Suspicious shorty raises from EP - is Rizen right?

[Soulman]

I'm watching Rizen's video of his Stars million win on PXF (part 11), and he makes a statement I'm not really sure I agree with.

"A non-advanced player who raises half his stack as an extreme shorty will almost always have aces or kings, occasionally AK". This is paraphrased, but is the essence of what he's saying.

In this particular hand (for those interested, it's hand #455, around 4 mins in), the player had 170k with the blinds at 12.5k/25k, i.e. an M of about 3.5. Obvious desperation mode. 8 players to the table.

Now, I agree that most players won't make this move with pure garbage. Putting his range to KK-AA, AK just seems way too tight though. I don't think a player has to be that advanced to raise like this - in fact, from experience I think some really bad players will 3xraise here instead of pushing with way worse hands than that. Also, I think fancy raises to try to increase FE is more common than Rizen seems to think.

Now, in that particular situation I'm not really that much in disagreement with Rizen - although I'd probably include JJ and QQ as well here, probably AQ as well. The player will, disregarding any reads, in all likelihood wait for a better spot to raise with worse hands. I have no idea what type of player he is btw, since they video just started.

The next hand though (hand 482, around 27:30 into the video), I pretty much flat out disagree with Rizen. Here, the player has 125k, blinds are at 15k/30k, meaning an M of 2.3 (7-handed). He makes a 3xraise, leaving 34k behind. Rizen still contends he has to have a monster - KK-AA, AK.

I think a lot more players will make a raise like this when they're this short - either because they think it will increase their FE, or because they're not really think about why they raise 3x here. For the life of me, I can't assign a tighter range than if he pushed here - meaning at least 66+, AJs+,AQo+, KQs or so.

I've learned a lot earlier from watching Rizen's videos, but here I just can't fully agree with him - any viewpoints?

[registrar]

Yeah, I don't agree with this. A certain type of player, and it's quite a prevalent type, just raise 3x whatever they're raising and whatever their stack. They're not often folding so it's equivalent to a push but I would agree to a certain extent that, on average, it indicates a better hand than a push and I think there are some players, late stage in something like the million, who would only raise KK+ like this - you can smell it.

[omaha]

I think he is saying something along these lines. You see a good player with say 10bbs, continually going all in.

THEN, he has 10bb at some stage in the future, and raises 4 or 4 bbs. WHY? He knows that he should be shoving with say 13bb or less, but only raises 4. He wants to get played with. Why? well, he prolly has a monster!

This is different to some players who will always raise 3bb, regardless of whether they have 3, 6 or 66 blinds.

[zoobird]

I think the issue here is what your definition of 'non-advanced player' is. Rizen doesn't play any low buy-in tournaments, so his definition of "non-advanced player" is someone like me, who basically knows what they're doing, but just isn't that great. Obviously in the low buy-in tournaments, there are plenty of bad players who just don't understand how to adjust to stack sizes, and will make this raise with the same hands that they raise 3bb with early in the tournament when stacks are still deep.

[Soulman]

[ QUOTE ]
I think he is saying something along these lines. You see a good player with say 10bbs, continually going all in.

THEN, he has 10bb at some stage in the future, and raises 4 or 4 bbs. WHY? He knows that he should be shoving with say 13bb or less, but only raises 4. He wants to get played with. Why? well, he prolly has a monster!

[/ QUOTE ]
I see what you're saying, but that actually wasn't what Rizen said in this instance. Btw, this is exactly why it can be a good idea to vary your play like this.

[Soulman]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the issue here is what your definition of 'non-advanced player' is. Rizen doesn't play any low buy-in tournaments, so his definition of "non-advanced player" is someone like me, who basically knows what they're doing, but just isn't that great. Obviously in the low buy-in tournaments, there are plenty of bad players who just don't understand how to adjust to stack sizes, and will make this raise with the same hands that they raise 3bb with early in the tournament when stacks are still deep.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well in this particular tourney, you'll see a loooooot of bad play as well. The level of competition is way way below what a regular $200 MTT would be. That being said, a $5 MTT obviously has worse competition - but there are a lot of really bad players here.

[Soulman]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I don't agree with this. A certain type of player, and it's quite a prevalent type, just raise 3x whatever they're raising and whatever their stack. They're not often folding so it's equivalent to a push but I would agree to a certain extent that, on average, it indicates a better hand than a push and I think there are some players, late stage in something like the million, who would only raise KK+ like this - you can smell it.

[/ QUOTE ]
Kinda funny how I think almost exactly like you in most situations [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]