DoN SNG - Bubble. Call or fold?

4 left, 3 pay equal (Double or Nothing)

Do we call here? And what would our calling range be here?

https://gyazo.com/adc9f594197e087bcccd9b65147d0eff
Sorry for no direct image, won't show for some reason.

While you are thinking with me, if you feel like thinking more, what do you think the perfect shove range is for the player shoving here?

(Ignore this, posted in wrong thread)

For 4 max, hand 1010 of course very strong
In this situation, everything depends on this player who made Push. How did he play before that? how often did he enter the game? How aggressive is he?
if this player is very tight, nit, then here you have to play Fold.
And if this is a loose player , then of course - Call.

Its a reg, so he won't be shoving very tight here knowing we have to call very tight. But even versus his shoving range, and it being the bubble, i still think its very close. Not sure what hands we call here.

That's a good question man. I'd be interested to what the 'correct' mathematical answer is there. If you find out, or plug it into some equity calculator, please share. I find pocket 10's really tricky to play.

2nd in chips with every stack really close pretty much 1 bb away from the next, with the big blind at 300 on the bubble. You'd have to assume he is shoving with a really wide range, but you'd also think that if he had prime holdings he might trap with them. Either he has an under pair and you're golden, he has JJ/QQ and your dominated or you're in for some race type scenario.


My guess is that calling/reshoving is the 'correct' play here if he is a regular with a wide shoving range, that is probably turning up the aggression on the bubble. That being said more than likely I would fold, but that might be a leak in my game!

rsimms said:

That's a good question man. I'd be interested to what the 'correct' mathematical answer is there. If you find out, or plug it into some equity calculator, please share. I find pocket 10's really tricky to play.

2nd in chips with every stack really close pretty much 1 bb away from the next, with the big blind at 300 on the bubble. You'd have to assume he is shoving with a really wide range, but you'd also think that if he had prime holdings he might trap with them. Either he has an under pair and you're golden, he has JJ/QQ and your dominated or you're in for some race type scenario.


My guess is that calling/reshoving is the 'correct' play here if he is a regular with a wide shoving range, that is probably turning up the aggression on the bubble. That being said more than likely I would fold, but that might be a leak in my game!

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Hey, thanks for your reply. I will run this hand in the nash calculator with my next free calculation tommorow. Very curious about the result, though i'd like to run this twice in a calculator, one giving the open shover a bit tighter range, and one with a much wider range and see howmuch affect our decision. You'll hear back from me tommorow!

Fold is better for me.The chance to call 3th and 4 th player is great,10 has 4 over cards-J D K A .Fold that hand,don t try to win.

I am folding this one. I think this is a situation where you call really tight, say QQ+.

So i've run the situation in ICMizer and orginally gave the openshover a range from top 37% of the hands. I misclicked on the nash button, which gave CO a 100% jamming range assuming you should jam any two cards here. Altho CO is one of the best if not the best DoN player (according to sharkscope) on WinAmax, i don't think he would be jamming as light as 72o here and his range may be closer to 80%. Though, with a 100% shoving range from CO, we should only call with TT+. Assuming he would go lighter then 100%, since i've seen him fold in this spot a bunch, TT may actualy be a fold since its so close and assuming our opponents won't play perfect after this hand you may consider folding the bottom of our range. I feel a bit better about this fold now.

versus a 70% jamming range, which i think is more realistic for a player to shove here we will have to fold TT.

Oh wow, right on the border. That is just a situation you don't want to be in as a caller. I havn't played DoN's but I would imagine that bubble play in these tournaments is even crazier than regular tournament bubbles, especially in this scenario where everybody's stack is so close.

General rule in the bubble, even if you have AA it’s not embarrassing to fold, he can beat you with 72, so fold is strong play and wait, third place gives you money in this situation no matter how many chips you have unless you are bingo player. So FOLD!!! No need for more analysis. No matter what he haves or what is his range. Only thing what is important is to be in the money

I think, even if he is not holding any JJ+, he also could shove with AJ+, KT+ and you could be also easily the underdog with your TT. Even when I did not see the results of
ICMizer, I just thought, it would be good to fold these TT. Also because I don't like to be the caller when facing such aggression.

yes it is fold in don sng but in regular sng i would call

This shouldn’t even be a question, 2nd in chips virtually guaranteed to cash at that stage, easy fold. I might even consider folding KK but probably not so folding QQ and calling only AA and KK. In a regular sng 10 10 is very vey close in this spot, I don’t think you could make a wrong decision but in a don sng completely different story.

I used to play DoN's a lot on Carbon, but I quit when those idiots decided to turn them into donkfests by screwing around with the structure. This is a close one, but I would fold here primarily based on stack sizes and not knowing what the SB and BB are going to do. If you call and so does somebody in the blinds, TT is likely to be no good at all.

If villain had 895 instead of 1895, and I was in the BB with SB and button folding, I would call.

Fold equity is huge in these on the bubble, I would much rather shove a weaker hand than call with a stronger one.

RidersFan said:

This shouldn’t even be a question, 2nd in chips virtually guaranteed to cash at that stage, easy fold. I might even consider folding KK but probably not so folding QQ and calling only AA and KK. In a regular sng 10 10 is very vey close in this spot, I don’t think you could make a wrong decision but in a don sng completely different story.

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<Oh trust me, having played hundreds of those in the past few days, i am no where guaranteed to cash. Us folding into the money wont work here most of the time. This play can continue for a much longer time because shoving ranges will become wider and wider, while calling ranges will become very tight. I did end up folding TT here, and a few hands later i was the shortest stack open shoving 77 and busted to a call. Forgot what he had but i think it was a strong ace. Losing call there from villian i'm prety sure as he wasn't having a big chip advantage. Calling, shoving and jamming correctly is very important in those games but deciding what is perfect is hard as others don't play perfect. People in those games tend to make bad calls like this hand i busted with 77, but once we are 1 round further without making a move, well be the shortest stack by a clear amount which will make the worse players not make those kind of mistakes anymore and result in us blinding out looking to go to a 4-way all in as they will all call when i hit the big blind to get me out. There is so much strategy in those games, its not a huge sattelite where you can fold to the money, you have to make moves.

PokerFunKid said:

<Oh trust me, having played hundreds of those in the past few days, i am no where guaranteed to cash. Us folding into the money wont work here most of the time. This play can continue for a much longer time because shoving ranges will become wider and wider, while calling ranges will become very tight. I did end up folding TT here, and a few hands later i was the shortest stack open shoving 77 and busted to a call. Forgot what he had but i think it was a strong ace. Losing call there from villian i'm prety sure as he wasn't having a big chip advantage. Calling, shoving and jamming correctly is very important in those games but deciding what is perfect is hard as others don't play perfect. People in those games tend to make bad calls like this hand i busted with 77, but once we are 1 round further without making a move, well be the shortest stack by a clear amount which will make the worse players not make those kind of mistakes anymore and result in us blinding out looking to go to a 4-way all in as they will all call when i hit the big blind to get me out. There is so much strategy in those games, its not a huge sattelite where you can fold to the money, you have to make moves.

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I wasn’t suggesting that you can fold into the money that’s an absurd inference. By virtually guaranteed I meant barring variance, you can limit variance by folding in a high variance spot and exploiting others who probably aren’t calling correctly. I used to play don sng’s almost exclusively but got burnt out due to the fact that the variance is so high and I got better at deep stack poker so mtts became more fun for me.

ofc fold before bubble

RidersFan said:

This shouldn’t even be a question, 2nd in chips virtually guaranteed to cash at that stage, easy fold. I might even consider folding KK but probably not so folding QQ and calling only AA and KK. In a regular sng 10 10 is very vey close in this spot, I don’t think you could make a wrong decision but in a don sng completely different story.

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While he is 2nd in chips here this is very far from a guaranteed cash. The stacks are still very close to each other and there may be several orbits of stealing that occur. I still fold this. I probably call with QQ+. I don't see myself calling with JJ. I would be curious to know if he shoved here with the top 50% range what the right calling range is.

For me the fold is due to the position here you have two potential callers behind you though its unlikely they will call unless they have AA KK or maybe QQ AK in that spot or so I would think. The other thought that strikes me is he is UTG, if you have a read on the guy its possible his range includes Ax where x = trash

I was in a situation with a semi-strong hand acted first with a 3bet and was pushed all in I had the guy covered so called, he showed 62off and hit two 6s on the flop and turn I had A8 off usually would not have called but he had been playing very loose most of the game when he hit that I just tilted the rest of my chips -

RidersFan said:

I wasn’t suggesting that you can fold into the money that’s an absurd inference. By virtually guaranteed I meant barring variance, you can limit variance by folding in a high variance spot and exploiting others who probably aren’t calling correctly. I used to play don sng’s almost exclusively but got burnt out due to the fact that the variance is so high and I got better at deep stack poker so mtts became more fun for me.

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Yeah i feel you. But that spot is just very profitable and our range is already so tight, why would we not try to make a profitable move where possible. Those profitable moves take ICM in concideration.

PokerFunKid said:

Yeah i feel you. But that spot is just very profitable and our range is already so tight, why would we not try to make a profitable move where possible. Those profitable moves take ICM in concideration.

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True true, I guess it’s just one of those close spots that’s never going to have a clear cut answer.

Hey dude,

i just saw your question and the answers so i had to register real quick and give you my opinion on it because i am a DoN player myself and i think it is def. not a fold and here is why:

let's imagine we are the player "backtoggrind" :

Big Blind is knocking at our door and the chipleader is sitting to our right, which is bad, because u rather want the chipleader to your left, so you can jam on him with many hands to collect blinds. (at least when you are in the danger zone). A skilled chipleader (with a small/decent chiplead) will almost never call because he rather wants the small stacks to bust each other ofc. So, having the chipleader to your right is shit and backtoggrind knows this.

He shoves from UTG and he knows this very well too. He knows that his shove looks ultimatively hyper strong in this situation. If he'd hold a monster like JJ+ he would rather not shove. He'd minraise or put some donkraise like 3.5BB because there is the possibility that one of you guys loses patience and rejams with ATs+ or even worse. i've seen him doing these monster-minraises in similar spots, it's part of his play. he might mix up his play in these situations but he def. does that.

He might shove monsters during the first games with new/unknown players in the hope that someone looks him up and has a trauma/shock from this point so they will never look him up again if he shoves from UTG because they remember what happened last time.

So if backtoggrind folds there UTG, "NewLife67" or YOU would shove pretty often and that means that backtoggrind will be the shorty in the next hand. Due to this, his fold equity will drop down heavily. He simply does not want this to happen. If he folds he will be forced to shove toooo many hands in the next rounds only to stay alive.

If everyone folds and the chipleader collects the blinds, the chipleader will have a massive chiplead on backtoggrind which is bad, because then he can easily force backtoggrind into an all in next round without even risking his own life.

So, what i wanna say is: if he folds, no matter what happens between the 3 other players, it has always a bad outcome for backtoggrind.

i have played some DoN's with backtoggrind and i remember him jamming A7o UTG in a veeery similar spot. That was the only time i looked him up in a spot like this but i would bet my ass that he jams any A, even more K and suited connectors, he might even jam any two cards because folding is crap in this spot. Guess it depends who is sitting at the table with him.

It's a very special spot and my thoughts only go so deep because backtoggrind is an experienced player and i expect a sneaky preventative shove like this from him, only to not fall back on rank 4.

So, yeah... Ofc you run into monsters occasionally but i'd say that you have to call because a player like backtoggrind shoves too much bullshit there.

CALL CALL CALL!!!!