Push/Fold : When to and when not to?

Tournament ITM with 19 players left. We are at 5th. Action folded to us in the LJ with 14BB. We are having AQs.

With 14BBs it's a clear shove as per most push/fold charts. But with just 14 BB we are also at 5th. Chip leader and second place were deep. Anyhow I shoved and got called with QQ from SB (25BB) and finished 19th. Was my play right? Or should I have considered ICM and just raised instead of jamming? In serious need of advice

I sometimes have a min raise strategy in these situations, but I don't know if it would have helped here. Had you min raised, SB would have shoved (and you would have called). It's just a cooler.

The reason for a min raise strategy is to steal blinds and get people to raise your best hands. You need a really good or easy to fold hand to min raise. High pairs and good suited connectors are best. AQs is better just to shove and hope one of the four calls with AJ or they all fold.

thehangdude said:

I sometimes have a min raise strategy in these situations, but I don't know if it would have helped here. Had you min raised, SB would have shoved (and you would have called). It's just a cooler.

The reason for a min raise strategy is to steal blinds and get people to raise your best hands. You need a really good or easy to fold hand to min raise. High pairs and good suited connectors are best. AQs is better just to shove and hope one of the four calls with AJ or they all fold.

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Pretty much this. If you raise-fold AQs with 14BB effective, people can bluff you, like their is no tomorrow, and you are simply not playing good poker. So its one of those spots, where all the chips has to go in before the flop. There is no way to avoid it, and its nothing to worry about. Sooner or later you will have QQ, when someone else have AQs, and with 14BB effective they will also get it in preflop against you.

Also while you might be the 5. largest stack in the tournament, this is not nearly as important as the fact, you only had 14BB. 14BB is nowhere near enough to fold your way to payjumps, and the significant payjumps are still far away, when 19 players are left. So you have to get in there and play, and it does not get much better than picking up AQs in middle position, and it folds around to you. It just sucks, that one of the few deep stack players behind happened to wake up with a monster, but it does not mean, you did anything wrong.

At 14bb, it's fine to have a min-raising range with hands you'll call facing a shove and hands you'll fold. But if you put AQs in this range and min-raise it, then you would absolutely have to get your stack in facing a 3-bet. It's much too strong to raise/fold.

So you played well by open-shoving and the next best option would have been to min-raise and call it off. Either way, same outcome and just a cooler like Thehangdude and Fundiver say!

14 BB is too little to think about fifth place with 19 players. You would still have to play push. Throwing out AQ in this situation is a very tight game

I'd have done exactly the same. All-in hoping for someone to call with a worse hand. Unlucky !

When you're that deep in the tournament, people aren't calling loosely even to a min raise, they have something worth playing. No need to shove, especially against a higher chip stack. Seen that exact hand scenario way too many times. Even if you min raised and SB re-raised all in, that's a fold. Just bad positioning with where the bigger stacks were, so you need to be extra careful.

Thats just a cooler.

But when was the next Ladder?

With 14bb sitting in 5th and so far behind 1st and second that comes into consideration. AQ in the LJ position with 14 bb left could let you get past the Blinds and gives you time for a better chance in later position . Is it a bad Push.... No but in my opinion its not panic time yet either.

Here is an awesome push/fold chart to review that is very detailed and an excellent guideline
by Johnathan Little
https://floattheturn.com/wp/pushfold/

ManuMKG7 said:

Tournament ITM with 19 players left. We are at 5th. Action folded to us in the LJ with 14BB. We are having AQs.

With 14BBs it's a clear shove as per most push/fold charts. But with just 14 BB we are also at 5th. Chip leader and second place were deep. Anyhow I shoved and got called with QQ from SB (25BB) and finished 19th. Was my play right? Or should I have considered ICM and just raised instead of jamming? In serious need of advice

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Good evening!
I think you played it right!
Since 14 big blinds are always a push, the more you have already gone to ITM.
AQ is a good pushing hand, especially since you might not have expected a better situation.
Hope the pagejumps in this tournament were not big
Good luck at the tables!

This is a very difficult situation. Of course, I would like to see the full situation in the tournament by the number of chips. 19 players is 3 incomplete tables. 5 position is not very bad and risk AQ is not obvious.. I would not say that the game is wrong, but perhaps it was worth thinking about and evaluating the possibility of getting to the final table. If you can clearly see the possibility of being on the final table without problems and there are very tight opponents, I will be closer to playing a call and watching the flop, but the opponent with QQ will definitely put all in, and I would consider folding.

Pocket Q's will go all out imho.
Unless that it is AQ suited, I fold nowadays.
But that is Online Tournaments I am playing. Went out too many times to pocket pairs.
Wait for a nut hand to shove it out while others get kicked out. Got onto the final table while sitting on my hands instead of playing them.
God luck and stay happy.