When does the next blind level effect your game?

ShaunyT

Given the standard MTT blind level is 10 minutes, at what point within that 10 minutes effect how you play your stack? For example: we've just been treading water and are around 20bb stack size, but the blinds are due to go up in 2 minutes and cut us down to 15bb, we get a marginal hand out of position, that we might just fold off a 20bb stack, but we might play/shove for 15bb...….


Would be interested to hear peoples opinions

chicknMelt

It shouldn't really effect your decisions at all.

I hear similar questions quite often. For example, how would you play xx in a turbo. The answer is the same way as you would in a normal tournament.

EvilPingu

Yes and no.

I mean a 20bb shove is a 20bb irrespective of blind level, and the EV of that shove is independent of whether the blinds go up or not. From that point of view, it doesn't affect how you should play.

In the kind of spot you refer to, I guess there's an argument to say that "If your opponents are considering it in their thought process, then it's affecting their calling/3b jam ranges so it should affect your opening/shoving range" or vice versa.

Do some people steal marginally tighter if the blinds go up next hand so they 'only win 1.2 big blinds' in their mind? Possibly. Are you ever getting that note on them? No, not even if you're Phil Ivey. Even if you did somehow get that note, does it make enough of a difference to significantly impact what you should be doing in response to their open? Again, probably not.

Similarly, in the spot you describe, it is going to push some people's borderline decisions from "Mehhhh fold" to "F**k it, all in", but the same thing as above applies - GL getting the note and it probably won't matter anyway.

For regular MTTs, I guess the short answer is: "If it does matter, it doesn't matter enough to be worth thinking about".

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There will be some extreme spots where it clearly does affect things, i.e. the BB is going to be all in pre in the SB next hand in a sat if the blinds go up next hand (provided he doesn't get a walk), but if blinds don't go up, they get another orbit to stick around. Also, you've also only got <2bb and you're on the bubble. That would be a situation where you might favour timebanking (as much as I hate it) and folding over something that might theoretically be a jam at the current blind level, thus taking away their option of folding BB and SB and getting another orbit with some tiny fraction of a big blind while you're forced all in pre when the BB gets to you.

But unless you're mass multitabling Turbo DYMs or something, that's a very specific situation that's going to come up once in a blue moon, if that. For the kind of situation you're referring to in your post, don't overthink it IMO.

EV wise, it's the Poker equivalent of lumping £2k on a horse at 4/11 then worrying about whether the betting site rounds your winnings up or down to the nearest penny.