A new student of "EV" has a real-life SnG equation

[filimaica]

Yesterday I spent a good 4-5 hours reading about the concept of expected value, or expectation. I could mostly understand the concept but I had difficulty understanding the application of formulas.

This morning I woke up 2 hours earlier than normal, having woken up from a dream I was playing at a live SnG at the Hard Rock (not Vegas). I literally dreamt up an equation that I need help with right now. The actual numbers in this equation may seem weird (that is, the tournament structure), I suppose because it was a dream. I will submit my question as part A & B.

10-seat SnG, full table, the SnG has just begun. 5000 starting chips, blinds are 200/400. I pick up As Qs in the SB. Everyone limps ahead of me (which btw is not far from common in these live Hard Rock SnGs, where there are a lot of super loose players - I'll address this in a sec). Pot is 3800 and action is to me.

A) What is my EV if I go all-in with my As Qs?? I feel this is the best play because 1) pot size, 2) I'm out of position, 3) I want to drive loose players away, I think. Here are the preconditions I came up with. . . . .
-There are no tricky opponents, no AA or KK limpers. They are generally loose-weak and will limp with a lot of connectors, any suited combination, any pair, two high cards, etc. the range is way too loose for my liking.
-There is a 40% chance that, if someone limped w/ a middle pair (77, 88, & 99), then they will call this all-in bet anyway.
-If someone will call given the previous statement, it will be a single opponent who holds this range of hands.

B) Regarding NL, how is the concept of +EV applied when your competition is too loose? I prefer playing in live SnGs because I like playing live. However the tournament structure sucks compared to playing on, say, PokerStars. In the live SnGs it seems that an all-in raise preflop is more appropriate of a bet size, since the blinds start relatively high compared to the beginning chip stack. Does EV just go down the toilet in these tourneys? Is playing tighter or more aggressively a better overrall strategy here?

Thanks all who took to the time to read this and help me out.

[nsidestrate]

If you were pretty sure you would end up all-in with just one player, the dead money in the pot is a huge edge. For instance, if you ended up heads-up against KK, you would expect to win about 32% of the time and you would be playing for a 13,400 chip pot. That means that your expectation would be 4,304 chips at the end of the hand, which is not much worse that folding. So it should be clear that if your expectation is nearly breakeven with one caller with a much better hand, you'd be thrilled to end up heads-up with 88, where you would expect to win 47% of the time and end up with an EV of 6,375. Obviously, taking the pot down and increasing your stack by 3,800 would also be an excellent result.

This move is so tempting when there are a number of limpers that you will see it often from the SB or BB. Many players will do it with much weaker hands than AQs.

[ciaran]

In this hypothetical, you're getting called 100% of the time by someone with a PP, precisely because they're looking at all that dead money, too. You may very well be called by more than one guy with a PP (and/or other random garbage), which is probably good for you from a cEV standpoint.

You should probably play better SNG structures in your dreams, too.

[rocketplayer]

A move I often make from the SB. I only won't do it when someone I have a history of limping UTG only with (AA KK). You'd be surpirsed how many top notch players on sharkscope make this this limping move UTG with only those powerhouse hands.

[nsidestrate]

[ciaran]

I overstated the case perhaps slightly with regards to the PP, but the odds a push goes uncalled here by someone are near zero.

[ciaran]

[nsidestrate]

[filimaica]

[rocketplayer]

[rocketplayer]