$165 NLHE MTT Turbo Rebuy: squeeze spot with 66, everyone is short

blinds 3k/8k/16k

I'm the chip leader with 6 players left. 2 million chips in play and I have 550k (34bb). we're well into the money. I've been opening a ton and generally just abusing the tight tendencies of my table.

so I'm UTG and open to 35k with

It folds to Button who looks super conflicted and tanks for a while, counts out his stack and eventually flats off a stack of ~ 300k (18bb). He is never hollywooding here. He is just being indecisive and nitty.

SB jams for 115k. He's the only player at the table who is decent, I've been playing with him for hours and he's mixing it up and getting in pots and playing back at me. But also, with 7bb this is a value shove everytime. But, he is good enough to know to expand his value range due to his short stack, I'm opening wide, we are 6 handed etc. I'd assume his range here is something like 88+ AT+, KJs+, KQo. he knows he's getting called in at least 1 spot.

So I'm doing plenty good against this range to call. But I decide my hand will play better if I knock out the Button. Then most likely I'm flipping with dead money which is always a good thing. And if he calls then I potentially have a side pot to play for (66 plays terrible post flop so I'd rather maximize my fold equity while not having to make post flop decisions). Theres a good chance they're sharing eachother's outs. It would be extremely unlucky for them to both have pocket pairs bigger than 66...but if they do and I lose to both I've still got 15bb. But he was so conflicted when he called that I'm pretty sure my hand will look super strong and he'll fold as strong as AJ or maybe even AQ. (He shouldn't, but hes a nit).

So I iso jam. What do we think of this?

any stacks bigger than the button? how big is BB's stack? i think if BTN is the deepest stack next to yours, then I would really just prefer open shoving...

as played, Iso is fine, 66 nearly doubles in equity headsup compared to 3 handed since you only have to fade 2 overs instead of 4 you probably have about 45% vs SBs range, so youve got a great price there, and youre risking another 10bb to get BTN to fold, you probably have about 33% against BTNs calling range, will be mostly higher pairs with a few Ax (he could have been unsure of whether he should shove overtop, so his confliction only really indicates that his hand is on the edge of his flatting range, but the strong edge or the weak edge?), I'm a little too tired to work out the math, but we only need to generate a little bit of fold equity to make this profitable, if he folds 20 to 30% of the time, i think it works out to a profitable ISO

I'm not a fan of ever flatting SB's shove, we just never get to showdown unless BTN is going to check down or fold to any bet on the flop

So to me it's either ISO or fold, im pretty sure, if my assumptions about their ranges and my very roughly estimated maths are right, Iso should be pretty profitable

mbrenneman0 said:

any stacks bigger than the button? how big is BB's stack? i think if BTN is the deepest stack next to yours, then I would really just prefer open shoving...

as played, Iso is fine, 66 nearly doubles in equity headsup compared to 3 handed since you only have to fade 2 overs instead of 4 you probably have about 45% vs SBs range, so youve got a great price there, and youre risking another 10bb to get BTN to fold, you probably have about 33% against BTNs calling range, will be mostly higher pairs with a few Ax (he could have been unsure of whether he should shove overtop, so his confliction only really indicates that his hand is on the edge of his flatting range, but the strong edge or the weak edge?), I'm a little too tired to work out the math, but we only need to generate a little bit of fold equity to make this profitable, if he folds 20 to 30% of the time, i think it works out to a profitable ISO

I'm not a fan of ever flatting SB's shove, we just never get to showdown unless BTN is going to check down or fold to any bet on the flop

So to me it's either ISO or fold, im pretty sure, if my assumptions about their ranges and my very roughly estimated maths are right, Iso should be pretty profitable

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yes there are some bigger stacks on my left they have like 22bb and 26bb. something like that. BB is kinda short with like 13-15 bb. This is from memory I can't remember perfectly. But I remembered thinking as I decided to raise that if the SB or BB jammed i would call and if any of the other 3 players raised I would have to fold.

yes button's conflict was about whether to call or jam, not whether to call or fold. but still....I got the sense that given the new information he had that he was facing an UTG open, a jam and a re-jam was folding a ton. I'm faced with a capped range and a nitty player. He would have already jammed AK and TT+ when I opened. So, when he flats what's left in his range is basically AT-AQ KQ and like 55-99. I think he'll fold AT/AJ/55/77. That's my thinking anways.

yeah that range sounds about right, although, without whatever info you may have, i think you might be able to put some weaker hands, like 98s or KJ into BTNs range for the times where his conflict is about whether to call or fold. I think hes more likely to call AJ and fold KQ rather than the other way around, but thats nitpicking, they might as well be the same hand to us. this is definitely an ISO, he's folding 50% of the time and we have 55% against AQ and KQ (16 combos each) and 20% against 88 and 99 (4 combos each) giving us about 45% against his calling range

mbrenneman0 said:

yeah that range sounds about right, although, without whatever info you may have, i think you might be able to put some weaker hands, like 98s or KJ into BTNs range for the times where his conflict is about whether to call or fold. I think hes more likely to call AJ and fold KQ rather than the other way around, but thats nitpicking, they might as well be the same hand to us. this is definitely an ISO, he's folding 50% of the time and we have 55% against AQ and KQ (16 combos each) and 20% against 88 and 99 (4 combos each) giving us about 45% against his calling range

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oh I agree I just got lazy in my notation. I figured if I was saying he might fold AJ/AQ then it was obvious he would definitely fold KQ.

mbrenneman0 said:

any stacks bigger than the button? how big is BB's stack? i think if BTN is the deepest stack next to yours, then I would really just prefer open shoving...

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Even if 18BB was the second biggest stack at the table, I wouldn't open shove 66 here UTG. Am I being too conservative?

If the table is playing tight then they'll fold for less. If they call, their range is almost entirely hands that are coin-flips or way ahead.

A shove would maximize fold equity, and make the hand easier to play, since it's often difficult to tell where you stand post-flop with medium pocket pairs. But I don't think the benefits are worth the cost.

Otherwise, I think the presentation of the hand and the analysis in this thread is really solid, nice job.
I have a feeling this didn't end well for the hero, but it sounds WP to me.

AlexTheOwl said:

Even if 18BB was the second biggest stack at the table, I wouldn't open shove 66 here UTG. Am I being too conservative?

If the table is playing tight then they'll fold for less. If they call, their range is almost entirely hands that are coin-flips or way ahead.

A shove would maximize fold equity, and make the hand easier to play, since it's often difficult to tell where you stand post-flop with medium pocket pairs. But I don't think the benefits are worth the cost.

Otherwise, I think the presentation of the hand and the analysis in this thread is really solid, nice job.
I have a feeling this didn't end well for the hero, but it sounds WP to me.

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Yeah I’m not jamming for 18bb effective cuz they’re folding a ton to min raises and if I’m jamming some hands and min raising others I have to split my range....which could be done but I haven’t worked out which hands to put into which ranges. Anyways I can fold to their raises easily and not sweat it and just pick up pots later.

missjacki said:

Yeah I’m not jamming for 18bb effective cuz they’re folding a ton to min raises and if I’m jamming some hands and min raising others I have to split my range....which could be done but I haven’t worked out which hands to put into which ranges. Anyways I can fold to their raises easily and not sweat it and just pick up pots later.

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If you want to split your range and balance it, you should put hands that play poorly postflop into your shoving range and put nutted hands together with hands that play well postflop, like suited connectors, into your minraising range

I think its easier to just play push fold though from 20bb or less. Also, remember UTG 6 handed is not the same as UTG 10 handed. Jennifears push/fold chart does really well.

But as you said, there were larger stacks so we definitely cant play push/fold here.

mbrenneman0 said:

If you want to split your range and balance it, you should put hands that play poorly postflop into your shoving range and put nutted hands together with hands that play well postflop, like suited connectors, into your minraising range

I think its easier to just play push fold though from 20bb or less. Also, remember UTG 6 handed is not the same as UTG 10 handed. Jennifears push/fold chart does really well.

But as you said, there were larger stacks so we definitely cant play push/fold here.

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Oh I think there are tables where splitting my range as described is the best strategy at 11-19bb. Basically the tougher the table the more useful this is. I’ve adopted similar strategies in tougher tourneys at tougher tables. But at this table even if 18bb were the effective stack I’m still not jamming 66 cuz I’m not jamming any hands.

While it is easier to play a hand like 66 with a jam; the easiest play isn’t always the most +EV play. Having a jamming range definitely increases my variance in a spot where I’m waaaay the best player and I want to slowly incrementally increase my chip lead. And they’re clearly not 3b jamming on me wide enough so I’m never getting outplayed by these particular guys. If they’re piling it in I’m beat and can just fold (unless they have 7bb!). I want to keep min raising with hands like Q8 and 22 and J6s so I need to keep my whole range merged. But at other tables Yes, I agree

Very well played and well thought out.

If 18bb was the 2nd largest stack 66 would be an open jam though.

The only play here is to shove. No way you fold here.

mbrenneman0 said:

I think its easier to just play push fold though from 20bb or less. Also, remember UTG 6 handed is not the same as UTG 10 handed. Jennifears push/fold chart does really well.

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It's easier. But this is from the "FAQ" tab of Jennifear's chart:

Q: With 12-20BB, when should I raise with intent to fold as opposed to pushing, and vice versa?
A: This is wholly dependent upon your opponents. If your opponents are tight and only reraising with the goods, then a raise/fold is often the best option. Also, a large shove will often be construed as very strong, and will sometimes only be called by tight ranges.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hHM04qRKysOVj0IoiW6EZpWFSVB2U3Oscg4-B2_0xog/edit?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&hl=en_US&f=true&noheader=true&gid=0#gid=4

Even if opponents have 18bb and less, you shouldn't open shove, that is too oldschool. Just raise. After Sb jams, this is super profitable spot to shove now, because Btn will have ton of folds. Well played OP.