Pushing better

I don't push much... very little when deep stacked. And since I'm always topping up, I'm basically always deep stacked. I'll push PF w/ AA and begrudgingly with KK... and of course later on when I've pretty much got a set+ made hand. But that don't take balls. It barely takes brains.

So I'm mostly playing at $25NL FR now -- and doing pretty nicely (4.8BB/100 over 17K). But I know not being able to use the +EV/FE push is going to hurt me more and more over time. So I'm also playing a bunch of $10NL in parallel with two specific goals in mind -- 3-bet more (for another post...) and balla up my pushing skills.

None of the usual suspect books that I've got spend much time on this. And aside from going hand by hand here, I can't seem to find much that gives the basic points / things to think about / paint by numbers and here's your box of 127 crayons / now go ride your own damn big wheel about this. That means I can't find it, not that I believe it isn't there.

Is there anything you all who know your way around here better than I do (and prolly wrote some of this sh!t...) can point me to that talks practice and theory of post-flop shoving? I did learn one thing... doing a search under "all in" doesn't help... Shocked

the only thing i think you can maybe work on is pushing overpairs on the turn in 3 bet pots vs calling stations/ other weak players. especially on the lower limits it is more important to call the right pushes than to push yourself. But it is not the case that you cannot get to a higher winrate without pushing more.

I'm thinking of changing my play up... Buying in for $2 on a $10NL and pushing anything 99+, AQ+ or KQs. That sounds like it just might make $$$. Plus I can multi-table like a fiend 'cause no thought required.

Does that range sound right? Should I buy in for $4 instead of $2? Should I push more in the blinds?

This is something I've been thinking about lately, and it's an underutilized facet of my game as well. I could be way off base here, so please take the following with a grain of salt:

The main advantage to pushing is fold equity. It gives your hand additional value. For example, if you have a drawing hand on the flop out of position against an aggressive opponent, and you have a 45% chance of winning the hand by the river, your opponent has more equity than you. You could try pricing yourself in on the draw by making a small blocking bet to give yourself correct odds, but this may not be effective against the particular opponent. Check/calling each street will usually be a bad play as well, since many opponents will not give you correct odds.

However, pushing gives your opponent incentive to fold a certain % of the time, depending on stack sizes and other factors. Sometimes he'll fold and you'll win the pot outright, and the rest of the time it'll be a virtual coinflip. This can be very +EV if the pot is big enough and you have significant folding equity.

I was hoping that someone more knowledgeable would correct me or expand upon that. Confused

Pardon the triple post, but I've just read ISF's easy guide to aggression, and it's essentially the same concept I described above (but much more in-depth).

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/isf-s-easy-guide-to-aggression-t63905.html

*Last edited by frosst on Fri, 04 Apr 2008, 9:48am; edited 1 time in total*

When to push:
1. you have the nuts and opp is raising/reraising you

2. you have a draw with numerous outs (i don't give a specific number because it depends on how much you want to gamble.)
2a. I'm putting this point down here because I think it's a finer point to the above. Pushing with fold equity is basically the same as above. The relative strength of your hand gives you the probability to win x% amount of time in that situation. So, pushing with fold equity is when your bet will create a pot (if villian calls) in which the bet amount is equal, or close to equal, to x% meaning you are covering your +EV expectations of winning said pot.

3. you have a read on an opponent ( i.e. will lay down marginal hands against heavy aggression) and you believe he will fold his hand

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