General Late Game Help

[warrantofice]

If somebody could just explain to me and/or give me some general guidelines for late tournament play, I would really appreciate it.

I make it deep occasionally in tournaments but my majour leak comes in when the blinds and antes have the stacks around 8M or so. I need to learn how to steal but i just seem to pick the wrong times. Should i not be stealing? What sort of hands should i steal with? Whats a good position to steal from? I guess assume that the table is somwhat passive, and its a $24 buy-in FTP tournament.

[4CardStraight]

When your stack is 12-18BB: Your most profitable thievery is the resteal. We look for opponents that raise wide, but call narrow. Someone who has a stack of 15BB-30BB and raises to 3xbb more than one time per orbit is usually perfect. We resteal from very late position or the blinds, and we usually shove. If we have 18bb we can resteal with a reraise to 9bb as well....

Stack under 12BB. We open push for value. Learn which hands to open push for value from each position with stack sizes of 12bb/8bb/5bb. You will be amazed how many hands you can push from UTG at 5big blind stacks and TURN FACE UP, yet still be +EV. its quite insanely wide. If our opponents are calling too tight, we can even push MORE hands....

Dont be afraid to coin flip. If your fairly sure your hand is about as good as the pushing hand, and we have less than 12-15BB, we should consider calling with an equal range as the pusher... The blinds are enough overlay.

Finally. Don't be an HBL (read colins new SNG book). serioulsy. Dont be a High Blind Limper. (when the blinds are big compared to our stack and we open limp with anything moderately speculative.

Good luck

4Card

[warrantofice]

Thanks for the post. thats exactly what i wanted.

Couple of other questions.
(The assumtions are similar to before, stack sizes from 8-12m late in a $24 buyin tournament)
1) Pairs (22 - 66) UTG - MP2 whats my line with 12 BB's?
2) (J,10o) + (Q,10o) + (Q,Jo) UTG - MP3 whats my line with these hands? If i raise how much? Do i call a push?
3) Late position with hands like (Q,6s) or (10,8s) against a 6m sb and 18m bb?

Just some random situations that i think occur relatively commonly.

[boohaa12]

yea when you only got like 14bb or less dont limp 66s or less UTG or 2nd opiion imo (full table) your asking to be pushed on and then it sucks getting your money in second. Id rather push CO/Button with A10 against blinds/mid possition limpers(11 or less bbs)...

[4CardStraight]

1: Fold. I possibly open push 66 from MP2 or so.
2: Fold. I possibly open push QJo from MP3.
3: Fold. I would push Q6s from the button against those stack sizes in the blinds.

We cannot extract value from hands that have low showdown value against expected calling ranges when we have thin stacks. This is the key point i think you are missing. We cant play a low pocket from early position, unless we can profitably open shove it for value. Does the net calling range of our opponents and the chances they have that high of a hand allow us to open push and be +EV with the blinds? Yes but generally not from the first seats in a full table. We cant get implied odds we only hit sets one in 8. We do not limp, cause then were forced to fold if raised and were not getting implied odds. We cant raise and fold. We need to find value, these situations generally dont have it. These situations are largely speculative. We, the player that open pushes with our short stack, are looking for high showdown value against hand ranges that likely call us, and hopefully fold equity from tighter players behind us.

UTG with 12bb I would push:
88+ ATs+ AJo+
2 off button(hijack, MP3) 12bb I would push:
44+, A8s+ A9o KQs/o
Button, 12bb folds to me:
22+, All aces, both cards ten or better
SB, 12bb folds to me:
22+, Any two cards eight or better, all aces and kings.

Im not going to list all my charts, all my positions, and for all stack sizes.. but hopefully this gives you some context.

As for calling ranges, I want to call getting some overlay, generally I call with whatever their push range is if the blinds total 10% of my stack.

[warrantofice]

Alright this is really helpful information for me.

So my search for gaining a large stack will come from the occasional big(ish) hand and a few resteals? This is how i can accumulate enough chips to reach the final table with a good sized stack? I'm trying to find the correct balance between solid play and aggression.

When i have a large stack, say in the 18-22m range. Pushing against bigger stacks, i assume, is poor poker. But raising puts me in a position for possible re-steals.
Do i follow the above chart but instead of pushing, raising 2.5x or 3x instead?
And when i raise with the large stack from early/middle position, should i be raising larger from early position or smaller? Do the extra size really increase the chances that someone might fold a hand?

[4CardStraight]

Well i dont have time to write a extremely complete answer but brevity is the soul of wit, so i will try with a short one.

25-40BB stacks is about as hard as it gets in poker. We cant open shove profitably unless we have a range that is so tight we are losing more than we are gaining because of the blinds. We also are not getting very huge implied odds on our speculative hands since our stack doesnt allow us to get paid effectively when we flop a monster...

However, with that stack size we do have implied odds to limp pocket pairs, so limping pockets from nearly all positions is usually profitable, if the table allows.

We raise for value, usually with hands that we would open push if our stack were 15-20bb, and this allows us to "steal" some, since the bottom hands here we wouldnt open push our stack, but we might fold to 3bet. Any time we raise, yes we expose ourselves to a resteal.. I try to make resteals on me a bad wager. They need to lay odds to resteal on me. They cant minraise, or I call getting proper POT odds. So they have to 2-3x my bet, so therefore, as long as about half to two thirds of the hands i raise I am willing to felt, then their resteal is never a good wager.

So therefore, when i have say 25bb-40bb i raise about the same hands i would open push at 15bb, and the bottom third of those hands from each position i will be folding to a resteal/3bet. about the top two thirds of those ranges I will call a push behind, since its highly likely im getting the right odds. From button and cutoff I am the most susceptible to resteals, since most people resteal wider from late position raisers, so also my felt range needs to be the widest from those positions.

Hope that helps, even tho its incomplete.

4Card

[boomboomjr]

Very good post 4 card. Are you restealing with any two cards? Or prefer them to be connectors or anything?

Again really enjoying your thoughts.

[4CardStraight]

This question about what do we resteal with is asked a lot on this forum, and there simply is not a good answer. When we resteal we are "laying odds". Look at the math a sec. When we steal we are betting 3bb or so to win sb+bb. So we are laying 2 to 1 that no one will call us, and if they do that our hand is good enough to stand up to theirs given the now 4.5bb in the pot as overlay.

Now look at a resteal. We have 14bb. They have 18bb. They raise from the cutoff to 3bb, we push from the sb. We are now laying 14bb to win 4.5bb or almost 3 to 1 that they will fold, and if they dont that our hand will stand up to theirs given the now still 4.5bb in the pot.

So... Anything we think is better than their range we arent restealing, we are overpushing for value, we would generally prefer they call. Hands that are not quite good enough to overpush for value, we might resteal with, but we are often felting. So we want some ways to win. Bad Aces arent the best here, unless we know they are raising a ton of pairs and King high hands. Connectors can be good, but its a dangerous thing to suggest to players that you should resteal with connectors. Why?

Because the resteal is so freaking risky. We are generally risking our whole stack. If we are a chip leader, we can resteal without risking our whole stack, but we are often risking the chip lead, and are far more likely to be looked up.

Restealing is bluffing. If we have a hand good enough that we dont care if they call or not, we are overpushing for value. I DONT BLUFF MUCH. I maybe look for one solid resteal per tournament. It is a highly profitable move. It wins as much as 3 blind steals. What we are looking for tho, has nothing to do with our cards. I will type now the same thing I type in almost every resteal thread I comment on.

We are simply looking for a SITUATION.
1: A raiser (generally from late position) who is raising wider than they could raise for value from their position. (I look for anyone who raises 3 times in an orbit, or averages 2 times per orbit for a couple orbits).
2: They are likely to call too tight from our push. Usually this means we are setting them up. Our stack size will cripple them or take them out of the tournament. We are not giving them very good pot odds on the call unless they have a monster. We also want to be in very late position. BB and SB are both good options, button isnt terrible. Theres some complexity there, BB already has a bet in, so the resteal is the cheapest of the three spots, and theres no one left to act so thats great, but people also think BB has a great incentive to resteal since he already has a bet in. SB is usually the perfect resteal spot, since as SB you still have only one to act, only have half a bet in, and my guess is if you play like I do, you almost never put money in as SB, so when you overshove from there, its respected. Button/CO is ok, we have 2/3 left to act and if either of them comes along its a disaster, but after seeing a raise and a reraise AI, they usually fold everything but jacks or better, so its not a super huge risk.

I honestly have never once looked at my cards and said, "these are restealing cards". What precisely is it that *I* look for?

Late game, When my stack is such that I can no longer speculate, but more than I can comfortably open push, I ask myself "Is there about a 90% chance that if I shove here, everyone folds?" if the answer is yes, I strongly consider a resteal. If I resteal a couple times in a tournament I think thats a lot, but it is a part of my game I am actively working on as well, trying to conciously look for those spots.

4Card

[boomboomjr]

A question about your mini open shove hand chart you posted. If the sb and bb have miniscule stacks say 4-7 BB. Does your range tighten up,loosen up or stay the same?

Thank you for the awesome information. This resteal post has taught me more about it than watching several PXF videos.