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mersenneary's picture
Chubokov: What it is, what it isn't, and how to separate its useful information from the useless dead ends of Sklanskyland

Chubokov: A table that tells you the deepest you can jam a hand from the small blind and be sure your expectation is better than folding.Alternate Definition #1: A table that tells you how to play your hand if you accidentally flip it up and your opponent knows what you have.Alternate Definition #2: A table that's sole purpose is to tell nits not to be so damn nitty and yet is somehow interpreted as a recommendation to openfold 76s for 5bb. If chubokov were a strategy, it would be what two stoners thought up of in the middle of the night after the brownies are finished and the credits roll on the Harold and Kumar movie. The conversation would go something like this:Chad: "Dude, what would you like, do, if you were like, 10bb deep, and you had a pair of red fives, man. And you were playing against Jonny Chan and he ate an orange slice and was like, yo kid, I know you got dem pocket fives, a diamond and a heart. What would you even do?"Jason: "You're an idiot Chad you have fives go all-in".Chad: "No no no man you don't get it. He snaps you off with 76o and folds 44 face up. Like do you still go all-in? What if we solved this for every single hand?"Jason: "What the hell man, who cares? Nobody is going to call with 76o and fold 44."Chad: "Screw you man I'm solving it for everything, you can watch Super Troopers again."[Editor's note: Yes, it is painfully obvious I don't have much drug history. Don't dwell on this point]. Chubokov is not a strategy. It is completely useless information for most of the hands on the table. It simply does not matter if Chubokov says we're guaranteed to be +EV when we shove with 98s for 8bb (it says no). Chubokov assumes a villain that is calling for 8bb with T2o and folding with 97s. That is a comically absurd assumption and it makes the chubokov number worse than irrelevant with this hand. Similarly, with 54s at this stack depth, we're to assume that our opponent is going to look down at 62o and be like "oh hell yes, I'm snapping, six high is better than five high". Throw the 54s number out the window. It tells you less than nothing.Chubokov is not a strategy. It tells you that 98s is a jam for sure up to 7.7bb, and then expects you, the human, to be smart enough to know that because 98s is a hand in which opponents play drastically different against you than they would if they didn't know your hand, that this information isn't really that useful. Against the vast majority of opponents, even very loose players that are calling as wide as 22+,A2s+,K2s+,Q7s+,J8s+,T9s,A2o+,K5o+,Q7o+,J9o+ as deep as 12bb, jamming is still easily better than folding with 98s.So, what is chubokov? I think the best way of putting it is that chubokov is the first thing to check to see if you're being way too nitty with your weak Ax, Kx, Qx, and low pocket pair hands from the button.To illustrate this point, let's take a quick quiz. We're playing against an opponent who jams fairly wide over limps and minraises, but not so wide that we think limp/calling or  minraise/calling is the best option. For each of the following situations, is jamming from the button A) Guaranteed to be better than folding, or B) Depending on our opponent's calling range, possible to be -EV when compared with folding?1. 22 24bb deep2. Q5o 7.5bb deep3. Q2s 8bb deep4. K3o 10bb deep5. K3s 14bb deep6. A2o 22bb deep(Continued in Next Post)

mersenneary's picture
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mersenneary's picture
The answer to the 6 questions

The answer to the 6 questions is that they're all guaranteed to be +EV jams. If you ever openfold K3o at 10bb or Q5o at 7.5bb, you're losing money in that hand compared against openshoving, period, no matter how loose or tight or downright weird his calling range is. And that's useful information. Sometimes we know our opponent is calling looser than NASH, but NASH doesn't tell us if we can still jam our hand and be +EV despite that. Chubokov is a quick place to check to confirm that yes, in fact, just because your opponent is a weirdo and you can just feel yourself about to be snapped off by Q6o 7.5bb deep, you should still go all-in. The power of your queen high makes it so even if your hand was flipped up, it's still a jam.There are two reasons why it makes more sense with these type of hands and not the others.1) The hands that are deciding whether to call or fold are basically flipping against us anyway, and it doesn't make a big difference whether they call. In the case of K3o 10bb deep, chubokov allows our opponent to call with 54s - crazy! - but him getting it in with 47% equity or folding preflop doesn't really matter that much to us. It makes Chubokov's number off, practically speaking, but not drastically. That's much different than when we jam 65s and our opponent calmly snaps us off with 76o and has 63% equity instead of folding preflop.2) There aren't so many of those hands that can make cheeky superuser calls when we have K3o when compared against 54s. 54s has all weak 6x, 7x, 8x, 9x, Tx, and Jx that are inexplicably calling off a jam. That's a ton of hands. K3o just has some random suited connectors which is a ton less combos. Fewer ridiculous calls from the model means it's more practical to apply it.(still more to come...)

mersenneary's picture
Based on this, when deciding

Based on this, when deciding whether to go all-in from the button, we should only really care about what Chubokov has to say when...1) It's not completely obvious. Nobody needs to tell you that you can shove jacks.2) All-in isn't clearly dominated by minraise/call.3) Our hand doesn't make Chubokov ridiculous, as per above.Given that, here's probably the 25 most important hands to have a general sense of from the table: Basically, this is just a "sanity check" for when you're playing against a loose opponent and even though NASH says it's a jam, you're not sure if it's a jam against his calling range. Chubokov says, "don't be a nit. It probably is". Kx can be jammed 10bb deep for sure and jamming K4s is better than folding up to 15bb for sure. That's useful information when you're deciding on those light shoves 10-15bb deep.

mersenneary's picture
One last thing. There's

One last thing. There's something pesky I've been adding to everything: "Better than folding". Since we're not folding with a ton of these hands ever, it's a ridiculous comparision. Still, we should be pretty familiar with this by now: NASH has the same restraint, telling you how deep to shove before folding is better. That's why chubokov is best used to comfort people who are thinking about folding weak Kx hands and Qx instead of jamming versus weird opponents - it's a fair comparison and extremely strong proof.An additional summary that I pretty much agree with everything except for some minor points is here:http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/185/heads-up-sng/finishing-opponent-he...Questions?

kingkong's picture
" haha yeah I saw that post,

"haha yeah I saw that post, loved that he picked the same inflection point that I've been arguing for forever. So here's the thing. With A2o, your equity against calling range gets really bad once you get to 16, 17bb. With A7o it's not so bad. But A7o also has much much more inducing value than A2o, which adds to its minraising value (and even vs people who you don't induce much, A7 plays much better postflop). Those two factors tend to balance each other out, so their borderlines for openshoving vs minraising are very similar. I think 15bb is going to be a pretty good borderline even against different player types, because the border is mostly made up of what your equity is vs his big hands and what percentage of the time he has those big hands. With A2, it's not like the expectation from minraising gets worse if he doesn't 3bet jam a lot - it's going to be pretty close in expectation whether he jams with J9o or flats with it. I'd be open to arguments about why openjamming is better even deeper than 15bb though."One question about your quote in combination with Chubukov. A2o is better than folding with 22bb according to chubokov. So this could be an argument, that it could be right to openshove A2o even with 16-18bb against opponents, who flatcalls a lot of minraises and are aggressiv preflop?

mersenneary's picture
"better than folding" is a

"better than folding" is a pretty weak criteria. Lifetime over about 1500 hands of A2o-A5o on the button 15-20bb deep, I have an expectation of about a quarter of a big blind in the positive - That's over 0.75bb better than folding, a massive difference. True, this is against the whole range of opponent tendencies, but go ahead and run the numbers for an openjam of A2o 18bb deep against what calling range you think is appropriate. I would be surprised if the expectation wasn't <0bb from the start of the hand.

kingkong's picture
I have done the following

I have done the following calculation for A2o and A5s: Assuming a tight calling range: A6s-AKs,A8o-AKo, 44-AA (=12,8%) A2o has 28,9% equity vs this range A5s has 34,3% vc this range EV(A2o)= (1-0,128)1bb-18bb*0,128*((1-0,289)-0,289) =0,87bb-18bb*0,128*(1-2*0,289) =0,87bb -0,97bb=-0,1bb EV(A5s)=0,87bb-0,72bb=0,1bb And against a looser range like A2s-AKs,A5o-AKo, 22-AA, KJs, KQ, JTs, T9s the EV is also <0bbSo finally I agree with you:-)

mersenneary's picture
:) Good stuff.

:) Good stuff.

GetThere's picture
cool thread mers, i like a

cool thread mers, i like a lot of your explanations. sanity-check table will be right clicked and saved :D

mersenneary's picture
I wonder if a "0EV Chubokov"

I wonder if a "0EV Chubokov" table would be useful - the deepest stack you can jam and have positive expectation in the hand, not just better than folding. This seems to be to be a very good comparison to limping and minraising, which is realistically the fair alternative for most of these hands. The only thing is that generally Chubokov is useful as a sanity check [I don't have to say it's not a strategy again, do I?] jamming mediocre hands against opponents who are too loose, and against people who are too loose, limping and minraising often aren't options because they'll be very aggressive against them. I think it might be useful against loose passive opponents, though. A lot of the time I'm worried that my opponent is calling shoves really light but is also really passive versus limps and minraises so even though it's +EV shove, I don't know if jamming or limping might be better.0EV Nash might be similarly useful - how deep can I jam a hand and still have positive expectation against the NASH calling range at that stack depth? That seems even more applicable especially against passive players where limping and minraising are very much options.Any interest?

hhminer's picture
Hi Mers!   Excellent thread

Hi Mers!

Excellent thread and in sync with something I've been thinking and started coding some simulations recently.

Regarding the A2o example it is true that shoving it in blind is better than folding, has -0.41 expectation vs -0.5 when folding. However I made the following simulation:
- hero and villain start with 22 BBs
- hero is SB 3 times in a row and each time he has A2o and he shoves
- villain will call only if he has:
a) 33+,A2+,KQs
b) (kingkong's range 1) 44+,A8+,A6s+
c) (kingkong's range 2) 22+,A5+,A2s+,KJs+,QJs,JTs,T9s
And the ev in all cases is: a) -0.93 b) -0.34 c) -0.86 (as opposed to -0.45, -0.17, -0.36 when only one round is considered)

My conclusion is that if the stacks are deep if we keep doing the same shove then we can't really expect it to be better than folding - there is a temporal component involved somewhere. Unless I made a logical mistake and you can spot it ...

P.S.: for 20 BBs numbers are : -0.63, -0.14, -0.52 and for 18 BBs: -0.37, 0.17, -0.28 so yes close to 18BBs A2o openshove seems to be better than folding

P.P.S.: I will look into generating a 0 EV Chubukov table, however I think Chubukov can be improved by excluding some hands in opponent's calling range depending on eff stack, for example if we are 18 BBs deep and shove 54s we can exclude from his range 63s, J2o etc ... makes sense ?

hhminer's picture
Here is my Chubukov shove

Here is my Chubukov shove chart where we compare EV with 0 instead of -0.5:

A K Q J T 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
A 25.5 25.5 25.5 25.5 25.5 25.5 25.5 25.5 22.5 23.0 21.0 19.5 18.0
K 25.5 25.5 25.5 22.0 19.0 14.5 12.0 11.0 10.5 9.5 9.0 8.0 7.5
Q 25.5 18.0 25.5 14.0 12.5 9.0 7.5 6.0 6.0 5.0 4.5 3.5 2.0
J 25.5 15.5 9.5 25.5 9.5 6.5 5.0 4.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
T 25.5 13.5 8.5 6.0 25.5 5.0 4.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
9 25.5 11.0 6.5 4.5 3.5 25.5 3.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
8 22.5 9.0 5.5 3.5 0.0 0.0 25.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
7 20.0 8.5 4.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 25.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
6 18.0 7.5 3.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 25.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
5 18.0 7.0 2.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 25.5 0.0 0.0 0.0
4 16.0 6.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 25.0 0.0 0.0
3 15.0 4.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 19.0 0.0
2 14.0 2.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 13.0

hmmm bad text alignment but hopefully can be read ok

hhminer's picture
... and here is Nash push

... and here is Nash push chart computed for 0 EV instead of -0.5:

A K Q J T 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
A 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0
K 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 16.0 13.0 12.0 11.0 10.0 9.5 8.5 8.0
Q 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 17.5 11.5 8.0 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.0 4.5 3.5
J 20.0 20.0 13.0 20.0 20.0 8.5 6.0 4.5 3.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
T 20.0 17.0 11.5 8.0 20.0 7.5 4.5 3.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
9 20.0 12.5 7.5 5.0 4.0 20.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
8 20.0 10.5 6.0 4.0 0.0 0.0 20.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
7 20.0 9.0 5.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
6 20.0 8.0 4.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
5 19.5 7.0 3.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
4 18.0 6.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20.0 0.0 0.0
3 17.0 6.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20.0 0.0
2 16.0 5.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 20.0

mersenneary's picture
I did the NASH chart myself

I did the NASH chart myself last night and got the same thing you did. Very cool.Can I ask what you used to make it? I did it a kind of rough way just using propokertools, would be curious if there's an easier method.

GetThere's picture
i would be v interested but

i would be v interested but then you will have to take into account not only the time and effort it will take you to make such a table but also the time required to answer my questions on it :p i'd be interested in seeing the discrepency between how deep those hands are better than folding vs being +EV. the hands with a big discrepency are likely going to be better played another way?

hhminer's picture
... and in some easier to

... and in some easier to view format:http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=33y4bo5&s=7Would it make sense to compute some Chubukov-clone numbers for the following scenario: 'villain opens 2x (or 3x) X% of hands, hero shoves over this at which point villain magically sees hero's hand and decide to call only +EV hands' ?

hhminer's picture
Final experiment on the topic

Final experiment on the topic for now, I devised the following scenario:

Villain is opening 2x and his range is: 100%, 80%, 60%, 40%
What is the maximum effective stack hero can shove in order to do better than:
a) losing 1 BB (i.e. folding his blind)
b) losing 0.5 BB (if we assume calling instead of shoving has EV -0.5 BB)
c) losing 0 BB (if we assume calling instead of shoving has EV 0)

We assume that once the hero will make the shove villain will magically see his cards and call perfectly, except we will exclude from his call list the following cards (hope I'm not overly optimistic here!):
- if eff_stack >= 9 BBs: 32+,42+,52+,62+,72+,82+,92+,T2-T7,J2-J6,Q2-Q5,K2(but leave T7s,98s,97s,86s,87s,76s,65s)
- if eff_stack >= 12 BBs: further exclude K3-K4,Q6-Q7,J7-J8,T8 (but leave T8s,J8s)
- if eff_stack >= 15 BBs: further exclude K5-K7,Q8,T7s,T8s,J8s,98s,97s,86s,87s,76s,65s,T9o

Answers are here:
a) http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=snytcp&s=7
b) http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2qa5wcm&s=7
c) http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2925mh1&s=7

mersenneary's picture
HHMiner: I'm in love. Thanks

HHMiner: I'm in love. Thanks for doing all this work. I have another project I'd like to work with you on - 0EV shoves versus practical calling ranges that we devise. I think that's going to be the most valuable in terms of actually using it to make gameplay decisions.

mersenneary's picture
A,KK-22,KQ-K7,QJ,Kx6x,QxTx-Qx

A,KK-22,KQ-K7,QJ,Kx6x,QxTx-Qx9x,JxTxI think that's a much more reasonable calling range 11-12bb deep than NASH's, which includes JTo, QTo, K4s, K5s, Q8s, J9s. When we use that calling range, the strongest suited connectors really start to shine.

nicoasp's picture
This looks super valuable,

This looks super valuable, will get into it deeply when I'm feeling sharper.Lots of stuff going on here in Madrid with the EPT final!

jackoneill's picture
Ok, question about these weak

Ok, question about these weak hands in the Chubokov range:When we're super shallow, let's say 4bb - then openjamming 95s is guaranteed to be better than -0.5bb (folding), right ?


mersenneary's picture
Yes. I still would advise you

Yes.I still would advise you to forget Chubokov completely because it's doing you more harm than good. But not to beat a dead horse :)

jackoneill's picture
That Chubokov Thing / Cog Dissonance

Ok.I only became so "obsessed" with Chubokov since Cog Dissonance still advocates using it as a default strategy once you're below 12bb against all of these 4 opponent types - and since he's a decent winner and a coach I thought it couldn't be that bad - or maybe even better than any other strategy.And this is his new stuff, not just some old videos.


mersenneary's picture
Cog is wrong. (I'm wrong

Cog is wrong.(I'm wrong about stuff too. It's OK to be wrong).