than your opponent’s raise, you will start to get called very often, negating your profit from when your opponent folds to your all in raise.

So, if pushing over late-position raises from aggressive players is hugely profitable, why don’t you make these plays all the time? If you do this too often, peoples’ calling ranges will open up and you will lose your fold equity maing the play –EV. Also, if called, you have a 65-percent chance of busting out of the tournament. Once you lose, you can no longer make these +EV plays. This should be enough to keep you from pushing too often. You should also be very careful about pushing over the same person numerous times. Quite often, if an opponent raises three times and you go all-in each time, he will eventually call with a fairly wide range and have you in a bad situation.

That brings us to the topic of which hands you should go all-in with over a loose opponent’s initial raise. Push only with very premium hands if you think you’ll be called fairly often, and push with a wide range if you think you’ll rarely be called. You can plug hand ranges into the equation above to come up with the proper ranges. The best hands to push over raises are generally pairs, big cards and suited connectors, because they are usually in decent shape against most opponents’ calling ranges, and hands containing an ace because it’s then harder for your opponent to have an ace, and you know you usually have at least 30-percent equity when called.

Now that you know I like to go all-in a lot over raises when I have 5-10 times that raise, when should you just call the raise instead of pushing? I like to just call against players that either tend to give up or always continuation-bet post-flop. If you know a player will raise and then check-fold most flops when he misses, you usually have more value by just calling, and then taking him off every hand he misses, which he will usually identify by checking. Against players that continuation-bet 100 percent of the time, you can push over their bets on boards that tend to miss them, as they will usually fold on the flop and you will win a larger pot. In this situation though, you need to flop at least some outs, like overcards, or an overcard and a gutshot. Basically, if your opponents play poorly post-flop and you have a good idea of how they play, just call with hands that play well post-flop, like A-A, 5-4s and 2-2. Push with hands that flop poorly, such as A-x, K-x and 9-7o.

Against opponents that play well post-flop, you should just push every hand you plan to play, as calling usually will cost a significant portion of your stack and they will be the ones winning pots they don’t deserve instead of you. This means you should go all in with hands like 5-4s, 4-4, J-10o, K-Qs and A-A. The problem with just calling with hands like A-A is that a good player will know you wouldn’t call in a spot like that except with a very strong hand. By calling, you turn your hand face-up, which is never a good thing.

How do you defend yourself when you raise and get shoved on? If you are on the button, both your opponents have between 5 and 10 times what your raise would be and you have a fairly weak hand, feel free to fold. No rule states you must raise with a huge range from late position. If your opponents have either more or less than 5 to 10 times your raise, you can raise a wide range. If they go all-in for very few chips, you will be getting a great price to call, and if they go all-in or re-raise with a larger stack, you will have an easy fold. Avoid situations where you raise with something like K-4s, your opponent goes all-in and you are getting 1.8-to-1 to call. Any time you need to be only 30-percent to win, you generally have an easy call. Any time you need to be 45-percent to win, you generally have an easy fold with your weak hands. You will often need to be something like 38-percent to win and your hand will probably win about that often. So, simply don’t raise in this situation when you are likely to face a push.

You also have the option to raise less pre-flop, giving you worse odds to call, or raise more pre-flop, giving you better odds to call. One of my Swedish friends once told me to always raise enough so you have to call. While I don’t think that is quite accurate, it isn’t far from what you should be doing. You do not want to raise to an amount with a weak hand that makes your call or fold close, as you will often make a mistake.

Think about what stack size you will have if you call and win, call and lose, or just fold. When considering calling these pushes, you also need to consider who is pushing over you. If a young online kid who has been fairly active is going all-in on top of you, don’t be scared to call off with a weak hand. A hand like A-10 or K-J is usually way ahead of his pushing range, especially if you have been active. It becomes a game of chicken, where he pushes a wide range because he knows you are raising a huge range from late position. But people usually forget that I know they are pushing a wide range, so I can now call with a wide range. Any time I am getting 1.5-to-1 or better against someone I know likes to push a lot, I will call off with a wide range. This is not only because I am usually 40 percent to win, but also because it will hopefully stop that player from pushing so much on me in the future. It also usually changes the stack sizes enough to where your opponent is either out of chips or has too many to just go all-in over your raise, putting you in a spot that is easier to play.

I want to caution you about becoming paranoid that people with optimal stack sizes will always push on you. This simply isn’t the case. Even good, aggressive players tend to have some pushing requirements. If you have never seen the two tight players in the blinds re-raise all-in, then raise their blinds relentlessly until they start playing back at you. You can raise often even with aggressive players in the blinds, because if you start playing tight, they will stop pushing on you with weak hands, which means you will never get action when you raise with a good hand. The last thing you want is to start blinding off simply because you fear someone will push you around when they have no intention of doing so.

There is a crop of players that like to re-raise small over raises that tend to be loose, even when they have a fairly small stack size, like five times their opponent’s raise. They usually believe that once they re-raise, their opponents will only go all-in with premium hands and then they can safely fold, as their hand now has little equity. For example, at 100/200, someone who has you covered raises from late position to 600 and you, with a 4,000 stack, re-raise to 1,600. The initial raiser then goes all-in, which means there will be 5,800 or so in the pot and you have to call 2,400 more, meaning you need to win only 29 percent of the time. You will find it tough to fold with such great odds, as it is difficult to be less than 30-percent against someone’s range. Also, they assume their opponents will only go all-in with premium hands, which is simply not true. One of the worst plays these people make is to re-raise with a hand like A-Q or 6-6 in this spot and then fold to a push. With these hands, you are rarely in terrible shape and usually have 50-percent equity against your opponent’s range. These players often justify their folds by saying they would be putting their tournament life at risk if they called. While this is true, any time you create a spot where you only need to win 30 percent of the time and you probably have 50-percent equity, you have a clear call, even if you are the best player in the world. The whole point of this is to make sure you don’t give yourself great odds and then fold, making a hugely –EV play.

  Chapter 14

When You Have Between 12 and 5BBs

Some players pride themselves on being great at playing a short stack. They convince themselves that playing the short stack requires the mastery of some mystical art form. In reality, playing the short stack is about putting your opponent on a range, sitting down away from the table and figuring out the optimal pushing and calling ranges for each situation.

Once your stack dips below 12BBs, pretty much everything taught in this book to this point goes out the window. There is no room at all for fancy plays. In fact, your only real decision is whether to go all-in before the flop. While it may sound like most players should easily be able to play the short stack, the vast majority play either too tight or too loose. As a quick note, if antes are in play, which will be common in most big live tournaments and most online tournaments, you should consider pushing for more than 12BBs. I have seen some players push for as much as 20BBs with hands that play poorly post-flop, although I generally try to push for 15BBs at the most.

There will be a lot of math in the next section because once stacks get short, poker is simply a numbers game. If the math bothers you, ignore it. As long as you follow my suggestions, you will be fine. I will teach you in this next section how to use your short stack like a mace to beat your opponents into submission.

As you become short-stacked, you are probably nearing the bubble or getting in the money. In this case there is much more value in shoving than calling shoves. Just know ahead of time that your pushing ranges should be wider and your calling ranges tighter when near or in the money. I will discuss this concept much more in Volume 2.

Pushing

I am actually a pretty big fan of having a short stack because it is tough to make a huge mistake if are not too tight. Ironically, folding too many hands will give you much worse results than pushing often because the blinds and antes will quickly eat away your stack. Suppose you have a 10BB stack and are on the button with 9
-7
. If everyone folds to you, this should be an easy push. If you decide to fold for an entire orbit until your next big blind though, your 10BB stack, which would have still been 10BBs if you had pushed and taken the blinds, will diminish to around 7BBs, assuming there antes in play. Speaking of antes, for the rest of this section, I will assume antes are in play. Just waiting one orbit is enough to take away a lot of your fold equity and require you to double up just to get back to where you were one quick orbit ago. You must be very willing to push any time your opponents fold to you, especially in late position when the blinds are tight.