Basic questions

1. With what hands? QQ+ sure.

2. Pushing AK folds some small pocket pairs that we are actually behind against. So yes, it's partly because of the fold equity. AK also holds up great vs hands that people go broke on pre at these limits like ATs and KQ.

3. I think once you're confident of your post flop play you can start profitably open raising small PPs and some aces from the later positions/SB.

Hi, petersveter,
good to see you again in the discussion forum!

1- I guess, as Wohmfg pointed out- you mean what hands we go broke with deep in the beginning vs an unknown? QQ+ for sure. Sometimes even AK-btn vs blinds and of course a bit looser in the bvb spots.

2-Starting charts and articles are good for beginners, but games have changed since they came out- so they're a bit out of date now. I even remember one of them suggested opening to 5x at the bbt20 blind lvl and 4x at the bbt30 lvl, which is, imo, not very good. But overall, they are still very helpful. Usually flatting with AK as I said. FR players are nitty + we hope to see AQ or AJ, which will not happen very often. Vs any pair we don't do good enough to justify going broke being slightly behind so early and deep in the tournament.

3-Once again, it's suitable for beginners mostly. Reason for not stealing blinds lite in the first blind levels is because we don't wanna risk ending up in marginal spots when blinds are such a small part of our stack for one thing + we want to build up a nice image, so people give us credit in the mid phase when blinds represent much bigger part of our stack, hence stealing is more important. Once you improve your postflop though and get some confidence behind it, you can and def. should open a much wider range from late position, especially vs fishy opponents vs whom we have positional and skill advantage. Weak tight regs are also a very good target as a lot of them will not defend their blinds as much as they should by 3betting or flatting. And when fish flats- they will stack off lite and make mistakes postflop. I will sometimes open as wide as 60-65% from the BTN vs the right opponents.

Cheers!

Originally posted by petersveter
Hello, I have recently went throug all the basic articles and materials to look for some of my leaks. I have found a few things, which I am still not sure of and want to ask.

1. Would you go broke pre-flop against an unknown in the first hand of a tournament (50 BBs deep)? (6$ and 11$ sng's on party poker)

2. Early phase of a SNG. In the starting combinations chart, they say if there is a re-raise after you or someone has raised 6x or more, only contitnue with AA,KK,QQ and AK and go all-in.
I never thught of going all in with AK pre flop in the early phase, I was always calling and never thinking of pushing. Is this because unlike calling, we have extra fold equity, so we can push but we wouldnt call a push?
( This is also beacause everywhere you can find the example of AK vs a pocket pair flipping in the early phase and how much of a disaster it is)

3. In early phase we only play our value hands and dont steal the blinds. We start stealing blinds with some non value hands in the middle phase, when the blinds represent a much bigger part of our stack. Is this right, or do we also blind-steal in the early phase of a SNG?

thanks for helping out guys

1.according to what hand we have,if we have KK+,anybody want to push on preflop on early stage.but ,when you even have AKs,you push or calling a push isnt good ,because our purpose is surviving into the late stage.if you push the best high cards AKs,you have huge risks

2.i think AK is hard to play .if there is a re-raise after you,and like you said ,you calls reraise ,it is not good,because you only 1/3 chance to hit A OR K on flop,if you dont hit a or k ,your calling reraise will lose your chips .and on flop you dont have Initiative。it is hard to play

and if someone raise6*or more,i think this player is not good player .against this player our AK pushes ,this action can have largest FE.and againse his range ,we are ahead

3.i dont steal blinds on early stage ,because Not directly proportional to risk and return

sry for the first question, it was if you go broke with QQ preflop vs an unknown, but that is answered now.

3-Once again, it's suitable for beginners mostly. Reason for not stealing blinds lite in the first blind levels is because we don't wanna risk ending up in marginal spots when blinds are such a small part of our stack for one thing + we want to build up a nice image, so people give us credit in the mid phase when blinds represent much bigger part of our stack, hence stealing is more important. Once you improve your postflop though and get some confidence behind it, you can and def. should open a much wider range from late position, especially vs fishy opponents vs whom we have positional and skill advantage. Weak tight regs are also a very good target as a lot of them will not defend their blinds as much as they should by 3betting or flatting. And when fish flats- they will stack off lite and make mistakes postflop. I will sometimes open as wide as 60-65% from the BTN vs the right opponents.

So if I want to multitable, and dont want to loose time on marginal +EV spots, its fine to start blind stealing at around 25 BBs deep and just play my value hands till than?
thanks a lot

Well, a lot of fish won't be too much aware of eff. stack sizes, your image etc etc. If he sees a hand he wants to play, he will prolly play it. You should do whatever is best for your hourly winnings. If your game quality drops significantly, you won't be able to make it up. + if you mass table hard, ROI will be lower, hence variance will be bigger. I was never a huge fan of masstabling, especially for low stakes players where you have a lot of room to improve and mass tabling will extend this period by a lot and slow down the process of improving. If you have a considerable edge over the rest of the field, then I think it's ok to masstable instead of moving up the limits. It's more of a personal choice. I would prefer to play 7-8 tables but higher limits(because in general my game improves) rather than playing 24 tables on the 6-11$ limit(not sure it's possible on Party).

We play marginal hands, but it doesn't mean we will always find ourselves in marginal spots. We just need to know when to let it go, when to double/tripple barrel, when to check behind for pot control. It takes time, but no- I don't advocate for not stealing the blinds in the low levels. Our stack depth allow us to make more moves and outplay our opponents, so we can accumulate chips in the later stage. Of course that's much more important in a 6max than FR game, but I won't fold 78s or Ax, or QTo on the BTN. Just play more suited hands, hands with potential postflop vs fishes as they will flat more.

thanks kukrkabin,

And as for the AK hand pre flop, imagine you are in a 6-11 $ fullring turbo SNG on party poker, first or second blind level, thats 50 and 33 BBs deep respectively, and an unknown raises 6x from MP2, or MP1 raises and MP2 reraises.

Would you flat call or would you use some of your fold equity and push pre flop?

Hi again, petersveter,

What's our position? How many ppl are left?

First question is what we do if mp1 raises 6x and we are 33bb deep? Depends on who the opponent is-but I assume he will be fishy for sure + prolly on the looser side, so I will go for a 3bet/call vs him w AK for 33bb eff. I don't like flatting 300 chips when we have 1650 in stacks.

Second question- if we have a raise and re-raise, I usually insta muck AK unless I have reads that both guys are very loose and fishy. I will never flat ofc. Either push or fold, but I vote for folding more often.