Shove or not hands?

Pascal LeFiscal said:

I don't raise fold below 18bb

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Yes, 'but' what if we're up vs. other players who know this... can't we then raise a bit wider (with intentions of stealing) knowing that they're thinking we're never folding, therefore causing them to tighten their range? (I actually listened to a podcast with pokerjamers & a couple others awhile ago, & they were talking about raise/folding on <20bb stacks, something a player would typically never do before but now were doing occasionally. I've seen da_professional doing this a fair bit too. Of course this is referring to 'meta-game' stuff amongst HSMTT regs. so obv. not applicable (in most cases) in lower buyin MTT). just thought I'd add it for 'confusion' purposes

ramdeebam said:

really? Hmm, maybe this is a major leak for me then. The problem I find I have here is that, it's nearly min raise...whenever I seem to do that, there are far to many spots I feel I get shoved on here leaving me thinking "Am I beat or is this a perfect chance for him to think I'm really weak and get me to fold"...

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Like I said above there are a load of other factors at play - I almost guarantee you villains aren't making big changes in their play against you just because you've made it 225 or 250 instead of 300 (unless you've got some obvious pattern where you 3x your good hands and 2.5x your bad ones or something).

You're almost certainly falling afoul of selective recall. Chances are you were getting shoved on whether you made it 2.25, 2.5 or 3x but you're choosing to read more into the times when you open lower and they shove.

Put it this way: it's almost impossible for changing your standard open raise from 3x to 2.5x to be a leak and as Pascal says you can even go a little smaller as blinds go up and effective stacks go down.

OzExorcist said:

Like I said above there are a load of other factors at play - I almost guarantee you villains aren't making big changes in their play against you just because you've made it 225 or 250 instead of 300 (unless you've got some obvious pattern where you 3x your good hands and 2.5x your bad ones or something).

You're almost certainly falling afoul of selective recall. Chances are you were getting shoved on whether you made it 2.25, 2.5 or 3x but you're choosing to read more into the times when you open lower and they shove.

Put it this way: it's almost impossible for changing your standard open raise from 3x to 2.5x to be a leak and as Pascal says you can even go a little smaller as blinds go up and effective stacks go down.

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It probably makes sense that, I do most likely have selection memory when it comes to min raising and getting 3bet shoved, it just feels like it at times..

Obviously then, whats the best idea UTG with 6'6s for example? 3x or 2.5x or even fold?

Pascal LeFiscal said:

I don't raise fold below 18bb or so and you've got 20, so I don't hate it. I probably shove I guess, raise calling isn't awful either unless it's a nit who shoves on you. I probably mix them up But if you do raise, raise small.

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18-20 is there really much of a difference at this point with the same hand? So you might fold it with 20blinds left, yet not fold if under 18blinds? Say we fold with the 3bet raise and we fold, this leaves us with 18blinds near enough to then hopefully find another decent hand within the space of a couple of hands or be dwindled down?

Poker Orifice said:

When you're raising with an 'awkward-sized' stack, you should be looking ahead on the table, checking out other player's stacks sizes & tendancies & 'prior' to your raise you should already "KNOW" whether or not you'll be calling 'so & so' if they reraise allin. Think ahead in the hand always.

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Yeah, I do try that, maybe another fault if I'm multi tabling..it's soo so difficult though at times. The problem I have, more than any is if I'm flat called, even in position or out, if checked too me, do we take a stab or check/fold unless we hit a monster flop with a marginal medium pair? I'd much rather raise bigger purely because then it gives people a chance to "think" before they think "oh pot odds, or good drawing hand I call"

I tend to think from personal experience I can take pots down regardless on the flop if I raised bigger to start with, with a min raise/2.5..it seems to get more difficult, again though like Oz said it could well be selective memory for this, going to have to take a look.


Thanks for the replies guys!

So, what are your thoughts here? It was almost instinct at the time, but as soon as I did it I wasnt so sure. I thought maybe it's a bit to loose, and if I was in the CO or BTN then it's ok, but what do you guys think?






Poker Stars $2.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t150/t300 Blinds + t40 - 9 players - View hand 1335851
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

UTG+2: t7020 M = 8.67
MP1: t778 M = 0.96
Hero (MP2): t3415 M = 4.22
CO: t4010 M = 4.95
BTN: t2440 M = 3.01
SB: t4062 M = 5.01
BB: t3510 M = 4.33
UTG: t2150 M = 2.65
UTG+1: t3290 M = 4.06

Pre Flop: (t810) Hero is MP2 with 8 <font color='black'>♣</font> A <font color='black'>♣</font>
2 folds, UTG+2 calls t300, 1 fold, Hero raises to t3375 all in, CO raises to t3970 all in, 4 folds

Flop: (t7860) K <font color='black'>♣</font> Q <font color='red'>♦</font> Q <font color='black'>♣</font> (2 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: (t7860) 2 <font color='red'>♥</font> (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: (t7860) 8 <font color='black'>♠</font> (2 players - 2 are all in)

ramdeebam said:

Obviously then, whats the best idea UTG with 6'6s for example? 3x or 2.5x or even fold?

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It depends - stack sizes, reads, stage of the tournament?

OzExorcist said:

It depends - stack sizes, reads, stage of the tournament?

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Stack size the same for example,

UTG: 18-20 holding 6'6s. Stack sizes, mmm at this stage usually I'm roughly medium/high range stack in comparison to the rest of the table, so apart from some shorties, the other stacks have some consideration to do.

Stage of tournament, final table just come on, 90player tournament I think, so everyone in the money.

I opt to either shove/fold but leaning more to fold? Is that good/bad and from MP+ shoving or open raising 2.3/2.5x?

ramdeebam said:

Stack size the same for example,

UTG: 18-20 holding 6'6s. Stack sizes, mmm at this stage usually I'm roughly medium/high range stack in comparison to the rest of the table, so apart from some shorties, the other stacks have some consideration to do.

Stage of tournament, final table just come on, 90player tournament I think, so everyone in the money.

I opt to either shove/fold but leaning more to fold? Is that good/bad and from MP+ shoving or open raising 2.3/2.5x?

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Depends on the other players who are on those stacks (reads!!!). Typically from EP I'm folding (but.. I might be raising, lol).

Easy shove there with A8.

And 2bb doesn't make a huge difference but it's the idea that counts - below 15bb I reckon r/f is normally bad, you just want to maximise your fold equity when you shove

Poker Orifice said:

Depends on the other players who are on those stacks (reads!!!). Typically from EP I'm folding (but.. I might be raising, lol).

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I know you say it's about reads and so on, maybe I rely on my HUD to much for that and make wrong calls/folds with regards to that so again if I'm multi tabling I can't really get many reads on people, not true ones anyway.

Another thing is, even the most tight of players, who understand the late stage shove/fold game and are actually "ok" players can call/shove very wide at this point so I'm unsure if reads are always key at these stages in tournaments?

Of course you can single out absolute donks who make the FT and call/shove everything.

Thanks for your insight though from EP "fold, but might be raising" haha

I sometimes regret folding in these spots, because I might not get another good hand or spot and dwindle down to nothing and end up shoving wide with some garbage.

Pascal LeFiscal said:

Easy shove there with A8.

And 2bb doesn't make a huge difference but it's the idea that counts - below 15bb I reckon r/f is normally bad, you just want to maximise your fold equity when you shove

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Ahh thats good then, wasn't sure if it was slightly too loose..

That's what I meant with the raising and then folding, kinda irritates me. At least with the shove I can get the folds or have a hand to go to show down, with the raise I can so easily get shoved on and don't know if I'm genuinely beat or not as people always point out to me when people 3bet shove you as an ideal spot for reshove steals. I hate being put on the spot and making another decision in a hand when I'm short as it is lol.