You were never shovelier

The shorter your stack gets, the wider your shoving range becomes. A hand you would never shove with if you had a healthy stack can be almost obligatory to shove with when your stack is sickly. Why? The reason is simple. When your stack is small enough, your only legitimate actions are to fold or to shove. If your hand is halfway decent, you must shove.

This is an excerpt from my July 18, 2020 post. Last night I was in just such a situation. I was short-stacked, and two hands away from being in the big blind, which would eat up all my remaining chips. I was dealt A2o (ace deuce offsuit), and called a bet which put me all in (note: I consider call ins to be shoves). I paired my deuce on the flop, and got lucky and hit trips on the turn. Winning that pot made my stack much healthier, which enabled me to play an orbit or two longer, but I still missed the money by a country mile.

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     212   54   100        0

delta: $-50,000
2024 balance: $3,245,000
2024 blue distance: $50,000
balance: $16,054,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.56 (1224 of 2945)

You were never shovelier

The shorter your stack gets, the wider your shoving range becomes. A hand you would never shove with if you had a healthy stack can be almost obligatory to shove with when your stack is sickly. Why? The reason is simple. When your stack is small enough, your only legitimate actions are to fold or to shove. If your hand is halfway decent, you must shove. That's the position I was in on the final hand of last night's session. I was dealt ATo (ace ten offsuit), which was certainly good enough to shove with, given my minuscule stack. I lost to an opponent who hit a straight on the river. Knowing I'd made the correct play took some of the sting out of hitting the rail.

style flavor buy_in entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE   174000 26000       6     114   30    35        0

delta: $-200,000
MTT NLHE balance: $21,762,668
2020 balance: $14,540,343
balance: $76,348,353

You were never shovelier

I've used this blog post title many times before, and will use it many times again. Why? For the simple reason that the circumstances which call for using it will never stop recurring. A "you were never shovelier" scenario has the following characteristics:

- I'm short stacked
- the money bubble is near
- I've been dealt a pair

On Thursday night, on my final hand, I was dealt a pair of sevens, went all in preflop, and got one caller. He turned over a pair of queens, and that was all she wrote.

style flavor buy_in entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    45000  5000       6     114   30    37        0

delta: $-50,000
MTT NLHE balance: $8,530,668
2020 balance: $1,599,343
balance: $63,407,353

You were never shovelier

Realistically speaking, you can't win a tournament without going all in, but you also can't win a tournament by going all in too frequently. There's a happy medium, and it's up to you to find it. In Wednesday's final tournament, I went all in nine times, and came out on top the first eight. Interestingly, none of those all ins were fall ins; I consciously chose to shove all my chips in the middle each time.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    36      72   15    57        0
MTT   NLHE    43500  6500       9    10      95   27     -        0
MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9   144      56   12     5   913000

delta: $663,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $36,861,500
2019 balance: $2,857,750
balance: $49,442,010

You were never shovelier

This is probably the fourth or fifth time I've used this blog post title. It's definitely one of my favorites. Last night, in the second tournament I entered, I was dealt a pocket pair in 4 of the 48 hands I played. I shoved three of them preflop. The third shove did me in; I was a 59.82% favorite before the flop, a 3.10% dog after the flop, and was drawing close to dead after the turn; I had no chance of winning the pot, and a 4.76% chance of chopping it. At least I can say I got my money in good :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    26      78   18    42        0
MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    48      77   18    41        0

delta: $-400,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $32,648,500
2018 balance: $-733,000
balance: $44,780,260

You were never shovelier

I'm reusing one of my favorite blog post titles again tonight. In the earlier posts, I focused on holdings which are good enough to shove (go all in) with. Tonight I want to focus on holdings which aren't good enough to shove with on their own merits, but are plenty good enough to shove with given the specific circumstances in which they arise. Such a situation occurred in last night's session. On hand 66 of the only MTT-R NLHE I played, I found myself short stacked (2,410 chips) and in the big blind. After the forced bests of ante (150) and big blind (1600), I was down to my last 660 chips. I was dealt 7h Th, and the flop came 9s 7d Kc. Even though I'd only flopped bottom pair, I shoved. Why? For the simple reason that doing so gave me my best chance of making the money. Sometimes your best chance isn't great, but you must take it anyway. If I'd folded here, I would have been forced all in on the next hand by the ante and the small blind (which I call falling in). Bottom pair now is worth way more than who knows what next hand. Also, I was what's known as being "priced in"; most of my chips were already in the middle, and it would be sheer folly to desert them. Luckily for me, my bottom pair held up, and against not one but two opponents. This enabled me to limp to the finish line, making the final pay spot by a whisker. Don't look now, but I'm up to three winning sessions in a row :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    74      67   15    15   310000

delta: $160,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $36,921,500
2018 balance: $3,540,000
balance: $49,053,260

You were never shovelier

This is the fourth time I've used this blog post title. In one of the earlier posts, I asserted that calling all in doesn't count as shoving, but I want to relax that orthodoxy now in order to be able to reuse a title that tickles my fancy :-) In the second MTT I played last night, I was dealt a big slick (ace king) on the third hand. A player acting before me bet enough to put me all in if I called, and I did. My opponent turned over a pair of jacks, and we were off to the races. The board ran out without pairing my ace or my king, and I hit the rail. Running the numbers, I was a 43% dog to win the hand, which wasn't great, but wasn't that bad either, all things considered. Over time, you can't go wrong by backing your big slicks heavily; they're my second best MTT NLHE hand delta-wise, second only to pocket rockets.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000  6000       9    18     167   36    48        0
MTT   NLHE    16500  3500       9     3     445   90     -        0

delta: $-70,000
MTT NLHE balance: $1,911,648
2016 balance: $711,966
balance: $11,412,330

You were never shovelier

This marks the third time I've used this blog post title. What can I say? I like it a lot. In case you missed those earlier posts, what I mean by a shovely hand is a hand which is good enough to shove (go all in) with. When you're at a certain stage in a tournament, you need to start looking for shovely hands. When you find one, you can silently say to it, "You were never shovelier" :-)

One thing about playing tournaments is that you end up playing significantly more hands per session than you do playing cash games. To illustrate, let's just run the numbers, shall we? In 841 sessions of cash game poker, I'm averaging 71.84 hands per session. In 124 sessions of tournament poker, I'm averaging 184.16 hands per session. With that many hands, you tend not to remember most of them. The ones you do remember, though, are quite likely to be hands you took bad beats on. That was the case with my most memorable hand of last night's session. I was dealt ace ten offsuit, went all in preflop, and got one caller. I was a 58.56 favorite before the flop, a 53.13 favorite after the flop, and a 70.45 favorite after the turn. However, it wasn't meant to be. My opponent hit a straight on the river, and I was gone from tournament in 3rd place.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 45000      5000           6         9     4        0
 45000      5000           6        43     1   175500
 45000      5000           6        15     3        0
 45000      5000           6        18     4        0
 45000      5000           6         4     5        0
 45000      5000           6        32     3        0
 45000      5000           6        23     3        0
 45000      5000           6         8     5        0

delta: $-224,500
tournament balance: $2,108,090
balance: $8,990,789

You were never shovelier

A "shovely" hand is a lovely hand which is good enough to shove with, in my poker lingo. Shoving is slang for going all in. I can't remember the last time I shoved. Note that calling an opponent's bet with the rest of your chips doesn't qualify as shoving; I'm sure I've done that much more recently. In tournament play, shoves happen much more frequently than they do in cash games, due to the escalating blinds. Last night, on the penultimate hand of the session, an opponent shoved after the flop. I'd been dealt pocket rockets and had hit trips on the flop, so of course I called. The opponent turned over 9 8 offsuit for a lowly pair of nines, and I won a pot worth $41,100. I don't understand how anyone could shove this light in a cash game; all he'd flopped was second pair. Nevertheless, that didn't stop me from accepting the gift. I liked it so much, it inspired me to come up with an additional meaning for "shovely". When we're talking about a hand an opponent has gone all in with, the worse a hand it is, the shovelier it is in my eyes. To that 9 8 offsuit, I say, "You were never shovelier" :-)

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 36 hands and saw flop:
 - 3 out of 5 times while in big blind (60%)
 - 2 out of 5 times while in small blind (40%)
 - 11 out of 26 times in other positions (42%)
 - a total of 16 out of 36 (44%)
 Pots won at showdown - 5 of 5 (100%)
 Pots won without showdown - 2

delta: $24,732
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,047,902
balance: $7,404,855

You were never shovelier

Given my druthers, I would never shove pre-flop in a tournament. As a reminder, shoving is poker slang for going all in. The reason I'd avoid it if I could is that it's just plain risky. Of course, not shoving pre-flop is a luxury that is often denied you; more often than not, you will have to shove pre-flop at one or more crucial points in the tournament in order to stay alive. This will generally be when you're short stacked; if you don't want to get eaten up by the blinds, which are always growing, you need to grow your stack back pronto when it falls below a certain number of big blinds.

This means that you need to be able to recognize "shovely" hands: hands which are lovely enough to shove with. If you wait too long, even though it doesn't qualify as shoving per se, you'll end up having to call for all your chips with inferior hands. There's a real art in sensing how long to wait; there's a healthy dose of luck involved, too.

Last night, my losing streak continued, as I lost two more tournaments. The most memorable, and painful, hand of the night came in the first tournament, when I'd been dealt a big slick. A short stack shoved, and I called. The shorty turned over rockets, and I was a huge underdog. I lost $525 on that hand.

I just realized I've never explained a really important point about sit and gos. The amount of chips every player starts with has no relation to the buy in. Everyone starts with $1,000 in chips. Losing $525 is a huge loss, effectively representing a loss of over $40,000 when the tournament has an $80,000 buy in.

buy_in entry_fee num_players num_hands place winnings

 80000      1000           6        46     5        0
 80000      1000           6        45     4        0

delta: $-162,000
tournament balance: $1,405,090
balance: $6,535,821