800th post

[kevkev60614]

The 10 BB Rule Revisited
In a great archived post in the STTF, the 10 BB rule is laid out. The 10 BB rule essentially says that if your effective stack is <= 10 BBs and you’re raising, you should just push. The most common reason given is that if you make your standard 3 BB raise with a 10 BB stack and someone repushes, you’ll be getting around 2 to 1 and should almost always call. Nearly every time you intend to call a raise, it’s smarter to make the raise yourself. The second most common reason to switch to pushbotting at the 10 BB mark is because if you were instead to make your standard 3 BB raise with a 10 BB stack and you’re flatcalled, you pretty much have to push every flop and villain will be getting around 2 to 1 to call.

Recently I’ve been hearing a lot of advice like you should be open-pushing “when your M is 10” or “when your stack is 13 BBs.” The archived post didn’t include much math, which is fine because only a super nit would want to see exact numbers on when exactly to begin pushbotting. Also antes complicate the math a little but they can be ignored in STTs because antes play less of a role there. I am a super nit, so I did the math according to who repushes and whether there are antes in play. The scenarios are different because, for example, if you raise from UTG and the blinds fold to BTN’s repush, the dead blinds help increase your pot odds. Antes obviously have the same effect.


Assuming your alternative option is to raise to 3 BBs, and you’d just push yourself if you’d be getting 2 to 1 or better to call a repush…
If you’re in the SB with NO antes, just push if you have 9 BBs = M of 6 or less
If you’re in the SB WITH antes, just push if you have 10.125 BBs ~ M of 3.9 or less
If it’s likely someone other than the blinds will repush with NO antes, just push if you have
10.5 BBs = M of 7 or less
If it’s likely someone other than the blinds will repush WITH antes, just push if you have
11.625 BBs ~ M of 4.4 or less


Note that I’m always talking about your effective stack, not your actual stack. If you’re open-raising from the SB with a stack of 100 BBs but BB has a stack of 9 BBs, you should be pushing.

Conclusion
As usual, it depends. In some situations you should push with 11.5 BBs and in others you should make a standard raise with 9.5 BBs. In some situations you should push with an M of 7 or less, and in others you should make a standard raise with an M of 4. There are plenty of situations in the middle, too, if the SB repushes or the BB repushes when you’re not in the SB. In general, though, you should be more apt to push from EP because there will be more money in the pot when someone outside of the blinds repushes. You should also be more apt to push when there are antes in play.

If you’re a fan of raising less than 3 BBs, this analysis should roughly hold, but with slightly different numbers.