What to do when Villian is going all in too much...

[beenben]

I was heads up in a sitNgo with a 2-1 chip lead. it also got as high as 10k-3.5k. When the blinds went to 200/400 and he had 4k, he started pushing all in or folding. however, he pushed too often. Unfortunately, he never pushed into my aces or other premium hands.

after I realized he was in push/fold mode,and that he couldn't have a pushable hand as often as he was pushing, I decided to widen my calling range for his pushes. but I still folded A2o and A3o. 1) should I have called with those?

then he pulled even when he re-raised a steal of mine. then he got the chip lead. Now the blinds are 300/600. He's still in push/fold mode. I have A7o. 2) call?

[Ikonoclast]

I wouldnt call with anything less than AJs, or 22 or higher. I do the exact tactic you are talking about, and calling with A7o will get you burned when he actually does have a good hand, because he is going to play it the exact same way. If you are patient you will win, he is taking hte risk each hand, not you. Pick and choose.

[Shoe]

If your too careful, you are just going to get blinded away, and by the time you get a good hand, even if you double up, you often still aren't going to have enough chips to make a comeback if you wait too long.

I call with A7o here. You are almost always going to be ahead, every now and then you are going to run into a better hand, but that is the chance you have to take. When they play like this, you can't get scared, you just need to take a shot at taking him out where you are normally going to be a favorite. Now is that time.

If you don't call here, your stack is going to be too small to make a difference in a few hands anyways. The blinds are too big to wait, IMO.

[Lego05]

If you are heads up and the effective stack is 10 times the BB any ace and some weaker hands are automatic calls. (In fact any ace is still a call even with some more than 10 times the BB.) This is as close to a solved game as you can get in poker I think. You can just play Nash Equilibrium which would ensure that your opponent could not get an edge on you no matter what he does and in fact the further he digresses from Nash Equilibrium himself the greater your edge gets. You can then modify your game depending upon how he plays to increase your edge. Meaning that if he calls too infrequently push more, if he pushes too much call more, etc.

Check out the STT forum. Buy SNGPT and check out the headsup tutorial with all of the Nash Equilibrium charts in it.

[FeNeF]

There is some really bad advice in this thread. Try the SNG forum.

FWIW if I knew my opponent was pushing frequently I would call A2o every time.

[APXG]

[ QUOTE ]
I was heads up in a sitNgo with a 2-1 chip lead. it also got as high as 10k-3.5k. When the blinds went to 200/400 and he had 4k, he started pushing all in or folding. however, he pushed too often. Unfortunately, he never pushed into my aces or other premium hands.

after I realized he was in push/fold mode,and that he couldn't have a pushable hand as often as he was pushing, I decided to widen my calling range for his pushes. but I still folded A2o and A3o. 1) should I have called with those?

then he pulled even when he re-raised a steal of mine. then he got the chip lead. Now the blinds are 300/600. He's still in push/fold mode. I have A7o. 2) call?

[/ QUOTE ]

Why not just take 10 mins and do some math? Half the people will tell you fold, the other half call, blah blah, you still don't know the answer. There's no reason to discuss plays that are driven 100% by facts and involve no need for opinions whatsoever. Just creates a lot of confusion and allows people who are wrong to negatively influence your thinking process.

[cwar]

Call

[cwar]

Sorry I meant fold.

[EvilSteve]

[ QUOTE ]
I was heads up in a sitNgo with a 2-1 chip lead. it also got as high as 10k-3.5k. When the blinds went to 200/400 and he had 4k, he started pushing all in or folding. however, he pushed too often.


[/ QUOTE ]
Do you know what "too often" would mean in this case? With minstack = 10bb the equilibrium push/fold strategy has him pushing 58% of his hands. The big blind equilibrium calls with 38% of hands. I think the stack blind ratio is still slightly high to be strictly guided by equilibrium strategy so you could tighten up your requirements a little, but any ace is a clear call. Yeah it would be nice if you could wait for a better situation than that but the reality is, you just aren't going to have a big edge against a maniacal pusher here.

[whaahhahahah]

"Check out the STT forum."

if you do a quick google search, you should be able to find charts for his pushing range and your calling range.

aside from that, there's a book called the mathematics of poker that has a good chunk dedicated to this situation.