On Short Stacks

I'm curious to get inside the mind of the microstakes player.

Suppose blinds are $0.25/0.50, $50 stacks except for you with $10.

You're in the SB, and it's folded to you. You have K5.

Which do you think is the better play, to fold, or push all-in? Why?

pushing is marginally +EV, but you can really just make a standard raise. Shoving in this situation is great for your image, though.

Originally Posted by euphoricism

pushing is marginally +EV, but you can really just make a standard raise. Shoving in this situation is great for your image, though.

Can you demonstrate why you think pushing is +EV?

You're talking ring?

Anything but pushing.

Raise if the BB is too tight and/or playing lots of tables. Check/fold most flops if he's an insufferable nit.
I've been calling these spots heads-up, although folding is probably best because unlike HU you don't have position post-flop. Also there is a case for this hand playing like crap post-flop.

This is also why I'm VERY loose when defending SB raises from terrible players.

Id need to download SNG wiz to do it properly...

but heres the maths for 10bb, 20bb would have to be worked out and I'm not that interested.

http://www.donkeydevastation.com/200...stack-play/41/

Originally Posted by Unibomber14

You're talking ring?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Anything but pushing.

I'll go ahead and show the math since this thread isn't as popular as my other random situations.

Edit: So I totally goofed when I typed a formula into my spreadsheet earlier and typo'ed a value which totally fucked up the result. Here's the revised version.

The fastest way to figure out what range to test is to figure out what equity the BB needs to break even, and find every hand he can call with that satisfies this. As it turns out, the BB needs at least (10/20.75) or 48.19% equity on any hand he calls with to break even, and the range of hands that meets this minimum equity is 22+, A2s+, K5s+, JTs, T9s, A2o+, K5o+. (Note JTs and T9s meet the requirement, but QJs does not due to the straights that can't be made with the K we hold.) This range is 30.6% of hands, and the K5o has 33.982% equity against it.

If you do the calculation, against this optimal calling range, our push is worth -$0.38181, or almost a full big blind.

I'm not sure if any play other than a fold will have a higher EV if the BB plays optimally, but it's certainly possible.

I think raising to 3x then either betting or check/folding most flops is ideal depending on your opponent.