Push, Fold or Stop & Go?

The Tourist

SE Monthly Deepstack game.

12 players remain on two tables of six.
Blinds have just gone to 500/1000. 35 mins left at this level. No antes.

UTG (~25k) Raises to 2500
UTG+1 (~50k) Folds
UTG+2 (~10k) Folds
Button (~50k) Folds
SB (The Tourist) (8.5k) (Pocket 9's)
BB (~10k)

Relevant points:
(1) There are two big stacks at the table and between them they are making things difficult. UTG+1 likes to limp many flops and will bet enough (on any flop that is checked around) to effectively put a short stack all in. The button likes to raise every second or third hand to 2500 preflop and has encountered little resistance.

(2) I have been looking to get my chips in first into an unraised pot but have waited possibly too long. The buttons preflop raises are now frequent enough to consider reraising all in with any half decent hand, but I doubt if I have any fold equity at the moment.

(3) UTG+1 (raiser) has limped more than an average number of pots for the table, but has never raised preflop (that I can remember). However, having been short stacked all night, he has just doubled up a few hands ago. 2500 is the standard raise from the last level.

(4) I have been card dead since level 2 or 3.

Push, Fold or Stop & Go? and Why?

jimmii

Push. Your unlikely to get a better hand before the blinds come round again. You need to win a flip to get back in this and now is as good a time as any. The big stacks are going to call a push with a wide range of hands if you go through the blinds again.

You could do a stop and go but I think that is best done in a position where you can't fold and don't have such a strong hand 99 is good enough to win in its own right.

JoeyJJ

You have less than 10BB and you have Mid-High pocket pair. Its a push for me. You have decent cards and you stated the the bigblinds are dominating play its your turn to make a move and try to win the tournie.

The Tourist

Push was my first reaction when I looked at my cards, but what range can we put the raiser on, seeing as I have played with him for four hours and this is possibly his first preflop raise in that time?

jimmii

Its well past the tim to be changing gears if you have managed to get to this stage without raising pre-flop. At a 6 player table then you can probably have him on a fairly large range of hands. If you think he has a bigger pair then by all means fold but you need to have a fairly solid read to do it it also means you will probably have to get your money in as a 40/60 dog unless you pick up a lucky hand.

Rb

Easy push.

Lazare

It's a push for me. You need a race, a succesful stop and go is only going to earn you 4BB and you'll still be in trouble. He has to call you preflop as your range (even for coming over the top) should be wide there with 8BB.

If he has an overpair, so be it. UL.

phantom_lord

ship the shipment.

The Tourist

Thanks for the advice, I think what I am learning from this is that I should trust my reads. When I pushed all in, I instantly regretted it, and looking back at it later, I realised I felt he was strong in this hand. What prompted my interest in the hand is that when he turned over AK I was happy, and I thought why am I getting my chips in if I am hoping for a race at best? If I was playing it again I would fold and would try to accumulate by stealing some blinds immediately, followed by picking off some loose preflop raises. That just strikes me as a less risky way to double up. Now who is going to tell me that I am crazy...

ozpoker

The Tourist wrote:

Thanks for the advice, I think what I am learning from this is that I should trust my reads. When I pushed all in, I instantly regretted it, and looking back at it later, I realised I felt he was strong in this hand. What prompted my interest in the hand is that when he turned over AK I was happy, and I thought why am I getting my chips in if I am hoping for a race at best? If I was playing it again I would fold and would try to accumulate by stealing some blinds immediately, followed by picking off some loose preflop raises. That just strikes me as a less risky way to double up. Now who is going to tell me that I am crazy...

I'll start. You're crazy You got your stack in with the best hand - your jam couldn't be too bad.

Depending on the villain, this looks like a good StopNGo spot to me. The whole point of the play is to give your opponent a chance to make a mistake and possibly gain chips with no chance of getting knocked out. I StopNGO against most players here.

-Oz-

LuckyLloyd

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LuckyLloyd

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The Tourist

Lloyd, you are thinking almost exactly along the same lines as I am but we are reaching different conclusions. Yesterday, I was putting him on 88+ and a big ace (AK/AQ). However, say your range is the right one, then we get this:

---

pokerstove.txt

159,244,272 games 0.031 secs 5,136,912,000 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 44.614% 43.89% 00.72% 69896746 1148536.00 { 9c9d }
Hand 1: 55.386% 54.66% 00.72% 87050454 1148536.00 { 88+, AJs+, KJs+, AJo+ }

---

I still like the fold here. Although it is a painful fold in my situation, I'd prefer to push in with any two the next two times it's folded around to me.

LuckyLloyd

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CelticPhantom

The Tourist wrote:

I'd prefer to push in with any two the next two times it's folded around to me.

From what you say in the original post it is unlikely to get folded around to you (unless you are UTG ). If you do push from early position, you could easily get 2 callers. Do you prefer the position where your ATC against 2 random hands is at best 33%, against this position where you are a 55% favourite?

As others have said, your stack is too low to be playing poker. Push and pray, if you only win the blinds you have slightly more fold equity and another round of blinds before you are back in this position.

ozpoker

LuckyLloyd wrote:

I disagree Oz. His range includes a lot of hands that we actually want to gamble against for a full double up. I would rather race against AK over five cards for a full double up than fold out AK on the flop and add 3.5k to my stack. We have to be willing to gamble and get the entire lot in here.

If we stop and go, the five holdings that have us stuffed prolly don't go away on the flop - so we lose the full wack every time. And the holdings we dominate (88, 77) and the ones we are favourite's against (overcards that miss the flop) go away when we are still ahead. I think a stop and go here is less profitable than just jamming as we want to double up when we are good and get back towards winning the tournament.

I am completely unfazed that this carries a higher degree of risk of elimination btw - I am willing to take it on as we are only playing for first in this situation.

Fair enough Lloyd. I tried to craft a structured analysis response to you, but I wasn't up to the task. I'll try to defend my position with more handwaving.

First off, I'm by no means a survivalist, and I agree that jamming is a perfectly fine play here. The reason I prefer the StopNGo (SG) is for what it buys you on the margin. Let me expand a bit:

When the villain calls our postflop jam, our equity reverts to the preflop play. So, in this case, the tradeoff is between the 18K stack we have 46% of the time (assuming given ranges) vs the 12K stack we have 100% of the time should the villain fold the flop.

Now sometimes the villain will fold correctly and we'll be sad we missed out on those additional chips. But even a correct fold is giving up some equity in the pot and we get to live to fight another day. But, other times they will fold incorrectly and we'll be massively happy. I've had opponents make "big" laydowns in these situations, folding KK on an A high flop for instance, not realizing what I'm doing.

So while I had difficulty quantifying all this, those few times that opponents make these massively bad folds + the 100% chance of continuing even if they fold correctly makes this play correct IMO. I'm open to suggestions about how to quantitatively analyze these situations (short of an equity matrix of assigning probabilities of our opponent's reactions for every hand in his range against all boards ).

-Oz-

PiperT

The Tourist wrote:

What prompted my interest in the hand is that when he turned over AK I was happy, and I thought why am I getting my chips in if I am hoping for a race at best?

Don't agree with your logic here. You need to double up and 99 vs AK is exactly the scenario I would be hoping for in this spot.

Of course he's gonna hit c.50% of the time but you are in bad shape and a double up gets you back in the game. If you are deeper then it might play differently.

If you hang around waiting for a better spot its probably not going to happen and you will be blinded away further.

Jam-Fly

Just push, if he's got ya, he's got ya.

The Tourist

PiperT wrote:

Don't agree with your logic here. You need to double up and 99 vs AK is exactly the scenario I would be hoping for in this spot.

My point was that being against two overcards is one of the BEST possible outcomes from his range (apart from 88 and 99). Put differently, should I be happy to get my stack in as a 44.6%/55.4% dog against his range (see post above).

Gus Ivey

if your looking to get a good stack for the final table then push.

if you are up against a bigger pair, or you lose the race then your unlucky.

The Tourist

Gus Ivey wrote:

if your looking to get a good stack for the final table then push.

Not necessarily the aim here. I'm trying to identify the play with the highest € expectation.

Gus Ivey

The Tourist wrote:

Not necessarily the aim here. I'm trying to identify the play with the highest € expectation.

well everyone plays differently, if i was in your shoes i would be looking to double up so its a push for me

PiperT

In your OP you are asking for opinions/advice e.t.c. - I may not be one for offering the best advise in the World but you seem to be quite defensive. Why post in the first place ?

The Tourist wrote:

Put differently, should I be happy to get my stack in as a 44.6%/55.4% dog against his range (see post above).

YES - given the sorry state of your stack

valor

i kind of like a fold given villain descrip and UTG raise

Gus Ivey

valor wrote:

i kind of like a fold given villain descrip and UTG raise

it is a borderline decison but given the stack size and the blinds i think a push is the right play

sikes

I wouldnt blame you for throwing it in there, but do you really think he is doing it with 88,77,66 after being limping so much and having aggro big stacks behind him? We have no FE. Its unfortunate that we cant get in it now, but just becuase we wont get a better hand doesnt mean that we cant get better positions to get our money in.

I wouldnt think a SNG has any value either.

DapperGent

First preflop raise in 4 hours and it's from UTG. I can find a fold.

LuckyLloyd

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mewso

I'm pushing. I think the OP's stack here is too low to have the luxury of worrying about reads, whether I'm racing or not? I mean AK is exactly what you are hoping for. Couldn't be better but also irrelevent imo. I find it a bit silly to waste time thinking about these kind of situations. If you had 20k then talk of folding would be valid to me. Terrible raise by UTG anyway.