Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 (63 page)

One added benefit of pushing with a wide range of hands is that it creates variance. Earlier in the tournament, when stacks were large, you wanted to keep variance fairly low by pot-controlling with your weaker made hands, but now you want variance, especially if you are in a profitable situation every time. If you can get hold of 50BBs while everyone else has only 10BBs, you will be in great shape to win the tournament, which is your ultimate goal.

Suppose you are on the button with a 12BB stack and everyone has folded to you. There are 3BBs in the pot before the flop from the blinds and antes. If you go all-in with any two cards, you will have around 35-percent equity when called. Assuming the small blind calls 15 percent of the time and the big blind calls 20 percent of the time, you will be called around 35 percent altogether, disregarding the times they both call, which won’t happen too often. So, 65 percent of the time you win 3BBs and 35 percent of the time you have 35-percent equity in about a 27BB pot. Your expectation is

0.65(3) + 0.35[27(0.35) - 12] = 1.95 - 0.89 = 1.06BBs.

The result changes little if your opponents call with a wider range because your equity in the hand increases. Also, pushing becomes even better as your stack gets smaller. So, be willing to shove a very wide range when everyone folds to you on the button. Push a tighter range if there are no antes because the pot you steal will be smaller. Once everyone gets to this stack size though, the antes are usually quite large, allowing you to push a very wide range profitably.

I am going to lay out my general pushing strategy from every position. If you know all the players’ calling ranges, there are computer programs that can determine your profitable pushing range. Since you can’t do this when actually playing poker, I will provide general guidelines. Push more hands if your table is tight. If they are calling wide, hands like A-x go up in value while hands like 5
-4
go down. Always pay close attention to each player at your table because an easy push can become an easy fold.

Push fairly tight from early position, even with a short stack. If you have a 15BB stack, I suggest you raise every hand you are going to play to 2.25BBs. I usually raise only premium hands from early position because you have to worry about the entire table picking up a hand. However, you do want to always have a few bluffs in your range, so I raise with hands like good suited connectors from early position to balance my range. If someone does call, at least you will have a hand that flops well. With 15BBs I will open-raise something like 6-6+, A-J+, K-Q and suited connectors. Notice how tight this range is. Most players will push all their fairly strong hands, so you need to have a stronger hand than their range on average. If you are re-raised, get in with all hands except the suited connectors, smaller pairs and K-Q.

From early position with around 10BBs, I start pushing every hand I am going to play. If you raise a weak hand to 2.25BBs and someone pushes, you will be getting around 1.5-to-1, meaning you will have to make a tough decision. I avoid these spots altogether and just shove. From early position with 10BBs, you should be pushing something like A-10+, 5-5+, K-J+, and high suited connectors.

If you somehow dip down to 6BBs, which you should avoid at all costs, you can push a very wide range from early position because if the blinds fold and one player in the middle calls, you will be getting around 2-to-1 on any hand. Since most hands have 33-percent equity against everything, you can push a wide range. I would push 2-2+, A-2+, K-8+, Q-9+, J-9+, suited connectors and two suited cards higher than 7. This may appear insane, but remember, once you get this low, you risk blinding out, which is one of the worst things you can do in a tournament because you turn a stack with some equity into a stack with no equity while giving yourself no chance to gather chips.

From middle position with 15BBs, you should usually push all hands you are going to play because most opponents will assume you have a weaker range when you raise from middle or late position, meaning they will play back at you more. Go all-in with all but your strongest hands to ensure that your opponents never outplay you. You can raise to 2.25BBs with your strongest hands, such as 10-10+ and A-Q+. If your opponents just call, it isn’t the end of the world because these hands play so well post-flop, and you can easily get all-in if they push.

If you raise A-K or 10-10 to 2.25BBs, someone just calls and the flop comes J-5-3, you have to call if he pushes into you because you will be ahead of his range despite the poor flop. If he checks, you should usually just go all-in because locking up a 7BB pot is never a bad thing when you only have 15BBs. Push weaker hands, such as 2-2+, A-8+, K-10+, Q-10+, J-10+ and all suited connectors. Also push random good, suited hands like J
-8
and 10
-8
from time to time. Again, this may seem like a wide range but it will win a lot of chips. If you are playing against strong opponents that will realize your small raises mean you have a strong hand, simply push your entire range instead of raising your premium hands to 2.25BBs.

With a 10BB stack in middle position, push an even wider range. Hopefully, you are seeing a pattern by now. As your stack gets shorter and your position gets better, you should push a wider range of hands. From this position, I would push something like 2-2+, A-6+, K-9+, Q-9+, J-9+, 10-9, suited connectors and any two suited cards higher than 8.

Push a very wide range from middle position with 6BBs. You will have some fold equity even with a 6BB stack when you push from middle and late position. Once you lose your fold equity, you have to rely purely on your hand’s showdown value, but as long as players will fold, you can push a wide range of hands, such as 2-2+, A-2+, K-6+, Q-8+, J-7+, 10-7+, 9-7+, 8-7, suited connectors and suited hands with one card king or higher or two cards 6 or higher.

You have the most possible fold equity from late position because only a few people remain who can call. But your pushing range should become slightly dependent on the players remaining to act. If they call wide, don’t push hands made up of low cards, but if they call very tight, consider pushing any two cards. Again—and this is really important—always be aware of whom you are playing against, their calling range, and what they think about your pushing range.

It is important to make the distinction between cutoff and button because having that one extra person to worry about really does make a difference. Suppose the button calls your push 8 percent of the time, the small blind calls 8 percent and the big blind calls 15 percent. The calling percentage increases from 23 percent on the button to 31 percent from the cutoff. That means you must have a tighter range.

With a 10BB stack from the cutoff, I would push 2-2+, A-2+, K-8+, Q-8+, J-8+, 10-7+, 9-8, suited connectors and any suited hand where one card is king or higher or two cards are 6 or higher. From the button, I would raise 2-2+, A-2+, K-2+, Q-5+ and any two cards that are higher than 6. While this range is wide open, you can find spots to push even more hands as your stack diminishes.

With a 6BB stack, push everything except total trash hands from the cutoff. I would not push 10-5 to 10-2, 9-4 to 9-2, 8-4 to 8-2, 7-3, 7-2, 6-3, 6-2, 5-3, 5-2, 4-2 and 3-2. Otherwise, I will push everything whenever I can. With those worst possible hands, your equity is around 30 percent, which is close to being profitable facing three hands, but not quite. Assuming the small blind and button will call 15 percent of the time and the big blind will call 20 percent, we have 0.4(3) + [.6(14(.3)-6] = 0.12, making this a close decision. In general, you should shy away from these essentially neutral-EV decisions.

I will push with any two cards from the button. Suppose you’re called 20 percent of the time from the small blind and 20 percent from the big blind, giving you

0.6(3) + 0.4[14(.3) - 6] = 1.08BBs expected profit.

This is what happens when you push your worst hands. You make much more with your strong hands. Any time you can scoop up 1BB in equity, which is actually 1/6th of your stack, with one quick push, you should do it.

From the small blind, you have to know how the big blind plays. If he is loose, you should push a bit tighter than I will suggest, although even if loose, he probably will not call off for 15BBs with hands like Q-8, so his calling range is rarely more than 40 percent. So, you can break this down to a simple math problem. If he calls a 15BB push from the small blind only 30 percent of the time, which he probably won’t, we have