Strategy: Pivot Points II – Creating a Spectrum and Combating Over Adjustment

In my last strategy post I discussed the idea of pivot points and how creating pivot points is one of the fastest way to teach beginners how to play sit and go’s.

Recap: A pivot point is a range of hands that works against general players in very common situations.

Once the correct pivot is determined, adjustments can be made to the range based on other in-game factors such as the bubble or opponent reads “pivoting” around the base range to make the correct decision.

One of the major mistakes that beginning players make is pivoting too much to a specific situation. Typically when people incorporate new information into their game they over adjust. They learn things in the following way.

Example: We are in the BB and the SB shoves on us for an effective stack of 10BB. The player is a typical bad player.

In the last article we described this exact event except the player was shoving 5BB not 10BB We created a pivot range of Ax+,22+, ATSB, and KT+. To solve this new problem we need one piece of information which is how often this player is shoving on us. Typically I would model this situation in SNG wizard, assign them a range of about 10% and see what range the Wizard says to call with. In the end Wizard says that the range calling range is about AT, 66. This becomes our new pivot.

Pivot 2: If a typical bad player is shoving 10BB into us our pivot is AT,66.

Notice now that not only have we created two pivot points for calling which is a tough subject for many beginner players we have actually created two points in a continuum which also keeps the player from over adjusting.

Example 2: A typical bad player shoves 7.5BB into us from the SB. What is our calling range without using Wizard?

So if I were to be strictly honest with you I do not know what our calling range is in this case. I have not memorized it and I have never needed to memorize it. However, I know I am not going to be too far off if I pick a hands halfway in-between our two pivots like A5s,A8o,KJs,44. By looking at the situation in relation to two pivots we also ensure that we are not making the typical mistake of over adjusting. With only one pivot a bad player might say that because we were calling for more blinds we should be much tighter (AK,QQ) which would be clearly wrong once we create the second pivot point.

One challenge is creating useful pivot points (ie situations that happen frequently). We should not have too many pivots so that they are fairly granular we can easily memorize these rules or make a list of them to refer to while playing in game. However, they pivots should not be too granular so that we can easily adjust them to in game situations. With my students I only teach about 8 pivots (and I have already given you two for free) that generally transform a players game into a much more profitable strategy. If you are smart you can guess what some of the other situations are…

Good Luck at the tables,
Greg (+EV, positiveEV, zerosum79)