$320 6-Max Final Table Review
Posted by Nick Rampone
Video Player is loading.
This is a modal window.
The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported.
Resume Video
Start from Beginning
Watch Video
10
Loading 22 Comments...
5:00 : We need less than 36% of 4b/folds from the vilain for our 5bet jam to be better than 3bet/folding, because 3bet folding is -8k every time! So if we are considering 5bet or folding, we must assume than everything better than -8k is best!
This is a a great point that I didn't mention in the video, good note Liquid. And Liquid, look at the discussion below between Steamer and I. He brought up a crucial point that I didn't account for: The massive difference between cEV and $EV in this spot. This is a powerful, powerful lesson. Thanks Steamer!
Hey Nick. You know that whole "There are no stupid questions" thing? Well here goes: Isn't the 3B to 5B with 55 an ICM disaster?
I followed your workings on the video, got the total chips from the FT video, got the latest $320 6max payouts %s, and used the feature in ICMizer to randomise the stacks at the other table. I didn't know how many players were left so I concentrated on 8 but did 7 & 9 also.
There are links to the results below - which I hope will work, which suggest that if grayson is folding 40%ish and calling with the range you suggested then you would need about QQ+, AK to show a profit. Alternatively the last link was with a break-even for 55 which suggests that if the 5B call range is right he needs to be 4B 15%. ie folding 68% of the time not 36%.
I appreciate, that none of this accounts for the initial 3B being successful on it's own. (or takes into account LiquidSw0rd's point) but it just seems like a hell of a difference.
result with 8 players remaining
result with 7 players remaining
result with 9 players remaining
Zero EV - 4Betting 15% and calling 5B 4.7% (8players remain)
If I've got everything wrong here, please let me know.
Nice analysis though, seems like the shove can only be good if the villain is on the crazier side.
Asking do we want to make chips or do we want to make dollars is far from a foolish question. In fact, I wish it was one I'd asked myself much much earlier in my career. Your links work, and they demonstrate that my play is -$EV. It would take extreme and unrealistic conditions to make this a good play in an ICM context.
Actually before I go any further here I want to say thank you, Steamer. I constantly see you in my video threads asking detailed and stimulating questions. You spark a lot of discussion, and even help other members with questions they have. What's more is that I see you in the forums and other video threads doing the same thing. It's clear to me that you've formed excellent work habits for poker. Of course these habits and your own effort directly benefit you in a major way - and that's why you're taking those actions. However, everyone else is benefiting from your effort as well. I know I am, and I see it throughout the community as well. That is a beautiful thing.
Before speaking on the ICM calcs, I want to refine my assumptions on Villain (Grayson), as I think I jumped to some optimistic conclusions about his ranges and frequencies. I'd say he's opening about 40% here, not the 50% I'd assumed at first. This leaves him with less hands for all of his play-back ranges, though his value range (top 4.7% AQo+ TT+ remains unchanged). I also don't know how much he's 4b bluffing here. I assume it's pretty balanced, but I think if he had to err, it would be on too tight. I still think these assumptions allow for me to make cEV, most likely. However, I expect it to be pretty close, and the amount of cEV I actually make to be far less than the clear profit I assumed in-game and in my original (non-ICM) analysis of this hand.Your ICM calcs looks great conceptually - I see no flaws or errors. There will be some difference based on the exact payout structure of that day compared to the one you used from the same tournament on a different day. There were 7 players left, so that serves to tighten my range a bit further in this spot, as the ICM considerations are one notch closer to the bigger (biggest) prizes. Your 3 trials show pretty similar results (as expected) with 9,8, and 7 players remaining.
I'm trying to interpret this data and translate it into subjective terms - Basically I'm trying to see if that data tells us this is a disaster, or what size the mistake is. On first glance it appears so. I observe that the loss we sustain (-1.38%) is about half as much as the worst possible loss (-2.62% for 72o). There is also only one hand, AA, that wins an equivalent amount to this loss with 55. That is AA, at +2.29% (while KK is at + 1.06%). I'm not certain this is a useful means of interpreting the data, what do you think? It tells me that 55 isn't a threshold hand at all - instead it's stuck well in the middle of losing hands, well below the break-even line.
I think your final link, which shows the ICM break-even point for 5b shoving 55 here, fills out the subjective picture pretty nicely for us: This is a significantly losing ICM play. He opens 40%. We're needing Grayson to fold 68% of the time he 4bs. That means he needs to 4b 15% of hands, 5% are for value, and then the remaining 10% are bluffs. That's a lot. I just can't see that happening here with almost any villain, much less Grayson, who I expect to be on the tighter side. I estimated a 4b bluff range for Grayson here to meet this percentage: 54s-89s, A9o-ATo, JTo-KTo, QJo-KJo, A2s-A9s. This range leaves hands like AJo and KQs as hands he may choose to flat with. As we see, this is a ton of bluffing combos! I just don't see him having nearly that many.
A caveat that improves the profitability of the play is one you noted: We make money when he folds to 3b. I don't know if there's a relatively simple and accurate way to determine how this affects the overall equation here. We're not going to be able to take the chips made in those instances and turn them into $ value with ICM calculations. I think a general principle is useful for thinking about this spot, though. The principle of ICM which holds that chips we win and chips we lose aren't of equal value. It is much more damaging to lose chips in ICM scenarios, than it is helpful to gain them. So yes, adding chips (and therefore some amount of $EV too) to our stack is valuable and mitigates the loss we're taking from getting it in vs his 4b range, I don't think it will be enough to sway the play overall from -$EV to +$EV. Especially when you consider the equity gaining in each of those small doses, is weighted lesser in terms of importance than the equity we stand to lose when shoving over his 4b.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts, especially your final subjective stance. I imagine it will be similar to your original post, since we can agree that your calcs look good, and that's what the data tells us. A one sentence summary of my view: The play is a fairly clear, but likely quite small, winner in cEV, which doesn't mean diddly squat since it's a pretty clear loser in $EV, unless opponent tendencies are almost miraculously favorable for us. It seems to be a pretty significant mistake (losing play), too.
Thanks for bringing the big boy calculations to the table =)
One final thought as I ponder this and play with ICMizer a bit more before hitting send. There is a ton of room for change in both the mathematical and subjective value of this play depending on villain ranges. I mean this is sort of THE fundamental of poker that we're all keenly aware of, but it's striking me in this situation in particular. You seem to have Grayson's 4b for value range wider than me, and his 4b bluff range pretty narrow. Or perhaps fringe hands like ATs, 77, and 88 you're assigning to his 4b bluff range. I suppose it's the number of combos that count for our purposes, not the consistency of them in the makeup of his range. But adding in all ATo and KTo bluff combos (24) nearly halves our loss on the play. Following this direction, even if it's not entirely linear, one can pretty clearly see that the wider he bluffs, the less we lose (and eventually the more we make) by shoving 55 over his 4b. However, your break-even scenario shows us exactly how much he needs to be bluffing for us to achieve 0EV, so there isn't a lot of room for debate on that!
You just guessed and checked villain's 4b range in ICMizer here until you found 55 was $0EV, right? I ask in case there's a more efficient way to do it that I'm not aware of.
Very interesting, thanks!
I just ran off my free calcs on ICMizer :(
I was wondering, if 5bet shoving those fives equals a loss of -1.38% because of ICM implications, what's the loss of 3bet/folding 8200 chips, assuming the same ICM situation ?
I just sub-ed ICMizer for 1 year! =] Great stuff!!
I just tried the same set-up but versus a wider and more polarized 4betting range : 99+ and AQo+ for value, and A9s-A2s,ATo-A4o, K9s and KTo as blocker hands to 4bet/fold. (assuming villain just flats the in-between hands)
Then it shows that 55 just starts to become theoretically +$EV to shove by +0,02%, even with ICM!
(the 8200 chips we're losing by 3bet/folding are inclued in these calcs! it really compares the EV of 3bet/folding vs. 5bet shoving, awesome!)
I yet love ICMizer!
That being said, I agree that just flatting pre is prolly best !
That ICMizer subscription will pay for itself, Liquid. Guaranteed. Thank you for running this hand and sharing your findings. The wide and polarized 4b range you set for villain looks good. This is same 15% range frequency wise (5% value and 10% bluff) that Steamer found. He took just the ICMizer top 15% of hands range, which is just fine for our purposes. I think it's a good exercise to construct what ones 4b range would look like in this spot (or any spot) if we were to 4b at a 15% clip.
I suppose once we've found the range for villain that would make 5b shoving 55 $0EV/neutralEV/breakeven, as both you and Steamer did, it's a very simple matter of comparing that EV to the EV of 3b/folding: 0EV > -8,200. However, we're comparing apples to oranges (tangerines to oranges??) at this point: $EV to cEV. We've found a way to breakeven dollars wise with 55, and we know if we 3b/fold we lose 8,200 in chips. Let's find the other values for each. Taking Steamer's Zero EV link above, and simply changing it into chip mode, we find that shoving 5b shoving 55 nets +1,392 chips. Great, we're making chips here, but not even one big blind! That's not nearly enough profit to justify the variance inherent in this play considering this is a 150bb+ pot. Now, for additional perspective, playing with the same scenario and manually adjusting villain's 4b range, I find that villain would have to 4b 3.3% of hands (!) (AQs+ JJ+) to make 5b shoving worse than 3b folding cEV wise. I'm not certain how to get -8,200 chips translated into $EV, but safe to say this will also be -EV, and quite likely worse of a play in $EV than it is in cEV.
So, what do we do? You said it in your post. Flatting 55 pre avoids any of these marginal or losing situations. It prevents us from having to choose between two losing options when we face a 4b. Also one note that should be clear at this point, the $0EV scenario that Steamer created requires villain to 4b 15% of his opens here for us to breakeven. That's asking a lot. #FlatAndSee3
Yo Nick,
I just found out something after posting, and updated my post while you were writing :
(the 8200 chips we're losing by 3bet/folding are inclued in these calcs! it really compares the EV of 3bet/folding vs. 5bet shoving, awesome!)
This software is really nice!
I agree with all you just said.
Note : in chipsEV mode, with my set-up we got a push with fives, better by 14k chips than the EV of 3bet folding ! The difference in ICM-mode is just huge there!
Hey guys, I'd kind of forgotten about my post here but great to see the thread spring to life and all the input from Nick. I've been spending too large a percentage of my poker time on the RIO forums (should have played & studied more) and I'd decided to ban myself from posting until February - call it a New Year resolution. However I can't help but answer some of the points Nick and LiquidSw0rd raise, if only to repay Nick for his great videos and contribution/commitment to the discussion threads for his videos.
This has got to be the number one issue for all players whose skillset is founded on a game where ICM is not a factor, that is, where chips do not have a dynamic value. For example cash or HUmtt/sng. Any thought process that begins with considering cEV instead of $EV is fundamentally flawed. However if our domain expertise is founded in a discipline where cEV is the driving force it's really hard to rewire our brains. (Loads more info in my favourite books "Fooled by Randomness" and "Thinking Fast and Slow")So here are my last posts until February. I say posts because any one might be tldr on it's own, there are a few different topics and I don't know what the size limit is and I would hate to hit post and lose the whole thing :) I've managed to keep it to two - yippee!
Nick, thank you for the kind words. You got my motivation exactly correct and I also get a kick out of knowing other people benefited, Each "like" or contributory reply is a huge positive reinforcement.
Credit where credit is due - I watched the first 10 minutes of the video again and your instant acceptance of the suggestion that the play is -$EV (and what else we might consider) is even more impressive given how natural it would be to defend all the workings in that part of the video - the ability to be 100% convinced of a course of action but open to reversing that instantly after considering contradictory facts is extremely rare. And extremely valuable. [End of bromance segment :)] On to the points you made.
I still think these assumptions allow for me to make cEV, most likely. However, I expect it to be pretty close, and the amount of cEV I actually make to be far less than the clear profit I assumed in-game and in my original (non-ICM) analysis of this hand.
A caveat, the -2.62% or +2.29% or whatever should be considered relative not to 100% which seems natural but instead against the fact that first is 26% and that the payjump from 7th to 3rd is < 10% and all the other stages in between. Thinking "0.4% isn't a lot" doesn't help.
I think, it's really a question of whatever works for the individual. In my opinion the baseline to consider it against is the 100% scenario. That is how much we would gain or lose in %EV if we had all or none of the equity. Where does a specific play leave us on that spectrum? If we are the effective stack and lose we are going to have 0%EV. If villain is the effective stack we are going to have ??%EV. This is how I would consider all our options and also could be used to factor in LiquidSw0rd's point about the 8000chips (what is their value once we have 3B and get 4B?)
We can also work out the value of a lot of other plays including some that are 100% wrong in terms of cEV and a lot of people won't even consider - set mine in 4B pots anyone? :) The point is that there are situations where folding hands with huge absolute value is correct. For example, most people instinctively, know, AA as 2nd stack facing a shove from CL in a satellite with 50 seats.
The other thing that is interesting is that if we give Hero and Villain hands instead of ranges (I couldn't see in the video what Grayson had but AQo stuck in my mind so I used that) and look at the result Hero is -1.03% and Villain is -0.69%. They both lose money to the other players.
My second post will look at how we can analyse all that including how much we lose by flatting then folding and 3B/folding, could we 3B/f a wide range and only 3B/c a really tight range? etc.
For comparison purposes, I just selected a bunch of hands that weren't in his 4B range to match the situation you had used in the video (that his value range was 4.7% and that if he was folding 40% then he had a 7.8% 4B) - if he's folding then I was only interested in getting the number of combos right. If there's a possibility he has a flatting range then we would need to consider which combos were which (I don't think he should given his leverage, but that's definitely gameflow dependent)
That's exactly what I did. To be honest it's probably not that helpful. It appears that any profit that could be had is from villain having too large a bluff to value gap and has (almost) nothing to do with our hand.
The more effective way of seeing this is to view the Hand v Range chart. Any chart that looks like this one really means that any profit (reduced loss) is coming from villain having too low a bluff:value ratio.
I would say that the best play is to flat and play very defensively after that. But I don't think that opinion is as valuable as the one you can form yourself after considering the options from a %EV point of view, given that you know the villain(s), the player pool and the standard in this game and I don't.
With that in mind I'm going to finish up this post (wall of text) and post the second one shortly about how to consider the options. Peace.
So how can we work out the %EV of the different plays?
We need to use an ICM calculator and work out what the stacks are after each play and calculate the EV. (This is how ICMizer and SNGwiz work - they calculate EV Push-EV Fold, work out how the ranges interact and spit out the result.)
Using that and our expectation of success we can work out which route to take. I'm just going to run through some screenshots rather than comparing the plays - I leave that for anyone who wants to do it :)
First find an ICM equity calculator - I'm going to use the ICMizer one that you get to by clicking on the right hand button on the main screen. There's another at holdem resources and others, both online and downloadable.
Technical point: it doesn't matter if the players are at the same table. If you had the computing power (a shitload - technical term) you could do it for 3000 players.
EV before the hand:
EV AI and lose - there are only 6 players now Hero is gone and everyone else moved up a spot. Our EV is zero. All the players who folded gained equity.
EV AI and win
EV after flatting pre and folding flop
EV after 3B/folding - we actually don't lose that much might surprise some people.EV of flatting the 4B and folding the flop - anyone fancy setmining in 4B pots - I'm not saying it's right just that it's an option.
Which is massive.You can spend hours doing different examples of just one hand depending on stack sizes. One big 6 small, 2 Big 2 Medium 2 Small, etc, etc, ad nauseam. But the trick in my opinion is to look out for trends and recognise the biggest potential problems. The main one is usually confronting a big stack when we are a medium stack and there are smaller stacks and other medium stacks who can fold and gain equity.
For fans of the book "Kill Everyone" or anyone that thinks in terms of "Bubble Factor" we can calculate our bubble factor here vs villain using the first 3 screenshots as:
You can use the bubble factor to work out if any play is profitable as well. Each chip won is worth 2.67 times as much as each chip lost.
So that's all I've got, what you do with the information depends on your reads on the villain(s) and their ranges and tendencies.
Peace. Happy New Year!! See you in 2014.
55 hand.
1.call,
2, 3bet to 5 bet allin
3. 3 bet fold. (disaster in this spot)
In light of the information Steamer posted above regarding ICM, I agree with your #1. Check out his post if you weren't factoring ICM into your rankings. Simply flat calling preflop seems like the clear best play here. I agree that 3b folding is inexcusable error in this spot with 55.
This video is not getting enough love imo. Great analysis and really well played nice win mate.
Hey Chris. Those are generous words, thank you for them. And hey man, it's sporting of you to leave any comment here, I respect that quite a lot. Well played yourself, you do such a nice job of constantly applying pressure without getting out of line (too far, too often!).
On a side note, your new website is cool. I'm not quite sure how you made time to get suited up for all of those photo shoots between 20+ tabling sessions all the time, well done! It's cool that you're using your voice to speak out on issues within poker. Keep it up all the good work man, cheers.
True. I didn't say it in the post but this is another great video from Nick.
PureCash taking it to the streets :).
Cool video Nick, ft 6max was just what i needed.
49:20 hand 86o. If you called pot size bet on the river when the 3rd diamond hit the board, would you mind check shoving on the turn and not allowing to draw to a flush or to get 910 810 A9 hands there? Also if he has a top pair or an overpair it could work as a buff.
Hey man, this was a pretty tough spot for me, and a hand that definitely sticks out in my mind. It's a good one to ask a question on, so thanks for speaking up. First of all, and most importantly, you're doing things right in terms of thought process. Even if you come up with the wrong answer, thinking about a hand in the correct way is what's going to matter in the long term, for you making accurate decisions in future hands that are similar spots to this one. Basically, I think it's good that you're considering our other options here, and thinking about reasons why and why not to make a (different) play.
In this hand though, I don't think check shoving the turn is our best play. Granted none of our options are good, but I think this play has some problems with it. First of all, if we check shove, we take away his ability to bluff. In theory that's a bad thing, but in practice it becomes much more difficult to take advantage of him potentially bluffing the river, because as we say with this run-out, a lot of river cards make our decision extremely marginal. So, check shoving and doing something that in theory is undesirable for us isn't as bad here as it usually would be, since it will be tough for us to take advantage of his range/bluffs on the river. Of course this is only one aspect of the hand.
When we check shove, not only do we fold out all of his bluffs, but our hand is weak enough on this board that it's going to be tough to get called by worse. There are some such hands, most notably the ones you mentioned, his flush draws (which will sometimes have a gutter or low pair to go with them). When we look at his range, I just think that he's going to have way way more combinations of air (floats) and gutshots than he is flush draws that we need to protect against. Of course his gutshots, and even his floats are going to contain 2 overcards, so they have clear equity vs us as well. I could well be wrong here Zalgiris, but I think that villain won't quite have enough equity with his range for us to need to check shove to blow him off of it. Especially when we consider that he could be bluffing us a high percentage of the time on many river cards. We have implied odds and equity on him bluffing the river, so to speak, and check shoving eliminates that equity of ours.
A couple of other thoughts. He will never fold a value hand that is better than ours here. So we can't get him to fold top pair or an overpair as you suggest. The stacks are simply too short and the board is too wet (meaning we could have plenty of draws and his 7x is good) for us to expect him to fold any hand he value bets with on the turn. Now about his value bets here on the turn, it's not certain that he is betting his 7x on the turn, but if he is, he almost certainly won't value bet it again OTR. So, his river betting range becomes very polarized - it has a lot of floats that have to bluff, and a lot of missed gutshots and flush draws that will want to bluff. And of course he has his straights and 2p hands that will want to value bet. Combinations wise though, I think we're doing pretty well vs that range on blank rivers.
This river is far from a blank though, and is one of the rivers I probably should fold. I mean it just lowers the amount of bluffs he can have by quite a bit, and all of those bluffs (FDs OTT) are now value hands. This ends up making a pretty big change in his range on just one card, enough that I probably don't have enough equity to profitably call. We could get into some detailed math to see, but I think these estimations are pretty close.
Thank you !
Min 21:15 a very nice shove, this is what i expect from a Beast like U
Very very great play with the AcQx vs Moorman. Your reads and reasoning are very sound and articulate.
You're very honest about making mistakes in some spots. TBH, you're a great player, I love your videos, you convey your thought process almost perfectly, and give a lot of food for thought. Keep it up, you're a source of inspiration.
Be the first to add a comment
You must upgrade your account to leave a comment.