Is shoving all in with a weaker player the best strategy?

Question

I'm heads up on the final of a tournament. I have around 1200 chips and my opponent around 4800, blinds 25/50. I'm on the small blind with A♥8♥, I go all-in since I've seen him make loose calls and I'm thinking he will call with anything, that happens, he calls with 7♦5♠, but in the end I loose against trips 7.

Do you consider going all in is the best move at that point? my opponent is kind of aggressive in his betting, so even that I have 20+ big blinds I thought that waiting plus his big bets would dry me out before I got a best hand, but anyway I had the best hand, so maybe it was the best move, what do you think? What other strategies would you recommend in this case?

Thanks. R.

Answer 1

Obviously, the nuance you're considering is valid. Our ability to outplay this opponent and whether that is more valuable in the long run than just taking a more volatile approach and trying to get stacks in now is worth considering. That said...

A8s is approximately within the top 13% of hands depending on how you use hand rankings but it's very close whichever way you look at it. In this instance, your opponent would have to restrict his calling range to approximately 7% of all hands to be a ~55% favourite, give or take a small adjustment because of the blinds already in play.

If you believe he'll call wider than 7%, that's great, shoving is +EV. You can't predict the run of hands you'll get in the future so make the most of a good situation as soon as you can! Waiting for other opportunities later in the tournament is a decision I'd base more on experience, as equity calculations make this a straight forward.

n.b. Hand 0 = Top ~13%; Hand 1 = Top ~7%

Answer 2

Ignoring the fact that he called with 75o (as that does prove your point), what makes you conclude that this opponent is a weaker player? Often in Heads-up tournament play, the best strategy is to play A LOT of hands and play them very aggressively. It sounds like this is what he was doing.

If he's aggressive enough to make it hard to whittle him down, you need to figure out where else you can get an edge. You're probably going to have to win a big pot somewhere along the way, to make up for the chips you lose in the smaller pots. If your opponent is willing to overplay his hands preflop by calling with weak holdings, then an all-in play with the fairly short stack you hold sounds pretty attractive. You just need to find a hand that is likely to be a favorite against his calling range. I think you have one here. Against the type of player I described, I believe you can safely shove 77+, A5s+, A8o+, and any two broadway cards.

When the chips went in here, you were a 65/35 favorite. That's a pretty good situation for a heads-up match. Unless you know you can make more chips from him through outplaying him postflop, this was the right route to take in my book.

There is one possibility for improvement if your opponent is playing aggressively preflop: If that's the case, you should just call here, with the intention of check/raising all-in. That's only a good option if he is very likely to raise when you limp.

Answer 3

"All in" is the WORST strategy against a weaker player.

Against someone like that, you want to play as MANY games as possible, so that your superior skill eventually takes effect. "All in" is betting on ONE game, to be decided by the luck of the draw.

Answer 4

You did not say how big the pot was, or how many people limped in or raised before the action was on you -- so I will assume this was blind-vs-blind, and there were no antes.

Going all-in for 24 big blinds against a weak player out of position is not the best strategy. In this particular instance, since he actually had 75o you were about a 2:1 favorite in a hot/cold analysis when all the money went in. So, your play was +EV, but that doesn't make it the best play.

There are three factors that contribute to how big of an edge you have in a hand:

1. Skill advantage
2. Positional advantage
3. Card advantage

They are in order of most important to least important above. Which is to say that your actual cards, while not unimportant, is the least important variable that factors in to how big of an edge you have.

By shoving preflop, you give up all of your skill and positional advantage in favor of card advantage. However, because your skill advantage and your positional advantage weigh more heavily than your card advantage in how big your edge is, you stand to win more by playing pots against this opponent.

If the roles were reversed and you were the weaker player, then I would advise shoving all-in,because that neutralizes your opponent's skill and positional advantage. But the roles weren't reversed. You had every advantage, but you leveraged the minor one.

You want to play pots against weaker opponents, especially when you have position.