folding +ev hands HU

[muffins]

Hi all! Bear with me as I'm not an expert at this stuff, so it might be a silly question. Often in the endgame of an sng you will be playing push fold. What I've been wondering is to what extent (if at all) should you pass up on a +ev situation in order to wait for a better +ev situation later on. For example the following scenario.

Blinds 200/400 ante 25
SB 4500, hole cards Jd5d
BB 9000

STT analyzer shows that the small blind pushing here is +EV$22.85 against loose callers and +EV$11.66 against tight callers so a push is always best.

However does this take into account the likelihood that in the x hands you can afford to see, you have y chance of getting a hand with a higher EV to make a push more profitable taking into account the extra blinds you will lose while you wait for it?

[pzhon]

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However does this take into account the likelihood that in the x hands you can afford to see, you have y chance of getting a hand with a higher EV to make a push more profitable taking into account the extra blinds you will lose while you wait for it?


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The blinds are all of the information that is necessary.

People like to talk about being forced to make moves because the blinds are increasing. However, that's not what the theory says unless you know that your position will be bad when the blinds increase. Heads up, there isn't a huge difference between the two positions. Other than this tiny effect, chip value is linear when you are heads up. You can focus on this hand alone, and play to maximize your expected chips at the end of the hand.

You also aren't forced to make plays because the blinds are large. They just become profitable when the large blinds increase the rewards relative to the risks.

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What I've been wondering is to what extent (if at all) should you pass up on a +ev situation in order to wait for a better +ev situation later on.

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If you are equally skilled as your opponent, and if +EV is defined properly, then you shouldn't.

If you have a big skill advantage, and if you are sure that your opponent will react perfectly, then you might want to give up some small edges that have a large chance of shortening the tournament, decreasing the amount you get to apply your skill advantage.

In this hand, when you are considering pushing with J5s, it is quite likely that your opponent is going to make mistakes in response to a push. He might call with an inconsistent range, e.g., he might call 3/4 of the time with K6s, and 7/12 of the time with K6o, which is essentially dominated by the strategy of calling with 4/4 K6s hands and 6/12 K6o hands. Much larger errors are possible, such as calling with the pretty 54s while folding the ugly but stronger Q4s, or simply having too tight of a calling range. So, you should probably push even with a big skill advantage, particularly since a call is not very likely and does not always end the tournament. You probably get to take advantage of this +EV situation, which is more +EV than the program says, as well as later +EV situations.

[jay_shark]

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If you have a big skill advantage, and if you are sure that your opponent will react perfectly, then you might want to give up some small edges that have a large chance of shortening the tournament, decreasing the amount you get to apply your skill advantage.



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There are many great players who disagree with this . If you're a skillful player , then you should be more inclined to take small edges especially if you can play a large stack well . People fail to realize that there is such a thing called "big stack equity" which ICM doesn't include .
A skillful sng player can do some serious damage towards the bubble and avoiding coinflips because your edge is small is usually a mistake .

[pzhon]

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A skillful sng player can do some serious damage towards the bubble and avoiding coinflips because your edge is small is usually a mistake .

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Reread the thread (and title). This is heads up. I didn't miss the points you made. I've made some of them elsewhere. They are just completely irrelevant.

[jay_shark]

Muffins , if this is strictly a heads up question then you should be posting in the heads up forum .

It's ambiguous whether he's referring to a heads up sng or not .

Why would you need a stt analyzer for this if it were a heads up match ?

[muffins]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I'm talking about a 1 table sng, with 2 players left.

[jay_shark]

A few things to note .

$Ev=Cev in a heads up setting which means that ICM does not play a role . I find that some players who use the stt analyzer are not even aware of this distinction .

Secondly , it is usually wrong to pass up edges in an sng even if you're a better player than the opponent you're up against . This means that if you estimate pushing to be 22.45chips/hand , then you need about 44.9 chips on your second deal,67.47 on your third deal , etc . It gets increasingly more difficult to apply your edge when your stack is depleting which means you should be more inclined to take most edges .

[Abbaddabba]

within the context of the tournament, there are a lot of things that are justifiable that arent when you look at the bigger picture.

if these are 6 man sit n goes, and you feel that your edge against the other guy is comparable to what your edge is against the average pool of players who play the sit n goes, you likely dont want to give up any edge at all. the reason being that, while you'll average more per tournament by foregoing small edges, you will average more per hour by just spitting out the results and moving on.

if he is spectacularly bad and your edge is exceptionally big, you should consider prolonging it and foregoing smaller edges.