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rendalli's picture
Analysis of a "stop and go" with 22 against a 3x raise 11BB deep.

There was some discussion going on in the comment section of a video mersenneary made about making a "stop and go" with 22 at eff. stacks of 320 at 15/30 blinds where opponent made it 90 preflop. I didn't want to spam the video-comment-section with this so I decided to put it here.The argument was that shoving over the raise had 0 fold equity and it's better to just call and shove every flop to give villain a chance to fold incorrectly. The problem with this is that hero is shoving 230 into 180 on flop and thus even dumb villains will play pretty good on all kind of different flops.Mischi gave two examples: "But he might fold in some cases, eg K8dd on T66cc, or KJsc on A34ddd" - the problem with this is that in the first case villain isn't making a big mistake (he has 38% equity and needs 36%) and in the latter case folding is by far the right play on the flop as he only has 25% equity.To show that 11BB is a little to deep to consider this play with 22 I will quickly model some kind of perfect candidate for this strategy and show that even against him it won't be good. He will raise to 90 preflop with 50% of hands (AA-22,AKs-A2s,KQs-K2s,QJs-Q4s,JTs-J7s,T9s-T8s,98s-97s,87s-86s,76s,65s,AKo-A2o,KQo-K2o,QJo-Q8o,JTo-J8o,T9o-T8o,98o-97o,87o,76o) and he will only call on the flop if he hits a pair, a flushdraw or a straightdraw.It would play out like this on the flop vs. this villain:36.2% of the time he will hit a pair on the flop and go with it and will have 80.5% equity.3.33% of the time he will hit a fd (without pair) and on average have 54.5% equity2.8% of the time he will hit a oesd (without pair or fd) and on average have 51% equity.The result for the hand would be that will win 20 chips and BB will lose 20 chips (if you consider the situation after posting blinds it would be SB wins 35 and BB wins 10).If you compare this to just reshoving 22 against this villain and assuming he will NEVER fold (even with 76s etc) SB would just win 16chips and BB lose 16 (SB wins 31 and BB 14 after blinds where posted.This shows that even in this favourable situation the stop&go does worse than just reshoving. In practice you will oftentimes HAVE some kind of fold equity - I saw a fold in this spots plenty of times.I would consider the play more if the stack to pot ratio would be slightly below 1 after the flop - like 0.7-0.8 or something if I assume he will fold too often. If you are 11-15BB deep the play just makes sense if you think villain will NEVER FOLD PRE and will actually CALL too often postflop (as calling with 2 overs would be a mistake there).

DonNew's picture
Very interesting analysis!

Very interesting analysis! Ive never heard of the stop-and-go where you just flat pre and then shove on flop, but only heard of it as when you 3-bet preflop villain calls and then you shove. But looks like i can disregard it anyway :)

meatwad's picture
DonNew, I think the one you

DonNew,I think the one you are talking about is called a go-and-go. MW

Artemis Apollo's picture
Why not call to stack off

Why not call to stack off most flops if you expect them cbet lots, and if they will play the flop well (check back week showdown) then just shove pre. Also if they are less likely to cbet on scary boards, then you can easily c/f those board and stack off, ironically, AKx type boards.

Artemis Apollo's picture
Also, nobody decent 3xes at

Also, nobody decent 3xes at 11bbs, so you're asking how to beat fish, which is a good question, but these players leak so much in other spots, trying to find tiny improvements in spots like these, especially when there might be no optimization to be had, is just a waste of time. It'd be better to find spots to underbet cbet or make small3bets preflop at slightly deeper stacks.

mischi's picture
Thanks for comment

Thanks for comment rendali.If I understand well, your analysis looks at situation where hero holds 22 and at these stack sizes villan can play optimaly (and be + EV) in case he plays fit or fold on flop (call flop shove only when he hits pair), but you are assuming he KNOWS hero has exactly 22, which he does not. I think your analysis only covers scenario when hero makes a stop and go ONLY with 22 AND villin knows this AND hero always shoves flop when flats preflop (which is not true as well - e.g. with AA hero might prefer a check on flop..).Hero will be making this play with range of hands and this range includes strong hands such as big pocket pairs and also hands like AK, AQ etc - 2 big cards. And in these situations if villain just plays fit or fold, in cases he calls he has significantly worse equity than 80% you suggested (you assigned 20% to hero.. so 100 - 20 = 80%) and is - EV, because he folds 64% of time, and once he calls, he has significantly less equity than 80% that you suggested for 22 hand. E.g. if hero had just estimated 50% equity when called on flop he would be making net profit those 65% of time villain folds flop and be B/E in times when called. Which is better than equity of 3bet shove preflop.I hope this makes sense. gl