SNG tips_the re-steal

Hi Steve

You raise some good points in your article. I will try the re-steal myself in some of the big tournaments I play from time to time.

Although I agree with more of your comments I have to say the following:

You mentioned that re-steals happen early on in tournaments but later mention that players are reluctant to commit many chips on marginal hands. This contradicts itself. I think you were mistaken and really wanted to say that re-steals happen later on in tournaments when the blinds are up and players are reluctant to put too many chips in play with a marginal hand. That makes more sense.

Now to my point. Since the blinds are up, this means that a re-steal requires a significant re-raise and you then have to ask yourself how much of your chips are you wiling to invest late into a tournament on a hunch that your opponent is either stealing and willing to lay down the hand. For example if the blinds are 100-200 and BTN raises to 600 for the steal and you are in the BB, how much to you re-raise with to re-steal? A 1200 raise gives BTN a shot at 1900 for only 600 (3:1 or not bad odds) while a raise of 2400 makes it 3100 for 1800 (1.7:1 or worse odds), and in SNG there isn’t plenty of chips to go around (usually around 15000 for the whole table). Another thing is if you are the short stack, you are probably in an all-in situation with your re-steal and are more than likely to be called due to pot odds. I know for me, committing more than 30% of my chips pre-flop (late in a tournament) usually means that I will go all in. So keep that in mind when thinking about trying the re-steal. Personally I think that re-steals are better in large MTT where there is way more chips in play, but that is my opinion.

Also, your comment of rakeback has nothing to do with tournament play, but I know it’s your affiliate and that is why you added it. So players shouldn’t be concerned with it when playing SNGs.

I feel that I should also comment on Steve’s article, since I’m the one who approved it. I see your point about the confusion regarding when to attempt a re-steal McTap, although I didn’t pick up on it when I first read the article. I am convinced that Steve’s point is that good players late in tournaments will start stealing blinds with marginal hands. These are the players you should target with the re-steal. I agree with McTap that the move is more suited to the later stages of large tournament play, where the remaining players are relatively deep-stacked. You need to perform the re-steal when you have a deep stack and are up against other players with deep stacks, otherwise the pot odds could favour simply calling the re-steal raise. All in all it’s an advanced move that should be performed on players that are able to fold a hand:-). On this point I totally agree with Steve. Regarding the part about rakeback, I believe it is fine on a conceptual level to see rakeback as an increase in pot odds. You also get rakeback on SNG’s and tournaments right? The rakeback you receive increases your winning edge and is this sense I think it is ok to compare it with an increase in pot odds. As long as people realize that your actual pot odds are the same regardsless of rakeback. To Steve’s defense it is not easy to place an affiliation link to rakeback naturally in a text about a tournament strategy move:-) We allowed it this time, but might be more critical in later submissions if the text containing the affiliation link does not fit with the surrounding text.
Thanks for your comments McTap….they made me think, which is always good:-)

I think between the last 2 comments people should realize the mistake.

As for the rakeback, I not criticizing it. It is just Steve mentioned that rakeback could play a factor in determining your pot odds. I understand that you get rakeback for your tournament play, it is just that the amount has nothing to do with tournament chips (or even the current hand) as they have no monetary value outside the tournament. So rakeback should never enter your mind while playing in any tournament, or for that fact, you really shouldn’t consider it while playing cash games. The reason I say this is because most places pay rakeback on a weekly or monthly stage, therefore trying to figure out the small percentage each hand would change by would make it very confusing and time consuming. Plus the final numbers (% of rakeback you get) would rarely affect your final decision on whether or not you are getting proper odds to call/play the hand. Again, just my opinion and I have nothing against it, I just look at as a nice bonus, nothing more.