Let's imagine that there is a field that plays "shovebot" poker. They adjust slightly against players that seem like obvious nits by calling slightly less often than equilibrium and against seemingly obvious super agro players, but they mostly shove the "unexploitable strategy". How do you get an edge?
If you are a short stack, do you just play "shovebot" yourself and hope a run of good cards or bad run causes opponents to make calling mistakes?
Probably not. If you play like everyone else, you won't gain a large enough edge to overcome the rake.
In my opinion, instead you should play ultra nitty and just shove with much a stronger range of hands initially. In order for this to work, opponents have to adjust to what they think they see, and they have to take awhile before they draw any conclusions about your play. This is pretty common in my opinion. Poker players are always trying to find what they think is probably a slight edge.
As a result, opponents will expect you to widen up your ranges as you get shorter, and they are more willing to call too lightly if you are tight. They probably adjust at least slightly from the shovebot/callbot strategies, but not enough to compensate for just how nitty you will be initially. They also may very well be shoving a larger percentage of the time because you are shortstack so you have a good chance to get action. You certainly are giving up some value by playing this way, but there's a reason for that.
First of all, because of elevated blinds, you can actually play an unprofitable strategy and break even or show a slight profit. For example, if you have 10 big blinds with no increases in blind structure, you expect to blind down from $100/$200 blinds in a cashgame to 6 big blinds and have an average of 74% to double up plus a blind and a half, you will expect to only get back to 9.99 big blinds in expected value. You are effectively spinning your wheels.
BUT, if blinds go up 20% your $2000 blinds down to $1200 may see blinds rise to $120/$240 and now if you get it all in at $1200, your double up plus blinds and antes will get your EV such that you should on average get back to $2042.4 instead of $1998. Because the blinds will actually cost you a bit more, this may not seem like much, but they also may rise more than once to where it is profitbale again. An unprofitably weak/tight strategy becomes marginally profitable. Additionally, an all in with AK,AA,KK,QQ, type of hands are now more likely to get 2 callers which will give you added equity. Finally, as you become shorter stacked relative o the blinds MORE hands become profitable to shove with since you are getting a good price to call and a good price to shove even with no chance opponent folds when you know they have the better hand.
So this provides an interesting concept. Let's say you have an opportunity to take a 2:1 payout on a coinflip with $100. If you win, you get $300 from which to play up to $199 on a 3:1 payout on a coinflip. IF you lose, you miss out on the shot to take the 3:1 coinflip at all. Alternatively, let's say you can pass up the $100 risk in order to ensure 100% chance of $100 on a 3:1 coinflip. Which should you do? If it is that black and white and there are no future implications after that, you should actually pass on the first coinflip. But it's not that black and white.
Regardless, it's worth thinking about. I think overall, if you understand that you can actually play an "overly tight" strategy that is expected to lose money, and gain money because of the increasing stakes you can also think about the implications AFTERWARDS.
Even if you are even tighter to where even with the increasing blinds and antes you don't expect to get back to even, you will have a great shot to double up if you get your money in with a monster hand. Even if you get called twice, you will have a great shot to triple up.
More importantly, you will have a resulting nitty image that you can exploit at higher blind levels. It won't take nearly as many additional steals since the blinds will rise before you can make up for the lost equity from being "too tight". Even if you just slightly widen your steal range from equilibrium, your opponents SHOULD probably tighten up significantly enough to where it may even be profitable for awhile to move in with any two. But you don't want to make it too obvious that you are doing that.
Nevertheless, if you can get away with more steals following a double up, you can gain a greater edge than just playing "shovebot poker".
"shovebot poker" is not based upon your probability of being able to get a better hand in the future, but instead basically is based upon where you are break even or have marginal edge if opponent plays perfectly against that strategy, and have an edge to the degree by which opponent deviates from. Well there is lost opportunity cost of being able to find a more profitable spot in the future, even though that is a double edged sword. Shoving more gets more chips which buys more time a large percentage of the time but when you are called your odds of being knocked out are good which causes you to pass up both future profitable shoving opportunities as well as hands that may provide a much better chance to double up and the resulting image that buys you a license to steal from playing tighter.
I don't often like to play supper nitty, but I love to play that way before the ante stages or just into the ante stages if you are short stacked and you don't have enough chips or a tight enough image to get respect yet.
I think the ante stages is the most profitable spot in tournaments... You get 1:1 on steal attempts, 2:1 on in position calls when blinds fold, good steal opportunities on opponents who know this can call a lot more, around 3:1 on call from the blinds and even your 3bets have better odds on steal attempts even when you get called on 3bets there is enough money in the pot where you are earning money even if you know you are behind where it's still better than folding.
Opponents tend not to adjust optimally to this. Those playing lots of hands benefit at the expense of those that don't. You can either have a ton of chips or a tight image, but you cannot afford to have neither in my opinion at the ante stages. There simply isn't much of an edge in shovebot poker, too many people at least intuitively play closely to this style when they're short stack if they are not following the charts close to exactly. It's not terrible to try it, get on a run and then hopefully get a lot of chips, but I prefer to play really tight, hope to get my money in good, get a really tight image, and then use that tight image to steal when blinds are higher, antes are in, and I have a lot more information about my opponent then they will have about the style I'm prepared to play.
The slower the structure, the more patient I think you can be since the probability that you pick up a hand before blinding down to 60% of your stack is much larger, and the players that do play shovebot poker are more likely than not to give you action if they act before you do. However, I may still take advantage of my image and shove on the button after awhile. I can't wait forever without getting some respect. So I may shove with any ace on the button like everyone else, but I don't love to do it.
Regardless, you can really milk a shortstack by being patient and you will be surprised just how quickly you can get back in it and use that tight image almost immediately afterwards to power the table a little. Doing so successfully may quickly within just a few rotations of the blinds get you from what was 6-8 big blinds at the levels to 25 big blinds and higher. Of course the blinds will go up maybe 50% by then so you may still become short, but a few extra shoves and a slightly tighter calling range by your opponent is enough to buy enough extra chips to where you have bought yourself just as much time, if not more than if you played the full pushbot chart, and you do so with a much better chance of survival and you can basically triple up while only being called all in once by a single opponent with far the best of it.
Well, you may have to go back to nitty again if blinds rise faster than you can keep up with them, which may happen if you get too short or if structure is too fast. If you have played a lot of hands by then, your opponents are probably starting to change their opinion of you. This is perfect to increase your chance of getting action and once again get them to underestimate the strength of your hand.
If you saw opponent play about 20% of hands, you might incorrectly conclude their strength of hand is that range. But what if they played 10%, then 30% and now are back to 10%? By the time you have enough information to approximate their range, they could have easily switched gears. What about 5% than 35%? It's hard to distinguish a good run and bad run of cards from playing loose and then tight...
But if you showdown a good hand for the second time all in, now you can play even wider than equilibrium initially, and then closer to equilibrium rather than playing tight again when you get short and let opponent try to make false inferences about how you adjust to stack sizes.
If you happen to play at a slow enough structure, OR pick enough good spots in larger than unopened pots, or you 4bet light a light 3better, or you double up twice in a short enough period of time, or if you get a few showdowns in some pots, you will end up with more than 30 big blinds and NOW you can play more actively, and do a lot less minraising and more 2.5x-3x, and a lot less shoving and more flat calling.
Eventually you can go full nutball and try to run over the entire table. But short of shoving way too much and then getting lucky to win when you get called, you probably aren't going to get a lot of chips by the shovebot method and you aren't going to have that big of an edge. Maybe a guaranteed edge is worth something and enough people speculate on concepts like this that may not be correct that it's best to play shovebot poker. I don't know.
What I do know is that you need to find an edge somewhere. And it can't be some minor, wimpy edge or you are better off in cash games. Certainly there is an edge over players that don't even know this concept and are as tight as your image WITHOUT actually loosening up ever to exploit their image. Certainly there is an edge over people that take the opposite extreme and go buck wild with shoving or calling too widely. I believe that some edge may come from live reads even if you play close to the shovebot poker because you can shove wider when you opponents show weakness and shove tighter when.
But online I think the largest edge comes from the ante stages with an average stack or better and an average image or tighter from opponents that don't correctly adjust when the structure allows for lots of play. You get 1:1 on steal attempts, 2:1 on calls from button when blinds fold, 3:1 from calls in the blinds, good odds on resteal, 3betting light can give your opponent good pot odds with a 2.5x reraise and they still will often fold since it is likely to be a pot that could be for their entire stack, squeezing optimally is something that can be calculated and handled with more precision than most would think about.
The next largest edge comes from using your image to steal far more liberally to get even just a few extra steals when everyone is short stack and the blinds are much higher than anyone else can get away with stealing. Another edge comes from exploiting a large chipstack to put fear equity on opponents, particularly near the bubble and in the money.
Some edge comes from punishing the limpers BEFORE the ante stages and playing tighter than opponents even earlier on since the pot odds aren't as good and they tend to get a little carried away with top pair with very deep stacks in those stages. I also tend to think throughout the tournament there is a larger edge after the flop than preflop and an edge that favors aggression throughout the tournament. I think you may be able to get a small edge by limping in where opponents have a good resteal stack and instead shoving yourself to raises or folding, and very occasionally calling. I also think checking enough dry flops with position can induce bets when your range is ahead of opponents which can allow you to extract value when you have a hand, and float the turn or raise the turn without a hand as well.
Some edge comes from even a "boom or bust" mentality at the right time. You may end up bluffing off your tournament life and you may even take a -EV line, but if the bust out is low enough percentage, and when it works if you have many profitable future implications, it may be worth it. For example if you double up and have tight image and you start raising 4 times in a row, you know opponents will 3bet light at some point, so you can 4bet really light. Or you can call and check raise a lot of flops or whatever to play back at them. More importantly if people don't play back at you that can be a very profitable advantage. If you get a few more steals as a result, it's worth a -ev decision short term for more EV+ decisions in the long run.
You may resteal an aggressive stealer when you are in the big blind more often once blinds get large enough. You may check raise the steal attempt after calling in big blinds if they always continuation bet, or check call and check raise flop if they autodouble barrel, or lead out and check raise turn if they always float flop-bet turn. aggressive plays that work often enough even if they can get you into major trouble may allow you to get away with more in the future. Perhaps you get more "walks" by restealing from big blinds liberally which allows you to maintain your stack without playing a single hand for several rotations throughout the tournament. Perhaps you get more steals by 4betting light. Perhaps this strategy backfires and you bust out but when it doesn't you do well enough to really power the table in a way that really lets you crush the game.
But overall I think I would prefer to speculate on an image play over opponents speculating on playing "suboptimal" preflop. Your edge has to come from somewhere and it has to be large enough that it's more profitable to play tournaments over cash games.
Maybe you have enough of an edge when everyone has enough chips that if you just play the shovebot strategy that you will still maybe triple or quadruple your stack a lot of the time before you go into shovebot mode and that plus a few suboptimal preflop players allows you enough of an edge that it's best not to try to speculate on these kind of ideas??
I don't know, but I personally would rather shift gears and use the table image as well as looking at my more predictable opponents to subtly exploit so they aren't aware enough of it to adjust.
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