Battle of the Blinds
Sometimes you love when it happens. Other times you hate it. Either way, when the action folds down to you in the small blind prefl op, you must decide what to do. If you were to ask me, chances are that much of the time, I’d respond, “raise.”
The blind versus blind confrontation is always interesting because the pre-fl op action often doesn’t do much to truly defi ne each player’s hand. Thus, putting your opponent on something post-fl op is incredibly diffi cult. Recently, I’ve been working on a chart that can be used as a tool to determine when it is profi table, given your cards and the size of your stack in the small blind, to simply shove all in. The chart defi nes up to how many big blinds you can have for an all in to be a profi table decision. You’ll probably be amazed at just how high the number of blinds in your stack can be for this move to make sense.
In this chart there are three columns, each giving the amount of blinds necessary for each situation. The fi rst column is based on if your opponent calls you perfectly – meaning that they can see your cards and make their decision from there. The second column assumes they are calling with the top twenty percent of all starting hands, and the third column with only the top ten percent. Obviously, you’ll need to estimate what category your opponent fi ts into for analysis during the hand.
So why would this type of chart be helpful? This type of information is important primarily when you and your opponent are shorter stacks. It is pivotal to understand during a sit-and-go and basically all tournaments when the situation applies. Let’s look at some examples.
Let’s say you were in a super satellite with 24 big blinds left in your stack. You aren’t in danger, but as the bubble approaches, you don’t think you can just fold your way into the money. You have to win a pot or two, or at least buy some time to allow others to bust out. The action folds to you in the small blind. The big blind holds twenty big blinds in his stack, and you know that if you shove, he’s going to call you with at most the top ten percent of hands. The chart would say that you can shove with anything! As many big blinds as you have, any two cards would do in this spot. You will turn a profi t with respect to chip count equity. Your opponent is not going to call off his stack with a weak hand and with this move, you’d buy and extra round ninety percent of the time.
Understand that ten percent of the time you’ve put the chips in and you’re behind, but against the top ten percent of all hands, even 3-2 suited has an average equity of thirty percent when called. What does that mean? Ninety percent of the time you steal and keep playing. Three percent of the time your opponent calls and is soon walking to the door (and probably calling you a donkey for shoving with garbage), and seven percent of the time you’re crippled and looking for another spot to push. So, only seven percent of the time is this move a disaster, and 93 percent of the time it’s bought you an extra round, or enough chips to blind your way to a seat with certainty. For these stack sizes, it may be that your opponent will really only call your shove about fi ve percent of the time, meaning that about 97 percent of the time you get a good result.
In another example, you have As Ks and predict your opponent will call you with the top twenty percent of hands. Amazingly, you can shove a billion blinds in as you have over fi fty percent equity when called. In this case, you can shove an infi nite stack and turn a profi t.
This sort of information had never truly been commonly embraced until the poker boom and the growth of online poker. These kinds of facts are well known to the online tournament players who pride themselves on aggressive play.
A short time ago in major online tournament, a solid player was a couple hours into the tournament with a very tough fi eld. The action folded to him in the small blind and with 28 big blinds, he decided to shove with Q-9 suited. The player in the big blind woke up with A-K, called, and lost the pot. Shortly afterward, there was a post on 2+2 asking how this “good player” could make such a move!
Responses fl ooded the thread and the answer boiled down to the fact that this move was unexploitable. It was indeed correct for him to shove, given the antes and dead money in the pot. Even if he allowed his opponent to see his hand, he’d be making a profi t. If the just raised the pot for ten percent of his stack, he’d have to fold 100 percent of the time to a reraise. Even when just called, he would be out of position against a poorly defi ned hand, and often be facing very tough decisions on every street. By just shoving, he took away all the uncertainties of post-fl op play, and guaranteed himself a positive expectation on the hand.
Using the chart and presuming there was no ante, if we take the Q-9 and fi gure that he’s only going to get called by the top twenty percent of hands, he can do that profi tably up to 26 big blinds. If he fi gures that he’d get called by only the top ten percent, 43 big blinds is the magic number. With antes that number shoots way up.
The bottom line is that this chart will show you that when players just shove in for eight to ten big blinds from the small blind, get called by the big blind and fl ip over 2-7 off-suit, they didn’t do anything wrong.
Of course, just because shoving in may be profi table in a given situation that does not mean it is optimal. If you have a good enough hand and/or a large enough stack, alternate plays that involve less than going all in might be even more profi table than the shove. This is one of the many things we’ll teach you at the WSOP Academy, not just what plays work, but how to pick which play is best.
