Poker Articles

In the mid to late stages of tournaments, the important part of hand reading often comes down to shoving and reshoving.  For this portion of the article, I’ve brought in a guest writer, "Luckychewy" a.k.a. "Runthistable," who I feel is better suited to explain this process, the math and the tools involved (Pokerstove and Sit & Go Power Tools).  Follwing is his contribution:

Three ridiculously crucial things to have access to for any aspiring tournament player when reviewing sessions are the Calculator, PokerStove, and SnG Power Tools.  As all of you know by now, middle through late and especially end-game tournament play heavily relies on how strong of a pushbotter you are.  These three programs will greatly help you improve your pushbotting and help combat other pushbotters.

I use Calculator and Stove to assist in calling ranges, and Power Tools to assist with shoving ranges.  A lot of spots you find yourself in will become straight-forward after a while, but every now and then there is a close spot you need to review and this is how you do it.  For what it's worth, I'd recommend throwing some hands in a Word document as you play a session; making it easier to find exactly what you want to review afterwards. 
 
When figuring out what range to call a shove with, you first need to figure out what equity you need versus the player's range to break even.  Obviously breaking even is nice and we shouldn't be passing small edges in most cases, but your goal should be to turn a profit calling shoves.

There are a lot of situations that arise in which I’m not sure if I’m making a positive or negative EV call because it’s so close -- these spots I refer to as marginal.  Sometimes I pass on marginal spots and sometimes I don’t.  It really all depends on so many variables.  As you get better and better at calling and pushing ranges you will find yourself in less and less marginal spots as stuff will start becoming more clear-cut regarding whether it is profitable or not. 
 
So, let's start with calling ranges.  This is where Calculator and PokerStove are used.  First, you need to figure out your required equity given the pot odds.  An example hand from the Full Tilt $55k Guaranteed is as follows:

Unknown player in the CO position shoves for 15.5k at 1k/2k/250 ante with 8 people at the table, and I’m in the BB with 55 and almost 65k after posting.  The pot is 3k in blinds+ 2k in antes+ the 15.5k he shoved for which = 20.5k.  I only have to call 13.5k since I’m in the BB, which means I’m getting 20.5:13.5, or close to 1.5:1.

To figure out exactly what equity you need to break even, you take what’s in the pot, add how much you need to call, and then divide this new number by how much you need to call.  So if 20.5 = x and 13.5 = y, the formula would be y/x+y.  In this case, x+y = 34, and y is 13.5, so 13.5/34 = .397.  Essentially I need to have 39.7% equity or better versus his range to make a call profitable. 
 
The second part involves PokerStove.  I first plug my hand and then "guesstimate" an appropriate range for the CO player.  Poker has a lot more gray areas than black and white, so if you guesstimate a range and later find out the CO player is a huge nit or huge spew, then oh well -- you didn’t know it at the time and there’s not much to be said.  You will inevitably make mistakes when determining ranges but it will get better with time and even I’m not nearly as good as some players who spawned from Sit & Go’s, where it’s essential that you know the correct call/push ranges in a bunch of spots.

In this case I’ll give the unknown CO a somewhat conservative range of 22+, A2s+, K8s+, Q8s+, J9s+, T9s, 98s, 87s, A2o+, K9o+, Q9o+, Jto and I’ve got ~51.7% equity.  Clearly, this is way better than a break even call, as I’m only required to have ~39.7% equity and I have ~51.7% -- quite a profitable call in the long run.

For those who care, in the actual hand he had AQo and I lost a sizeable flip.  This could mean that his range is tighter than I assume or it could mean that he just so happened to have the top end of it this time around.  Regardless, I’m fine with the call and would make it again if I had to. 
 
Generally, with regards to pushing ranges as opposed to calling ranges, your range will be much wider because you profit off of the amount of folds you get.  Obviously when making a call you have no folding equity, which as I explained earlier is why you need to be a favorite versus the players range with the given pot odds.  The equity of your pushing range versus a player's calling range is generally going to be an underdog, but you get a lot of folds so it’s still profitable.

SnG Power Tools is a huge help in figuring out how wide you can profitably push from different positions.  Unlike Calculator and PokerStove, it isn’t free... but it is cheap.  I’d highly recommend those of you who don’t have it to buy it.  You can get it online for like $20, minimal in return for how much money it can potentially make you if you put it to good use.

Again though, it makes its calculations off of your assumptions of the other players' calling ranges.  It’s important of course to make good assumptions, but you will inevitably be wrong some of the time.  For the most part, if you are close enough, it will be clear whether or not a certain shove is profitable, but not always in close situations.

As always, everything is very opponent dependent, so while it’s okay some of the time to generalize (as you will have to do versus unknown players), you definitely don’t want to make the same assumptions of the BB’s calling range versus your button shove if the BB is "charder30" or "joeshmo123456."  If I had to take a guess, "charder30" might call a bit wider than Joe. 
 
That’s all I’ve got to say about calling and pushing ranges.  I learned so much and met so many great people and friends that I feel I have a debt to fill by giving something back.  I hope ya’ll learned a bunch and win lots of monies in the future (though hopefully not from me!).  Thanks for reading. 

Alright, that’s what I have for now.  Thanks to "Luckychewy" for his contribution and for the other posters whose ideas I’ve stolen.