119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

We're down to 3 (top 2 pay). This guy has been fairly aggressive and has moved in several times from the button.

I only have a K-9, but I was thinking that there was a decent chance K-9 was actually the best hand and even if he had Ax, I was getting almost 3-2 on my money so I figured I was getting correct odds to call.

The only reason I question the call is because I always read everybody's comments about "bubble" strategy and I think I don't play as tight around the bubble as many of you....(and I know I need to buy that sngo analzyer thing). Anyway, do you think this was an alright call?? thanks

(sidenote, there were ante's at this point too, although the converter didn't put it in, so there was 375 in the pot when he moved in)

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (3 handed) converter

Button (t1495)
SB (t3855)
Hero (t3650)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].
<font color="#CC3333">Button raises to t1470</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, Hero calls t1270.

Flop: (t2790) 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 2[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

Turn: (t2790) Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

River: (t2790) Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

Final Pot: t2790

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

I would fold. I'm pretty sure his range has to be massive.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I would fold. I'm pretty sure his range has to be massive.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you think his range would have to be massive, then wouldn't that lean towards calling??

His M was only about 4 ($375 a round), so I thought he could be pushing with almost anything as well....

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

Stop going on about M.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

Oh and bigt didn't mean that, he meant his range HAS to be massive for you to call and be +$EV, not that it WAS massive.

By the way he is not even close to desperate here, M just has absolutely no relevance here, then again it almost never does in STT's anyway. Get SNGPT, you'll see.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

Tigerite....in regards to your first post, what's wrong with considering M??

In regards to your second post....I don't understand what you're trying to tell me at all....

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

Sigh, read up in the FAQ then. It's really not difficult.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

Actually, sorry, for some reason I didn't see the 2nd paragraph in your 2nd post. I understand better now...although I don't understand why M has no relevance.

I'll get SNGPT....

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Stop going on about M.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tigerite vs. Dan Harrington in a cage match.

Who wins?

I think tigerite hates him enough for the M to get him motivated enough to fight pretty hard. Dan's also pretty old, but he's wily.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, sorry, for some reason I didn't see the 2nd paragraph in your 2nd post. I understand better now...although I don't understand why M has no relevance.

I'll get SNGPT....

[/ QUOTE ]

I cheated a bit and edited it, that's probably why. Listen, using M to make your decisions in an STT format is just going to cost you money in the long run. For a start, it's far easier (and more relevant) to think of people's stacks in terms of BB. The 'M' guidelines in Harrington's book are for "Winner takes all" style tournaments, or in MTT's where it is basically a winner takes all (or certainly, get to the final table at all costs).

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Stop going on about M.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tigerite vs. Dan Harrington in a cage match.

Who wins?

I think tigerite hates him enough for the M to get him motivated enough to fight pretty hard. Dan's also pretty old, but he's wily.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL. Listen I really don't hate the concept of M or something, but it is just not right to use (only) it to base your decisions on in ANY form of poker. It has some relevance in MTT's, and also some in satellites where it's winner takes all. But in a 2 or 3-payout structure, which are uneven as well, it's just not good to use it barring perhaps a small "ok, so that means he MIGHT be pushing SLIGHTLY wider than usual".

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Stop going on about M.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tigerite vs. Dan Harrington in a cage match.

Who wins?

I think tigerite hates him enough for the M to get him motivated enough to fight pretty hard. Dan's also pretty old, but he's wily.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL. Listen I really don't hate the concept of M or something, but it is just not right to use (only) it to base your decisions on in ANY form of poker. It has some relevance in MTT's, and also some in satellites where it's winner takes all. But in a 2 or 3-payout structure, which are uneven as well, it's just not good to use it barring perhaps a small "ok, so that means he MIGHT be pushing SLIGHTLY wider than usual".

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm still confused. I didn't even mention M in my origional post. It was only a minor consideration in my thinking. I was mostly considering the range of hands I thought he would push with and the odds I was getting to call.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

It didn't seem like you were only considering it as a minor consideration, the way you put it. Anyway it is just far easier to think in terms of BB and clouds the issue less. Whatever, I think this is a fold, the guy isn't (or shouldn't be) pushing with a ridiculously huge range here.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

Fine, so the guy has 7 BB's. You're saying I should conclude he has probably no worse than say A-9, KQ, or a pair. And that he was pushing with no less than that on his other pushes as well??

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

Er I think his range rather has to be wider than that to call here.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

You forget you see that you'll need to be at least 50% against his range here to call.. you are way below 50% against Ax and KT+, obviously, and below 50% against all pairs. So to call here, you'd need an equal amount of hands that you're the same amount AHEAD of to call.. this pushes his range up to some ridiculous amount, I would suspect at least 50-60% of hands, I haven't run it though.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

With the money in the pot, wouldn't I only need to be about 40-45% against his range to make this a correct call?

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

No, you're thinking pot odds, not ICM. I'm surprised you are playing 119's with this lack of knowledge about ICM and stuff to be quite honest?

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

I was like you once, after playing limit for a year and reading Harringtons books I started with STT's because I wanted to try tournament poker and didn't want to take up a 4-hour block of time to do it. I thought in terms of "M" and made moves that were suboptimal and more geared to a multi-table tournament. What I did get out of Harrington V2 was the knowledge I had to change gears as the blinds went up, and an idea of when the gear shifts would occur. This was valuable for someone just starting tournament poker coming from a limit ring game background- but not enough to really play STT's very well.

M is a perfectly reasonable concept and Harrington's book will keep you from doing stupid crap raising 3xBB with a 8xBB stack or limping with PP's to try for a set when you have &lt;12BB. This is good. But Harrington's M is middle school. ICM is college. ICM is doing what Harrington calls "Structured Hand Analysis" for all-in situations. The best tool for convienent ICM analysis is SnG Power Tools.

To answer your original question, you should download the demo for SnG power tools and run the tutorials. The one titled 'mind the gap' will give you the answer you are looking for and then you will be able to answer the question 'was this an ok call' for yourself. You'll be suprized how big the gap concept gap gets once you near the bubble.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
With the money in the pot, wouldn't I only need to be about 40-45% against his range to make this a correct call?

[/ QUOTE ]

You're trying to apply pot odds in a vacuum. What you say might be correct in a MTT where you are far from the money. The situation here is dramatically different. You are on the bubble in a tournament where two players get ALL the money. The downside of losing this hand requires you to have an overlay from what the pot odds alone would tell you-a fairly big overlay.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

To be honest, whenever I have tried to read about ICM I rarely finish reading. I'm sure it's useful, but it makes my head spin trying to calculate it in those stupid online ICM calculators. Worse though, it seems heavily based on knowing what the EXACT calling ranges of your opponents are and what they're pushing with, and any little change in those numbers changes the total outcome. It seems to me that you really don't know exactly what your opponenents are pushing and calling with, so the quality of the results from the ICM calculator is not very helpful (I'm probably wrong, but that's my opinion based on the admitly little I have read on it). I have never really tried to base my decisions on ICM. Maybe this is a mistake on my behalf.

I've always done very well at the 38's and have only recently jumped to the 119's (where I'm about even, but sample size is too small to mean anything). Maybe I'm a 119 fish [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

Sigh, I have nothing more to say. If you're playing the 119s you can damn well for sure afford SNGPT. Why would you jump from the 38's to 119s? That's one hell of a jump, don't you think?

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I was like you once, after playing limit for a year and reading Harringtons books I started with STT's because I wanted to try tournament poker and didn't want to take up a 4-hour block of time to do it. I thought in terms of "M" and made moves that were suboptimal and more geared to a multi-table tournament. What I did get out of Harrington V2 was the knowledge I had to change gears as the blinds went up, and an idea of when the gear shifts would occur. This was valuable for someone just starting tournament poker coming from a limit ring game background- but not enough to really play STT's very well.

M is a perfectly reasonable concept and Harrington's book will keep you from doing stupid crap raising 3xBB with a 8xBB stack or limping with PP's to try for a set when you have &lt;12BB. This is good. But Harrington's M is middle school. ICM is college. ICM is doing what Harrington calls "Structured Hand Analysis" for all-in situations. The best tool for convienent ICM analysis is SnG Power Tools.

To answer your original question, you should download the demo for SnG power tools and run the tutorials. The one titled 'mind the gap' will give you the answer you are looking for and then you will be able to answer the question 'was this an ok call' for yourself. You'll be suprized how big the gap concept gap gets once you near the bubble.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks Mike....I found your post really helpful. I've been meaning to get SNGPT for quite awhile. I'll purchase it today. It sounds like this will plug some leaks of mine...

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Sigh, I have nothing more to say. If you're playing the 119s you can damn well for sure afford SNGPT. Why would you jump from the 38's to 119s? That's one hell of a jump, don't you think?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, it is one hell of a jump. I actually posted a question about this awhile back. I'm doing it because I like to play the 6 person sng's, but the 38's at Stars are making me mental because they take a full hour to complete. So i wanted to do 6 person turbo's, but the only 6 person turbo's stars has are the 119's....they don't have 55's or 38 turbo's at 6 max.

So I decided to do the 119's. If I drop more than I'm comfortable with I'll have to drop back down to the 38's. To be honest, I'm not saying I'm Greg Raymer (I'm sure I have leaks and I think we have proven that), but I'm pretty confident in my game. I'm comfortable taking a shot at the 119's.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

And you have the bankroll for it? Honestly, I don't think jumping because of there being not enough SNG's at a level, or because the speed is 'driving you mental' is really a good idea, especially not if it makes you go BUSTO.. but, each to their own..

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe I'm a 119 fish [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Based on what you've posted in this thread, I think the answer is almost certainly yes.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

My best guess is that about 60-80% of the forum would tell me I do not have the bankroll for it and 20-40% of the forum would tell me I have the bankroll for it. (I cashed out about 7 grand for "other" things, but if I didn't do that I'd say 100% of the forum would tell me I have the bankroll for it)

However, let's just say that if I drop down below the amt I'm comfortable losing, I'll still have way more than enough buy-ins to return to the 38's and build myself back up. I *might* lose at the 119's, but I won't go "BUSTO". I might even surprise you!!!

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe I'm a 119 fish [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Based on what you've posted in this thread, I think the answer is almost certainly yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay. You try to make a joke around here and just like always the @ss-holes chime in with their opinion and ZERO helpful advice.

I never claimed to be a pro or to make "perfect" decisions at the table. In fact, I even stated I have leaks. But in 18 months I've never had a losing month online and I've had many very successful months.

I think I know more about how good or bad I am than what you think you know from reading 1 post....

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe I'm a 119 fish [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Based on what you've posted in this thread, I think the answer is almost certainly yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay. You try to make a joke around here and just like always the @ss-holes chime in with their opinion and ZERO helpful advice.

I never claimed to be a pro or to make "perfect" decisions at the table. In fact, I even stated I have leaks. But in 18 months I've never had a losing month online and I've had many very successful months.

I think I know more about how good or bad I am than what you think you know from reading 1 post....

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, you had made 10 posts in this thread alone before I said anything so it wasn't from 1 post. And I'm not trying to be a jerk or make fun. ICM is critical to STT success, especially at the higher levels. The fact that you don't know anything about it and haven't even bothered to pay less than one buy-in for software to help you learn says a lot. Then you whip out your e-penis.

What's the biggest downswing you've had?

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

I know what ICM is, I'm just FAR from an expert on it. I readily admit ICM is not a strong point of my game. That doesn't mean I don't have other strong points. I will be buying SNGPT today and I'll brush up on that weakness of my game.

I wasn't whipping out my e-penis. I come to this board to improve my game and to help other people improve if they wish to have rational discussions. And I tire of people who choose to insult people and call them morons.

At any rate, with that behind us, to answer your question.....the biggest downswing I've had I believe was about 9 buy-ins or so.....over the course of about 1000 sng's.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

You've been very lucky to only have a 9 buy-in drop..

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
You've been very lucky to only have a 9 buy-in drop..

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, maybe. Keep in mind, I also play the 6 person games. I don't know if that affects ITM rates or not. I would guess maybe slightly....

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You've been very lucky to only have a 9 buy-in drop..

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, maybe. Keep in mind, I also play the 6 person games. I don't know if that affects ITM rates or not. I would guess maybe slightly....

[/ QUOTE ]

Sparta, I honestly respect people like you who have the desire to learn and the ability to take comments like those of tigerite's and seem interested by them as opposed to getting offended by them. Too many players on here go apeshit when you tell them they're wrong or have leaks and that just defeats the purpose of the forum.

So I will give you this advice: Given what you have said in this thread you likely are not a winner at the 100's. That doesn't mean you can't become one. Buy SNGPT, read these forums and really focus on improving. Drop back town to the 30's to work on your game. It's not a bankroll thing, it's a long-term profitability thing. I hope this helps you.

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

Thanks for the compliment. I honestly really don't care if somebody agrees or disagrees with me as long as they have reasons behind it that I can consider and ultimately improve with.

As I said, I'm going to purchase SNGPT today and I'll consider your advice about moving down in levels while I work on my game....

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

I fold K9/KT, but I am unsure about KJ and higher etc. .. can someone tell me what is the minimum hand they call with?

Re: 119\'s Bubble strategy?? Was this an okay call?
 

[ QUOTE ]
the biggest downswing I've had I believe was about 9 buy-ins or so.....over the course of about 1000 sng's.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh go [censored] yourself... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Seriously though, ICM is key to winning in Sit n Go's. I've only started studying with ICM and I have slowly realized I'm a gigantic donk...It will help your game tremendously.
Good luck.