I was just wondering about this and thought it may lead to some kind of discussion.

Is there a need for restealing in SNGs or is it better, because you have such limited chips, just to wait for strong hands you are actually "value" reraising, believing them to be the best?

Also what sort of spots are people looking to resteal in and are there particular hands people will (or won't) resteal with?

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Still Trying to Learn the Science & Discover the Art

The concept of stealing means you can have any 2 cards which means there would be no requirements for starting hands.

I look for situations to do this out of the big blind. I usually attack a player who is clearly using position to his advantage and has shown signs that the play weaker holdings.

I tend to do this more in the middle stages of tourneys for 2 reasons.

1)early on there is no reward in winning a 100 chips in a pot like this.
2)later the blinds are too high to get off a hand where the player may feel pot committed.

A reason i like the re-stealing in middle stages as well is it gives the players the idea that in the later stages my blind is not a steal-able blind, so this will cause the range of hands they will come in raising with on my blind smaller.

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Kickboyswoop

Good points both - reminds me of the argument of whether bluffing is actually +ev once you remove the times that (unknown to yourself of course) you were 'bluffing with the best hand'??

Restealing is also complicated at the lower levels by opponents tendency to call once they have committed chips. When they see your 'weak' holding then it 'justifies' calling off their chips with A-6 off!

Conversely, if you were to resteal into an opponent and offer them 2/1 (for example) on the call then they are justified in calling - this is the equivalent of calling an all-in (as is any pot-committing raise with no fold-equity).

So, back to the original question!

The chances of someone folding to a resteal are very situational / opponent dependant in my experience. While pushing over a button limp + SB complete from the BB in the middle stages may be +ev the game I play (multiple tables) means it is difficult to judge exacly who will fold to a resteal... thus backup is usually required in the shape of a hand that does well against a raisers calling range (ie choose 87s over A4o)... the times to do this (mid-game only, else the calling odds are there) are also limted... I think that the times you get called by better hand will often be balanced by any dead money... you are semi-bluffing here more than pure 're-stealing'.

Very interested to hear peoples thoughts on this.

Cheers, Mark

Wow, not sure there is much I can add to those responses. I think they were all dead on accurate. You guys make it easy on me

The super simple summary is: Re-Steal from players who are willing to lay down hands, don't try the resteal against donkeys or to early in the tourney, and the optimum time to make this play is in the middle stages of the tournament because at the later stages even bad hands are getting the correct odds to call.

Jason

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I'm Not Lucky, I Have Good Karma !

Well , We are in the middle stakes ( like all said) . We have identified at the stealer ( 19 vpip / 12 pfr in the button) . Raise 3BB . ( raise range Ax , Kx , 22+ QT+) . What hands are valid to re-steal if we are not sure that he can fold ???. The other blind have folded.
Off course not particular situation ( no bubble , no pot commited , 17bb stack both )

Wow, great question. Rather than answer the question with numbers I'd like to give posters a few thoughts on how to approcah this kind of mathematical problem... if nobody feels like stepping up to try and solve over the next couple of days then I'll go for it!!

Will assume we are working with Chip-Equity here rather than $-Equity.

Firstly we need to estimate the 'unknown' of the % fold for villan. We can try a few different numbers in the final estimate to get a range - this can be approached in 2 ways:

1) We could assign a straight percentage probability that he folds... and then compare our hand's winning chances to his entire range
2) Or: We need to make an assumption that he calls with the top X% of his range, and work out our equity against this.

17BBs is a tricky stack size here, assuming that this is before posting the blind then the villan would see a re-shove price of his last 14 to win a 20.5 (so 3/2 meaning he needs to win 40% to break even against our restealing range - in terms of cEV at least).

Our potential reward is 4.5 BBs - the next step would be to use the fold estimate (whichever way around) and see how often we would win the pot uncontested and how often we would need to win a showdown... I like to break into 100 'attempts'

100 Resteals:

20 Times - Villan Folds, +4.5BBs
80 Times - Villan Calls
of which ------ X% +18.5BBs (we already gave up the blig blind)
------ Y% -16BBs and out!

There are some ideas - any volunteers to run the numbers, for those who do not use it you can get 'PokerStove' for free (a tool which compares hands and gives you % winning chances vs whatever range you apply).

As I say - if nobody fancies having a crack at this one I will post it in a couple of days... BTW, the ability to 'know' what to do in many situations just like this (as opposed to 'going with your gut instinct' is what separates the long term winners from the rest of the field!!)

Cheers, Mark

There ARE NO hand requirements for stealing. If you are stealing you may as well not even have cards in front of you because you are COMPLETLY playing the player.
The best way to do this is by picking a target out early who plays a lot of hands but has enuogh knowledge to fold. (maybe someone who early in sng will limp in then fold to small raise)
Then when this person raises in position repop him because he has a high probability to fold.
To be honest with you the worse cards you have sometimes are better in this case. If you are playing a tight game and say he is raising with a ace-8 and you try to resteal with a ace-rag and the ace hits you are done for. This is where if he does so happen to call and you hit a pair on a all rag board you know he will not have any of that garbage and will make th ehand easier to play instead of having to think if you hit a pair and not sure if your kicker is good.

So when asking about hand requirements for restealing just think of the term "stealing" it is not stealing if you have the best hand. You are completly playing the player and you my as well put a piece of tape over the screen because your cards do not matter, you my as well have cards from a Old Deck.

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Kickboyswoop

Interesting point Kickboy... To my mind more one of semantics than practical application.

When 'stealing' there is always a risk of being caught (called)...

... There are many situations in which (mathematically speaking) your cards make no difference (since the sum of your fold equity + winning chances with your '2-cards' are sufficient)....

... There are also many situations in which the sum of your fold equity + winning chances with '2-cards' are not good enough on their own, yet moving your cards winning chances above a certain point = a positive equity move.

You would rather your opponent folded his hand for sure - since you may be -EV when called... but the sum of these chances works.... for me this is a steal as much as any other.

Great point though - maybe we should call it a 'semi-bluff resteal' or just a 'semi-resteal'!

Cheers, Mark

I have tried to Resteal several times where a person will smooth call your reraise with a KQ or KJ instead of rerasie.

Say you try to resteal with a 46 and the flop comes 2-4-8. Your not putting your opponent on an 8 and you have become the favorite in the hand.
Ideally your right, you want your opponent to fold. But this is real life that does not always happen.
But here is a situation though where you reraise with say a K-10 and your opponent smooth calls your reraise preflop with KQ.

Flop comes K-3-7

What now? Your resteal attempt has resulted in you going broke. In actuality K-10 is a lot better hand than 6-4. But in this case what hand would you rather have. Once he plays back at you your giong to fold the 6-4. When they play back at you when your holding K-10 here your going broke.

Just my personal preference when restealing I would rather have rags where I know my opponent does not have me dominated just in case I do have to take this steal to the flop.

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Kickboyswoop

ahah, I see where you are coming from.

Was actually assuming that any re-steal would be all-in (or at least pot-committing to the point where the flop was not relevant).

17 BBs seems large for this but any meaningful re-raise that was called would make the pot 2* or more your stack on the flop which simplifies any decision making to the point where you might as well shove to stop the raiser (incorrectly) believing that he can potentially move you off of your hand post flop.

Agree that easily dominated hands are not the best for this kind of move, we can factor them into things when comparing ranges with those hands we might be called by. Ideally we want a robust hand here.

Will have a look at the detail of the numbers tomorrow.

Cheers, Mark