It’s a couple hours into a tournament, blinds are 200/400 with a 50 ante, and Player X is on the button with 3-3 and about 15k chips behind. The action folds around to the Cutoff, who shoves for 4,000. Player X isolates the blinds with a re-raise shove.On its surface, Player X is basically playing a coin flip. Even if the Cutoff is bluffing, unless he’s bluffing with a 2 or a 3, he has two overcards to the baby pair. From a tournament position perspective, this is the time in which accumulating chips becomes really important, so you can be the big stack at the table as you approach the bubble. In terms of chip equity, this is also a good flip to take, wagering 4,000 to win 5,050. All Player X needs is about a 44% chance to win the pot. This got me thinking.
“How wide of a range did you put him on?” I asked Player X. He replied, “Well, it should be about Any Two Cards.”
“Would you make the play with Q-8 offsuit?” I asked, quoting my standard 50th percentile hand. I was met with the beginning of some mocking reply…but his face changed before his sentence got underway, and he started to get my point.
If you go purely by the numbers, and you know for sure the blinds are going to fold, your range should be any 44th-percentile hand or higher. It’s easy enough to sit down with a tool like PokerStove, or a table like Andy Bloch’s in the FTP Strategy Guide, to figure out what that might be. We’re talking about hands like 9-7 offsuit or J-3 suited, a hand sure to draw scorn and ridicule from the Cutoff when he hits the rail after his beat... hands which are tough to digest as being reasonable to play this way, even after crunching the numbers.
Of course, the assumption the blinds will always fold is valid only in game theory or dopey poker articles. In reality, one of them will wake up with a hand where they can call your shove (AQ+, TT+) about 4% of the time, each. So our 44th-percentile hand actually has to be about a 52nd-percentile hand to be the “correct” play to make…if one other assumption is correct.
This assumption is, of course, the Cutoff is actually shoving with Any Two Cards.
In my experience, it’s a mistake for someone to think the “ATC” range, in its strictest sense, is accurate, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, most players, even some good tournament players, develop a pre-conceived notion about the quality of their hand. By the time the first five players in the hand fold, the Cutoff has been staring at that 7-3 suited or 9-4 offsuit for twenty seconds, maybe thirty. That’s a long time to tell your self, “Yeah, I know these are shit, but I should shove anyway.”
Strangely enough, even though online play is labeled as the destination for loose wack-jobs and crazy play, making a move like shoving with a true “ATC” range is much easier in live poker. You don’t have to look at your cards until it is your turn to make a decision. As the rest of the table starts to act, you can make up your mind: “If it folds to me, I’m shoving.” You look at your hand when it’s your turn out of habit, but since your mind is made up, you’re not really determining what play to make based on what you reveal. Your eyes may not even truly see the cards at all.
A true “ATC” shove should also be avoided because it is most likely not supported by ICM. Situations where these shoves are proper come up most often in turbo SNGs, as the blinds escalate quickly and the mathematics of chip equity v. payout is well-established. The amount of chips in the pot is a substantial portion of the total chips in play. It is relatively easy to figure out the financial reward in picking up the blinds & antes, and a range in which you should be calling or folding based on what happens if you win or lose.
At this stage in the tournament in question, there are still most likely 2-3 levels before they reach the money bubble. The size of the pot is quite small in comparison to the number of chips needed to reap any sort of substantial monetary gain. The bottom line is the Cutoff really doesn’t need these chips badly enough to mean he should have an “ATC” range.
You may also want to consider whether or not you want to project this image. Personally, I know I can make moves independent of my cards if the situation says I should. But I like projecting a tight image for as long as I can, and getting shown to the whole world as a guy who will shove with ATC, or re-shove really light, is a great way to completely screw that up.
Using tools like PokerStove to experiment with various hands against opponent’s ranges is an invaluable tool for tournament success. If you want to know if you made the right shove, or call, or isolation play…let the numbers be your guide for chip equity. And ask your friends about the rest.
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