Sunday Million Open Push; Standard or Retarded?

[curtains]

M is of course stupid. Before every tournament look at the antes, and then make a chart for what the actual blinds are for each level. Then assume you have that many BB's.

So for the 100-200/ ante 25 level, blinds are basically 175/350. It's a billion times easier than using "M"

[seke2]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well you can just make a normalish raise and safely fold to a reraise. That's probably what I'd do in this spot. I definitely wouldn't push for over 20x the BB.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]
This is obv right.

Even if you come up with a range for your opponents where pushing is profitable, most likely (but obv this is much harder to calculate), raising to some normal amount and folding to a reraise of a normal amount is almost certainly going to be more profitable than pushing.

You want to be aggressive here, but not reckless.

Don't worry about M, worry about having a playable stack that still gives you some options to play. Usually a 12-15xBB stack gives you options to steal or resteal preflop, or stop and go pre/postflop. That's "enough" moves to keep you afloat. With like 25xBB, this is just silly even if your M is under 10.

[bigballz]

horrrrrrrrrrible shove. standard open ftw

[betgo]

This is one of those OPs the invite only rule is designed to keep out of HSNL.

First of all, if there is 6K is the pot on Stars, the blinds must be 1500/3000. You probably had 17xBB, which makes the push not as bad as it seemed initially.

Second of all, there is nothing wrong with M. However, an M of 9 sounds small, but it doesn't mean you should start open pushing any two. People are always justifying donk pushes like this by saying they have an M of 9 or whatever.

Open pushing here with 17xBB is playable with AJ or 33 or something, but not with 76s. Folding or raising 3xBB or less (and obviously folding to a reraise) are both playable.

Limping may be playable depending on your style and the players to act. Your stack size is better for limping than raising, but CO is not good position for a limp.

I would probably fold, since the play figures to be loose with the cash bubble being cleared fairly recently, and your stack size makes it easy for people to resteal on you.

In summary fold > small raise > limp > large raise > push. It is pretty close whether to raise or fold, but pushing is really bad.

[WarDekar]

I dunno if I'd say fold>small raise here betgo, but yeah otherwise you're spot on with everything else you said

Pushing here is just about god awful

[curtains]

folding or raising both okay, of course depends on the opponents and what they are doing.

[Soulman]

[ QUOTE ]
folding or raising both okay, of course depends on the opponents and what they are doing.

[/ QUOTE ]
Word, 17 BB is right about the edge where I still raise and fold, folding costs you 15% of your stack and obviously sucks. At the same time, open folding will probably cost you more equity IF the players behind you aren't very aggressive. If they are, chuck it.

[cero_z]

[ QUOTE ]
This is one of those OPs the invite only rule is designed to keep out of HSNL.

First of all, if there is 6K is the pot on Stars, the blinds must be 1500/3000. You probably had 17xBB, which makes the push not as bad as it seemed initially.

Second of all, there is nothing wrong with M. However, an M of 9 sounds small, but it doesn't mean you should start open pushing any two. People are always justifying donk pushes like this by saying they have an M of 9 or whatever.

Open pushing here with 17xBB is playable with AJ or 33 or something, but not with 76s. Folding or raising 3xBB or less (and obviously folding to a reraise) are both playable.

Limping may be playable depending on your style and the players to act. Your stack size is better for limping than raising, but CO is not good position for a limp.

I would probably fold, since the play figures to be loose with the cash bubble being cleared fairly recently, and your stack size makes it easy for people to resteal on you.

In summary fold > small raise > limp > large raise > push. It is pretty close whether to raise or fold, but pushing is really bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK Good post. Your comment about "invite-only HSNL" is confusing: are you saying that having an invite-only forum is a bad idea because honest newb questions need a place to go? If so, it's a bad analogy, since there are Micro-stakes, SSNL, and MSNL which can accomodate them. I looked for a beginner's MTT forum, but there appears to be none. Or maybe you're just being a dick and calling me a newb. In any case, you answered my question, so thank you.

My understanding of Harrington's approach is that as your M dwindles to below 10, you need to make these kinds of shoves to keep from dipping down to 5 or so. Folded to me in the CO with stacks that can all be eliminated or severely damaged when I shove seems like a spot to try it. These pushes feel weird to me, because I play cash NL, but I make them because of HoH. Many of you are saying this is a terrible push, but of course I don't know anyone's names except for Curtains and betgo, who seem to disagree somewhat (though both said the push was bad). Can you point me to a thread about "M" and why it should or shouldn't be used to make decisions like this?

Finally, I didn't open-push with "any 2." You said pushing is fine there with AJ or 33, but not 76s. All 3 of those hands have similar equity vs. the two calling ranges I listed. AJ and 76s are basically the same (~30%), while 33 is slightly better vs. the looser range (34%). Is this just a mistake on your part, or are those differences (between 33 and the other 2 hands) significant?

[tinze]

[ QUOTE ]
My understanding of Harrington's approach is that as your M dwindles to below 10, you need to make these kinds of shoves to keep from dipping down to 5 or so ...I make them because of HoH. Many of you are saying this is a terrible push...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think most experienced tourney players agree that pushing with M of 9 is really bad when an average stack fairly small. HoH just gives a terrible advice in this issue. Pushing with M9 might be ok, if an average stack is something like M50 or M60.

[cero_z]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My understanding of Harrington's approach is that as your M dwindles to below 10, you need to make these kinds of shoves to keep from dipping down to 5 or so ...I make them because of HoH. Many of you are saying this is a terrible push...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think most experienced tourney players agree that pushing with M of 9 is really bad when an average stack fairly small. HoH just gives a terrible advice in this issue. Pushing with M9 might be ok, if an average stack is something like M50 or M60.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you! That's kind of what I was wondering. Results were I ran into QQ from the SB's big stack, who just called, and then the BB called off his 50K stack with ATo. I flopped a straight flush draw, (T93) and lost.

At the time, I thought the calling ranges were tighter than they obviously were (given the ATo overcall), so clearly that was bad judgement. Thanks for everyone's help.