Tournament Tactic! Final table

Tournament Tactic! Final table...

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RaBBiiTGiiRL Nibs: 1,596 Member Since: Apr 17th 2008

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Don't bust your bubble-

 Busting with a hand like a pair of tens near the bubble is, in some ways, a respectable thing to do. When your friends ask you how you busted, you can say, “I was short-stacked and I reraised all-in for 12 big blinds with a pair of tens,” and they will say, “Oh, well. You had to push there.” They’d be right, and in my early days I’d take some consolation in their assurances that my bust out was unavoidable. But after a while, I started to ask myself, “Why did I only have 12 big blinds at that point?”

Watching tournament poker live and on TV, I’d seen players make moves that seemed incomprehensible to me. I’d watch pros reraise all-in pre-flop with hands like 7-8 or 6-8 and I’d think to myself, “How could they possibly risk busting out on that hand?”
That question, together with the question of why I never had chips near the end of a tournament, led me to discover a critical flaw in my thinking.

Ignore the charts-

I realized that most of my decisions about hand values had been influenced by charts in beginner poker books showing the probability of a particular hand, say 10-10, holding up against two random cards. I had neglected to fully consider fold equity and conditional probability.

The player who reraises all-in with 6-8 is, of course, hoping to take down the pot without a fight. The probability of doing this has to be reasonably high for this play to be correct, though perhaps not as high as one might think. Let’s say that the blinds are $400 to $800 with a $100 ante, and your stack going into the hand is $11,500. You are in the big blind. The button (chip stack of $15,000) raises to $2,400 and the small blind folds. I would rarely flat call in this scenario, but I’d strongly consider a push.

Push it-

A fold leaves you with $10,600 in chips, whereas a successful push will increase your stack to $15,100 ($10,600 + $2,400 + $400 + $800 + $900 antes). The interesting thing is that almost every hand that the button might raise with in this scenario is a favorite over yours, but, conditional on a call, 6-8 plays reasonably well.

An aggressive player might raise from the button 40% of the time in this scenario, but only call your all-in with the 20% of his raising hands. In this case, the EV of an all-in is clearly positive.

Better off raising-

 Eighty percent of the time, you add $4,500 to your stack uncontested, and 20% of the time you contest a pot of $24,100 as 30/70 dog. You are better off raising than folding in this scenario if your opponent will fold to your raise more than 42.8% of the time. When you play around with the numbers, you quickly learn that in such EV calculations, the probability of your opponent folding is more important than the probability of your hand holding up if he calls.

For this reason, top players will make a move with any two cards if they have a tell indicating a likely fold. They take some comfort in knowing that even if they’ve completely misread the situation (let’s say they reraise with 2-7 off-suit and get called), they’ll still have some equity in the hand. Seven-deuce off-suit probably has about a 24% chance of winning against a caller (it’s 31% against two overcards and 12% against overpairs).

Be aggressive-

In tournaments I consider a move of aggression with every starting hand, no matter how poor, and ask myself the following questions:

• What range of hands am I representing with a raise?
• What range of hands will my opponent call me with?
• If he calls, what is my chance of winning?

The first two questions determine your fold equity. If your fold equity is sufficiently high, then it might be correct to make a move even if your probability of winning conditional on a call is low. The third question tells you how well your hand plays against a call.

What u think, any more tactics to think off???

Comments (4)

Posted on May 8th 2008 by neophron Interesting reading. I need to sharpen up my game in the late stage of the tournaments and this could be usefull. Do you play in a team at Pokerinside? We could use a good player if you are interested.

Posted on May 8th 2008 by fritzson Very very good!!! Thank you very much for this... can you give me a privat lession?? ;o)

Posted on May 8th 2008 by RaBBiiTGiiRL hehe ty guys, but im already in a team ;) and fritz hun.. do u need lessons lol? :o)

Posted on May 8th 2008 by fritzson yes, rabb.. I doooo... I neeed... lol...