A3 shove late in tourney

I was in the final 3 of an MTT. Big stack to my left had roughly 550000 chips, and I have several thousand chips more than the guy on my right going into the final 2 hands, but we are essentially even. We both had about 175000 each. Blinds were 10000/20000 with ante 2000.

Big stacker has been using his stack aggressively and been raising a lot preflop. On the hand right before the final hand for me, he shoved from SB once again with J9, and this time got called by BB who had KK, who doubles up to 350000. So now that makes me a distant third.

The very next hand. I get A3 on BB. Big stack min raises again, SB folds. Now I am looking at about 135000 left (6.5 BBs) if I folded.

A3 is definitely not a hand I wanna risk my tourney life on, but knowing he would raise with a very wide range, I went all in. Ok move here?

(He turned out to have KK, but he could have done the same thing pre with 89). I am more concerned whether I got too impatient after the other guy doubled up. 2nd place wins double what I got, so I can't help but second guess myself.

has he usually min raised and not open shoved? if so then yes I would say that's a good shove. You have a little fold equity and if you get called by any thing that's not an A or a pair, you are ahead (ex. KQ)

idk about this ^... if he's typically been shoving allin pre (as he really should be... with eff. stacks <10bb's).. & then all of a sudden he 'min-raises'.. to me this sounds alarm bells that's he's wanting action/trying to induce. (I'd have to seen more hands to get a better read.... but this is what I'd assume here 'if' he'd typically been shoving up til' now)

Yeah, that's a shove with only 3 handed and the blinds still going up. I wouldn't like it (in fact I'd hate it), but I'd have to shove in there too with any ace knowing the big stack will call me with pretty much ATC (like J 9). I just doubt there was much fold equity based on what you are saying about the big stack.
Was it pathetically desperate? No doubt, but whatcha gonna do? It was the proper play (at least the majority of the time).

He only open shoves from SB.
From BTN, he consistently min-raises, which is why I put him on a huge range. Back to back KK, one for each of the villains.
If the other guy hadn’t doubled up the hand before, I may not have shoved.

Considering he regularly minraises the button, you have about 7 BB's and are easily the shortstack this is a shove. If you take it down you gain more than a third of your stack without showdown and if you are called you are ahead of all non-A, non-pair hands and even have 30% v KK

Do you figure he has fold equity here? (just askin')
Maybe a better spot for a stop 'n go?

I think he has a little and i don't think we can wait losing 1.5bb per 3 hands

According to this, A3 has the same EV against a random hand as 55, and I think I would shove 55 in that spot, so I don’t feel too bad about it now. http://www.tightpoker.com/poker_hands.html
Feeling a little regret whether I should have shoved in a few hands earlier when he made the same min raise from BTN and I had A5 suited. At that point I was essentially tied for 2nd, and the difference between 2nd and 3rd is $40 so I did not wanna risk it with A5.
Second guessing can be endless LOL. I’ll just be happy I made it to 3rd place after being on the brink of elimination several times early in the tourney.

I think i would fold and wait to shove in first, if btn has Ax we must asume x is better than 3 , so we are well behind (A10 = 70% to win ) , if btn has any pair we are well behind (66 = 69% to win ) if btn has J 9 again we are slightly infront ( j9 = 43% to win ) , so at best we are slightly infront . If this is true wouldnt it be better to shove in first as it is harder to call a raise than make one . yes we still have alittle fold equity if we push but big stack can aford to gamble we cant . i would also consider what % of time big stack was raising from the button if it was like 80% of the time then im calling A3 if 50% or less i fold.

I agree with your thinking here too. I just got impatient once the other guy doubled up on the previous hand. I hadn’t gotten a playable hand in a long time, and I was sick of the big stacker doing that min raise thing almost everytime from BTN.
I was not thinking about folding him. I was expecting to go to a showdown as a (albeit small) favorite. Since I was a distant third anyway, I felt I didn’t have much to lose. Antes and blinds were eating up my stack at that point, and there was no guarantee I’d get anything better than A3.

Many players concede at a point and he didnt care if he won or lost

I don't imagine you have fold equity pre so definitely stop n go. Most hands are basically flipping with you pre but will miss the flop 2/3 of the time so you can get some folds on the flop.

All in seems fine, A3 is a strong hand with 7bb and it's for a decent chunk of his stack so you'll get a lot more folds than you think

I love Pascal.

OP: A3 I'm always shoving here when raised with only 3 left and 8blinds left..Easy shove for me.

Put me in the 'shove was fine' camp.

Considering it was 3 handed, and you were shorty, any Ax hand is better than any other non paired, non Ace hand.

My opinion here is you absolutely have to go in, and feel good about putting your chips in here. It looks from your explanation like this big stacker knew what he was doing, min raising whenever he could. That is a sign of a strong player. The shove in the SB w j9 is kind of standard IMO. When you consider how wide his preflop raising range is, you have to go in with a3. I think you were a bit too timid if you are even thinking about a fold here. Next time you are in a situation like that, try to take some pots away from him preflop by 3 betting or shoving in your chips, because unless he has a monster he will not call. You need to find ways to take advantage of his aggressiveness and those are 2 ways to do it. 3 bet him and also just ship in, with more than just Ak kk qq JJ etc. Some hands you may want to add to that may be AJ A10 A9, KQ KJ etc. Even some 108s and stuff like that, you need to react to his aggressiveness in a way that will get you his chips. Even tho he is being very aggro, he will not want to call all ins. That is how you deal with a player like that.

Well after he calls with j9 you know for a fact your getting called no matter what. it just comes down to the point do you wanna risk the rest of your tourney on this weak ace. i personally would have folded because the best you could be asking for is a 60 40 flip. i like to go all in with a3 not call with a3 know what i mean?

No he open shoved with J9 from SB against the conservative BB, who happened to have KK and snap called. He didn't call a reraise.

I didn't expect him to fold. I felt at the time there was a good chance I was ahead. Since I was in distant third anyway, against his wide range, I felt compelled to take a shot. I did hesitate for a sec, but went in.

It just so happened that KK was dealt in back to back hands.

UL he had KK, good shove IMO. I dont think hes folding that often here (although I do think Pascal has a much better grip on the MTTs than I do, so I may be totally wrong) but at this point with this hand, I think folding is not the play to make. Stop and go is also a good move, but either way, all my chips are prolly going in here.