hey bud, im in costa rica right now and the internet is soooooooo slow so I cant download this video to re-watch it. Could you give me some more relevant information so I can try to help out and answer you before I get back to the states (not for about 1 week).

What were the stack sizes
what were the blinds
how often had he been opening 4x (from your question it seems alot, right?)

those are the most important ones, other relevent information might be how he had been playing before that, if he was aggro, passive, easy to play post-flop, etc., but those 3 above are most important. Thanks,

          -Primo

So then the reason here was that he was already risking a large portion of the effective stack (>10%) , and we knew he had a very wide range. A3o will do fine in most all in situations, usually having high 30 percentages, 36-40% or so vs most calling ranges, but he folds a high % of the time, since he is opening so many hands. So we are never too CRUSHED, and we win a large % of chips immediately very often.

The other thing to look at is how poorly A3o plays out of position, its very hard for us to flat this hand, and then continue on any flop that doesnt have an A in it. Especially against an aggressive opponent.

Those are the main factors I would be considering. Hope that helped, and let me know if you need any more explanation

             -Primo

This hand was interesting to me, so I ran it through an EV program...I will assume villain calls with the following hands: AQo+, AJs+, 66+I'm no expert, so this range could be way off. What is a reasonable range for this villain?Here is the equity of an Allin shove using these constant calling ranges:Villain raises:    EV:40%                 1750%                 3660%                 49**********If the villain calls fewer PPs, for each one he takes out of his range, the added EV is roughly 6@40%, 5@50%, and 4@60%I would guess the villain's raising is probably about 60%? So this would be roughly 50 chips EV.This seemed to me to be a very small edge considering the amount of risk and the variables involved.However, I then calculated a perfect calling range for the villain against this shove, and it turned out that EV if the villain responds perfectly to the shove is still at -8.10. I figured it would be much lower. Again, this is considering villain is raising 60%. Additionally, this "perfect" calling range surprisingly contains hands down to 86s and 76s. And KQs was NOT in the range of profitable calls.Here is the range if you are curious: AA-22,AKs-A2s,QJs-QTs,JTs-J9s,T9s-T8s,98s-97s,87s-86s,76s,AKo-A2oAnd the breakeven point still looks very loose: AA-33,AKs-A2s,AKo-A6o*****This brings me to the question: even 50 chips seems like a very small EV in relation to the risk.By gaining these extra 50 chips, Hero's win chances (neglecting skill level) rise from 66.3% to 68%.So his equity in the tournament rises from $14.59  to $14.96. That's an increase of $0.37, or an increase of nearly 12% profit. ROI raises from 26.9% to 30.1%. That's a HUGE +3.2%! Wow!I guess that is a substantial increase in tournament equity. Is there any case for waiting for a better spot, seeing as you are more skillful? And if so, what kind of edge would make this play worthwhile?*****What started out in my mind as a very small edge and potentially bad disadvantage in certain scenarios if your reads were not pinpoint accurate, actually turned into a healthy profit.So that leads me to another question...gaining 50 (or even 30) chips is REALLY that much of an advantage? And does it matter much whether it is in early game or late game or what the effective stack sizes are? 

It is a big advantage, so long as you don't counter act these plays with negative expectation ones.I'd suggest examining a lot of these types of spots over time, you'll really begin to get a feel for where the profit lies, some previously tough decisions will become second nature to you and your overall profit will climb.In short, that's way too much edge to consider passing up for a better spot.And of course, villain will never have that perfect calling range if it includes 86 but not KQ.

I just mean that as long as the rest of your overall strategy is +EV, then it's fine.For example, say you only shove 3 hands at 7bb, AA, 72 and 52.  If you analyze AA, it's clearly profitable.  Just make sure that you're also analyzing the times you would shove 72 or 52 in that example (and probably see they are much more -ev than AA is +EV).Now that's an extreme example, all I mean is that it's great to see you are clearly making a profitable play with A3, but just make sure that the other hands you make the same play with are also +EV.There are other things to consider as well.  A player 3betting 20% of hands against a 100% open minraiser 20bb deep is making a profitable 3bet every time he makes the play.However, if he only calls 20% of the time and another 60% of the time is a fold, he's drastically losing money to anybody with a clue postflop who is minraising 100% of buttons.So just be sure to take into account your actions with all hands at a certain stack level.  The math to really figure out how +EV or not your overall strategy is will be quite intense, but you can probably find short cuts and natural spots to "vacuum" analyze a lot of plays.

qattack - i like your post but would like to know how you got these numbers - could you expand on the math here a bit? Thanks "This brings me to the question: even 50 chips seems like a very small EV in relation to the risk.By gaining these extra 50 chips, Hero's win chances (neglecting skill level) rise from 66.3% to 68%.So his equity in the tournament rises from $14.59  to $14.96. That's an increase of $0.37, or an increase of nearly 12% profit. ROI raises from 26.9% to 30.1%. That's a HUGE +3.2%! Wow!"

Hey MrRunsGood, I used a program called StoxEV...actually now it's been rebranded to CardrunnersEV. It's rather pricey, but invaluable if you want to run EV calculations on nearly any scenario you can devise.To get the specific "win chances", since we are assuming that Hero and Villain's skill levels are the same, each of their chances of winning are in direct proportion to the ratio of chips each has. If you have 68% of the chips, your winning chances are 68%. This is not exactly true, as the player with the button has an advantage for the very next hand, but the overall effect isn't too great.If you know your winning chances, then you can calculate you net expected win for this single tournament, and from that your ROI.If you are not familiar with the calculations here, let me know and I'd be happy to go over them in more detail. They are pretty simple, but the math side of my brain is very lazy at the moment.If Hero and Villain's skill levels are not identical in all aspects of play, these calculations fall apart, but they are a basis to estimate your EV. For example, if you are a great player and your opponent is a total fish that is likely to call down with 7-high in a future hand, it's obvious that you should not be gambling here.

Thanks qattack - if you dont mind I'd like to pm you some math questions just to make sure I'm not doing it wrong.

That's fine, or you can just post them here. That way, if I give a wrong calculation others can correct me. :)I was at one point majoring in mathematics in college, but I gave up completely when I hit a class called "Foundations of Mathematical Analysis." I really couldn't tell you what that class was even about!! Fortunately for me, there's no theoretical math in poker.I can hardly do quick simple math in my head anymore, but why bother when there are calculators?

I have a question about this video.At 34:36, we limped KQ on the BTN (villain had been attacking our limps and we were going to 3-bet over his raise) in the 10/20 level with what I believe were close to even stacks.  Villain checks.Flop is A72 two tone. Villain checks, we bet 3/4 pot.Why bet? Why not check down KQ high for showdown value? Earlier in the video Primo talked about checking down hands that will win at showdown a lot and cannot be called by a worse hand.The only reason I can think of is that we believe villain will make it very hard for us to get to showdown, as was discussed later in the video.  But given villain's line so far in the hand, that doesn't seem to be the case here.  If we do check behind and did face a bet on the turn, would calling be so bad?  We have the nut no pair and he seems unlikely to have an A given his limp, so we are ahead maybe the majority of the time and almost always can improve when we are not.  It doesn't seem like villain would barrel many rivers if he is thinking about our range at all because we are representing a pot controlling made hand that doesn't want to fold.

i havnt watched the video in a while so i shouldn't really comment since it's rly villain dependant but checking down K high is best when villain is folding worse and calling with better, in this hand he often calls with worse (flush draw, kx,qx etc) and if he does have a 7 or a 2 than we have 6 outs. basicly i'm saying it's for value :Psecondly it's good info to know if villain will contest for limp pots, above i was asuming villain was floating wide while most lower stakes players play pretty fit or fold in this situation so you can bet 100% of your range here and get alott of folds).but if villain is passive post flop than it's +ev to try and check it down, just somthing you've got to remember is that when we have relativly strong hands there are multiple lines that are +ev to take, we just have to find which one is maxev.   

Thanks for the response.  I somehow failed to even consider it as a value bet vs flush draws and K-high type hands.

yea, the main thing is that he almost never has Ax, so even though we may have the best hand, why not just take it down right there instead of letting him have a chance to hit his cards, and if he does call us, then we still have plenty of outs. Also another thing to note is this guy was pretty aggro so I didnt expect him to just let us get to showdown easily (and therefore realize our SD value)

Wow I could not have stumbled upon this thread at a better time. I just played a villain who started doing random over raises when he was frustrated. The great thing about him was he kept showing his cards. He only raised reasonably when he had a good holding. Same with his overbets (they were always weak). He ended up raising 10x and I jammed with A6 for 40bbs and low and behold he calls with Q7o and fortuantely I hold. I would have been happy had he just folded.Anyways great question about a concept.