An Interesting Strategy..... worth it?

[VeryMoonFunk]

I thought of an interesting strategy last night while playing a STT. I'm sure this kind of situation would not come up too often, but maybe more so for people who play lots of SnGs. Basically the idea is to make sure that when you get to three people and you have a nice chiplead, you basically to try ensure that you get the worse player heads up. I find that it is pretty easy to identify the playing style of a very bad player by this part in the tournament. Usually this type of player is extremely predictable, so if we get him heads up, we will win more than 50% of the time for sure, probably much more.

So here's my question: Let's say you're the chipleader of a STT, and you have 9.5k of the 13,500 in chips in play. The predictable player has 1400 and the other guy, a solid aggressive player that seems to be playing well, has the remaining 2600. The blinds have just reached 300/600, and unless the predictable player gets lucky and wins a nice pot, you're probably going to end up playing the better player heads up. So is it a good idea to basically chip dump (if you can even call it that in this situation) to the predictable player to try to ensure you get them heads up? Does anyone think this would work significantly more than it backfired? Is this ethical if the both guys are complete strangers and your just doing it for these reasons?


Interested to hear your thoughts on this, has anyone ever thought of this or heard the concept before?

[Wes]

Learn to pushbot. That is the key to winning at SNGs. Not chip dumping to a lesser player (not even sure how you could do this when the blinds are this big when you should just shove 100% of the time without much thought)

[VeryMoonFunk]

That actually is how I play, I just thought of this interesting strategy last night and thought it might be worth posting. It's probably more effective in an MTT where the stacks are deeper.

Your def right about SNGs just being pushbot central.

[BlibbityBlabbity]

with blinds/stacks as they are in your example, you should be pushing them in with any above average hand. MTT/SNG doesn't matter. Skill is not an issue in this spot, they will both need to get equally lucky to pick up a hand before they are blinded out or hit their hand when they get their 2-4 BBs in with any two.

If you all had even 20+ BB stacks somehow you would certainly rather play heads up with a weaker player, but I can't see how giving chips away helps you have a better chance of taking down the tourney.

[Zybomb]

Yea -- i dont like this at all players have between 2.5 and 4.5 BBs each just continually shove on them with any decent holding (i disagree with autoshoving since they are so low that you'll likely be called ATC at least from the 1400 stack)

[Windbreaker]

With those types of stacks....I would be willing to open a lot more often against the guy w/ 2600 chips than the short stack.

Depends on the players, but a lot of times a player in second place would be more willing to fold a marginal hand in the hopes to move up the pay scale - wait for short to bust before gambling.

However, for the given stack to blind ratio....you just need to push every edge you can and make the correct push or fold decision preflop.

[Talking Poker]

I think this is a very bad idea. Your chips are far too valuable for you to be "dumping" them to anyone.

Just bust the SS weaker player and have more chips to play the better player HU. You'll have a massive chip lead. If you try to get cute, the good player will end up busting the bad player and getting his chips AND the ones you dumped off to the bad player and now you'll be HU against him with much closer stacks.

Yeah, horrible idea.

[Robbr25]

I would rather have more chips vs a better player than equal or slightly more than equal chips against a lesser player.
Give a lesser player more chips they get more times to get lucky.

[Kurn]

Look at the blinds vs stacks. Both opponents should either be folding or shoving. Now, clearly, if the smaller of the two stacks shoves and you're between them, if you're going to play of course you shove over the top, but the truth is, the other one isn't going to come along without a big hand (I think ICM says he should fold everything except AA).

The bottom line is that you are in a situation where the game is all preflop. Even if you were HU at equal stacks, you are push/fold preflop. In fact, at this stage, the only real poker skill is in understanding that bad players fold too many hands when you shove.

[Windbreaker]

- The assumption that the BB should fold everything but AA vs (utg shove+sb shove) does not make sense.
- The only way this can even be remotely correct is if it's a satellite type situation, where the payouts for first and second are basically equal and third pays very small.
- In fact, I believe the range the BB calls with is pretty wide. If he's already in second in chips - the only real bad result is if utg wins main pot, and chip leader wins side pot. Everything else is fine. The utg shove can be any two cards, which means his chance of the worse case scenerio happening to be relatively small.
- I have not used a ICM calculator, but I'm certain the calling range is significantly more than AA...especially when you're working with less than 5bbs.

[Kurn]

You're right. I was confusing this with a different situation: where the stacks are more like 7, 4.5, 2 and folding gives the 2nd stack a better chance of finishing 1st (even then, he probably should call with at least QQ+, AK. In this situation, I would think the 2nd stack calls both with maybe 20% of hands. I know there are some situatiions where ICM says only call with AA, but I forget what they are.