Sit 'n Go Strategy study group -- Part I: Low Blind Play

[mcpst17]

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Hi, I am new to this forum and relatively new to sit and go’s. I grasp the concept of the tournament equity section where all in coin flip confrontations early on can actually reduce your equity. However I have a couple questions:

1. In Hand 1-4, it is recommended to shove with AK after a raise and two limpers. Let’s assume no one has been eliminated, everyone has 2k in chips, and one person calls your push. Is your tournament equity reduced if you are called by someone with JJ and in a coin-flip situation? There is t460 more chips in this situation than if you call an all-in if MP1 open pushes and it is folded to you. Do the t460 chips make the difference or is it because there is fold equity?
2. How big a favorite do you have to be to call an all-in in low-blind play (2-1, 3-1, etc.)? How many chips have to be in the middle to make your all-in call worth the risk of your tournament life assuming only one person will call (t2460, t2600, etc.)?

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The best way to do this is to get an ICM calculator and determine your equity in each of the possible outcomes. Then you can write down some equations, usually using an equality that you want your equity if you call ($EV_fold) to be equal to your equity if you push ($EV_push). There should be one unknown in the equation and you can use basic algebra to solve for it.

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Thank you for the response. I had to look up what ICM was since I did not get to that chapter in the book yet. I will take some time to read this section and try to work through some calculations on my own. I was really hoping someone would explain the difference in the AK hands from Question 1 above as it relates to your tournament equity. If my questions are too "Beginner” for this forum I apologize and would appreciate if someone could direct me to the appropriate forum. Thank you.

[Slim Pickens]

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Hi, I am new to this forum and relatively new to sit and go’s. I grasp the concept of the tournament equity section where all in coin flip confrontations early on can actually reduce your equity. However I have a couple questions:

1. In Hand 1-4, it is recommended to shove with AK after a raise and two limpers. Let’s assume no one has been eliminated, everyone has 2k in chips, and one person calls your push. Is your tournament equity reduced if you are called by someone with JJ and in a coin-flip situation? There is t460 more chips in this situation than if you call an all-in if MP1 open pushes and it is folded to you. Do the t460 chips make the difference or is it because there is fold equity?
2. How big a favorite do you have to be to call an all-in in low-blind play (2-1, 3-1, etc.)? How many chips have to be in the middle to make your all-in call worth the risk of your tournament life assuming only one person will call (t2460, t2600, etc.)?

[/ QUOTE ]

The best way to do this is to get an ICM calculator and determine your equity in each of the possible outcomes. Then you can write down some equations, usually using an equality that you want your equity if you call ($EV_fold) to be equal to your equity if you push ($EV_push). There should be one unknown in the equation and you can use basic algebra to solve for it.

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Thank you for the response. I had to look up what ICM was since I did not get to that chapter in the book yet. I will take some time to read this section and try to work through some calculations on my own. I was really hoping someone would explain the difference in the AK hands from Question 1 above as it relates to your tournament equity. If my questions are too "Beginner” for this forum I apologize and would appreciate if someone could direct me to the appropriate forum. Thank you.

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Your question is exactly the right level. Hand 1-4 would be a good one to work through in more detail. For now, just assume an ICM calculator is a black box that translates chip stacks at the table and tournament payouts into tournament equity, as explained on pages 6-11. "Tournament equity" is also called "prize pool equity," or sometimes just "equity" in cases where it's assumed to be in a tournament. I usually use the term "prize pool equity."

Looking at hand 1-4, let's assume for now that you have only two options: raise all-in or fold. So the question becomes "Which option gives you the highest prize pool equity, pushing all-in or folding?" It will be necessary for you to make some assumptions because not all of the necessary information is supplied explicitly in the problem statement given in the book.

Get as far as you can and post your results/thoughts/questions. If you get stuck somewhere, just post whatever you've done up to that point.

EDIT: Here is the ICM calculator I use. There are a few others in the "other Links" sticky.

[ymu]

You're fab Slim. Thanks for this thread.

[mcpst17]

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Hi, I am new to this forum and relatively new to sit and go’s. I grasp the concept of the tournament equity section where all in coin flip confrontations early on can actually reduce your equity. However I have a couple questions:

1. In Hand 1-4, it is recommended to shove with AK after a raise and two limpers. Let’s assume no one has been eliminated, everyone has 2k in chips, and one person calls your push. Is your tournament equity reduced if you are called by someone with JJ and in a coin-flip situation? There is t460 more chips in this situation than if you call an all-in if MP1 open pushes and it is folded to you. Do the t460 chips make the difference or is it because there is fold equity?
2. How big a favorite do you have to be to call an all-in in low-blind play (2-1, 3-1, etc.)? How many chips have to be in the middle to make your all-in call worth the risk of your tournament life assuming only one person will call (t2460, t2600, etc.)?

[/ QUOTE ]

The best way to do this is to get an ICM calculator and determine your equity in each of the possible outcomes. Then you can write down some equations, usually using an equality that you want your equity if you call ($EV_fold) to be equal to your equity if you push ($EV_push). There should be one unknown in the equation and you can use basic algebra to solve for it.

[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you for the response. I had to look up what ICM was since I did not get to that chapter in the book yet. I will take some time to read this section and try to work through some calculations on my own. I was really hoping someone would explain the difference in the AK hands from Question 1 above as it relates to your tournament equity. If my questions are too "Beginner” for this forum I apologize and would appreciate if someone could direct me to the appropriate forum. Thank you.

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Your question is exactly the right level. Hand 1-4 would be a good one to work through in more detail. For now, just assume an ICM calculator is a black box that translates chip stacks at the table and tournament payouts into tournament equity, as explained on pages 6-11. "Tournament equity" is also called "prize pool equity," or sometimes just "equity" in cases where it's assumed to be in a tournament. I usually use the term "prize pool equity."

Looking at hand 1-4, let's assume for now that you have only two options: raise all-in or fold. So the question becomes "Which option gives you the highest prize pool equity, pushing all-in or folding?" It will be necessary for you to make some assumptions because not all of the necessary information is supplied explicitly in the problem statement given in the book.

Get as far as you can and post your results/thoughts/questions. If you get stuck somewhere, just post whatever you've done up to that point.

EDIT: Here is the ICM calculator I use. There are a few others in the "other Links" sticky.

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I really appreciate your help and will work on this the next couple of nights. Thanks again [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[mcpst17]

Ok I tried to work through some calculations and would appreciate any comments. I worked through example 1-4 with 2 different scenarios.

1. MP-1 pushes and it is folded to you in the SB.
2. Same Scenario in the book example. Except when you push you know that MP-1 has JJ and will call.

In scenario one

· Fold – your equity if you fold is .107 assuming a chip stack of t1910 after small blind taken out.
· Call and Win – assume that you know MP-1 has JJ. So the percentage to win is .44 and to lose is .56 assuming no split pots. So that should be .56(0) + .44(.200) = .088. This is below your equity of .107 if you fold, so this appears to be a clear fold if you know MP-1 has JJ.
· Call and lose – .0 equity

In Scenario two

· Fold – your equity is .107 assuming a chip stack of t1910 after small blind is taken out and assuming that MP-1 will bet the Flop and everyone folds.
· Call and Win - assume that you know MP-1 has JJ. So the percentage to win is .44 and to lose is .56 assuming no split pots. So that should be .56(0) + .44(.217) = .096. This is below your equity of .107, so this appears to be a fold if you know MP-1 has JJ. I know I am not factoring in that he may fold, so there must be some fold equity to make this the right play. But if we know that MP-1 has JJ and will call it appears to be a fold.
· Call and Fold – .0 equity

[Slim Pickens]

What you've done looks pretty good so far. You must have filled in some other stacks to do the equity calculations, which is exactly what you have to do. The context is pretty clear that the other stacks should be close to t2000 and mostly even, with t18,000 total on the table. Using the convention in the book (?) the small blind has already been pulled out of your stack, so your actual stack is t1970 before posting. You always have to add the blinds back in, but not the antes. Good thing I'm a huge nit. The SB thing and maybe filling in the other stacks slightly differently accounts for the tiny difference between your numbers and mine.

(The ICM macro seems to be accurate to a fixed number of decimal places, rather than a certain fraction of the prize pool. I used $50/$30/$20 as my payouts instead of 0.5/0.3/0.2 to get around this.)



Let's start by looking at the exact scenario presented in the book. Your choice is between pushing and getting called by 66 or folding. For the option of folding, I like your assumption that MP1 bets the flop and everyone folds. It's not perfect, but it makes the solution much simpler. Also, it happens to give a nice lower bound for your prize pool equity, since in a qualitative sense large disparities in stack size improve the prize pool equities of those in the middle relative to more even stacks. The effect wouldn't be that big anyway, so I feel fine ignoring it and taking a probable lower bound. My number is $EV_fold=$10.83.

If you push and he calls 100% with 66, he is a 54.6/45.4 favorite. This gives your prize pool equity if you push as:

$EV_push = 0.546*(0) + 0.454*(21.82) = $9.91
assuming he always has 66 and he always calls with it

This, as you also showed, is a demonstration that under those exact conditions, folding is better than pushing. That doesn't really fit with our "poker instinct," nor Collin's conclusion on the hand, nor would any decent poker player ever recommend folding there. The reason is sometimes he has a different hand, and sometimes he folds to your push. So how to account for this? We need some hand ranges. Here are the next steps.

<ul type="square">[*] For simplicity, assume every other player other than MP1 always folds.[*] Decide on an open-raising range for MP1.[*] Decide on a push-calling range for MP1.[*] Use an ICM calculator to determine your prize pool equity if MP1 folds.[*] From those two ranges and the basic probabilities of being dealt certain hands, figure out how often he calls your all-in raise and how often you win the pot uncontested. Hint: SNGPT can shortcut this step for you, although it can't do the actual calculation without some twisting.[*] Using a tool like PokerStove or the ProPokerTools Simulator, determine how often you win with AKo against his push-calling hand range.[/list]