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Fri, May. 9th, 2008, 03:42 pm
NLHE short stack

Say you are playing a short stack at a full ring cash game online (low stakes), and you only ever either fold or go all in, and you play the same people, so they know your range (as they have seen your showdowns, so they know you are AA-JJ, AKo, AKs).

How frequently do you think you would get called? And by how many?
Presumably after a few hundred hands for them to catch on to this, when you do get called, it would mean they hold higher quality ranges of hands.

Would they call you more than 40% of the time?

I don't have an answer to this, I'm just curious how others feel about it.

Fri, May. 9th, 2008 07:56 pm (UTC)
[info]freelikebeer

Strictly speaking, and on the assumption that you first-in-jam with a decent multiple of the pot, you should nearly never be called. If they call 40% of the time, wow.

Fri, May. 9th, 2008 08:02 pm (UTC)
[info]stenz

I just threw that out as a number - just to get responses.

90%, 1%, etc. Not trying to imply that it is 40%.

This is regardless of position, regardless of what has happened in front of you.

Simply you are playing a short stack (say 10-200BB against their 100BB), and you only either go all in or fold pf.

I've been at many tables where you will see people doing this and getting called down with questionable hands - so while I would have guessed "almost never" - I would actually expect to see a larger number.

Whether said larger number is 40%, agreed, I doubt it.

That said, I don't really have any strong feelings for what it would be.

Fri, May. 9th, 2008 10:32 pm (UTC)
[info]freelikebeer

I dunno either. I have a beat up copy of the Mathematics of Poker if you want it for a while. I have a bunch of stuff to work out before I get back to it

Sun, May. 11th, 2008 03:49 am (UTC)
[info]stenz

I haven't looked at the numbers yet, but I have been playing with this over the weekend and you get called a lot at the NL100 (.5/1) level.

Mon, May. 12th, 2008 03:25 pm (UTC)
[info]freelikebeer

Have you been getting called and winning?

Mon, May. 12th, 2008 03:40 pm (UTC)
[info]stenz

You get called a lot if you are not pushing all-in before anyone even limps - if you push in with limpers, you still get called, but I wouldn't call it "a lot" (still more than I would expect - maybe 10%?).
But if you are in late position and do it, you get called a ton, esp if someone raised before you.

I've been getting called with the appropriate expectations as to what you would get called at - as to the win rate with it, I haven't played enough hands yet to see if it is sustaining what it should - I would assume so though.

For example, being in late position (say CO) with AA and 20BB, it is folded to a middle position guy who bets the pot, and it is folded to me and I flat call.
The flop comes 445, he bets the pot, and I push all-in - he calls and turns over 66. Then a 6 comes on the turn.
I saw WAY more of this than I would normally expect, so I would attribute that to variance (I would not at all have been surprised had he turned over 67, esp if it were suited and there were a flush draw on the board - but the 66 did surprise me that I got a call out of it - or if he had been the one to push all in, rather than call mine - but regardless, someone calling with that sort of thing and then sucking out, good times).
(I would argue against this same strategy if I were not short stacked)

Granted, that is not an all-in pf - but that's the sort of thing you see - if you end up all-in pf, it would be a similar scenario as the above, but with AKs or with KK and someone else calls between the initial and me, meaning the pot is large enough where I either fold or end up all in now, as I certainly will on the flop.
With 40BB, I would want to see the flop and maybe fold, but with 20BB or less, I'm leaning towards just getting it all in if I think I can get called with my good hand.
Granted, KK is not as strong against two people - but if the initial raise and the call are both full+ stacks, then at least one of them is a pretty good chance to fold to the all-in, and/or at least one of them is not likely to have a superior hand.

I did this mostly to gather stats on this type of play, as I am familiar with it, but not having done it myself, to see how people react to it.

Where all of this starts to be useful is when you have played against them enough to know their ranges - so you can say that in that position, when they raised, their range was A-Z, and against A-Z, my hand all-in right now will get them to fold X% of the time, and the Y% of the time that they call, I will win M% - and then working out the +EV times out of that.

I have no desire to do short stack play myself, I find it tedious. But a friend is looking into trying to clear bonuses, and so I was telling him various ways to do it, and then we discussed a bot I had written for limit back in the day - so I was doing some mental notation of how I would do it these days.