$10 NLHE MTT: mid stage tourney btn play

blinds are 200/400 50 7 handed.
hero(15bb) on btn with J3s(clubs)!
Action folds to hero on btn,
hero raises 900
v1 sb folds.
v2(43bb) calls.
flop is Td 8c 5c pot(2350)
check, hero bets 1000, villian raises all in
hero calls!
villian shows Th 9c! hero equity41%)
hero??

well I think this hand is just a fold preflop.

if we don't fold then jamming is better than raising.

as played....once we flop a flush draw and an over we are NEVER folding.

I do like betting the flop...I think I would bet a little bigger to get more fold equity from K hi and Q hi and 5x type hands....also once he shoves our pot odds are a little better and makes a call really obvious.

but even the size that you bet calling off is mandatory. we only need 35% equity with the pot odds offered.

Summary: I would fold pre

as played I would cbet flop to about 1,500 and call it off.

as played calling it off is totally fine.

Well you shouldn't be playing hands like that pre flop with 15-20 BBs. By playing hands like that, you're only giving yourself headache spots like this.

xy23 said:

Well you shouldn't be playing hands like that pre flop with 15-20 BBs. By playing hands like that, you're only giving yourself headache spots like this.

Click to expand...

Not even a button steal?

If the blinds are passive/tight and you think you can get a steal through, I think that's a good play. I agree though I am probably folding pre. It is close to jam but only if you know the blinds to be tight. As played, you might as well go for it. Pretty good spot to double w/ 40% equity.

your stack is short and you should play push/fold neither min-raise or call. in mid stage its easy push. i would fold only against loose callers(we have no fold equity)

it's technically not a push according to snapshove but we can often push wider than snapshove esp if blinds have shown a tendency to be tight.

the snapshove chart says the worst suited jack is J7s. I will often add 1 rung below because population tendencies don't call wide enough (so J6s).

if they are extra tight and passive I'll add 2 rungs below so J5s

If we were deeper like 18+bb I'd raise fold this hand

Jacki Burkhart said:

it's technically not a push according to snapshove but we can often push wider than snapshove esp if blinds have shown a tendency to be tight.

the snapshove chart says the worst suited jack is J7s. I will often add 1 rung below because population tendencies don't call wide enough (so J6s).

if they are extra tight and passive I'll add 2 rungs below so J5s

If we were deeper like 18+bb I'd raise fold this hand

Click to expand...

I felt i should have checked back the flop and delayed cbet on some over cards on turn!
And what would have been better pre here from button jamming or folding?

I mostly agree with Jacki, though I also think as played pre, we can check back this flop some of the time when we have an over and backdoor straight draws. This hand can stand a bet on a decent number of turns, it disguises our hand sometimes when we hit a flush, and we have more SDV than with, say, a 6 hi flush draw.

But yeah as everyone is saying, once we get to this spot, and we cbet, we do have to call off, but I don't think this hand is really an open off a 15bb stack in the first place.

Raising 900 is probably not enough to steal a Blind, and considering that the player’s size on the big blind is almost three times the size of your hand with J3s, it’s unprofitable.

seeyouthru said:

I felt i should have checked back the flop and delayed cbet on some over cards on turn!
And what would have been better pre here from button jamming or folding?

Click to expand...

IMO the ranking of preflop options is as follows:

#1 fold
#2 jam
#3 limp (only vs weak blinds and I think I can outplay them postflop. Specific to the 15-20bb stack situation)
#4 min raise
#5 raise bigger than a min raise

We are just trying to steal and play a pot in position if they don’t fold. We are 100% folding if they jam so we may as well save the extra 100-200 chips.

I can see the merits of checking back the flop some % of the time but I’m mostly choosing that in deeper stacked situations. In reality in this spot I’m nearly always Cbetting somewhat large and getting it in here.

What started as a wide steal has turned into a good draw and with stack sizes being what they are I just want to put chips in while my draw is still strong. Draws like this can lose a TON of value on certain turns.

We’ve flopped too good to consider folding. And our hand plays much better with fold equity.

Consider instead that he defended bb w a hand like K9 or QJ wouldn’t we love getting a technically better hand to fold and we are still in decent shape anytime he flopped a T or better.

Scourrge said:

I mostly agree with Jacki, though I also think as played pre, we can check back this flop some of the time when we have an over and backdoor straight draws. This hand can stand a bet on a decent number of turns, it disguises our hand sometimes when we hit a flush, and we have more SDV than with, say, a 6 hi flush draw.

But yeah as everyone is saying, once we get to this spot, and we cbet, we do have to call off, but I don't think this hand is really an open off a 15bb stack in the first place.

Click to expand...

Is it a all in than from Btn?

seeyouthru said:

Is it a all in than from Btn?

Click to expand...

As Jacki already mentioned, a chipEV, Nash equilibrium shove would be J7s and above, not J3s. You might be able to expand a few spots with tight players in the blinds, but I probably would not expand to J3s.

Scourrge said:

As Jacki already mentioned, a chipEV, Nash equilibrium shove would be J7s and above, not J3s. You might be able to expand a few spots with tight players in the blinds, but I probably would not expand to J3s.

Click to expand...

I feel like with the fold equity you have here you can shove 90%

seeyouthru said:

I feel like with the fold equity you have here you can shove 90%

Click to expand...

ok well do you want us to give your our opinions based on math and our experience, or do you just want to tell us your feelings? lol. I'm just giving you a hard time a little but you seem to REALLY want to justify your preflop play. ask yourself WHY that is? do you want to learn and be better and better....or do you want to find convoluted reasons to believe you are right?

the snapshove calculator has factored in fold equity. This is why it asks stack sizes and how many players are left to act. The calculator understands that players mostly overfold. that's why it lets you shove garbage. just not ALL garbage.

hands that have a 2 or a 3 in them unblock the villain's auto fold ranges.

Jacki Burkhart said:

ok well do you want us to give your our opinions based on math and our experience, or do you just want to tell us your feelings? lol. I'm just giving you a hard time a little but you seem to REALLY want to justify your preflop play. ask yourself WHY that is? do you want to learn and be better and better....or do you want to find convoluted reasons to believe you are right?

the snapshove calculator has factored in fold equity. This is why it asks stack sizes and how many players are left to act. The calculator understands that players mostly overfold. that's why it lets you shove garbage. just not ALL garbage.

hands that have a 2 or a 3 in them unblock the villain's auto fold ranges.

Click to expand...

The last part about unblocking i dont understand!
How can you really think you block 2 or 3 in a 8 handed game!
You even sometimes get overflushed!

seeyouthru said:

The last part about unblocking i dont understand!
How can you really think you block 2 or 3 in a 8 handed game!
You even sometimes get overflushed!

Click to expand...

unblocking is a bit of an advanced concept but basically when you are going for a pure steal you would prefer not to have a 2 or 3 in your hand. the reason is that the BB will call your min raise quite wide but the most likely hands that they will actually fold contain a 2 or 3.

when you, yourself are holding a 2 or 3 you reduce the combinations of their overall range that will now fold.

pretend 23,34,35,36,37,38,39,3T,3Q might normally fold. that is 144 combinations of automatic folds.

but if you hold a 3 now through the magic of card removal those 144 combinations have turned into 108 combinations.

that little extra bit of fold equity preflop actually does matter when the open is so marginal to begin with. it's not as big of a deal on a hand like K3s or A3o because that's not a marginal open. but reducing their folds by just that little bit can make a borderline spot VERY -EV

Just fold this preflop. As played calling is fine.

what are you doing? just fold preflop. it's not that hand to steal bb.