Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 (65 page)

Most players will be somewhere between these tight and loose raise-calling ranges. I suggest you play with one of the numerous programs online, such as
ProPokerTools.com
, which I used for all the calculations above, to determine what you should do in each situation. You will find that once most players raise, you need a fairly decent hand to justify entering the pot. If you do get in with a hand that has too little equity, you will miss future opportunities when you could push much more profitably. Wait for strong hands when you’re short-stacked and someone raises in front of you.

Calling Pushes

You need a fairly strong hand to call a tight player who goes all-in before the action gets to you. If he is loose, you can call with a wide range in position. The next section will be full of assumptions about your opponent’s pushing range. You must become an expert at defining opponents’ ranges if you want to become a great poker player. The best players in the world can pinpoint each opponent’s pushing range and quickly come up with a fairly accurate calling range. I suggest you find an equity calculator and follow along.

If someone pushes ahead of you, you need to figure out his range and your hand’s equity against that range. The most common situation is when everyone folds to the button, who goes all-in for around 10BBs. Assume the small blind folds and the action is on you, with 50BBs in your stack. There are 2.5BBs dead from the small blind and antes, and you have to call one big blind less because you already have 1BB in the pot. So, there are 13.5BBs in the pot and you have to call 9BBs more. To figure out how often you need to win, simply compute

9/(9+13.5) = 0.4.

You must win 40 percent of the time against your opponent’s range to break even.

Notice that the pusher’s position only matters in helping to define his pushing range. Your position is important because if there are a lot of players left to act, you should be much tighter than if you are in the big blind with no players left to act. If you are not closing the action, you need a much stronger hand to call.

From here, simply plug in the numbers to determine the hands with which you should call. For example, if your opponent is pushing 50 percent of hands, you should call with something like 2-2+, A-2+, K-2+, Q-8+, Q-6s+, J-8+, J-7s+, 10-9 and 10-8s+. I would call with all these hands if my tournament life was not at risk. Notice that you actually need to be slightly better than 40-percent to call, because you want to do better than break even. Consider tightening up a bit more if losing the hand will put you out of the tournament. If I were short, I would probably call with something like 4-4+, A-5+, K-8+, Q-10+, Q-9s, and J-10s. This gives up a tiny bit of equity because you are folding a lot of the worst hands you could call with, but you will gain that equity back, plus more, when you have the opportunity to push in the future. If your equity is not much greater later in the tournament either because of the structure or because the players all play near optimally, you should be less willing to fold the weaker hands in the calling range, even with your tournament life on the line.

For those wondering how I came up with these ranges, I went to
ProPokerTools.com
, typed 50 percent into one range and plugged in hands until I found the hand that no longer has 43-percent equity. For example, Q-8 has 43-percent equity, so it is a call, whereas Q-7 has 41-percent equity, and should therefore be folded.

If the pusher is tight, pushing only 15 percent of hands, you should call with a much tighter range. You still need about 43-percent equity, so you need hands like 5-5+, A-9+, A-8s+ and K-Q. Notice how much tighter you must be if the player is raising very tight. Having a solid read on your opponents’ pushing ranges is important because one wrong read can cause you to make a huge error.

Suppose the action folds to the player in the small blind, who has 8BBs, and you know he will push any two cards. For this example I will use chips, although leaving numbers in terms of big blinds works fine as well. Assume you are playing 200/400-50. There are 500 in ante chips, plus your 400 in the big blind, plus your opponent’s 3,200, so there are 4,100 chips in the pot. You have to call 2,800 more, so you need 40-percent equity to call. You want to be better than break-even, so you need around 43-percent equity to profit. So, you simply use 100 percent for your opponent’s range and determine that you should call with 2-2+, A-2+, K-2+, Q-2+, J-2+, 10-3+, 9-5+, 8-6+, 7-6+ and slightly worse suited hands. This may shock some players, but I would call with a fairly similar range if I thought everyone left in the tournament played very well. However, most players play poorly, so you can call a bit tighter. I would actually call with something like 2-2+, A-2+, K-2+, Q-6+, J-7+, 10-8+ and suited connectors. You may lose equity here by folding your weaker hands, but you will make it up when you get to push and your opponents fold too often. If you find any player is going nuts, pushing every hand, don’t be scared to get in there and gamble with a weak-looking hand like Q-7 if you are getting decent pot odds. It is actually a lot stronger than it looks. Call a bit tighter if your tournament life is on the line. If you have a large stack, go ahead and call with a wide range.

If I had to give some generalizations about players’ pushing ranges, I would say most young kids push about 85 percent from the small blind, 75 percent from the button and 60 percent from the cutoff. They usually push with a decent hand from earlier positions. Older players, who are usually tighter, will be tougher to figure out because some of them push wide and some are very tight. Pay close attention to each player and do your best to pinpoint their ranges.

Call early-position pushes much tighter than those from late position because they have a much tighter pushing range. Also, in earlier positions you have to worry about everyone behind you picking up a hand.

For example, suppose a good, aggressive player pushes from first position for 4,000 chips while playing 200/400-50. You are in 2nd position with A
-J
and a 20BB stack. In this spot you need to win around 43 percent of the time. If you give your opponent the range of 4-4+, A-J+, A-10s+, K-Q and a random 9-8s, you can determine whether you should call. Notice how I added 9-8s to his range. Most good, aggressive players randomly push with sub-par hands to balance their range, which isn’t a bad idea at all. Just remember to account for it when deciding whether to call a push. You’re right at 44-percent equity against this range, so consider calling if you are closing the action. This isn’t the case, as you have 7 or 8 players behind you, making this an easy fold. If you had A-Q instead, giving you 48-percent equity, you should still fold, especially with bad players at your table. Consider going all-in if everyone is playing near optimally. Call regardless of your table if you have over 50-percent equity.

Simply put, figure out your opponent’s range, determine your odds, figure out which hands to call with, and then cut the worst hands out of your calling range because of players left to act in the hand and your value in the tournament if you fold.

When Someone Pushes over Your Raise

This section will address the situation when you should call a push after you’ve raised to 2.25BBs out of your stack of 15 or more BBs. The astute reader could probably come up with all the formulas to figure out your calling range against a short stack’s shove once you open. Think about it and try to figure it out. Learning to think for yourself is important because no one is there to help you at the table.

Suppose you raise any two cards to 2.25BBs out of your 30BB stack and a player pushes for 10BBs. Everyone folds back to you. You first need to figure out your opponent’s pushing range. This varies by player type, and also by his opinion of you and your raising range. He will probably push tight if you’ve raised tight, and shove a decently wide range if you’ve been loose. I will give a few examples based on your opponent’s pushing range, and also a few random hands with which you may open-raise. There are 16BBs in the pot when it gets back to you. You have to call 8 more, giving you 2-to-1 odds, so you need to win 33 percent of the time to break even. Note that you will usually be getting much worse odds if there are no antes. Antes basically force you to call because you are getting such great odds, as we will soon see.

Assume in each example, that you have 2-2, 8-8, 7
-6
, J
-10
, A-4, A-J, K-10 or 7-4. I will list a range your opponent might push and determine whether you should call with each hand. So, if your opponent will push a range like 2-2+, A-2+, K-8+, Q-9+, J-10, 10-9s, 9-8s, 8-7s and 7-6s, which of these hands should you call with if you are getting 2-to-1? You may be surprised that you should call with every hand in this range. The 7-4 only has 33.5-percent equity, so you can fold it if you like. But folding any of the other hands is a huge error.