Red Chip Poker Late Position, Chapter 9

8/19/2019 Red Chip Poker Late Position, Chapter 9

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Red Chip Poker: Late Position

62

Limp-Shoving to Exploit the Table

(Villain’s flaw) (Difficulty rating) (Hero’s exploit)

Everything we do in poker is dynamic. We need to constantly understandthe ebb and flow of our opponents and the table as a whole. Once youunderstand, then adjust accordingly so you take optimal lines. In this hand,

I make an uncharacteristic limp because I felt the table dynamic wouldallow me to do so profitably. It all started with observation.

Whenever you walk up to a new table, I suggest doing so slowly andreally checking everything out. Look at the hand in progress, look at eachplayer, check stack sizes, and analyze which seats are available. Upon firstglance there was only one seat open so I knew where I was going, but thetable looked to be a little aggressive. A huge pot was happening, twouninvolved players were scoffing at each other, and everyone was lookingquite happy to be involved in such a game. So I took my seat and was faced

with my first decision: how much should I buy in for? Most players do not even bother asking themselves this question, but it

is an important one. At this table, I decided to buy in for the tableminimum: 50BB, or $100 at this $1/$2 game. If the game was going to besplashy it would be easy to get all-in pre-flop with an edge. Likewise, it

would be easy to three-bet and create a very small SPR pot with a big hand.Besides, if my original read of the table turned out to be wrong, I could justreach into my pocket, pull out an extra $200, and top up to the tablemaximum.

After an orbit, it became obvious that all of the table aggression wascoming from a single player: the middle-aged guy with a ball cap in seat five.He was angry, grumbling about everything, and he seemed unable to smile.He was three to my left, another reason why I decided to buy in for asmaller stack size. He was fighting for a bunch of pots pre-flop and in oneorbit had three-bet twice, once with 63o, and he raised multi-way limpedpots twice.



Hands

63

$1-$2 Venetian9:30PM

Image: Action: Hand: StartingStack:

UTG Bad passive Call/Call $400

MP1 Tight passive Call/Call $600

Cutoff Hero Call/??? $100

Button Tries to see cheap flopsthen fit or fold flop

Call $150

BigBlind Angry Maniac $12 $400

Any time a player is predictable, he is exploitable. The Maniac ispredictably aggressive. Often times in games with a single Maniac, themoney is not only made from the Maniac, but also from the other playersthat try to limp in cheap to make a hand and beat the Maniac. With a shortstack, we can comfortably get all the money in pre-flop while still havingfold equity when we shove. Many people want to have a big pair when they

do this. This chapter will show that that is not required. There is so much available information on very splashy tables like this.

Over a single orbit, or ten hands, we have been able to get a slight playerprofile on the majority of the table. When you first sit at a table make ityour goal to pay a ton of attention for the first thirty minutes so you canform good player profiles.

Once the Angry Maniac in the Big Blind predictably raises and UTGand MP1 call, we have our three options: call, fold, or raise.

Calling: This is not a good option here because we would have a verylow SPR of about two ($88 in Stack to $50-$60 in pot.) We do not want thislow of an SPR with a hand that only hits the flop about ⅓ of the time.Players who use smaller stack sizes voluntarily or due to losing some potsperform significantly better if they just stop calling pre-flop. If you aregoing to use a 30-50BB stack, then learn to leverage the stack size. Do notconstantly call off chunks of your stack just trying to make a hand.

Fold: That does not seem very enterprising. We made a veryuncharacteristic limp into this pot because it was likely we would get a

chance to shove over the expected raise from the Maniac and calls frompassive players.

Raise: With this short of a stack, the only raise is all-in. With our call,there is already $50 in the pot and we have $88 left. If our raise would pot




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commit us, as the graphic below shows, we would rather use that money toincrease the chances of getting a fold. A shove here will have some chanceof folding players out.

To simplify for now, we assume everyone but the Maniac is going to

fold. (We will look at this assumption later, leaving the possibility for one ofthe limpers to come along instead.)

It is a math decision really, but non-mathy players may not have everdone this kind of analysis before. So let us work through it together. Start

with the facts:

• At the time of our shove we are risking $98 since the original$2 limp no longer belongs to us and thus we don’t factor itinto the shove.

•

At the time of our shove there is $40 in the pot.• We can raise $88 since the first $10 is calling the raise and $2 is

already in the pot.

• To use a fold equity calculator (for example the one found athttp://redchippoker.com/fold-equity) we also need a single

win percentage when called.

For most calculators, you need to estimate your winning percentage.For this book, a custom chart has been created. This chart shows a contour

plot of our expected value based on all possible “Villain folds percentages”and all possible “win when called percentages”:

http://www.fpppro.com/fecalc/index.php

http://www.fpppro.com/fecalc/index.php



Hands

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The bottom of the y-axis of the chart represents the Villain folding zeropercent of the time. The far left of the x-axis represents us never winning atshowdown. The value in this corner of the chart is -98. That makes sense: if

Villain always calls and we always lose, we should lose our full bet. As wemove right on the x-axis we increase our win percentage when called.Eventually, between 40%-50%, this becomes a breakeven move. As we winan even larger percentage when called, the amount won becomes largeruntil in the lower right hand corner we win 100% of the time. In this case,

we would win the pot and our bet from the Villain.

However, neither of these extremes of winning or losing 100% of thetime are ever true. For example we only have 78% equity when he calls witha dreadful Q2o. On the opposite end, we still have 14% equity when hedominates us with KK.

- 7 5

- 5 0

- 2 5

- 2 5

0

0

0

2 5

2 5

2 5

5 0

5 0

5 0

7 5

7 5

1 0 0

Win percent when called

F o l d

p e r c e n t

EV of shove of $98 into a pot of $40 over a bet of $10

0 20 40 60 80 1000

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100




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These vertical lines show us the actual extremes of “win when calledpercentages.” Against KK we have the lowest amount of equity, and againstQ2o we have the most amount of equity. His calling range will never beexactly KK, nor will it ever be exactly Q2o, so the new vertical linesrepresent the extreme best and worst cases for us. We are unlikely to becalled by our best case scenario of Q2o, so that edge needs to be moved tothe left even further in practice.

Notice in these shrunken limits that on the far left if the Villain folds

over 60%, then we are always in the positive area of the chart. If we winjust over 45% of the time when called, then we are also always in thepositive area of the chart.

To find where we actually are in this chart between these extremes, letus start by thinking about the range of hands that the Maniac is raising. Weneed to understand what percentage of his raising range he will fold if weshove. The more often he folds, the more money we make. For simplicity’ssake, let us say he will always call our shove with 88+/AJ+, which is 7% ofhands.

- 7 5

- 5 0

- 2 5

- 2 5

0

0

0

2 5

2 5

2 5

5 0

5 0

5 0

7 5

7 5

1 0 0

Win percent when called

F o l d

p e r c e n t

KK Q2o

EV of shove of $98 into a pot of $40 over a bet of $10

0 20 40 60 80 1000

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100




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He is folding 79% of the time. And, of course, if he raises wider, then we expect even more folds. On the other hand, another possibility is that hecalls wider and that gives him a weaker range.

There is a fine balance to consider. The wider range he calls our shove with, the more our equity increases, but the less folds we can expectpreflop. Conversely, the more he folds preflop the less equity we have whencalled.

Let us explore our equity against a few different calling ranges:

vs.

Calling range Equity:Us vs. Them

Required fold% by Villain

22+/AT+/KQ 42% vs. 58% 7%88+/AJ+ 37% vs. 63% 26%

TT+/AQ+ 31% vs. 69%41%

There is a certain percentage of hands that the Villain will put all hismoney in with. This is known as his stack-off range. Notice that againstpretty much any realistic stack-off range we are a dog. Some players maysee that we are on the bad side of equity and say, “Well, we are behind andthus we have to fold.” But that is not really the way it works since there isoverlay in the pot. There is $40 in the pot that we are fighting for.

Against all of these ranges we need some percentage of folds (as seen inthe last column) by the Villain for this to be a good move. Thinking backon his preflop raising range, we thought he would fold against our shove

quite often. Remember, if he raised with 23% of hands and called with88+/AJ+ (which is 7% of hands) he is folding 70% of the time. If we onlyneed 26% of folds to be breakeven and expect to get 70%, it is easy to seehow profitable this shove is going to be.

If he snaps us off with AA, that does not mean we made a bad play; itmeans we got unlucky. These plays will be swingy, but they will win overtime.

In this hand we are not against just the maniac, there are three otherplayers that could possibly call our shove as well. With what hands are they

likely to limp pre-flop and then call our shove? Do they have hands like AAor KK? No. They would have raised those hands at some point pre-flop.

With the exception of the Button, all the other players limped and thencalled. (Although the Button has not had a chance to respond to the



Hands

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Maniac’s raise, with our three bet, it seems likely that he will fold.) Thinkfirst about the hands the other players would limp-call with. A rangeincluding all small-medium pairs, some suited connectors, and some weakerBroadway hands all make sense. They could have some decent hands like

88, 99, and AQ, but those represent a small percentage of their limp/callingrange.

We can assume that the limpers will call with a range of 88-JJ, AQ, AK.Not every player would limp with these hands (especially JJ and AK), but

we cannot rule them out for these players because they might have beentrapping. Our KQs has 38% equity against that range. So we need somepercentage of folds when we shove, which we expect from such passiveplayers.

Overall, we can predict this will be a profitable shove against the table. The Maniac is surely folding often enough when we shove. The limpers aresurely folding often enough when we shove. And we always have a decentchunk of equity for the rare times we do get called. This is a great semi-bluff shove situation. We are not shoving for value, rather we are shovingto contend for the dead money in the pot and using math in our favor.$1-$2

Venetian9:30PM

Image: Action: Hand: StartingStack:

UTG Bad passive Call/Call/Fold

$400

MP1 Tight passive Call/Call/Fold

$600

Cut off Hero Call/$100 $100

Button Tries to see cheap flopsthen fit or fold flop

Call/Fold $150

Big Blind Angry Maniac $12/Fold $400

Everyone folded and we increased our stack by $38 without ever seeinga flop. Because we knew the math, it made the shove quite easy.

Reading table dynamics we went for a limp/re-raise from the cutoff with KQs. This is far from our standard play but it looked like the best wayto exploit an overly aggressive player. It also allowed the weak limpers to

put in money that they would rarely defend once we shoved. If it limpedthrough without a raise, then we spent $2. There is a huge difference between limping to see a cheap flop and

limping with a realistic plan to limp-raise shove with decent equity. As adefault, we advocate you rarely limp pre-flop. However, if you have a good




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reason to limp pre-flop and a plan for making money because you limpedthen by all means.

Red Chip Poker Late Position, Chapter 9

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