Ok I am tired of a long lasting discussion which ive had with some friends again and again for some time now about a situation which occurs often late in MTT's. I think its obvious i'm right and they have no doubt i'm wrong. To keep the discussion objective i'm not gonna say on which side off the fence im standing until we know some other opinions. Same for the outcome of example hand below, i will post the outcome after the discussion.

The general problem is about the question whether or not you are trying to induce all-in situations by minraising instead of shoving with hands that are gonna be slight / more than slight favourite against villains shoving range in a specific stage in the tournament, namely when you are

1 - deepish itm (last couple tables)

and you have

2 - shallowish/average stacksize (15 / 25 bb)


Example: Hand below is itm last 4 tables in 5$ 1R1A on stars. Just moved from another table, lots off unknown opponents so opponent has little information on me. After few hands it gets folded to my A10o on btn, 16bb deep. No info on blinds, SB has 7bb, BB has around my stack. Question: do you shove or minraise this?

Level XXII (1250/2500) - 2012/08/14 0:41:52 CET [2012/08/13 18:41:52 ET]

Table '598705830 39' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Table '598705830 39' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: candy1984 (40651 in chips)
Seat 2: Audire (27699 in chips)
Seat 3: riverman1314 (87319 in chips)
Seat 4: MS NEMESIS (62127 in chips)
Seat 5: Scorpaenopsy (94481 in chips)
Seat 6: The Mincho (40732 in chips)
Seat 7: Darwinsfish (38420 in chips)
Seat 8: Mikenificant (15854 in chips)
candy1984: posts the ante 300
Audire: posts the ante 300
riverman1314: posts the ante 300
MS NEMESIS: posts the ante 300
Scorpaenopsy: posts the ante 300
The Mincho: posts the ante 300
Darwinsfish: posts the ante 300
Mikenificant: posts the ante 300
Mikenificant: posts small blind 1250
candy1984: posts big blind 2500

In general someone defending a minraise would say something like hey boy, you are gonna need chips anyway to make the big bucks since final table stack is at least 3 times your current stack, and by minraising you could get a double up while being a 60 to 70 % favourite most of the time, cause villain's (BB in this case, SB is to short to consider) gonna have a broadway/ace rag maybe suited connector 3bet shoving range. Though its true that when you openshove the A10 you will more often stay out off allin trouble and win the blinds, you have to wonder what is going to happen next. You will still be shortish and forced to steel again (if that is even possible) in the next orbit or sooner, and maybe this time youre could be forced in a worse spot where its much more likely to get called by a better hand. The openshover will get called eventually and when it happens its bad news. So by minraising you will bust more often in THIS hand, but in general you will also accumulate the chips needed for ft much more often by inducing the shove. Easy minraise!

The other guy however will say that you can easily keep winning small pots by shoving once every orbit and maybe get lucky and minraise call later when you get a real premium type of hand. With aggresive online poker as it is today you will get shoved on the minraise very very light, which means you actually are kind off inducing to bust out on this hand being a slight favourite, cause most of the time villain will have livecards and you will be flipping. Better shove and get bigger by winning blinds, even with better hands like aq. You will get called much less and survive longer on average, and wenn you get called it can still be a good situation since you also shove hands like aq and will be ahead a decent amount of the time. The flipping will generally occur LATER in the tournament which will make you some money, and you are giving yourself the chance to get it in far BETTER in the near future. Easy shove!


Although i am completely convinced 1 of these options is completely bad and the other completely perfect i have to admit i see ok players adopting both strategies these days on stars. Im SN on stars and have been a fulltilt MTT reg so its not like Ive seen some guy do X once and Y once.

Now what do you think?

I think its wrong to consider 1 of these options to be 'completely bad' and the other to be 'completely perfect'. They run much closer to each other than that. With no reads (a new table of foes) and stack sizes as mentioned, as long as your not open folding, either play is acceptable.

But min raising to induce here can put you into tricky spots PoF, although SB should be shipping or folding, dont put it past them to flat- donk ship here etc etc. A10 turns crooked pretty quick if hand goes post flop here. How do you play your 14x vs a BB flat/check on the KJ4 flop? C bet small to induce and call off shuv all day? Becomes pretty spewy vs unknowns and you open yourself up to actually folding vs a worse hand post flop, often one which would of likely called your open ship pre ie A3* etc.

No reads - Open ship imo. You get called by a good % of their shuving hands anyway depending upon specific foe of course. Some will perceive your ship as any 2 and call accordingly, actually giving you more value than their reshipping range vs a 2x.

Also with a10, you do not want to induce 2s-5s to reshuv, with perceived fold equity. Many will junk the 3s vs a shuv and ship all day vs a min raise.