Advanced Learning Articles
"If I know something you don't
know-I take your money."-Sklansky
Recovering
from Low Equity Situations in NL Tournament Play
We've all been
there, and we're all likely to be there again, coming down to
the
bubble, the pressure's on, the blinds are raising,
and we're short stacked. For the
purposes of this
article we're going to assume we're not ridiculously short
stacked,
but there is a real need to double up pretty
soon. Lets say we have 1,600 chips,
the average
is 5,200 chips, the blinds are 200/400, the bubble is set at 30,
there
are 65 players left in the tourney, and our
position is 61.
So lets first of all determine what
we know for sure about this situation. We know
we're
not going to make it into the money without making a move and
winning a hand
at some point. We can't just sit
there. We also know that after two orbits we're going
to lose
enough of our remaining equity through the blinds to sink us for
good. From
this fact we can conclude that making
a move sooner is more valuable to us than
making a move
later, or in other words an AJ now might be the equivalent of a
pair of
Queens after we have gone through blinds only
one time. Big hands are also going to
become less
valuable in later orbits due to the fact that the less equity we
have the
more likely we are to get calls on our all-in
plays. One or two calls against a pair of
Kings is more
or less ideal, four calls against them is not so good.
The
last thing we know is that an all-in move is almost certainly
going to be the best
choice here, as we really don't
have a lot of chips to play with after making a call.
Without
going all-in we have to hit a flop for sure, and the only way
this becomes
sensible is if there are a lot of callers
and extra juice in the pot, and raise after our call
seems unlikely-not
a likely situation at this point in the tournament, but
possible....
In this situation then the first thing
to affect your thinking is that its definitely
better
not to wait-to make a move while there is still a level of
equity left which is going
to be threatening to other
conscientious players, and which will be more valuable if we
should
happen to double it up with an all-in play. Lets take a
look at some numbers:
A J9 suited has a 40% chance
of winning isolated against AK off suit. Lets say we
decide to push all-in (while we still have our 1600 chips) with
this hand and get the
lone call against the AK.
If we double up our stack is now 3200 chips.
In
the second situation we wait one orbit and have 1000 chips.
This time we draw the
AK, but due to our lower equity
we get two calls, a J9 suited, and a KQ off suit. Our
chance of winning in this situation is 46%. If we win we
get 3,000 chips, 9% less
than the previous situation,
but our chances are only 6% better to win. So after just
one orbit the situation has actually slightly worsened with far
superior cards. Add this
to the fact that there
is an excellent chance the AK might not even come in the
second orbit, and you can start to see a real advantage in
pushing decent but lesser
hands sooner rather than
waiting for better cards later.
While we're at it
lets look at some more isolated scenarios, like 45 suited
against AK
off suit-your 45 suited actually has a 41%
to win. In fact 45 suited up to J10 suited
are
all in the 40% zone against AK off. 23 and 34 are down to
about 39% against
a big off suit ace hand.
J9 suited however is only 32% against AJ off suit. What
does this mean? It means
that considering the
likelihood of getting called with a big Ace hand, your actually
better
off pushing with two suited connectors which
have no 10's through Aces in them than
pushing with a
hand with one Ace through 10 and one 2 through 9, since
your chances
of avoiding a kicker overlap is increased. This situation
would change
however if you thought the only person
likely to call you was a loose player willing to
take
risks. If you didn't have the sense that kind of player
was at your table, it would
hold true, although the
presence of a monster stack might also change things.
Lets look at some more numbers: Suited cards with 1 gap in them
such as 57 are just
as good as suited connectors
against big ace hands, at 40.4%. Suited cards with two
gaps in them such as 69 drop 1% to 39.4%. Although 58
suited might be a better
bet than 89 suited because A9
is a lot more likely to call than A8. 45's through 78's
are
most likely the ideal. Hands with three gaps in them such
as 48 suited drop to
38%, but that's still a lot
better chance than J10 has against A10, which is only 28%.
Complete junk hands such as 68 off suit are still 8% better than
that at 36%.
Your main problem with pushing with
lower suited connectors or junk hands is on the
chance
that someone has a big pair. 57 suited has only a 21%
chance of winning
against a pair of Jacks, whereas if
you can come in with AQ off against Jacks you've
got a
good race. However as we all know there are a lot more
combinations to make
big Ace or King hands than there
are to make big pairs. And of course any way
you
look at it in this situation, you're going to need a little
luck.
Ultimately, at a seemingly tight, donkeyless
table I would favor pushing mid-level
suited connectors while you still have some equity to threaten, than
waiting for a big
hand. In addition to the fact
that you still have a good chance to win the hand if you
do get
a call from a big Ace hand, there is also the chance
that you might take the
blinds down uncontested, which
would obviously be ideal. If your sitting next to a
luckbox donkey type player then you might consider
waiting, as the only person who is
likely to make the
call is going to be very vulnerable to a superior hand.
But even
then you have to figure that the chances of
getting multiple calls goes way up after
you have 600 less
chips in your stack, and the donkey has added 1000 of his own
chips to juice up the pot. Most of the time you're going
to want to push early with
the 57 suited.
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