$Freeroll NLHE MTT Deep Stacked: Final Table - ICM question

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 4,000/8,000 NL - Holdem - 8 players

UTG: 23.6 BB (VPIP: 29.17, PFR: 31.11, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, hands: 51)
UTG+1: 5.48 BB (VPIP: 10.00, PFR: 10.71, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 31)
MP: 11.28 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 2)
MP+1: 17.4 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 2)
CO: 19.32 BB (VPIP: 36.28, PFR: 28.44, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 115)
Hero (BTN): 2.77 BB
SB: 26.02 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 50.00, 3Bet Preflop: 100.00, Hands: 2)
BB: 11.63 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 10.29, 3Bet Preflop: 4.76, Hands: 72)

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has 9♦ 9♣

fold, UTG+1 raises to 5.35 BB and is all-in, fold, fold, fold. hero?


This hand is from a final table of an online tournament. I am sitting on 8th place out of 8 players left with a bit less than 3 BB. As usual in FT the pay jumps are pretty significant. the player in 7th place has a bit less than 6BB and shoves from UTG.

My thoughts:

Villain needs a very strong hand to shove, since in this situatuion he doesn't count on winning the tournament but more on climbing up the ladder, and he should probably play patiently until I am eliminated. I have a strong hand myself, and I am kind of a dead man walking with less than 3BB, but what's the better move for me? To call against villain's shoving range or maybe fold and hope that one of the blinds (especially the SB who has a decent stack) call, eliminate him and climb me up the ladder. Of course that if his raise gets unanswered this is a catastrophe for me.

don't forget that the villian knows what you're saying about your own pre-cards strategy. you should be playing quickly and he should be waiting for a bust. knowing that, all he has to do is beat the people expected to play against his all in...guys with premium who want to cal or whomever the unfortunate bb is....i think it's a good move on his part to make you try to figure this out in 20 seconds or something

99 for me is an easy shove in the BB most of the times its an easy win even in short stacked.

pepsilv said:

99 for me is an easy shove in the BB most of the times its an easy win even in short stacked.

Click to expand...

I wasn't in BB, but in BTN. that's exactly was my conflict, whether I should call and try to double up through him, or maybe it's better to let the players in the blinds try to eliminate him and move me up the ladder.

There is no ICM here for you , you are the smallest stack anyways , I would call it if I were you without second though, is very likely for him to hold TT+ but sometimes you are flipping against Ax,Kx or some suited connectors.

The problem I see here is how you ended up at the final table with less than 3 bbs , it should't be your priority to go deep but with no stack , try to build a stack and if you lose prior to the final table that's poker.

https://floattheturn.com/wp/pushfold/

Take a look at those charts , I open shove a little bit tighter,sometimes, than that but they are mathematically correct.

I think your hand is way stronger than it needs to be to justify a call. UTG+1 is also in desperation mode and will be shoving with a lot of hands you dominate or flip with here. You also have a fairly tight player in the big blind, so you should only have 2 players to fend off most of the time.

If my chip stack were deeper - say 10bb, I would consider bailing. In the 2 FT hands so far the SB has obviously been active and I would worry about the 3 player showdown with 99. As shown, this would be an auto call for me.