Shortstack Jammer

Wetts1012

I've been debating posting this hand, but it's been eating at me for about a week now.

$11+1 rebuy on Stars, 1700+ started, 13 left. First is 12K, I am mininmum $400 at this point.

I am sitting around 7th/8th with ~450K in chips, blinds are 15K/30K.

Player to my right has been SB jamming into my BB for 3 consecutive orbits. Unfortunately I wake up with cock soup, until the following happens:

PokerStars Game #13450015468: Tournament #67348751, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level XXIV (15000/30000) - 2007/11/24 - 22:19:55 (ET)Table '67348751 149' 9-max Seat #4 is the button

Seat 1: McCrakN (926682 in chips)
Seat 2: croth8 (244384 in chips)
Seat 3: skydiveoslo (973598 in chips)
Seat 4: katrinchen (829717 in chips)
Seat 6: 71viper71 (278623 in chips)
Seat 8: Wetts1012 (458600 in chips)
Seat 9: zazz1981 (1161838 in chips)
McCrakN: posts the ante 3000
croth8: posts the ante 3000
skydiveoslo: posts the ante 3000
katrinchen: posts the ante 3000
71viper71: posts the ante 3000
Wetts1012: posts the ante 3000
zazz1981: posts the ante 3000
71viper71: posts small blind 15000
Wetts1012: posts big blind 30000

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Wetts1012 [4h 4c]
zazz1981: folds
McCrakN: folds
croth8: folds
skydiveoslo: folds
katrinchen: folds
71viper71: raises 245623 to 275623 and is all-in
Wetts1012: calls 245623

*** FLOP ***
[7s 3h Kh]
*** TURN ***
[7s 3h Kh] [6c]
*** RIVER ***
[7s 3h Kh 6c] [Th]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
71viper71: shows [9d 8s] (a straight, Six to Ten)
Wetts1012: shows [4h 4c] (a pair of Fours)
71viper71 collected 572246 from pot
McCrakN said, "nh"
skydiveoslo said, "omg"
skydiveoslo said, "nh

I am looking for comments in regards to dealing with SS jammers. My call, for about 60% of my stack - was marginal I feel given that, at best, I am just slightly ahead. Would you flip for most of your stack in this situation?

As an fyi, I go out the next hand when I jam 99 in the BB and run into AK.

Viper went on to take second for about 7K

SirWatts

Both of you played the hand correctly. He should be shoving most of his hands (quite possibly any two cards) depending on how wide you're willing to call him. Most people aren't calling anywhere near wide enough though. 44 is a super easy call for you, you're getting laid a price by the blinds and antes and you're easily at least 50:50 against any kind of reasonable range he's pushing there.

SirWatts

Oh yeah when the blnds are this big compared to stacks passing even a small edge would be a mistake, and this is not a small edge at all. You're just going to get run over if you're afraid to call in these situations.

Kristy

Watts: I agree with your comments, just a quick Q: if you were the other guy and you knew Wett's range of calling hands was this wide..are you still shoving 8-9o there? (if not can you put up the range you are?)

Thanks

SirWatts

I might do the math when Im done packing, but he has to be calling very wide to make shoving not +EV compared to folding. 44 is not one of the worst hands he'd have to call with. Math is easy, if if he calls with top x% of hands then you win 6600 in the pot (100-x)% of the time, and then x% of the time you figure out how much you lose on average when called against his range using pokerstove.

Monteroy

I think it is an easier shove with 8 9 off then a hand like Q8 off which is more likely to be dominated when called. Aside from a pair 88+ its not a bad situation for the 8 9.

The call with the 44 is fine but frustrating since as seen here a lot of hands like 9 high are still a 50/50ish vs it, though it would dominate a hand like A2 through A4 which the SB would shove with as well.

Think this hand has to play out as it does, if not then one of the two of you is too timid

Kristy

I guess that answers my question; I just wondered if you ever fancied your ability as a reason to dissent from a mathmatically marginal shove.

SirWatts

There's not a ton ofskill in 9xBB poker. Most of the skill is in recognizing spotsl ike these where it's correct to gamble, and spots like with the 98 where even though you don't have much of a hand you can pick up some chips off the typical player.

cadillac

Kristy_Sea wrote: »

I guess that answers my question; I just wondered if you ever fancied your ability as a reason to dissent from a mathmatically marginal shove.

I would assume that because Watts knows shoving here very wide is +EV against a garden variety villain (who will likely not adjust his calling range correctly), that is his edge in this spot.


Blech: You beat me to it

Kristy

sorry, I'm afraid that I'm not being clear.

Someone linked me today to an old thread where a very respected player advocated folding marginally +ev hands to lessen big swings...I extrapolated from cash to tournament and wondered if Watts would ever consider this when tourney life is on the line and if we could superimpose him to the 8/9o against an opponent with a known wide calling range. He'd be playing in a tourney where he'd certainly have a big edge and the consequences of a 'big swing' are t.life or t.death.

I'm hating this idea for cash, but I think I might hate it slightly less for tournament and it has stuck with me today. Thought I'd put it out there and see what others think. I'd love to hear your POV, I have not completely developed mine.

Repeat: I'm neither for nor against..just thinking about it.

did I explain this well?

ReefAquarium

Kristy_Sea wrote: »

sorry, I'm afraid that I'm not being clear.

Someone linked me today to an old thread where a very respected player advocated folding marginally +ev hands to lessen big swings...I extrapolated from cash to tournament and wondered if Watts would ever consider this when tourney life is on the line and if we could superimpose him to the 8/9o against an opponent with a known wide calling range. He'd be playing in a tourney where he'd certainly have a big edge and the consequences of a 'big swing' are t.life or t.death.

I'm hating this idea for cash, but I think I might hate it slightly less for tournament and it has stuck with me today. Thought I'd put it out there and see what others think. I'd love to hear your POV, I have not completely developed mine.

Repeat: I'm neither for nor against..just thinking about it.

did I explain this well?

Kristy,

I agree.

I hate it for cash.

I hate it for tourney.

Maybe if you're Phil Ivey you should avoid 52/48 splits but for most people it's bad.

The book "Kill Phil" was all about exploiting this.

Kristy

ReefAquarium wrote: »

Maybe if you're Phil Ivey you should avoid 52/48 splits but for most people it's bad.

again, not looking for a flame war..just thinking out loud.

I've definately played in live LL tournaments where I'd fancy my ability more than 52/48.

Eg. I played a weekly tournament with my father for about a year and probably finished out of the top 3 spots 4 times that whole year. The players were so bad, it was usually only a question of whether I'd win my big HU hands for first or second.

I'm not saying that it happens everyday, but now and then can't any old donk find themselves against even bigger, older, donks? In which case, what merit do you lend to this idea?

still no subscription to pro/con.

Kristy

Can someone please explain why this is an unreasonable question, if that is the case?

It has not yielded any input as of yet, and I'm not sure if it is that the Q itself is lacking; it seems reasonable to consider some offset for the edge that someone like SirWatts might have in a $10R...or even some lowly player like myself in some donkfest?

I'd like to hear if I'm way in outfield, or completely on form. (as stated before I'm only really thinking about it for tournaments)

cadillac

Kristy_Sea wrote: »

Can someone please explain why this is an unreasonable question, if that is the case?

Personally I don't really understand the question. I think maybe you are asking if it makes sense to give up a small edge in favor of coming across a bigger edge later on but I am really not sure.


If this is what you are asking maybe you could provide some context. In relationship to this thread and the HH originally posted I would answer an emphatic "no". Don't think yourself to death with 9BB in your stack.


In different situations there are spots where the math may tell you a hand is very marginal but still +EV but for reasons pertaining to meta game you don't get involved.

SirWatts

In cash you basically never pass the most +EV line because you can just reload when you lose. If you want to do it to decrease variance you are probably playing too high. In tournaments there are definitely spots where in theory it is correct to pass up +cEV situations if you're a very good player. In practice if you never did this you'd be making at worst a small mistake though. In general the better players are better because they recognize more small edges they can push, not because they avoid them. Anyways, there's no clear cut answer to your question really it gets debated a lot on poker forums everywhere. My opinion fwiw is that for a very good player early in a tournament with deep chipstacks, lots of weak players, and an excellent structure there are probably some situations where it would be correct to pass a smallish edge. Other than that you're basically better off pushing every small edge you can other than various bubble situations that can change everything.

moose

Your pot odds are 1.27:1

Harrington vol.3 prob 33 goes through this situation.

Essentially with 1.4:1 you can call with anything within the pushers range. Since villian has shown willingness to continually push you have to figure that 44 is well ahead of his range. Pokerstove gives 57% equity to 44 over any two random cards.

So what do we have to throw out of his range before we become a dog?

Dumping all the offsuit 3 or more gappers 10 and below, makes villian's range the top 77% of hands and we are still a 54% favourite.

Dumping all the offsuit 3 or more gappers J and below and all the suited 3 gappers 9 and below puts his range to top 65% of hands and we are still a 53% fav.

In fact, since we see from the HH, that he shoves with 98o. If we restrict his range to all PP, any A, 98o or better and 98s or better, his range is the top 33.6% of hands and we are only a 49.6% dog. Since we are offered 1.27:1 pot odds, we are giving up a pretty big edge by folding.

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
4,448,565,792 games 0.005 secs 889,713,158,400 games/sec
Board:
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 49.579% 49.04% 00.54% 2181708684 23843958.00 { 44 }
Hand 1: 50.421% 49.89% 00.54% 2219169192 23843958.00 { 22+, A2s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T9s, 98s, A2o+, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o, 98o }

Another interesting thing as I play more with pokerstove is that as we give hero successively stronger pairs, 22, 33, 44, 55 etc, each higher rank of pairs is worth another 2% edge.

Kristy

cadillac wrote: »

Don't think yourself to death with 9BB in your stack.

FWIW 9BB(with no ante) would be very close to, but not nec. 100% over, my push or fold line. (but basically I was just using the OP as a starting off point for my side Q)

Initially I thought 'there are enough situations and opponents who will call 9bb but not call the "I've got a monster" 2.5 or 3bb raise at our level' and I also thought that there are some hands that will call and win against our 9bb, that might call 2.5-3bb and fold for the remaining 6-6.5 after seeing most flops.' I like more chances to push them out.

I need to think about it a little longer to decide if that's an idea I'll stick with..but off the cuff.

Whitehorse.

Maybe in this specific situation, where the table is that passive that it has been folded around to sb on 3 consecutive orbits, I fold 44 here and jam atc when in position just like the sb is doing?