A further explanation of my red zone theory

[betgo]

I posted made a post about the advantages of playing a red zone strategy a couple of years ago. It met with extreme flaming. I also made another post about it a few months later which was flamed a little less.

I now will explain the key concepts of the red zone theory limited to its clearest application.

This applies to online tournaments with a small ante of like 5% of BB or tournaments with no ante. When the ante is like 15% of BB and you have 3xBB blinds and antes, you can open push profitably with a fairly large stack up to about the point you can resteal.

If there is a small ante or no ante, when you have about 8-13xBB, your main play is to open push, but you need a fairly good hand to open push with. Sure at the higher end of that range you can make small raises, open limp, or reraise allin, but none of those plays are particularly advantageous.

However, when you have a shorter stack of 4-8xBB, a lot of pushes are cEV+.

Therefore, my theory is that when you have about 10xBB, it is OK to fold rather than push steal in marginal situations. Then you will get blinded down or the blinds will increase to give you a smaller M.

You basically have to steal once per rotation to maintain your stack. Once you have like 6xBB, it is much easier to find opportunities to make favorable steal pushes. Trying to keep stealing to maintain an 11xBB is much more difficult.

Of course, you are going to play when you have big hands or favorable opportunities with any red zone stack. A lot of times, you will get a big hand or win when your steal is called, and build a decent stack, which is your goal.

Also, I am not saying it is preferable to have 6xBB than 11xBB. I am saying there is no point in taking close to even gambles to maintain the 11xBB. If you take those gambles, often you will be out of the tournament.

I also think there is a lot of value in staying alive in the tournament, as explained by Sklansky in TPFAP. This survival approach gets a bad name, because of donks playing weak/tight and blinding themselves out.

Sure when you push for 7xBB, you get called a lot, but the pushes are still often cEV+ with marginal hands. I think people are too worried about getting a pretty small stack.

I have found these approaches work for me. It seems like mathematics and common sense say you don't want to keep stealing with an 11xBB stack.

[Nate.]

Betgo --

A few objections:

-Reraising allin with 8-13BB (more the top end of that range) is often "particularly advantageous" (and in fact one of the most profitable moves in tournament poker).

-Many pushes are not much more profitable with 10BB than with 7.

-Even if many pushes will be profitable with 7BB, you might not get the chance to make them (raises in front, etc.)

-Having 20+BBs is such an advantage, often, that the ability to get that high is a big element of the attractiveness of a push with 11BB and a big part of why it's so bad to be down to 7BB.

-All that said, I agree that the difference between 10BB and 7BB is often overstated--but it's mostly a big vs. huge sort of thing.

--Nate

[flyingmoose]

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-Having 20+BBs is such an advantage, often, that the ability to get that high is a big element of the attractiveness of a push with 11BB and a big part of why it's so bad to be down to 7BB.


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[Soulman]

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-Reraising allin with 8-13BB (more the top end of that range) is often "particularly advantageous" (and in fact one of the most profitable moves in tournament poker).


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Explain this? Did you mean raising and not reraising? Reraising with 8 BBs doesn't strike me as particularly advantageous, while 13 BBs does.


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-Many pushes are not much more profitable with 10BB than with 7.

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Because your FE isn't much higher with 10 than 7 I presume.


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-Even if many pushes will be profitable with 7BB, you might not get the chance to make them (raises in front, etc.)

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This is the biggest strike by far I have against betgo's theory - this goes especially for higher buy-ins, where you're often forced to open shove whenever you have the opportunity when you're low enough.


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-Having 20+BBs is such an advantage, often, that the ability to get that high is a big element of the attractiveness of a push with 11BB and a big part of why it's so bad to be down to 7BB.

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I think another point is that having 12/13-20 BBs is so important since you have resteal FE makes pushing 9-11 important. Pushing 4-8 BBs means you still don't have any resteal FE.


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-All that said, I agree that the difference between 10BB and 7BB is often overstated--but it's mostly a big vs. huge sort of thing.

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Due to resteal FE, I don't think this is entirely true.

[luckychewy]

i really haven't heard or read into your theory before at all before this except one time you mentioned in one of my threads...but the first thing that jumped out at me is that if you are not going to take a marginal gamble w/ 11bb, because you think you can find a bigger edge w/ 6bb, this edge must be pretty huge since you can potentially have 22bb whereas if you win w/ 6 are dwindling down from 11 u are only at 12. am i misunderstanding something? if not i totally disagree w/ this theory because i don't see how anything else can outweigh this disadvantage.

[Foucault]

The most damaging argument I can recall from the initial thread, to which I've not yet seen a good response, is that you win less when you do pick up a monster hand. Your argument seems to be that one you should not take a bit more risk to maintain a 10-11 BB stack rather than getting blinded down to 8-10 BB's because the small edges you lose are offset by larger edges as you get shorter and by the inherent value of your last chip. But those small edges you pass up early get compounded when you later do not have as many chips to invest in your AA.

If you're going to keep bringing this up, it's time to put some math behind it. Please give us an example of a +EV push that you would advocate passing up, calculate the edge you think you are losing, and then give us some demonstration of where your future edge is coming from.

[XXXNoahXXX]

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If you're going to keep bringing this up, it's time to put some math behind it. Please give us an example of a +EV push that you would advocate passing up, calculate the edge you think you are losing, and then give us some demonstration of where your future edge is coming from.

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I just want to echo this. What you are saying seems like something you hear at a $10 charity game, where first you think "thats dumb" then "maybe he has a point", but then once you look closer at it, you end up back at "thats dumb".

I'm not even thinking on as high a plane as the rest of the posts in this thread, but sort of in the vein of luckychewy's post I guess, what happens if you hit a cold run of cards? Obviously there are times when you should pass up marginally EV spots if you think you can get in a greatly ev spot, but there is no guarantee. Basically, if you pass up a +EV spot at 12 to dwindle to 7, what happens when you don't pick up a monster hand and you need to push some marginal +EV spot? Then you just delayed your marginal spot and will end up with 14 instead of 24 if you win? Doing all this for such a small net gain hardly seems worth it.

I'd really like to see a scenario in a non-satellite where this would be applicable. Hopefully this example will not include you picking up AA or KK after folding a marginal +EV spot.

[BarryLyndon]

How does having a massive chip leader in the BB effect your argument? A loose, gambling type who is looking to win in the SB? For instance, this hand has been bothering me for a while, I think it falls well into this discussion:

Last Saturday, Full Tilt 69+6, Final Table

Blinds 2,500 /5,000 / 600 Ante

Lagtard UTG (54,000)
Hero, CO (60,000)
Very tight rock, button (55,000)
Loose - Aggro (capable of making big calls) (73,000)
AllinStevie, capable player, LAG (232,000)

1 fold, Hero has 55 in CO.

Push? Raise to 12,000? Fold?

[betgo]

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How does having a massive chip leader in the BB effect your argument? A loose, gambling type who is looking to win in the SB? For instance, this hand has been bothering me for a while, I think it falls well into this discussion:

Last Saturday, Full Tilt 69+6, Final Table

Blinds 2,500 /5,000 / 600 Ante

Lagtard UTG (54,000)
Hero, CO (60,000)
Very tight rock, button (55,000)
Loose - Aggro (capable of making big calls) (73,000)
AllinStevie, capable player, LAG (232,000)

1 fold, Hero has 55 in CO.

Push? Raise to 12,000? Fold?

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This is a very easy push. You can push a lot of hands from CO with 11xBB, and you are certainly pushing any pp. Also, my theory does not really apply so much to Full Tilt with the relatively large ante.

[betgo]

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-Reraising allin with 8-13BB (more the top end of that range) is often "particularly advantageous" (and in fact one of the most profitable moves in tournament poker).


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Of course you take opportunities to reraise allin with 11-13xBB. You usually don't have much FE, so you need a good hand or someone who will lay down.

This depends on table dynamics. In that range, you have a good stack to push at limpers if people are limping.

Of course, I would take favorable situations to push or otherwise play a hand in that range.

If I am pushbotting 7xBB, then if I get called and win, I have about 16xBB, which is a good restealing stack.