Theory Time with MJ - Creating Profitable Situations With a Short Stac

[MJBuddy]

During the Sunday 100k, a few of us were sweating Blueecho deep and there was two fellas we all said in chat "Haha, jams UTG every rotation"

You see this in every MTT you will ever go deep in. And I'd snap call almost anything in the BB here. I've seen such garbage pushed UTG before. We then watched someone make a big call with 99 against his J8o UTG push.

In a 5.50 turbo last saturday, The person to my direct left pushed all in UTG every rotation. Everytime I was going to call because I knew he was doing it light. He got looked up before it got to me every time - every time I would have been ahead (and would have lost, ironically). Watching him double, however, was great for me. A player who I have great reads on and who is exploitable with a huge chip stack is perfect.

[Davdob]

This basic strat has driven some pretty good success for me. It also works with a big stack against a LAG player. Last night I had 86s in the hijack and made a 3bb raise. The guy in the cutoff had basically been throwing his stack in against any raise in this situation, and had gone through some serious chip fluctuations, but was comparitively short stacked at the time.

We were in the late middle of a $5 45 man, so the blinds and antes at that point, combined with my money already in and his jam, made the pot odds about 3:2. I figured at that point the odds of him having a high pair were essentially the odds you would be randomly delt that hand. Against any 2 overcards, I was 40/60 and had the pot odds call. I called him and he showed AJo, and I busted him when a 4 came on the flop and an 8 on the river.

Needless to say, he hung around for about 10 hands bitching uproariously about how badly I had sucked him out and what a donk I was, during which time I busted 3 separate people who were willing to give me action on actual good cards. Hello final table and third place finish.

When you combine the pot odds with the meta game advantage of having a bug nuts insane table image, this kind of play can work, and is espescially handy in MTTs where big risks have a higher payoff value.

[BarryLyndon]

[ QUOTE ]
During the Sunday 100k, a few of us were sweating Blueecho deep and there was two fellas we all said in chat "Haha, jams UTG every rotation"

You see this in every MTT you will ever go deep in. And I'd snap call almost anything in the BB here. I've seen such garbage pushed UTG before. We then watched someone make a big call with 99 against his J8o UTG push.

In a 5.50 turbo last saturday, The person to my direct left pushed all in UTG every rotation. Everytime I was going to call because I knew he was doing it light. He got looked up before it got to me every time - every time I would have been ahead (and would have lost, ironically). Watching him double, however, was great for me. A player who I have great reads on and who is exploitable with a huge chip stack is perfect.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, yeah, table dynamics and [censored] like that come into play. However, I dunno, take me like 4 months ago, when UTG raises were treated with utmost respect and I would just ASSUME that my opponent was on a heater and is a lucky whore? I wouldn't assume that from a CO though, never, ever. It just depends - I'm not advocating pushing EP with great frequency; in fact, I'm not saying it should be close to your frequency of pushes from CO. But, to mix things up puts you ahead of someone sitting there thinking about whether to re-study Harrington and see if he missed a page about what to do when an aggressive player is raising from different positions.

Barry

[MJBuddy]

Bumping this off the 3rd page for value.

[Rocco]

Nice job, MJ! I'm glad someone took their time to write a strategy post here in the "low/mid-limit" forum. And also, very nice input, Barry!

[BlueEcho]

This is probably the first time I have ever "bumped" something, and yeah I think this piece is worth that distinction.

We spend so much time in MTTs trying to find spots and maximize value that having someone display another spot to pick up chips during late game is priceless. Be it shoving over limpers, open shoving from whatever position, stealing, restealing, or just acting on reads if you are not utilizing all of these tools and many others you are not maximizing your MTT potential. Take it from me I still have alot of room to go.

Nice post MJBuddy!!

[4CardStraight]

I think this is a pretty solid post as well, but there is an aspect to the math that isnt noted that well...

Yes SC are most often the bad side of a coin flip, but they face another challenge, where AX where X is trash doesnt. Take a hand like 88 or 99 or something. A5o is 30/70 against 99 and 76s is 20/80. For each suited connector notch down we go we add a number of greater pairs that plant us with 80/20 domination, where ace trash has 10% greater equity against those same hands. Its not great to be in a 30/70 but Id much rather that than a 20/80. Another issue is the King hands. There are plenty of players where we get solid fold equity from their kings, like those that muck KTo from a short stacker... BUT if they are the type of player that will call us with almost any king, then I would again rather take Ace Trash against them then take a suited connector.

I do agree tho, that many people see this light switch effect where the go from proper hand evaluation to, im uber short I need to just push when its folded to me, where they would be far better served to evaluate hand ranges by each position against likely call ranges, and pushing proper ranges by position to maximize our chances fares to be a much stronger plan.

And calling behind with 22-44 with a short stack isnt it. As OP notes, our calling ranges must be tighter than our open push ranges, and bad pairs need implied odds or fold equity to be any good. When we call behind with a bad pair because we "just know" that our opponent has two overs isnt a real solid plan, yet people do this all the time since the pair is a coin flip against any overs. except of course the two overs like an eight and ... an eight.

4Card

[MJBuddy]

The only counter to the overpairs issue (and the same reason I said I will not always jam 66 - read dependant) is that the higher the overpair, the less likely it fits the range of hands so far.

[Sherman]

Overall I thought this was a good post with some solid insight.

One thing MJ points out is that position can still matter when deciding to go A/I. Conventional wisdom indicates that if you are going A/I, the positional edge is negated. Well, this is true. By moving A/I PF you have negated one's positional edge on the flop, the turn, and the river.

However, villain's still have a positional edge PF. They get to decide if their hand is worth an A/I that you have already committed to.

So just because your M = 5, and are looking for a spot to push, it doesn't mean shoving UTG w/ATC is very profitable. Everyone gets to look at their cards behind you. We may give first in vigorish too much credit, when it might be better to see a few players "tip" their hand (by limping or folding) in front before we make our decision to move A/I.

My only concern is that this article seems to suggest (w/out directly saying so) that shoving with 87s is better than shoving with A4s. While I understanding the "dominated" argument, people often forget that the same people who limp/call our shoves with A8o, also limp/call shove with KTo; against which A4s is a favorite.

These opponents don't care much about domination. Additionally, the opponents who will limp/call our shoves and dominate us (that don't call with these Kx hands as well) are very very rare. They are also the more sophisticated opponents and might try limping with a big A to induce a shove from us.

So IMO, we shouldn't worry so much about being dominated if we shove Ax.

In any case, I thought this was an excellent post overall, with some very well thought out ideas. The especially the position disadvantage of shoving from EP. Nice work MJ.

Sherman

[JoeyJoJo Shabadu]

MJbuddy... you're so now my buddy.

I may not have applied everything you discussed and I haven't read half the posts... but your OP made me realize I don't punish limpers with pos and steal from the button enough no matter of stack size. Not toally our OP idea but anyway, So I started....

I did better tonight that I did the last 2 months. I did bust out of a 180 in 3rd, with of course 99. AI prf (my almost 50% of the time bust out hand) but none the less.... it really did help. I also started to notice people that punish limpers light (you notice what others are doing when u do it and it's really in your head).

Anyway... nice post...Thx.