I don't know when i should go into this mode. Some say 10 blinds, others 13. I did some math and worked out that at 5 blinds if you call you are actually losing on average, and that's assuming you will win every time you hit! Most places In play at I am the only one who goes all in when I get short. Other players seem to wait for some decent cards or call to see where they're at instead(if they're in the small blind for example)

I am starting to question the usefullness of push-fold mode, as I get into a lot of trouble doing it. It just is so risky. When Should I push-fold?

Just the other night, one player got to the final table with 2 blinds. She didn't make any moves as she wasn't getting anything. When she sat down she was UTG. She got J2 and I would have went all in, thinking that If I don't go all in now I will have to go all in on the blind, where I would probably have a worse hand. If I did my move, I would have ran into decent cards and bust. The next move she had crap cards, like 47 or something. Only one player called and she checked, whereas I might of went all in, thinking that I really needed to chip up. The flop came and she paired, her opponent checked she went all in and he folded. 10 minutes later she somehow won the damn tournament. She said she got A8 twice in a row and went all in and doubled up.

So, is playing a more passive game better until I get decent cards for a push?

Another thing, if I pushed when I had 10 blinds everyone would just fold, so I would make little money on my decent hands. If I just sit back and only play 1 out every 15 hands or something, and those hands I would be an all in, I would lose money overall anyway(to the blinds), unless someone decided to call and I holded up.

By the way, I play at lots of turbo tournaments, where most players have are extremely short stacked (15 blinds is average around half way through the tournament)

my personal stratergy is when I get to 10bb then I start looking where I can start pushing ... since I usually like to remain above my
own personal line = sb + bb x 10 , ie if sb = 10 and bb = 20 I need to have at least 300 chips , once it starts going under this line I start
playing looser (and get more nervous lol)

Originally Posted by azeldin

So you can adjust to that, you can probably just min-raise pretty wide and steal a hell of a lot of blinds until they start getting annoyed with you.

yes I like this a lot , changing gears is vital , I'm still trying to do just that,
when playing a tight table ..expand ur range of hands or even bluff (in position) and try to steal the blinds a few times in a row ..
ie on the button,in the sb, in the bb ....
of course ur table image will change and ppl will get fed up and play looser
... hopefully lol...

I read about a good strategy regarding this. It was called M. M is the number of rounds you can stay in. For instance, if BB is 200 and SB is 100, a round will cost you 300. If your stack is 600, you can afford 2 rounds. M = 2. According to Gus Hansen, never let your M go below 3. He advises never even get DOWN to 3. So you should push all in before you M hits 3. Whether it be 6, 5 or 4 depends on the cards you're holding at the time. But I would start considering it at around 7. My 2 cents...

(This is all based on online play - live play you might have to adjust based on the players you are playing with)
no antes I start around 10bb, antes I start around 15bb. The thing you need to remember though is that position still matters. say you have 10bb and utg at a 9 handed table, you probably don't want to open shove K9os. but 9 handed with 10bb on the button I am very happy to open shove K9os.

You also need to pay attention on who is left to act and how they have played hands in the past. Against people who call a wide range I like to tight up a little because I know I am getting called and I like to get the money in a 60/40 fav. If I am on the button and one of the blinds is real short I have to make a judgement call as to how light I think he will call and that will determine my open shove range.

So, as you can see my open shove mode starts between 10 to 15 bb depending on antes and how I think the rest of the table will act.

Getting down to 2bb is horrible, you double up and you still are dead money. 2bb with antes is less than a round before you are out, 4bb is like a round and a half. How many good hands do you think you will get in the next 15 hands??

Now if everyone is folding to your shoves that is a good thing because those are pots that you have a guaranteed win compared to getting it in a 70% fav. If everyone is folding when you shove at 10bb just open raise normal and shove most flops and when you get down to say 7 than start open shoving and see how they react.

I like this topic a lot , we could call it stack/blind relativity ha ha ha , Sid_07 I thought the idea when shoving was to get called and double up ....?

Originally Posted by Efferri

I read about a good strategy regarding this. It was called M. M is the number of rounds you can stay in. For instance, if BB is 200 and SB is 100, a round will cost you 300. If your stack is 600, you can afford 2 rounds. M = 2. According to Gus Hansen, never let your M go below 3. He advises never even get DOWN to 3. So you should push all in before you M hits 3. Whether it be 6, 5 or 4 depends on the cards you're holding at the time. But I would start considering it at around 7. My 2 cents...

By this formular my M = 10 .. lol

Originally Posted by ninjax

I like this topic a lot , we could call it stack/blind relativity ha ha ha , Sid_07 I thought the idea when shoving was to get called and double up ....?

Yes and No, I want to get called when I have aces or kings but folds when I have K10s.

The goal is to accumulate chips with as little risk as possible. When you are getting low you have to take more risk to get chips because you have lost a lot tools to gain chips, When you get really low your only option is to shove and pray which suxs.

If you have 1010 and shove and get called by AK, AQ or AJ we are only a 56% fav to win. Which means 44% of the time we bust out and lose. If everyone folds that means we win the pot 100% of the time and can move farther into the tournement.

OBV. our shoving range is wider and their calling range is wider but the key here that if we shove and double up great but best case scenario we still lose 10% of the time when called. AA vs AK

Blinds and Antes 100/200/25 so 525 in the pot each hand 9 handed.

You: 5000 chips M of 9.5

If you shove 5 times and get 5 folds your stack is now roughly 7600 with a M of 14. which is pretty nice.

If you shove 5 times and get called 5 times you have to be running on the positive side of varience not bust out or hopefully the hand you lose is against a shorter stack. If you get all in as a 70/30 fav 5 times in a row you will lose on average 1.5 times for every 5 hand sample over a large sample. Sometimes you will lose all 5 in a row. - happens

Long winded sorry.

I hear u ... :-)