How to be aggressive but still survive ????

[plzleenowhammy]

what does the title mean? how to be aggressive but survive? fold if u want to survive.. raise if u want to be aggro. idgi.

[BingBangBoom]

I thought the title was pretty self explanitory. Didnt think the two were mutually exclusive, but then again....what do I know

[roamer590]

[ QUOTE ]
easy to throw my gay waiter (queen+trey)

[/ QUOTE ]

gold!

[Deadpool_AZ]

A couple of questions about 4cardStraight's post (which I found very helpful).

1. Can you explain the 10% edge a bit better? I assume you are saying that if you think you are way ahead at least 10% more often than you are way behind, and that the rest of the time you are in a coinflip, you should be willing to play. So if you think there’s a 50% chance it’s a coinflip, a 30% chance you’re way ahead, and a 20% chance you’re way behind, go for it.

2. Who is Annette?

3. What/where are +EV charts?

Thanks!

[BrandiFan]

10% edge= flip with dead money in the pot (preferebly with fold equity also) and/or small edge over villians range
Annette

[4CardStraight]

What I mean is any time I think that I am +EV to the tune of 10% of my chips I am willing to go to the felt. Some examples. Any time I think I am ahead of someones range, and there is almost 10% of dead money in the pot, I go to the felt. Any time I think I will net be +EV to the tune of 10% of my chips by felting, I felt. If I can take a gamble on a set mine (which happens 1 in 8 on the flop), if I can on average get paid 10% more than that, I will usually flat call to mine the set. If on the flop I think I am 55/45 because they probably have 10-12 outs, I am willing to go to the felt. My point is quite simple, any time I think my +chipEV is 10% or more, then I am willing to felt, almost regardless of tournament conditions (satellite structures being an exception). Like when were down to the final 4 and theres a push ahead of me. Sure I can fold, and possibly guarantee myself 3rd place, but if I think making the call against their range nets me +chipEV to the tune of 10% of my stack, I take the coinflip.

Who is Annette... Annette_15 plays on a lot of sites, she is a popular MTT'er. Sposedly she was 15 when she started playing online poker, she has some massive wins under her belt. She won a small MTT playing blind (with her cards covered, just using positional play, steals, and resteals). She now plays most all the majors on most all weekends.

What/where are +EV charts... Well.. to each their own. I made some using a combination of Sklansky Chubakov numbers, The jam or fold table in MOP, and Structural Hand analysis using poker stove and windows calculator. Basically what I did is make charts using 20, 15, 10, and 5BB as my stack, for each position, where open pushing is +chipEV given the size of the blinds, where I am called by clairvoyent opponents. The net result is an open push table for short stack poker. Do I always open push if its in the chart? No, sometimes I might make a normal raise, or a call to entice action behind. Do I always open fold if its NOT on the chart? NO, sometimes I dip into the next few hands to open push as well, because opponents are simply NOT clairvoyent. Do I always open push the bottom end of this range if my stack is under 10-12BB, No, there are still sometimes where you should fold, like if you are certain that someone is about to pay the blinds and bust, and the step level increase in pay amounts to more than doubling our chips stack gives us in tournament equity, we might still open fold. As a general rule tho, if my hand is not a premium, and it is +chipEV to push given clairvoyent opponents given my stack and size of blinds, 98%+ I am just open pushing it with 12bb or less.

Heres a sample: 5BB stack, no ante, Hijack seat (4players behind us), we can open push:
22+,Any Ace, any suited cards both 9s or better, any offsuited broadway.

Wow, thats a lot of hands from hijack where we could push and turn our hand face up and its +EV. So, if were abusing a bubble, or if players are tight, we push even more than that, but at a minimum we should be open pushing all those, as opposed to folding.

Another reason why I really like following the charts as a decent guideline, is I really do see players that are winners, still make some big mistakes in late game play. Heres a concrete example. Sure we can push awefully wide when we are 5bb-8bb stacks. But should we push a hand like 22-44 from early position with that stack? Well, as it turns out, if our opponents are likely to call us with any pair that is ahead (and at many tables this is true, although not always), there are sufficient numbers of greater pairs than ours out there, and with 6-9 players yet to act, we really should muck our trashy pair, since when were called by the pair thats ahead were 20/80. Sure a lot of the time were called by just two high cards, but... were only 55/45 there and if K8o calls us for instance, surely 55 does. With 8 players behind us, 36% of the time someone will have a bigger pair than 22. Now, I'm not saying under all conditions do we fold 22-44 from EP, in fact, at exactly 5BB, we start to push even those.. .but in the 8-12bb range we still fold our small pairs from EP, if our opponents are playing well. Most people that play aggressive short stack push or fold, assume that they will be called really really tight, and push any pair from any position with 12bb or less, i think its a mistake. Another example is some of the dominated aces. ATs is a thin muck from UTG with 10-15bb, if our opponents will all call us with AJo or better. Most players see a suited ace early position with a small stack and think its autopush. Well... it sure is from cutoff, mostly is from hijack, but a trashy A8s or something from EP is a real fold until we get a little bit under 10bb in our stack. Some of these mistakes get negative in a real hurry. Pushing a hand like A9o from EP as opposed to Late Position swings quite wildly if our opponents call us with ATo+. Maths:
A9o, UTG push at 11BB (8 players behind)
We push 11000, blinds 500/1000 All players cover.
Calling range 77+,A9s+,ATo+ (8.7%, 91.3% unlikely)
We are a 28.5/71.5 dog
48% we steal 1500 = +720c
52% called (23500 in pot, 28.5% equity) = -2200c

Nets to a -1500 expected chip play (well over 10% of our stack in the whole)

A9o, Cutoff Push at 11BB (3 players behind)
We push 11000, blinds 500/1000 All players cover.
Calling range 77+,A9s+,ATo+ (8.7%, 91.3% unlikely)
76% we steal 1500 = +1140c
24% called (23500 in pot, 28.5% equity) = -1030c

Nets to a +100 expected chip play (and more if they call us looser, or tighter)

4Card

[vaNq]

Excellent posts 4Card, really helpful for us MTT players looking to get better throughout the tournament as a whole.

[4CardStraight]

And again, the point of my post is not that one should live and die by these types of charts. My points are many:

First, there are an aweful lot of hands that we can open push and TURN FACE UP and still be +EV for short stacksizes.

Second, that when in these situations, highcard showdown equity matters a lot, and position continues to affect us dramatically. As a shortcut, to check your play, there are 3-4x as many hands we push from button as from UTG 9 handed, at almsot every stack size. Thats a lot. (note that we are fighting against 3-4x as many players behind us... from button we have only 2 yet to act, utg we have 8 so a 4x push range is pretty darn accurate).

And Finally, perhaps most importantly... We need to push at a minimum these hands. More is usually recommended, because our opponents as a general rule, play too tight behind a push when at a bubble or in the money. Now if they are calling us too loose, that doesnt mean we automatically get to push even more hands. We can push a few more profitably, but usually loose calls behind just add EV to the hands at the top of our range, so we should be more inclined to open push our premiums as opposed to limping, minraising, or standard raising them. So the point is this... If there are already a TON of hands we should be open pushing, and could even open push and turn face up.... Why would we consciously choose to push trash? Lets go ahead and start mucking things like J9s EP, Q9o, 76s, 65o, K3o from EP... these are hands I see people with skills continue to open push.... and it nabs them. See at under 10BB we are open pushing on average more often than once per orbit already. At 5BB we are open pushing, on average almost twice per orbit. SO if we are going to be pushing all our chips in the middle that often, why not make sure we are doing it with the cards that have the best chance of winning showdowns. (IE High cards. Suitedness doesnt matter much in the low stack range) even pairs at 10BB or less should be mucked if we know were getting called by all the pairs that are bigger. We can preserve our fold equity by not pushing every hand thats folded to us. IF I am following the exact chart, then every time I push, I no longer care if I am called or not. Call me, dont call me, I know im pushing a hand that mathematically is +EV to push even if you could see my cards. If you call me, I have good cards with a real chance to win... If you dont call me, thats good too.

4Card

[kenny7]

Bump

I just think this one deserves to be read by everyone.4cards advice is excellent and should be helpful for everyone,weather you are a newbie or an experienced player.

Oh,and on a sidenote,I can't decide if I'm more envious of 4cards pokerskills or his ability to express himself in writing. All I need is confirmation that you are dating a supermodel,and I know my life is sooooo bad!!

[Deadpool_AZ]

Thanks 4Card. Awesome stuff.

Here's a related situation. You're in a MTT, a little card dead, and getting short on chips...say around 8-12bb. You're looking for good opportunities to open push, but you're getting a bit too much action to do so. A couple of limpers on this hand. A raiser, maybe even a call after the raise, on that hand. It seems like every time you are about ready to pull the trigger, someone else is pulling it first. Do you just wait it out and pull the trigger when you're forced to at, say, 5bb?

P.S. I'm reading up on Inflection Points now so this discussion is augmenting that info and vice versa. I also just picked up Collin's SNG book, but haven't cracked the cover yet.