Shoving Hands Poker

1. Shoving Hands Poker Games
2. Shoving Hands Poker Card Game
3. Shoving Hands Poker Game
4. Shoving Hands Poker Rules

In the last Sit N Go article I discussed the role of ICM in SNG strategy. Another key part of SNG strategy as the tourney moves on into the middle and late stages is the Push/Fold Game.

Our new Push / Fold App can be downloaded for your iOS device or Android device.If you want to use the Push / Fold App in a browser, it has moved to the PokerCoaching.com Tools area. There is no button rule for calls against a button shove in the big blind. When can you apply equilibrium strategies profitably? You should not start pushing your stack from the small blind just because your hand has an equilibrium pushbot ranking of 36 big blinds and you also should not blindly defend your big blind just because your stack is slightly below the equilibrium callbot ranking.

What is the Push/Fold Game?

Push/fold strategy boils down to limiting your choices to either pushing all-in or folding your hand. This allows for maximum fold equity to pick-up the blinds and antes and makes it so you don’t commit some valuable chips pre-flop but then fold to post-flop pressure. You also get the added benefit of nice double-ups when your opp’s call you with inferior hands.

When to start the Push/Fold Game

Shoving Hands Poker Games

The push/fold game starts once you reach the 50/100 and the 75/150 levels. Here, the 1,500 starting stack is only 10-15bb’s, and this is where many SNG players start their push/fold game. Everything you’ve learned up to this point has been geared to get you to this profitable spot. It’s profitable because your opponents call shoves too wide or don’t shove wide enough to pick-up the super important blinds and antes.

Pay attention to all showdowns and take note on your opponents regarding when they start their push/fold game and what they push with. Some begin early at sub-15bb’s. Others start super late at 7bb’s, and some never do it. Noting when they tend to push/fold will alert you to any changes in behavior, which could indicate hand strength. If you know that “9bb Norman” always pushes at 9bb’s or less, but suddenly at 7bb’s he min-opens, there’s a chance he’s got a nut hand and wants action. You can play him accordingly and give his unusual play the respect it deserves and fold out all but the best pre-flop hands.

(Of course, smart players can use this against you, so make note if you ever catch someone using a reverse tell like this.)

Why Use the Push/Fold Strategy

This is all about maximizing fold equity. When the blinds/antes are a big portion of your stack, you’ve got to do all you can to collect them.

If you’ve got a 1,500 chip starting stack, the 6 max blinds and antes at the 50/100 level could be 210 chips and collecting these adds 14% to your stack. At the 75/150 level? This would add up to 315 chips or 21% to your stack. Either of these are significant equity gains to your stack.

Pushing all-in maximizes your fold equity as only the strongest hands (or weakest players) will call for a big part of their stack, so we’ll be folding out most hands that would contend with a smaller raise of 2-3bb’s.

Another benefit of pushing all-in instead of making a smaller opening raise is that it doesn’t give our opponent the chance to re-raise all-in to put the pressure back on us. By shoving, we’ve put max pressure on our opponents and now the “ball’s in their court” as the saying goes.

Push/Fold Considerations

Your Hand

• The stronger your hand, the less fold equity you need; the weaker your hand the more you need.
• Try not to change your plays based on the strength of your hand. Like mentioned previously, perceptive opponents will notice when you deviate from your normal strategy and can change their plays based on your unusual actions.

Opponent Tendencies

• How likely will he fold? HUD stats and notes on opponents will tell you if he’s 90% likely to fold or only 70%.
• Against tight players (TAG’s and NIT’s) open up your range as much as possible
• Against loose callers (LAG’s, Fish and Donks) push a range that’s more value intensive (Aces are good for this as they’re less likely to have one if you do)
• Choose who you shove against wisely. Don’t jam wide vs wide callers.

Stack Sizes

• Pay attention to the stack sizes of those remaining in the SNG
• Big stacks call wider vs short-stacked shoves; fish call wider as well
• The bigger your stack in relation to theirs, the more pressure your shove puts on them
• Short stacks are much more likely to call than big stacks. They have lots to gain with the blinds/antes along with your bet, so they’ll call very wide.
• You have lots of fold equity vs similar sized stacks
• As a big stack put pressure on the medium sized stacks, especially when there’s a short stack or two in play near the bubble
• As a medium stack with a short stack or two in play, be more judicious in your choices to push all-in as you need to outlast these shorties.

Number of Players Remaining

• Players are less likely to call when on the bubble (OTB) because of the pressure of outlasting opponents to get into the money
• Jam wider OTB to build a big stack
• Make reads and take note of how your opponents play the bubble and just before the bubble
• Be careful that you know your opp’s and are making notes and reads to help you decide whether or not to shove.

Learning From Your Push/Fold Opportunities

As an SNG player, you’ll encounter the bubble and push/fold situations more times than you can shake a stick at.

As you play, tag hands where you have a push/fold decision and analyze them later in your HH review sessions. Use an ICM calculator (like ICMIZER or SNG EGT as discussed in the Middle-Stage SNG post). As you assign ranges to your opponents, make their ranges a little tighter when calculating their all-in shoves and wider when calculating their calling ranges. Being a bit more conservative on both fronts will slightly tighten you up, making your all-in ranges stronger.

The more you study these push/fold spots, the better innate understanding you’ll have of them which will help with profitable in-game decisions.

Push/Fold Charts

I mention using Push/Fold charts in the SNG Middle-Stage article, so please check that out, but I’ll make a quick mention of it here.

I used them in the past, but I found them to be a crutch and I would follow them overly-strictly and not even rely on opponent reads or the current game dynamic. I do recommend trying them, though, as many SNG players swear by them. Google “push fold charts” and try some for yourself.

Practice, Practice, Practice

The Push/Fold game isn’t something that anybody gets right off the bat. It takes time on and off the felt to work on this part of your game. Drop in stakes if you have to in order to get comfortable with shoving at around 10bb’s if you don’t yet do this. Tag hands and analyze them later, take notes on what you’ve learned, and put these into play in your next session.

Until next time, study smart, play much and make your next session the best one yet!

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Shoving Hands Poker Card Game

When can you profitably go all-in with a hand? Which hands can you call an all-in with? Answers to these questions are provided by pushbot charts and equilibrium strategies. This article will provide equilibrium push bot charts for poker tournaments and explain how and when to use them.

Example situation in a tournament

Let’s say we’re in the late stages of a big tournament. The stacks are shallow and most action happens before the flop. We’re in the small blind with a mediocre holding (say K6) and a small stack (say 9 big blinds). It is folded to us. What do we do?

Or, let’s say we’re in the big blind with the same hand and the same stack. Everybody folds to the small blind – a good and aggressive player – and he goes all-in. What do we do now?

Pushbot charts help making decisions in situations like the ones in this example. In this article we’re going to focus on equilibrium pushbot charts which work for push-or-fold decisions between the small blind and the big blind and to some extend between the button and the blinds.

Equilibrium pushbot and callbot charts

The tables below show the maximum effective stack for a profitable push from the small blind against the big blind and the maximum effective stack for a profitable call from the big big blind according to equilibrium strategies. (The effective stack is the smaller of the stack sizes between you and your opponent.)

Equilibrium pushbot chart for moving all-in from the small-blind

You can shove all-in profitably:

• If you are in the small blind,
• everyone before you has folded,
• your effective stack (in big blinds) is smaller than the number given in this table.

Note: the maximum stack size considered is 50 big blinds.

Download this chart as PDF

Calculations by Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman (Mathematics of Poker)

Equilibrium callbot chart for calling an all-in in the big blind

You can call the all-in profitably:

• If you are in the big blind,
• everyone before the small blind has folded,
• the small blind moved all-in,
• your effective stack (in big blinds) is smaller than the number given in this table.

Note: the maximum stack size considered is 50 big blinds.

Download this chart as PDF

Calculations by Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman (Mathematics of Poker)

How to use these equilibrium charts?

Let’s go back to the example situations above. We’re in the small blind with K6 and a 9 big blind stack. It is folded to us. What do we do?

Checking the first table reveals that K-6-offsuit has an equilibrium push rating of 15 big blinds. Meaning, as long as our stack is 15 big blinds or smaller we can profitably move all-in.

In the second scenario we’re in the big blind with the same hand and the small blind moves all-in. Now we just check the second table and see that K-6-offsuit has an equilibrium call rating of 11 big blinds. Meaning, as long as our stack is 11 big blinds or smaller we can profitably call against the small blinds all-in.

What the hell are “equilibrium pushbot strategies”?

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No let’s examine how those pushbot and callbot charts above are derived.

Imagine a very simple Texas Hold’em game. Two players play heads-up, the small blind can decide before the flop whether to push or fold. If he pushes, the big blind can now decide whether to call or not. There are no post-flop decisions. Situations like this occur often in later stages of poker tournaments when the stack sizes are small and everybody folds to the blinds.

This simple push-or-fold game can be solved mathematically and optimal strategies can be given for both players. The optimal strategies form a balance for both players (an equilibrium). This means that none of the players can unilaterally improve their strategy.

Determining these strategies is a bit time-consuming and works (in a nutshell) like this: For each possible effective stack size, you check the range with which the small blind can profitably push if the big blind would always call. Then you check with which range the big blind can call profitably against the small blinds range. Now check again which range the small blind can push with, if the big blind only calls with the range found in the previous step. Repeat this until the ranges do not change anymore and then you have found the equilibrium strategies for the given stack size.

Shoving Hands Poker Game

This way you can check for all stack sizes which hands can be pushed profitably and which hands can call an all-in profitably. Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman did this in the book Mathematics of Poker. The results of these calculations are charts above.

How to work with the equilibrium pushbot charts?

For each hand, the charts show the maximum stack size (in big blinds) for profitable pushes and calls according to the equilibrium strategy. The pushbot chart applies when you’re in the small blind and it is folded to you, the callbot chart applies when you’re in the big blind and the small blind open shoves.

For example, if you have J2 in the small blind, you can go all-in with an effective stack of 4.6 big blinds or less profitably. Or if you have T9 in the big blind and the small blind open shoves, you can call profitably with an effective stack of 12 big blinds or less.

Equilibrium pushbot charts from the button

The Equilibrium pushbot chart can also be used from the button. The rough approximation is as follows:

Equilibrium pushbot chart button rule

You can go all-in profitably from the button if your stack is smaller than half the equilibrium pushbot ranking for the hand you are holding.

There is no button rule for calls against a button shove in the big blind.

When can you apply equilibrium strategies profitably?

Shoving Hands Poker Rules

You should not start pushing your stack from the small blind just because your hand has an equilibrium pushbot ranking of 36 big blinds and you also should not blindly defend your big blind just because your stack is slightly below the equilibrium callbot ranking. The charts above give you a rough idea, which hands you can safely push with and which hands you can safely call an all-in with if your opponent is a good and aggressive player.

Conditions for the equilibrium push-fold-charts

• Late preflop position: The equilibrium pushbot chart only works from the small blind (and to a lesser extend from the button).
• Or Big Blind: The equilibrium callbot chart only works if you’re in the big blind.
• No other players: Both charts assume all other players have folded.
• No Antes: Calculations for the charts assume no antes. With antes the maximum stack size for profitable calls and pushes increases considerably.
• No ICM: No tournament specific mechanisms are considered for those charts. “Profitable” throughout this article means profitable when looking at chip-EV. In many tournament situations you have to call much tighter and can push much looser than the charts indicate.
• Skilled opponent: The charts assume your opponents are skilled, aggressive players that will call or shove with reasonable ranges. If the tightest player at the table shoves into you from the small blind, you better don’t call with K9 and a 20 big blind stack, just because the equilibrium chart says so. You fold because his range is much more narrow than any equilibrium strategy suggests.

Like the Sklansky Chubukov rankings, the equilibrium rankings help you to develop an idea which hands are good enough to merit an all-in and which hands are good enough to call an all-in against an aggressive opponent.

How do equilibrium rankings and Sklansky Chubukov rankings differ?

Another approach to explore profitable shoving ranges are the Sklansky Chubukov rankings.

While the Equilibrium strategy assumes your opponent has a realistic calling (or pushing) range, the Sklansky Chubukov strategy always assumes the worst case, namely that the opponent always calls when he has a better hand than you (or at least gets sufficient odds).

Meaning, you can push much looser using the equilibrium strategy, since this strategy takes into account that the opponent also folds some better hands. Suited connectors in particular gain significant value when using the equilibrium strategy: They have a good equity against the typical calling (and also pushing) range, which is why they are comparatively strong hands. Take 65 for example. The hand has a Sklansky Chubukov ranking of only 3.1, meaning you can only push with 3.1 or fewer big blinds. But according to the Equilibrium strategy you can push profitably with up to 29 big blinds – a huge difference.

Relevant Resources

• Sklansky Chubukov rankings
• Pushbot trainer
• Equilibrium charts with ante (HoldemResources.net)
• Nash equilibrium in poker explained (poker VIP)
• Mathematics of Poker (Amazon)

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