-EV Rivershoves

"Calling is not an option. This is a raise or fold situation."

"The way I see it we have 2 options here..."

"Raise and fold is close. Calling is by far the worst thing we can do."

This is terrible, highly exploitable thinking that almost everybody seems to have. A thread going on right now and some of the comments in it reminded me of this.

The thinking is to never call. No matter the situation. Never ever ever. Only raise or fold.

"I'm all in. Oh... you call? Well I was bluffing so I'm just going to take back my all in since I was bluffing and didn't think you'd actually call. NH."

Now I am far from a tournament guru. I average maybe 1 sober tournament every 2 weeks; I go bust early a lot; but when I do play, this seems to be the thing I am able to exploit the most.

This thinking turns minraises into all in bluffs where you are allowed to change your mind if your opponent calls you.

Example, I am on the button with 50 chips. Blinds are .5-1. Cuttoff raises to 3 chips. I raise to 7 chips. Cuttoff has read a few books on tournament strategy and feels that this is a raise or fold situation. And since he has feels that reraise/folding is 2nd only to calling as the worst thing ever, his decision is to:

1. raise small call it off no matter what.
2. Fold
3. Go all in.

So basically, I am risking 7 chips to win the 7 in the pot. I have the option on whether to take the rest of the opponents stack. The opponent (since calling is not an option) must commit his entire stack so he has to decide whether to put the rest of his stack in to protect his 3 chips. I only need him to fold 50% to break even on my bluffs (and most of them proababally will be bluffs)). Meanwhile, I am basically freerolling on the rest of his stack.

The reason that min3betting/min4betting is bad, is because you are giving people the right price to call with a wide range and play pretty nitty postflop. But since this is a cardinal sin to most players, they will never exploit you, so 3betting light against anybody who looks like a TAG in a tournament is really effective IMO. And since pot odds don't matter, you might as well give yourself the cheapest price with a minraise.

The same thinking goes postflop too. If you bet 10% (maybe a little bit more than 10%) or more of the effective stacks, the TAG automatically thinks "I only have 2 options here." And is at your mercy.

Other exploitable tendencies of tournament TAGs:

"If you call the turn you have to call the river. Calling the turn and folding a river is spew."
--This is terrible thinking and highly exploitable. A lot of ways to exploit this but the main ones seem to be 3barrel less for bluffs and 3barrel thinner for value. Especially if there is a flush draw on the flop that missed.

"Never slowplay a big hand if there is any draw on the board every no matter what ever dont do it you suck at poker if you do slowplay bad dont do it ever bad slowplay never dont."
--This one is not that bad but it makes their ranges very well defined in postflop situations early when stacks are deep and you can really outplay them on later streets.

"I'm happy to take down the pot right here."
--This one isn't really something you exploit. I guess you just let them try to make worse hands fold and win small pots while you try to get value out of your hands.

"This looks like an ideal spot for a semibluff!!!!"
--Players like to semibluff way too much. They don't put players on a range and realize when they don't have fold equity. Even if they have the odds to just call, for reasons stated at the beginning, they would rather raise. Even when their opponent's range is 99% hands that aren't folding so semibluffing is just spew. Even if you do have outs when called, it is still a bluff. So they have to fold sometimes for it to be profitable.

Of course, this only applies to ceartain players, and some to a bigger extent than others. But most players display these traits to some degree or another. Also, the one's that are the exact opposite to an extreme degree tend to be the massive fish.

end rambling.