[Closed] immediate profit of a steal

It is true that you tend to get more risk-averse as you get closer to the bubble. However, you are less risk-averse in small pots. When you consider the immediate profit of a steal, you are only playing small pots, so the risk-aversion is tiny.

You can use the "Bluff?" button in my program ICM Explorer to see the folds needed to make an immediate profit. For example, here are the outputs for a 65-35 tournament in the situations you mention:

Early

Effective bet size: 60 on top of calling 15.
Probability of a call is assumed to be 30%.
Give up: 1485 chips, 0.1651
Successful steal: 1530 chips, 0.1697
Failed bluff: 1410 chips, 0.1575
Pure bluff average: 0.166

Maximum calls allowed: 37.36%

Middle

Effective bet size: 100 on top of calling 25.
Probability of a call is assumed to be 30%.
Give up: 1375 chips, 0.1611
Successful steal: 1450 chips, 0.1692
Failed bluff: 1250 chips, 0.1475
Pure bluff average: 0.1627

Maximum calls allowed: 37.27%

Late

Effective bet size: 200 on top of calling 50.
Probability of a call is assumed to be 30%.
Give up: 1750 chips, 0.2048
Successful steal: 1900 chips, 0.2204
Failed bluff: 1500 chips, 0.1782
Pure bluff average: 0.2077

Maximum calls allowed: 37.03%

There are slight differences in the folds needed to show an immediate profit, but everything is close to the 37.5% needed to break even in chips because you are playing small pots.

Ah yes, ok makes sense. Great explanation, ty phzon :). But this leads me to another question. What exactly is a small pot? Now of course there is no defined boarderline for a big pot. But how does the riskaversion increase when I put a higher proportion of my stack in the pot?. Linearly? Exponentially? or something else? Is there any kind of chart/formula/Article about this topic?

The risk aversion increases roughly linearly with the size of the pot.

wow really nice

is it also possible to calculate the foldequity that is required for BU vs Sb+BB situations to yield immediate profit? (is there a trial period?)

can we define immediate profit in these spots roughly as follows?

A Preflop Raise yields immediate profit if our raise yields a profit in the long run, even if we would play a one street Game (that is if villain calls or reraises we loose our invested cips and the Pot, if Villain folds, we win whats in the pot).

I have trouble understanding what hands I should raise and what Hands I should fold once I know the required Foldequity and how often my opponent really folds. I mean does this mean that I need this FE to be able to raise any2 with an immediate profit? (In a Cashgame this would obv be 50% right?) Here it means if my opponent fold more than ~53% of the time we can raise any2 for an immediate profit (53% because of risk aversion).

What if our Opponent calls with a percentage that enables us to yield an immediate profit if we raise 80% of the time? Which Hands would I raise then? do I just randomly raise 80 Hands out of 100 and fold 20? Or do I raise my top 80% Hands and fold the rest, or Hands that Block some of his defending combos?

Am I on the wrong track somewhere? Does the concept of immediate profit include that i can bet a certain amount 100% of the time to yield a profit? Its probably independent from my holding (if we neglect card removal effects) right?

So then immediate profite would mean:

A bet of size x yields immediate profit if it makes profit in the long run regardless of what my hand is, if we would play a one street Game that means a call or raise by villain means I lose the pot, a fold by villain means I win the pot.

Is it right than, that if my opponent doesn't fold often enough to be able to profitably bet a certain amount with any2 cards then we cant gain immediate profit???

We than have to select our betting hands more carefully...

Btw just discovered your book, didnt know about that....looks very interesting...

Originally posted by JayGatsby
So then immediate profite would mean:

A bet of size x yields immediate profit if it makes profit in the long run regardless of what my hand is, if we would play a one street Game that means a call or raise by villain means I lose the pot, a fold by villain means I win the pot.

Is it right than, that if my opponent doesn't fold often enough to be able to profitably bet a certain amount with any2 cards then we cant gain immediate profit???

We than have to select our betting hands more carefully...

that's it
I think watching pzhon's video about this topic will help you a lot

Originally posted by JayGatsby
is it also possible to calculate the foldequity that is required for BU vs Sb+BB situations to yield immediate profit? (is there a trial period?)

if you raise to 2,5x the required foldequity should be the same as if you raise to 3x from the sb; if you raise more it increases and if you raise less it decreases

and you can download pzhon's program is for free (at least for 50-30-20-structure) and for other structures it only costs a few bucks, I think

Originally posted by JayGatsby
Does the concept of immediate profit include that i can bet a certain amount 100% of the time to yield a profit? Its probably independent from my holding (if we neglect card removal effects) right?

Right, if you neglect card removal effects, then if you are getting an immediate profit preflop, you can profitably raise ATC.

In practice, you should consider the consequences of showing down 72o in case your opponent flats, and then just calls any bets you make later. If you show down A5o against your opponent's KQo, your opponent might keep playing the same way because he views your hand as respectable and it agrees with his guess about your range. If you show down 72o it becomes obvious that you are stealing with trash and he will take a stand with many more hands. This is a cost not seen by the ICM. Folding occasionally can also help your opponent to misjudge your range since 80% looks a lot more like 50% than 100% does. So, the real risk when you raise with trash includes ruining your table image, not just the raise. Sometimes that's worth it anyway, and sometimes it means you might want to raise only an 80% range, or even only a 40% range if you have raised the last couple of times in a row.

Much of the time, it is correct to raise when you aren't making an immediate profit because you expect to get called some of the time and you expect to have some value afterwards. If your opponent's calling range is loose, maybe you can find some profitable continuation bets. If your opponent's calling range is tight, then you can get paid off when you flop a monster. Hands like 65o have more potential to flop a strong hand or strong draw than hands like 72o, so even before you consider card removal effects you might raise a wide range but not 100%.

Originally posted by Premiumnerd
I think watching pzhon's video about this topic will help you a lot

and you can download pzhon's program is for free (at least for 50-30-20-structure) and for other structures it only costs a few bucks, I think

Yes, thanks. You can download ICM Explorer here and the free unregistered version handles the 50-30-20 structure.