When to shove pre-flop (Day 13 Course Discussion)

Andrew Popov · May 29, 2020

Undoubtedly, there are situations when you need to set all-in. But I think that in a large part of the cases such a game will be short of, because you will get only the blind.

deyvsonflp · May 29, 2020

I understood the concept very well and it is really very effective. For me, the 10bb mark is a great push / fold sign that offers a great chance to double and gain more life in the MTT. It is very useful because the villain's call range is not always adjusted.

GRIN281289 · May 31, 2020

Thanks for the Katie video!
I try to go all-in as little as possible, as my best cards turn into a dummy, after the deal on the table !!! Here you need a lot of luck

ronn6583 · Jun 1, 2020

Are these guidelines the same for MTT and SNG or if the tournament with rewards for knocking out, they do not depend on the type of tournament hyper, turbo, slow?
I can’t understand the fifth principle:” There’s 25% or more of our stack sitting in the middle.” Could you explain by example?
Quiz
1. Hand AsQs. Was one raise. Effective stack 21bb and there are ante. It is a good place to push. Equity A Q is 40% versus 5% of the tight range. This is the worst case scenario.
In the video, this the hand is not finished. I wonder how it ended.
2. Hand Ah8d. Was one raise. Effective stack 18bb and there are ante. This is the right moment to a shove. Equity A 8 is 28 % versus 5% of the tight range. Equity A 8 is 35 % versus 11% of range.
If the tournament is very important and you want to make your way as far as possible, based on the equity of the hand against the best ranges of the opponent, you can decide to play through fold.
3. Hand Ad10h. There were two limps. Effective stack 18bb and there are ante. There are 440 chips in the bank; 3 bet will be 1,500 chips or 15 bb, so immediately a shove.
4. Hand JhAd. Was one raise. Effective stack 17bb and there are ante. This is a good moment to a shove.
5. Hand 5d 5h. . Was one raise. Effective stack 20bb and there are ante. This is a place to a shove… but this is also the final table with three opponents. The reward for the 3rd place will be less than the second. The pair is low, so I fold in this place.

Collin Moshman · Jun 3, 2020

ronn6583 said:
Are these guidelines the same for MTT and SNG or if the tournament with rewards for knocking out, they do not depend on the type of tournament hyper, turbo, slow?
I can’t understand the fifth principle:” There’s 25% or more of our stack sitting in the middle.” Could you explain by example?

They're only good general guidelines and you are often correct to modify them based on the specific format or situation. For example, you have a better risk/reward ratio shoving with knockouts and can get away with overbet shoving pre-flop more if you like. I wouldn't though change them usually based on tournament speed.

Suppose the starting pot is $250 and our stack is $1000. Then there's 25% of our stack ($250 / $1000) sitting in the middle and we have a good risk/reward ratio shoving. Sorry if that was unclear in the text -- hope it makes sense here!

dunc1189 · Jun 13, 2020

This is a lot more aggressive than I am used to but looking forward it trying it out. I'm sure it puts a lot of pressure on opponents!

Collin Moshman · Jun 16, 2020

dunc1189 said:
This is a lot more aggressive than I am used to but looking forward it trying it out. I'm sure it puts a lot of pressure on opponents!

Definitely, pressuring your opponents is always a good thing!

BentleyBoy · Jun 20, 2020

I liked this video as it actually challenges a mindset of not wanting to risk too many chips versus making the right play at the right time. Many passive players will be trying to dearly (and expensively to them in the long run) hold on to chips and min raise in such situations where they really should be shoving. The impact of antes on the shove decision is one I too hadn’t appreciated but will now incorporate that into my thinking.

The explanation of the reason for shoving was clear and makes it easier to apply and maximise opportunity to win.

Thank you

johnnylawford · Jun 20, 2020

There's a great App for practicing push-fold ranges from various positions, blind levels and stack sizes called 'ICMizer SNG Coach' on iOS. There are some subscription features, but you can still take a number of the quizzes without paying.

Collin Moshman · Jun 21, 2020

BentleyBoy said:
I liked this video as it actually challenges a mindset of not wanting to risk too many chips versus making the right play at the right time. Many passive players will be trying to dearly (and expensively to them in the long run) hold on to chips and min raise in such situations where they really should be shoving. The impact of antes on the shove decision is one I too hadn’t appreciated but will now incorporate that into my thinking.

The explanation of the reason for shoving was clear and makes it easier to apply and maximise opportunity to win.

Thank you

Thanks BentleyBoy and you're right that it's counter-intuitive. You want to ladder up and not spew off your stack, but then most of the money is in the top places and the best results come from taking lots of calculated risks late in the game. Glad this chapter helped!

zam220 · Jun 22, 2020

I think push fold is an important element of poker! And here the main thing is to know which push range will be profitable!There are profitability tables for pushing from positions, and if you study them, you will greatly strengthen your game!

iveyfan · Jun 23, 2020

Great video! I think so far this is definitely the one that will help me the most in the future. I have a tendency to be too selective when I'm short-stacked and these rules will certainly help my short-stack play.

makisaa · Jun 26, 2020

Going all-in it can be a tool to rise our stacks when it works! It also can reverse a game which we thought it was over, and put us in very high positions in a mtt in small time!

lollipopas · Jun 27, 2020

I started using these guidelines. and it often helps, when you're a tiny stack, to slowly or sometimes fast build your stack back up. However, when I'm a big stack, I haven't had much success with this so far (maybe just not enough experience, or something I haven't taken into account - I should try to find one of those and analyze it).

Katie Dozier · Jun 27, 2020

iveyfan said:
Great video! I think so far this is definitely the one that will help me the most in the future. I have a tendency to be too selective when I'm short-stacked and these rules will certainly help my short-stack play.

Glad to hear this! It's extremely common to be too selective when short stacked--I'm sure you'll have the ranges down in no time!

fruittree · Jun 27, 2020

Position, Timing and most importantly, Notes! Those three will increase your odds when deciding

NoETdrizzle · Jun 27, 2020

I just wanted to clarify, but by saying effective stack it means we should be shoving if say our stack is 50BB and one opponent behind us has 7BB?

Collin Moshman · Jun 27, 2020

NoETdrizzle said:
I just wanted to clarify, but by saying effective stack it means we should be shoving if say our stack is 50BB and one opponent behind us has 7BB?

If we have 50bb, and everyone else has 7bb, we should be shoving hands we play.

If we have 50bb and the remaining players have 7bb and 40bb, then the effective stack is 40bb and we should be raising normally.

mclaughlinph · Jun 28, 2020

zam220 said:
I think push fold is an important element of poker! And here the main thing is to know which push range will be profitable!There are profitability tables for pushing from positions, and if you study them, you will greatly strengthen your game!

I could be wrong but I am a little confused by the whole concept of push from position profitability tables. You could have 8 guys to go through or one guy to go if you push your chips all in with AA you can still get them cracked or your A10 can be beat by AJ. Making up rules to automatically push for from position in any card game you play in whether it be $10 buy in or $1000 buy in seems risky. How can it be profitable when you only need to have one bad beat or one cooler in a tourney to knock you out whether it is early in the tourney or late in the tourney. Poker isnt like black jack I dont think you can have hard and fast rules to play by religiously that prove to be profitable over along period of time. The reason I say this is because there are so many instances in just one tourney where all your chips are on the line but you dont get paid prize money everytime you go all-in in one tourney if you are successful. Like you get paid in black jack after every successful hand. You have to risk those chips many times in the course of one tourney before you get the prize money. If you were paid off every-time you went all in and took something out of the tourney that would be different and if you could stay in the tourney after getting knocked out and having all your chips taken or being able to re-buy when in the money push fold charts would make more sense to me. But particularly late in a tourney when the blinds are really high i think push fold charts are even less effective. Like there seems to be an overwhelming consensus or unwritten rule that when you get down to 10 - 15 bigs you should shove with any half decent hand. I think when you are late in a tourney or final tabling a tourney 10 - 15 big blinds is a heck of a lot of chips still to play with you are looking at still having about 5 - 8 full orbits of play that is 45 - 72 hands especially in on line play where it seems like you get a premium holding (preflop) at least once every two orbits. You can still wait on a premium hand for a double up. You don't have to shove your Ax as soon as it comes.Also late in tourneys or on final tables alot of the time the big stack has between 25 and 50 bigs max so the stack sizing is maximized and 10 -15 bigs is a good chunck of the total pie. IMO

Collin Moshman · Jul 1, 2020

mclaughlinph said:
I could be wrong but I am a little confused by the whole concept of push from position profitability tables. You could have 8 guys to go through or one guy to go if you push your chips all in with AA you can still get them cracked or your A10 can be beat by AJ. Making up rules to automatically push for from position in any card game you play in whether it be $10 buy in or $1000 buy in seems risky. How can it be profitable when you only need to have one bad beat or one cooler in a tourney to knock you out whether it is early in the tourney or late in the tourney. Poker isnt like black jack I dont think you can have hard and fast rules to play by religiously that prove to be profitable over along period of time. The reason I say this is because there are so many instances in just one tourney where all your chips are on the line but you dont get paid prize money everytime you go all-in in one tourney if you are successful. Like you get paid in black jack after every successful hand. You have to risk those chips many times in the course of one tourney before you get the prize money. If you were paid off every-time you went all in and took something out of the tourney that would be different and if you could stay in the tourney after getting knocked out and having all your chips taken or being able to re-buy when in the money push fold charts would make more sense to me. But particularly late in a tourney when the blinds are really high i think push fold charts are even less effective. Like there seems to be an overwhelming consensus or unwritten rule that when you get down to 10 - 15 bigs you should shove with any half decent hand. I think when you are late in a tourney or final tabling a tourney 10 - 15 big blinds is a heck of a lot of chips still to play with you are looking at still having about 5 - 8 full orbits of play that is 45 - 72 hands especially in on line play where it seems like you get a premium holding (preflop) at least once every two orbits. You can still wait on a premium hand for a double up. You don't have to shove your Ax as soon as it comes.Also late in tourneys or on final tables alot of the time the big stack has between 25 and 50 bigs max so the stack sizing is maximized and 10 -15 bigs is a good chunck of the total pie. IMO

The way to think about these decisions is in terms of expected value.

** If you shove a hand like AT into three players or five players, you can win or lose.

** If you shove with a stack of 25bb or 8bb, you can win or lose.

But these factors change the expected value of our play. I.e. based on the number of players, tournament state, and effective stack, we win or lose more money by taking certain shove-fold decisions. And that's what we're trying to figure out here -- how to win the most money on average through optimal shove/fold play.

acidburnfx · Jul 7, 2020

I didn't understand this shove with a A8 against only a player of the big blind, considering that the action came to you with a min raise. Maybe a limp should be more interesting in that position.

ammje · Jul 7, 2020

Very good video, I learned a lot about the range of pre flop shove, many times I was left with few chips.

Collin Moshman · Jul 8, 2020

acidburnfx said:
I didn't understand this shove with a A8 against only a player of the big blind, considering that the action came to you with a min raise. Maybe a limp should be more interesting in that position.

Good question. Here's a rule of thumb:

Typically we only want to limp when we're in the small blind; everyone has folded to us; and the effective stack is > 15bb. (Even at, say, 18bb open-shoving the small blind is often a good play.)

riff_raff312 · Jul 8, 2020

So shoving depends on how many chips you have not what cards your holding that's what i'm doing wrong :icon_stud ???

The Riff_Raff

Katie Dozier · Jul 9, 2020

riff_raff312 said:
So shoving depends on how many chips you have not what cards your holding that's what i'm doing wrong :icon_stud ???

The Riff_Raff

It depends on both, but overall I'd say that in general how many chips you have is the bigger influence of the two important factors!

When to shove pre-flop (Day 13 Course Discussion)

Andrew Popov

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deyvsonflp

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GRIN281289

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ronn6583

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Collin Moshman

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dunc1189

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Collin Moshman

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BentleyBoy

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johnnylawford

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Collin Moshman

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iveyfan

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makisaa

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lollipopas

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Katie Dozier

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fruittree

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Collin Moshman

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mclaughlinph

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Collin Moshman

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acidburnfx

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ammje

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Katie Dozier

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