What would you do?

Live local tourney

Blinds at 300/600
12 players left out 20

Hero has 6700 and is in the CO. Hero has been playing solid. 3 hands prior lost a big pot to a suck out and is steaming a little.
Action is folded around to hero who peeks at 55.
Button is big stack 20000, SB is average with 13ish and BB is short with 6000.

Shove, limp, raise or fold?

Its either raise all in or Fold. I think we can wait alittle bit longer for a better hand. You gotta consider your raising into the big stack, so you want to have the goods. No telling what he will do he has you covered 3x over.

U have to raise and see what the others will do. I think the big stack will call with anything and it is up to you to overplay him. But if the SB or BB calls or go all in than u have to take a hard decision based on how they played untill then.

Shove.

We're short and we're going to have to make some moves if we plan on min-cashing or better. 55 in CO is definately within my range here. - Actually it's almost always in my shove range with 10bb or less, unless there's a really short stack on the bubble or something.

I'm never limping this (blinds are too high) and I'm never raising smaller because my main concern here is fold equity.

Either shove or fold.

If you get called you are about 50% to overcards so you really want the rest to fold and use the 55 as insurance.

I would be paying most attention to the situation and what I know of the other 3 villains. Have they looked at their cards and reacted? How did you react to yours? How have they been playing? Are people making loose calls or is there lots of folding to steals? Do they know you are a bit tilty? What do they know about you? How often have you attempted a steal and are they aware of it? And so on...

Having decided what to do, do it in a way that will help the situation. Will a big confident shove scare them? Will they notice such things? You can even make a show of making a tough decision and folding so your shove on the next hand will look stronger. And so on ...

If you don't shove 55 here then you should stick to cash games. Limping would be OK if you had bigger stack and could afford to waste chips trying to flop a set. A standard raise would commit a lot of chips pf with a hand that will likely be very weak postflop. A fold would deny you the chance to take down the blinds which are worth about 15% of your stack.

With the right table image though a standard raise might result in more fold equity than shoving. If you had been open shoving the last few orbits and suddenly raised 3x then alarm bells should go off in villain's head. I use this play with total garbage sometimes just to throw people off. Even if they call the raise they will fold the flop huge % of the time because they assume you have overpair. With 55 however you want to be taking down the blinds and if called hopefully flipping to double up.

Depends on the other players. A raise to 1500 would give you room to fold if a tight player re-raises you.
If you cant read opponents re-raise, or feel that you will be committed to call anyways, then its better to just shove it in.

Well lets see what I did.....
I considered a raise for a moment and then realized how short my stack my stack was..... All-in or fold for me with this sized stack. A raise would leave me committed on the flop or to a reraise.

I shoved and the Button/Big Stack called. The BB called as well. I knew I was beat at that point. Button had AK and BB had QQ. AK4 on the flop.

When I am down to less than 12 blinds I am shoving or folding. Recently I have been trying to improve my game. I wasnt sure if this tactic (allin or fold on the SS) has become a leak or not. I really feel like I made the right play though and just went head first into an empty swimming pool.

Thanks for the replies. For those of you who suggested raising as opposed to shoving can you please explain a bit more? My thinking was that raising 4x the BB would commit half my stack on weak pair. Trying to outplay someone with less than a potsized stack is beyond my abilities.

And for those who suggested shoving, thanks for reaffirming my game!

Just to be clear.

You shove from CO.
BTN calls.
BB calls.

When you shove you're shoving expecting to be behind any calling range. You're flipping with overcards and dominated by overpairs, without running it through pokerstove I'd guess 55 is about 40% against a reasonable calling range.
BTN calls, you're 40% against his range but it's fine because in order for him to be ahead of 55 he has to fold a lot and give you the blinds and this easily makes up for being on the wrong end of a 60/40.
BB calls, you're screwed. His range is nuts or bigger nuts. If he's very spewy the weakest range I can give him is TT/AQ+, if he's not spewy then QQ+. This is fine though because he can call maybe on average 3% of the time here (after the BTN has come in).

In other words, you're shoving with a hand that will more often than not be the worst hand when called but you have a LOT of fold equity.

The reason we have to start shoving or folding in high blinds is because playing like this (relying on fold equity and flipping against ranges when called) is profitable where putting chips in and folding isn't.

I don't think it's All in or fold here. I think I would fold and wait for a better spot, personally, but I also don't mind playing a short stack. I would much rather wait around for AQ+ until around 7bb's to give myself a better shot with a huge stack to my left.

Another option, which doesn't really commit you, would be to raise to say 1400. There's a decent chance that the players will read this as you begging them to reraise you, or even to call and might get them to lay down a decent hand. Also if someone does reraise you, you still have enough chips to get away from the hand. I don't like to coin flip for my tourney life, sometimes it happens, but i try to avoid it the best I can. if you raised to 1400 here and get reraised all in you can fold and will still have 5300. Thats still enough chips that you would have fold equity on your next all in.

I don't know, like I said, I'd probably just fold the fives here. You're in a very tough spot having a big stack to your left. I wouldn't want to put all my chips in with less than pocket 10's until real desperation sets in, which for me would be 6-7 bb's.

Also something to think about is you said you just lost a big hand that you were still steaming from. A perceptive player would pick that up and might widen their range of calling hands, and they'd be right to do so in this situation.

I would raise here with 55 because the only problem i see is the big stack and i am prepaired to loose my raise if somthing goes wrong.I i fold here i will have to make a hard decision another time in a tougher sport. The big stack will remain in your left untill the end. If BB or SB call or reraise i know what i am gonna do. I will let big stack handle them if not feeling good about me.

I think you are being too tight with your shoving/raising standards. I would be calling a shove in this spot with TT+,AQ+ against a reasonably aggressive opponent. You can expect to take down the blinds without a showdown about 50% of the time in this spot and still be a slight fav against overcards if called. Like The_Pup said the 55 is just insurance against the overcards that might call. The fold equity is enough to make shoving good. Allowing your stack to get smaller decreases your fold equity which means you'll need a stronger hand to compensate.

You can't think of shoving 55 here as flipping for tourney life when most of the time you won't be called. Just taking down the blinds and antes will give you a significant rise in fold equity for the following hands as well. Also if you are perceived as too tight your big blind will be attacked relentlessly by the more aggressive players at the table.

Im surprised all these ppls had an instant post for you, i would like to know a few more things before i answer

A) how long were the blind periods, and how long untill they went up again?

B) are you past the bubble? if not where is it?

c) what is your intention? are you playing to make it ITM? or are you shooting for the win

D) plenty of info about the Hero, what if any reads on the Villains you are playing into?

all of these things are a part of my choice in that spot

Info on villains...

Button and Hero have a friendly but intense rivalry. Against Hero, Button is generally tight PF. BB plays a LAG style pretty well. Way off from the bubble. Top 4 paid. Blind levels are 20 min, there was less than 5 min at this level.
The SB is a newer, weak player.

This a league tourney that I play in a lot. I play to win, final two players almost always chop. We have a point system going for a WSOP ticket so I like to make it deep.

Do this

*sorry for mult post back to back but I really wanted to make this point.

At this point with this hand you are just going to hope that you have the best hand.
It's 6 handed
You have a way better than random starting hand
You only have 10bb left
You have tons of fold equity and should be happy with taking the blinds
If you do get called you have a PP and unless there's a bigger pp out there you're good and they have to catch up
Ax where x<5 might call

I've found that paying to much attention to to the blinds/bubble ect can cloud an otherwise very basic and simple decision. The times where I just look for the most profitable spots and play them are the times when I do the best, knowing but not basing decisions off of the structure/payouts.

Tuff decision.

IMO, it' allin or fold. I would probably fold that one, waiting for a better scenario.

Actually according to OP has a little over 11 BB left, and honestly all of the above questions are relevant IMO, dependiong on the answers to the above, I think poster could wait for a better spot... I would prefer to shove UTG with two faces or Ax and flipping with a smaller BB call than to shove through a short stack who is at 10BB, the button who has all involved covered and the averag stacked SB who could be getting odds to double on the two short stacks and still have ~6k left.

If your stack is 4500ish shoving is paramount to your survival..

I agree you need to play to win, but the answers to the some of the above questions can be very relevant to winning... especially when do the blinds go up... if it is next hand or two then now you are effectively <10BB and this is now 55 = shove IMO.

Thank you for this i realy appreciate your 2+2esque response here where you totaly discount ANY possible validity to any of the INFO i asked for

taking specail care to notice that you choose to flame the ONLY person here who asked for more information and hadn'te even given a rsponse to the hand

A) how long were the blind periods, and how long untill they went up again?
Irrelevant: playing with 10bb with a pp in the CO

yes a PP below 7 where you will dislike MOST flops, and when you go all in in this spot the BEST you can hope for with that pp is to be in against 2 overs considering the range of hands that call an all in from there are almost always going to have 2 overs to that rinkly pair of 5's
and btw he has MORE than 10 bb

B) are you past the bubble? if not where is it?
Irrelevant: Play to win, not to make it itm

point c clarifies the reson for this question

however

NOT irrelevant depending on the goals of the player and the cashing / prizing or pointing structure in the game if it is a poinst league

c) what is your intention? are you playing to make it ITM? or are you shooting for the win
Irrelevant: Play to win, not to make it itm

we all want the win however different people have different goals and such therefore this question is not irrelevant, i was asking for his goals and mentality regarding the game not YOUR opinion of what his mentality and goals SHOULD be according to you.

responded to this above

D) plenty of info about the Hero, what if any reads on the Villains you are playing into?
Irrelevant: playing with 10bb with a pp in the CO

He has MORE than ten BB's first of all
information about your villains is NEVER irrelevant, poker is a game of information, position and properly used agression

all of these things are a part of my choice in that spot


thanks for your input ..... but not for your condescending tone. much appreciated NOT

now back to you OP

considering the ifo you provided i personally agree with those who said it is an insta-shove in this spot...so that you can at least have a shot at the steal.

IMO thepokerkid123 said it already. Thats how I would deal with this.