Anatomy of a Sunday Million (3 of 5)
Posted by Nick Rampone
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your videos are PureGold25 man!!
I think it's important to note that I don't plan to win this pot every time, and I don't have to. The most important part of this hand is my preflop pot odds. I'm getting 4.3:1. Any hand I call with, just has to win one out of 4.3 times to show a profit. I certainly think I can do this with K9 vs this wide of a range. Also, at this stack depth I'm never going to make a big mistake with K9. I'm going to flop a pair and that's going to provide me plenty of equity to check shove over his cbet with his wide range, or I'll flop a board like A22, Q84, or 557 that I can comfortably check fold on. It's not like I'm going to be bet off the best hand by a triple barrel bluff, or get into any sort of spot post-flop where I don't know what to do.
Stack size is really important, but so are pot odds. I think the idea that pot odds don't matter once your stack is a X bb short is silly.
Also you talk about not having to open too wide with the J8o in CO as you feel he can mess around with you as he has chips etc but now you want to peel a flop OOP with 11bb with K9o vs the table chip leader.
Also, you do say that there are flops you will ch/raise jam overs, that seems too high variance a line for me considering how shallow stacks are and he has a stack where he can call and lose and still be in a good position. I know you said you may do this sort of thing in the video but if it did really come 557 are you really going to check/jam K9o this deep in the sunday million with a short stack vs table chip leader??? Seeing as you have passed on some spots with say AJs earlier facing a 3bet jam that probably would show a greater+ EV than this hand I was quite surprised.
I would love to hear more thoughts from you on this? It's something I never really do with this short a stack, maybe i'm missing something and can add in occassionally but I really don't know how profitable it is going to be long term.
35:00 - A2o. I don't mind the open with a blocker but I wouldn't be keen on opening almost any 2. He is peeling often, rightly or wrongly in the BB and has a shallow stack so i'd imagine his flop get it in range will be widish too, therefore I wouldnt want to have a really really wide opening range that will often flop little equity, not to mention the raise has to get through 5 others before him.
No surprise to see more of the same quality here, great questions . This is a lot and a big topic, so let me know if you have any follow up or clarification questions.
What are you arguments against calling K9o in that spot? I imagine they would be something along the lines of you're too shallow, your stack size can't support peeling. Well I say, why not? Pot odds dictate that I call that hand, vs a wide range, with those odds, at greater stack depths, why not at more shallow depths as well? Where is the cutoff line when you're officially too short to defend, and you start to discount pot odds? I don't know that there is such a cutoff line....
I'm getting 4.3:1 here, vs a range I know is wide, with a decent hand. Futhermore, I can't make any critical mistakes postflop. In terms of big blinds, the biggest mistake I can make is a 10bb one. Now in terms of what those 10bbs represent, a seat a table deep in the Million, I'll grant that it's much more significant that than. Still, I think this is as good of place as any to make an investment with my stack. 1 bb to win 4.3? Sweet, I definitely win that pot one out of 4.3 times, which is all I need to do to break even. If I flop overs plus a gutshot or better, I'll feel great about check shoving. It will be rare that I shove pure overs say on 557 here, but I don't have to to make money. I'm totally fine with investing one bb for this return, and check folding on board that are favorable for him, knowing that while I didn't win this pot, the play is still profitably on a whole, vs his very wide range.
Saying there are flops where I can check jam naked overs was an overstatement. I don't think there are many boards where I would do that in this spot. That does seem too high variance.
In terms of comparing this to a chance to steal in the CO with J8o (or XX), I much prefer this K9 spot. The reasons are, my initial investment is half, and my pot odds are better. I have to risk 2 bb to min raise steal from the CO, but I have to invest one to call a min raise from the big blind. My CO steal has to work about half the time, while my bb defend has to work about a quarter of the time. Plus let's look at how my opponents can react in each of these scenarios. I had a pretty competent lineup behind me when I was in the CO, they were likely to resteal close to optimally vs me, especially since two of them had big chips. In the big blind, he has a tougher time ranging me, as it's pretty uncommon for players to defend this shallow. He might not play optimally vs my true range postflop. In terms of calling off with the AJdd there, or any other move that gets me allin preflop, well there is some inherent risk there. A nonzero percent of the time I'm busted. When I invest that one bb to call with K9, I bust 0% of the time, thought that's not really fair to say since I could easily bust postflop.
To conclude, I think that defending that K9 there is the best of both worlds. It's a low variance investment for me and my stack, which is tough to come by with 11bb! It's also fundamentally sound in the sense that odd dictate a lot of the correct actions in poker, and my preflop pot odds are stellar.
A2o hand. Live a little my friend! Try coming in with the J2o every now and then. I don't know that I would truly open a pure ATC there, but I do see it as reasonable. Most of the time he will flop no equity, and given my position, reads, and skill advantage over him, I think I can make that a profitable play. I'll be able to cbet a size that lays me a price of 4:1, meaning it'll only have to work 25% of the time. Since > 50% of the time he'll have no equity, I think it's a pretty clear +EV spot.
A2o - "Most of the time he will flop no equity, and given my position, reads, and skill advantage over him, I think I can make that a profitable play. I'll be able to cbet a size that lays me a price of 4:1, meaning it'll only have to work 25% of the time. Since > 50% of the time he'll have no equity, I think it's a pretty clear +EV spot."
This is all well and good but getting through the other players is the harder part of this hand. If table is playing ultra tight then yes sure it's fine but people are attacking UTG raises more these days so it would have to meet certain table conditions for me to do this super super wide!
Again, good mindfulness of all the factors in play here. I felt the conditions at this table were prime. Perhaps save one, stack sizes. But the table was playing very tight, and very carefully. I got the sense that everyone was erring on the side of playing the fringe portion of their range firmly on the conservative side. I thought people would reshove much tighter than normal. This is even with the knowledge of loose UTG play these days, which you noted, and I did feel they were aware of. Also, no other player was calling raises preflop. It was actually striking how little defending you saw from the blinds, or calling you saw in position. Guys were 3betting or they were folding. Except my pal in the BB. Once it gets to him, I'm in really good shape. And I think it gets to him significantly more often at this table under these conditions than in almost all other circumstances.
i think you explained your reasoning in the above posts really well, and i think its sick that you're actually responding to everyone with such detailed answers. thanks and gl.
Also by shoving, I take away one of the most favorable aspects of the hand for me, my preflop pot odds. If I call I get to embrace those odds, and I can't really make it a losing play unless I peel total trash preflop. With hands like 45s and stuff that I listed above, if I flop a pair, I have the best hand the majority of the time. A total estimate here, but say 65% of the time. I can check and get more money from his cbet, and then shove and win the pot without showdown most of the time. His range is wide enough that it's going to be very difficult for him to flop a pair, and he won't have pocket pairs as often since his range includes so many other hands. Those other hands water down the percentage of his range that is made up by pocket pairs. I also think it's very keen of you to note that we could flat AA and KK here. I definitely would/could/do.
In more general terms, I am much more cautious than most getting all in preflop here, so my calling range in the bb here will include a lot of hands that most players would shove. I'll also call a lot wider here the other way, down to 45s and stuff, because I think pot odds allow me to make a profit where I otherwise would just lose the big blind and ante I posted. Of course all of this is dependent on my opponents range and on stack sizes, so not every situation would have me using the same ranges as this one.
I'm glad to hear my thoughts are getting through clearly to you guys. It's totally fine if you guys have a different opinion, but I at least want to give everyone a fair shot at understanding my view. Gl to you as well!
Hey, Nick. I know this is an old video and prob you have answered yourself this question but I was very interested to do the math here and see what happens. I will be glad if you answer me what you think and what you have decided is the right thing to do because I know you prob have made this decision before 10 months.
I am new to this comunity and I will be happy if you help me out.
Ok. Now let's start with this the following thoughts are only based on pure math that means I decided your reads on the opponent are 100% true and the psychology here is not a parameter.
Ok you say that he is probably opening very wide range and you even are ahead of this range here which is a bit too pretty wide to say with K9 os but as I said the psychology is not a factor.
So first if we push here with K9os and he is opening with like 40% of his hands (which is still not wide enough for you to be ahead of but I still think it is ok) You have 11BB and he is opening wide => you still have a good amount of FE. He is a good player and I guess he knows you are a good player too (I dont know if you know eachother) so that means he will call a bit more wider range cuz if you push he needs 33% call which means he is commited but still I think if he is opening wide enough he will fold some hands.
As I did the ranges he should fold like a bit more than 12% of the time with the simple EV math you win 91017 chips every time you shove here which is like little less than 10% of your stack. Also if he never folds and calls with his entire opening range your shove (which I dont think is true)
you are wining 50600 chips which is like 5% of your stack.
Now the interesting part if you just call and see a flop. You say you have to win 1 on every 4 games for this to be +EV but you have to see that this is +EV if you get to the river not only the flop so your thought should be "I should shove more than 1 on every 4 flops to be +EV". I assume you are going with every pair and every gutshot (if I am wrong you have to tell me) so there are 117 600 different flops you hit your pair on 38% of the flops on 2% of the flops you will have a gutshot draw (it's less then 2% but I am taking 2% cuz sometimes you will hit the straight right away). So you are getting your money in 40% of the flop which is very good.
But now is the hard part let's assume that he is always making this small cbet with his entire 40% opening range.In the 38% part when you have a pair he will continue with like 60% of his range if we assume that he is folding some Ace highs and also if he does that he thinks you prob have piece of this board so he will fold pairs like 2s 3s 4s and maybe 5s.Here is getting really dirty. You will win 70% of the time on boards with Kings and 61% of the time on boards with 9s.But that's without taking any other card as factor so I will take a little less than the middle of these 2 numbers so you will win 63% of the time. So you are winning 207084 chips everytime you shove your stack in these 38% of the time.
In the 2% part with your gutshot draws he will continue with like 75% of his range which means you will win in ~40% of the time. You win 2900 chips in this 2% of the time :D
And you are loosing 100 000 in the 60% of the situations that the board is not good.
In the end you win 150 000 everytime you call here and even if my math is not exactly right maybe it could have like +/- 10 - 15k difference but it's still way better then just shoving.
I am not sure about folding because if you fold you win 100000 so folding is not bad option too. (if that is correct I'm not sure if it is count like that "if you fold here you win 100 000 ").
I hope you will read that and answer me what you think about it. Also I am a bit lazy to do the math but with 10/9 here the calling will be even greater since you will have a lot more gutshots to go with. Also the key here I think is the ranges and does he really have a bit more than 12% FE because if you think he has more than this shoving is not bad also.
I really hope you answer me, thank you.
P.S. I saw I made a mistake in the calling option I didn't count his cbet which is like 1/3 of the pot so if you call you win even more like ~20% more than I said so it's like 180 000 everytime you call and he makes cbet.
Yes yes yes. This is fantastic work and a great post. This is the kind of thing that will get you progressing through the ranks in poker consistently. I can't emphasis enough how important it is to sit down and do tough work like this away from the table. Welcome to the community.
A few things: 1. I had no prior reads or information on this player before this day. During this tournament, we played a few hands and I saw him go to showdown. These pots gave me a great amount of information, and I felt very confident in understanding where this player was at in is development as a poker player. I thought he was on the less experienced side, but on the right track of "playing aggressively". I liked my edge vs him in general. 2. Yes, definitely going with every gutshot +. Good thinking. 3. I 100% agree that your phrase is better. You say "I must shove 1 out of every 4 flops to be +EV" is better than what I said in the video and in the comments section that "I need to win this pot 1 out of every 4 times". You are correct here. What I said in the video was not a complete answer and not completely accurate.
This makes me wonder if there is a relationship between the "hot and cold" equity preflop (a hand's raw equity vs a range, and if this hand was played with both players allin and able to realize their equity all the way to the river) and the equity that a hand will flop? I imagine there is/ must be... Right?
I've looked carefully over your math twice, and checked some of the basic equity numbers very quickly. It all looks good to me. I also agree with the assumptions and estimations you made along the way. They all sound very reasonable and are likely to be very accurate. It's difficult to follow the equity of a hand vs a range through the entire hand like you did here, so very nice work getting that completed. I must admit that I have not sat down and worked out the math to this detail as you have here. I have always relied on intuition and the hot and cold equity preflop as my guidelines. This is pretty close to accurate, but definitely not exact and there is definitely room for improvement - Which is exactly what you've done here.
I completely agree with your conclusions here. They happen to match up with my intuition and my assumption of what the numbers would say. Much more importantly, you've worked out those exact numbers, and they tell us everything we need to know. We make significantly more EV by calling in this spot preflop than we do by shoving. You are also right when you say that the biggest factor/variable here is tweaking ranges. If villain's range is tightened or loosened by 10%, it's going to make a big difference on our EV, and may be enough to change which of our preflop options is maximum EV. I agree with you that the EV would be greater with a hand like T9. There will be so many more boards where we will have a gutshot+ that we get to check shove with. One final note. I think the idea that "if we fold we win 100,000" is incorrect. First of all, the 100,000 we post as our BB is gone as soon as we post it. It's no longer ours, and that fact is reflected in any math we do about the hand. Also, if we're comparing the EV of folding preflop with the EV of calling preflop with the EV of shoving preflop, it looks like this: EVfold = 0 Evcall = ~150,000 EVshove = 91,000. So, folding isn't +EV 100,000 because we save the money from calling. The EVcall and EVshove equations account for this 100,000 already of course, and we compare that to the EVfold, which is zero because we've put no more money into the pot. I hope this answers your question, if not please ask me again. I also hope it's correct! I'm pretty sure the last part of that explanation is correct, but not 100%.
Finally, thank you for this post. This is an amazing addition to the library of information on RIO. This is something that you did alone; you made the choice to put in all of this work, and now everyone at RIO (who reads this) gets to benefit. I want to make sure you get every answer you want out of this work and the questions surrounding it, so please ask any more questions you have.
Thank you! Cheers and GL.
Thank you very much for the responce. I am really glad that you answered because you know I play like 10$ tournaments in Stars at the moment I have the bankroll to go for the bigger stakes but I really want to grind them up not just jump to the 100$ tournaments. That's why I joined this comunity because I am looking for some kind of a mentor who will help me do that. Because I know I could probably do it by myself because as my last post shows I can do stuff that need hard work but it's just a bit hard to do nowadays mainly because there is so much going on and I can't know if I am going in the right direction or not... really need someone to guide me up, teach me new things and etc. I will be very happy if you help me with this.
I agree with you about that the EV of folding here is 0 but my thought was like this "If we always play this hand here we will have to put at least 100 000 in it so if we don't play it we win these 100 000 that we put in in every situation". Yes if we fold is 0 EV really I googled and read about that but if we think that there is just a better stituation than this +EV call which is +1.5-6 BB I guess it's better just to wait and save those chips. Of course this is another long topic but I guess with 11 BB we don't have much of a choise when those +1.5-6 BB are like more than 10% of our stack.
Also this +EV call can be easy countered if the raiser do a bigger raise. I think the times of the 2x BB raise will soon be over when everyone finds out about this.
Hey Shoving,
I just found this topic again. I want to make something clear, because I made a mistake in my previous post. When UTG raises and we fold our BB, we lose 100,000 chips that hand (1 BB in this case). So, we actually don't need to find an option that makes money, we just need to find one that loses less chips that 100,000! If we call and we figure out that we lose 50,000 by calling XX preflop, well then great, we have lost less than we would have lost if we folded. This also makes sense just thinking about it, right?
I have always been confused by this concept, but now I understand it well, and I wanted to make sure I communicated the correct method to you here.
Cheers!
Let's talk about that AJs laydown
imo thats a pretty easy laydown for me, considering you just 3betted him couple of hands before and that deep in the sunday M people aren't going crazy by reshoving lower aces there.
you're gonna pray for a flip in that spot.
By the way that guy seems pretty good, he could snap reshove there to rep weak aces or weak pockets and waiting you with some AK / JJ+
thats why low variance approach is really better there, i love your play.
QQ hand is obv shove, you run on aces, setup, nothin much you can do. maybe min4betting but ill call his 5bet shove so... and i'll not calling oop with so few bigs
keep your nice work nick! really helpfull for the community
I'm glad you agree with my low variance approach there, I was worried I was too much of a nit :D
Yeah.. I don't see anything I can do differently with the QQ hand. I was going over all of the options just to make sure I was thinking of every possibility, but 4b allin seems like the best option by far.
Thanks man, I will keep at it. I'm glad people are getting something out of my videos and comments. Keep up the good work yourself, it seems like you have a lot of potential, and playing on French sites is nice! Take advantage of it while it's still this good. Bon chance!
LIl question on A20 on min 35 of vid..you said would like open any 2 in that position, because as you nicely noticed you are UTG you look much stronger then you are and look commited to call reshove from BB so most players will avoid call not to face squeeze here, but yet you got BB peeling a lot no matter how low stack he is, and as you said any hit or ace high he will stack off given how low his chips are
What bothers me in this situation is~ i would prefer any other 2 cards rather then A2 off, because most likely he will peel and commit with ace if he gets it, and any ace is better then ours, and game plan is to take his chips, so id rather have KJ QT T9...etc to see flop then Ace 2 given that he is peeling with any ace, and any ace is better then ours..and in anticipation of what he would do and with what cards, do you think maybe A2o is risky ( in terms its most likely to face higher ace )
Overall, here's what I'm hoping you take away from this situation: How to think, make a strategy/plan, and react at the poker table. I'm not always raising any two cards under the gun, but that was a spot where I noticed several factors in play, that combined to make it a profitable spot.
So two things. First is being able to recognize the factors that I saw. I think I did a good job of describing what each of those factors were in the video, so maybe watch that part again and take note of the things I look for at the table. The second thing is being able to form and execute a plan based on what factors you see. Soon we won't need to look at our cards at all :)
And also, I am exaggerating a little bit.. I mean your cards are always important. They are the only thing you can know for sure! But yes, I still believe that it's good to approach the game as if the cards don't matter, in a theoretical sense at least. I hope I'm making some sense! Here try this... Just picture a poker table that you're watching. You can't see anyones cards. Just think of each player has having cards XX. They have those cards, but what else do they have? They have a range, and they have tendencies. If you can identify someones range(s) and tendencies extremely accurately, you will be able to play versus them very well - you won't even need to know your cards are!
Just in this situation vs a wide opener is a key statement here. Since his range has changed so much (from a typical 12-25% opening range), we're allowed to change ours. He's going to have nothing less often on the flop, and our hands are going to have more equity vs his range since his range is weaker. Also at this stack depth, we have far less downside in terms of reverse implied odds. The SPR is so low that we're essentially playing a one street game postflop - There will be a binary decison on the flop. Take action to get all-in, or fold, and nothing in between. I think my range would include down to K6o at least, down to Q4s at least, and any ace (most likely). That's in terms of defending. As for where I'd start to shove, I'm not sure. I don't figure to have much FE preflop, so this fact would discourage me from shoving some hands, even if I am certain they're ahead of his range. A8o is a great example of this. A9o+ though yeah, I'd probably shove that. I'd flat a lot of broadways too.
At first glance the ATo at the start of the video looks like a fistpump shove, but I put it into ICMIZER with 33 players left and it suggests that folding here is better than shoving. It suggests just shoving 99+,AJo+,ATs+,KTs+,KQo,QJs. What are your thoughts? Great video, cheers!
Wow, is that right? I'm very surprised by this. I'm watching it again and I cannot imagine folding. My thoughts are I would still shove because 1. ATo seems to fall just outside of profitability based on the range you posted and 2. The situation you described is almost "worst case scenario" for me here in a way - If all of these opponents are calling me perfectly, they can just barely make it so my shove with ATo is a losing play. So, worst case, I lose a tiny bit. However, I am sure that most or all of these players will not be calling me perfectly. Therefore I am making a little bit of money because of them playing incorrectly, and I imagine this is enough to make it a profitable shove for me. Plus I will get more and better spots for future EV the times when I shove and get this through, which will still happen a good amount of the time. Thanks for running this hand and the comment. This is interesting to think about... Any time you think you have a clear fistpump play, and you are actually losing money, that's a pretty good spot to look over and think about!
Hi Nick, thank you so much for responding so quickly! I was very surprised to read the range it suggested too, and I have had some doubts about the $EV mode of ICMIZER away from the final table with X number of players left (less than 64 I think) for a while. Perhaps we can think of this in a more 'human' way as well. We are towards the back of the pack and need to make aggressive plays to get anywhere near to the front runners. From a cEV perspective it suggests shoving (27.0%) 22+,A2s+,A7o+,K6s+,KTo+,Q8s+,QTo+,J8s+,JTo,T8s+,97s+,87s if we use the Nash equilibrium calculation. I guess given that we're so close to the final table players will call much tighter than Nash suggests, which makes shoving ATo more profitable.
I am no expert on ICMizer, so I cannot say with any accuracy how well it performs in calculations far away from the final table. I will say that I would be surprised if it was wrong, as I'm very impressed with the program itself and the creator of the program (from his tutorial videos). I like adding the human approach to this decision as well, I'm right there with you on this concept. And two things work well for us in terms of the villain's not calling an ICMizer approved range: 1. Players tend to not call wide enough to begin with according to ICMizer ranges, simply from a lack of familiarity/work on these spots, and 2. Because, as you said, with things tightening up down the stretch in a big final table, it's human nature to be a little bit more careful.
Hi again, I just plugged the numbers in to ICMIZER again for that ATo spot because I wasn't convinced by the results. I made sure I made a decent estimate on the number of chips in play (about 57 million?) and this changed this from a very tight shove to an ATC spot. I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but ICMIZER's ICM mode away from the final table is confusing me a lot. Any chance of an essential video made by one of the pros? Maybe not yourself as I know you are an Elite coach now.
Here is the prizepool info for this tournament. That should give you all the information you need to input into ICMizer to get accurate calculations. I do not know off-hand if there are any good ICM videos on the site - but I imagine there must be some! I would first search for that topic in the main search bar for RIO and see if there is a forum thread about this topic. If there isn't, I might make a post asking this question. As for me, I sat there and watched the hour long tutorial video and I found it very helpful in navigating the ICMizer features. Hope this helps! Feel free to follow up with questions anytime.
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