Hey everyone. I have a few questions here. I normally am playing the $20-57.50 level games on stars and have a few questions.Their are many of these guys where you take a huge pot off them at 10/20 blinds and then you lead them 2600 to 400 chips and they start shoving in every hand preflop regardless if they have the button, if you limp, or if you raise. It seems like whenever this happens the next 10 hands I'm dealt typical junk 94o, J3o, 32s,etc... This is obviously just variance even though it happens quite frequently to me.So, what kind of range are you calling these guys with if say 10/20 blinds and they have 400 or less chips as it becomes a preflop game at this point against many typical villains. What about if they have 600-700 chips and keep doing this? Many of them don't realize they have 30+ BBs which is defintely plenty especially in non-turbos but instead all they are thinking about is that one hand they lost and that they must get it back as soon as possible.Any good advice on optimal strategy and hand ranges on these spots is greatly appreciated. If their is any other video or article discussing this please point me in the right direction too. TY
If they are just shoving 20bb deep with a wide range, start by using the Nash calling ranges.Second, estimate their open shoving range and see how various hands do against that range with a free program such as poker stove.
I'm not a big fan of Nash strategies generally, they do have their place, it does tend to make too many assumptions though which are often not valid and especially at the smaller stakes. You need to have an idea of what their shoving ranges are to start out with, you'll see quite a bit of variation here of course. The tendency for player, IMO anyway, is to be too liberal here with calling ranges, you should be looking to call with ranges that put you ahead quite often, this will depend of course on how wide he's shoving but you need to keep in mind that it's only going to take one hand to take him out and especially if the blinds aren't too high you can afford to be pretty selective here. As far as your shoving ranges go, there's a couple of things to keep in mind, his folding frequency and your skill advantage. If he's calling loosely then you want to be shoving tighter of course, the usual calculations assume a certain calling range and calculate the equity from that, and fold equity plays a pretty big part in this, the less you have the more strength you need. Also, the better a player you are the more you want to avoid flipping where even if you're ahead the advantage can be less than you'd have just playing normally, I see too much pushing from better players where they end up doubling up weaker opponents too much.