Poker Video: MTT/SNG by bones (Micro/Small Stakes)

Really nice vid, good to get inside your head and hear your thought processes for some awkward spots. Thanks for making me realise that I should take table dynamics more into account when deciding whether or not to make a thin call. Good first solo effort sire, really like the HH review style of making vids, godspeed.

very nice, very thoughtful vid. you obviously have a first-rate understanding of sng strategy. a bit more focus and energy in the delivery would help get your (very valuable) points across.

Really great vid. Loved the format. I def learnt something with not putting in the last few chips preflop.

I would love to see the same stuff but with Wiz on call. Would have been nice to see you fire up the wiz on a couple of hands to show the equity based on various calling ranges you put on players.

Hand comments:

Hand 1: It was interesting to here you reference block theory here. You say this hand is a good example of applying it. So what ranges do you put SB and BB calling your shove? We know Fat Afghan is a good player, and probably knows you don't have the tightest of ranges here.

If we put UTG shoving 90%, SB calling 9% {66+ ATo} and bb calling 6% { 88+ AQ AJs }, this is -0.2% ev. Does that sound about right? So do you think this is an acceptable loss due to the future gain of the block theory? How wide can you go - if we know that UTG has a tighter range of say 75%, this becomes -0.4%. Is this now too much do you feel to make this shove? Or 67% (around -0.6% shove), etc. Just wanna get your feel on how undervalued you feel the big stack is in an ICM calc like this.


Hand 4 (33): This looked like an unprofitable shove, so i put it in to SNG Wizard and played around. What ranges do you put BTN and SB calling with? To make this +EV they need to be calling as tight as 2% (that is, folding AKo). 2% for both and 90% for BB and it's break even. I woould never assume that villains will reliably fold AKo and JJ - even on the bubble, let alone 5-handed.

For that reason i like the raise/fold in this spot. I dont think btn and sb will 3bet lightly here due to your stack. If things were different (we were 12 bb and bigstack was utg and folded) then this would be a fold imo.

Hand 6 (KTs)
What ranges do you put people on to make this a +EV shove? Putting SB on say 10%, and BB on a range wide enoguh to include A9s, it's around break-even.

I'm not sure what limits these hands are (i guess high because i think Fat Afghan plays mid to high stakes iirc). but some of the ranges you've assumed for villains i never would in lower limits.

Hi Guys, Thanks Bones for the hand review.

Haven't watched the video yet, but Hood, these would all be hands from Stars $27 and $38 turbos.

Should he send me some sort of IM saying he's shoving 85%

hahaha

Nice vid Bones.

Good video, though I'm not sure I like your stop and go approach. Sure, opponents make stupid mistakes once in a while when they are ahead on the flop and fold, but what about the times when WE are actually ahead of their opening range. I have seen people open 32o just because of their position and not caring about stack sizes at all. Don't we in that case give up an equity edge by allowing them to fold on the flop?

Good video, though I'm not sure I like your stop and go approach. Sure, opponents make stupid mistakes once in a while when they are ahead on the flop and fold, but what about the times when WE are actually ahead of their opening range. I have seen people open 32o just because of their position and not caring about stack sizes at all. Don't we in that case give up an equity edge by allowing them to fold on the flop?

even if we are ahead of their range and ahead of them on the flop, getting them to fold getting huge pots odds is a big mistake by them, and thus a big boon for us.

Interesting, instructive spots. Solid vid.

At lower buyins or against looser opposition in general, I would strongly consider open folding the 33 in that spot.

Whenever you get called here (by the two middle stacks anyway), unless you are up against 22 or a hand with a 3 in it, you are losing equity, even including hands against which you are technically "ahead" of (e.g. A8, KQ etc.). This isn't a problem if they are calling only with very few hands, like they should be.

But the more of these hands they are willing to call with, even though you are "ahead", the worse it is for you. A shove here, has to assume the recognition on your opponents' part just how tight they should be. But this is a spot where you don't want your opponents to make mistakes, because those mistakes suck equity away at both your expense and ship it to the rest of the table.

Im not sure about the first hand.

Even if we win the pot i don't see much of owning the bubble going on unless phantom doubles up the next hand.

And if the blinds happen to be bad/losing players they'll make crazy calls here.

I need to meditate on this one.

Very nice vid bones. Lots of little nuggets, I will need to re-watch it. I'd like to hear some more in depth thoughts about gigabet's block concept. I remember reading his post several times a year or so ago and kind of getting it, but not really.

For anyone who hasn't read it:
http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=2610396&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1

Do you really need to spend 8 minutes rambling on and on about the first hand which is super standard? You can talk just as much while covering more hands.

Do you really need to spend 8 minutes rambling on and on about the first hand which is super standard? You can talk just as much while covering more hands.

This is really unfair.

For one thing, I can't speak for bones, but I personally have seen thousands of hands from dozens of students and I know for a fact that many many players get this spot wrong.

There was nothing excessive about the time he spent. It's not only about the "what to do", it's about the "why to do it". Someone could spend a whole half hour on a hand like this and still not say everything. When you listen to an explanation of the "why," as opposed to merely the "what," the discussion isn't about one particular hand any more. It becomes a lesson in how to think about these games in general.

Also, a personal plea: If this is truly your reaction, please don't watch my next video. The spots are even more "standard" and I *do* ramble. The whole video is 120 minutes.

Hood- Thanks for the thoughtful analysis of the vid.

To address your questions- I think Afghan is calling considerably tighter than 10% and if he's not it's a pretty big leak. I think it's difficult to quantify what % disadvantage I would want and it would be pretty table dependent. It is worth some bit of sacrifice, but without grinding some ev calcs I can't give you an exact number. If there is interest in quantifying these kinds of spots, I can do a vid or an article in the future on it and hopefully find a few diff kinds of examples.

In regards to what kinds of ranges I'm assigning, it's a bit difficult since I didn't have entire HHs to review or reads to go from. Other than "what is the average/bad/good mid-stakes SNGer calling in a vacuum with no image considerations", I have nothing really to base perceived ranges on. My goal in the vid was to try to address the considerations behind the plays I suggested or disagreed with. Hopefully I was able to articulate my thoughts well enough so that should similar spots come in your games, you guys will be able to take what I've talked about and use it to go along with your reads on how loose/tight/passive/aggressive players will be in that hand and in future hands to figure out the optimal play.

As far as rambling about a "standard" spot for 8 minutes, each member of DC has a different level of understanding and experience in sngs. Even for experienced sng players, it never hurts to solidify your understanding on why a play is standard.

Also thanks again to Astral for supplying the hands. I'm always looking for interesting hands for vids, so feel free to email tough spots to me at bones@deucescracked.com and I'll try to get them into a future vid.

I'm really loving the SnG content this series. Thanks for the great vid bones.

Hey Bones,
Thanks for the vid with very instructive spots.

On my side I like the spot in the first hand. But in your analysis of the 2nd hand, how do you take into account the bubble situation here ? In a first approach, I think we take some risks to deteriorate a very good bubble situation into a much worst one.
Your thoughts about it ?

Hood- Thanks for the thoughtful analysis of the vid.

To address your questions- I think Afghan is calling considerably tighter than 10% and if he's not it's a pretty big leak.

Applying this to my own play, should it be standard to not call with more than the top 10% of my range, or was this comment player dependent?

When addressing ranges, are we using pokerstove/SNGwiz ranges, or something else. If something else, what is it, and what method should be applied?

Cant you just say that you are flipping with your 33 vs bb range (33 is slightly ahead) and your equty vs button and sb call is -ev. It took you 8 minutes to explain this hand. The quality is also poor, this vid should be louder. I watched more than 100 vids on dc. Most of them are great but this one is rly poor, probably the worst ive seen so far. So dont say that this vid is great.