$0.25 NLHE STT Turbo: S&G A5 and A99 board all in call

poker stars No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t/t Blinds - 3 players

Hero (BTN): t290 10 BBs
SB: t875 29 BBs - VPIP: 69, PFR: 41, 3B: 22, AF: 4.5, hands: 29
BB: t335 11 BBs - VPIP: 50, PFR: 19, 3B: 14, AF: 2.0, Hands: 16

Pre Flop: (t0) Hero is BTN with 5 ♣ A ♥
Hero raises to t60, SB calls t60, BB calls t60

Flop: (t180) 9 ♣ 9 ♠ A ♣ (3 players)
SB checks, BB bets t275, Hero calls t230 all in, SB folds

Turn: (t640) 9 ♥ (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: (t640) 3 ♠ (2 players - 1 is all in)

I know with 10 BB I should have shoved this hand preflop, especially because they are call happy preflop.
Now, as played, was this call ok?
I mean, the villain was not very aggressive postflop, and if he has something like a 9 or an A (probably with a better kicker), I'm way behind.
The small blind might have called behind too, but was less likely to do that, because he was a bit more aggressive, so when he checked, he probably didn't have anything.

Snap call for me, but then I'm not great at short handed play.
If he had an Ax, he'd shove pre unless very passive, but 9 definitely in his range. Still, he has flush draws too, which he could be shoving. I'm guessing that because you posted this hand that you ended up losing it, but no way I'm getting away from top pair in a 0.25$ spin and go. I've played a few and it's very loose and crazy, guy could be shoving with literally anything.

Gerb said:

Snap call for me, but then I'm not great at short handed play.
If he had an Ax, he'd shove pre unless very passive, but 9 definitely in his range. Still, he has flush draws too, which he could be shoving. I'm guessing that because you posted this hand that you ended up losing it, but no way I'm getting away from top pair in a 0.25$ spin and go. I've played a few and it's very loose and crazy, guy could be shoving with literally anything.

Click to expand...

There are indeed crazy people playing here. You see all kind of players, some people go all in with ATC, other minraise everything, even when having like 3 BB left. Now this player does indeed 3 bet certain hands, so I guess you are right that probably he would have shoved Ax.

Your min-raise preflop was like a grateful invite for those loose players to play with practically random hands. So that was one and only mistake, imho. Honestly you was already in ICM zone with 10BB stack, which means "push or fold" play. But well, if you already did that mistake and brought yourself at such situation, calling on such flop was totally okay. First of all we shouldn't be that paranoid to think someone could have a 9. It's pretty unlikely for sure. Actually paired board is a friend of us, as we have a second pair of Aces without good kicker. So that pair of 9s means we have good chances for split against many higher aces that beat us. And it's a reason to call. On other hand, he could have some pair, that lower than AA and hoping you have no ace. It could be semi-bluff on flush draw either, then we are favorite too. Plus we have one of his outs blocked then (5 of clubs). And honestly you are already pot committed. If you folding you have only 8BB left, which is very low, especially for turbo SNG. In pot is already 15BB and you have to deliver only 8BB. So it's nearly 1 to 2 pot chances. Which is great having that board situation. And if you take that pot, you will be more than twice bigger stack to your heads-up opponent, which is also great thing to get 1st place. So you have to take risk at that point to not being blinded out.

Indeed, I didn't think about the split pot part.
The only problem I have, is that most of the time when I called someone that goes all in or overbets the board, at these 25 cent games, my opponent has a very strong hand. It feels like they want to go all in with those hands a lot. Maybe because they know there are a lot of loose callers in these fields too.

In this case the opponent had:

In any case you must call this. The slow play is maybe the best way to play the cards. Of course a 9 is always an option, but you must pay this all in.

Shove preflop but as played you should call, he could easily have flush draw in this spot.