Re: shove or live to fight another day?

Re: shove or live to fight another day?

Hello Guys:

I got booted last night from a tournament only a few spots away from the final table. I can't decide if I made the right call, so I figured I'd solicit opinions.

Situation:

12 players left with 9 making the final table. Pot between me (button), P1 (BB), and P2 (UTG). All of us have similar stack sizes occupying 5, 6, and 7th of 12 (there were 2 dominating chip leaders).

P2 limps. Folds to me with 78 suited, I raise 3X BB. SB folds and BB raises 5X my raise (so we are now at 15BB). P2 calls 3-bet.

By this point, we played for a long while and I felt I had a pretty good read on the situation. I had them on AK or AQ (potentially even duplicate cards), so I felt good about my odds. I shove all-in and both players call.

I was right. AK and AQ unsuited versus my 78 suited. P1 and P2 ended up chopping the pot thanks to 44TT two-pair board. I left wondering if I should have folded and live to fight another day.

Your thoughts?

preflop, i'd rather just limp in on the button this close to the final table and (if i'm reading correctly) you still have 30 bbs in your stack at the start of the hand. 78s is a decent hand to play in position, but you would rather call a small preflop bet than face a large 3bet in a critical spot like this.

your shove is terrible since you a) have no fold equity and b) you're never ahead with 78s here. do you think your opponents are 3betting and limp/calling with 45s or 56s in this spot? never. you did put them on ak/aq and you do have ~equal equity with ak to win in this spot, but the problem is putting players on specific hands. even though you guess correctly, there are a lot of hands they could have that do the same thing. does kk or aa 3bet in the bb? yes. can a had like j10s, 99 limp utg? of course. so, it's not about specific hands your opponents have, but what ranges do they have.

lets say we give utg a limp/call range of

• 22-99, a5s, a10s-ajs, aqo, 98s-kqs, q10s, k10s, kjs.

and lets give bb a 3bet range of

• 99+, a10s+, aqo, kqs.

you only have 23.8% equity and you're shoving that with 0 fold equity. so, the only way to win for your hand to hit and hold, which it isn't ~75% of the time. do

so, in spots like this, do your best to avoid unnecessary marginal or -ev spots. there is nothing wrong with just folding 78s in this spot when you're close the final table. and if you need/want to play it, these hands do better post flop than preflop, so get in as cheap as possible.

as played, fold to the 3bet after utg flat calls it.

Not sure how deep you were to start the hand which makes a big difference for how to analyze this but with the information given, I am never getting it in here with 87 suited with 12 left when I am in 7th place. The BB is trying to tell you that they are strong when they raise as large as they do. Yes it may mean that they do want to see a flop but I would put their range ahead of 87 suited when they do this. UTG is a little hard to read as I would not be sure what to make of a limp call to a cold 3 bet that is so large but everything would be screaming to me that I am beat here and since we go all in there is no positional advantage being in the button.

You mention that they might have dups meaning both have AK but even if that is the case you are even money to win or lose. pot odds wise thats great since we are even to triple up but for survival purposes thats a flip. Mind you that is best case scenario. There could easily be a pocket pair in there or you could be going against 3 overcards as you were and are a dog. Either way you would need to hit something since your hand is not made. I dont agree with the jam as even if everything is lined up for you, you are still being felted half the time.

In my observation, the game slows down towards the final table as money is pressing on everyone. And the result very often develops in favor of those who are not afraid to take risks and act actively, stealing stacks and placing wabanks at approximately equal chances. And right or wrong, you have to understand yourself. Gin and poker is such a thing where there is no right answer, there is only a choice and its consequences)

Not a fan - I would limp in position and then fold to the raise.

Iso-ing 3X after a limp is not big enough to take down the pot ever, so raise at least 3.5X plus 1BB per limper.

As played, folding to a re-raise and a call without question.

Being 'right' this time isn't a good enough justification - you are still behind, could easily be really smashed by an over-pair here and you are NEVER ahead.

I like the idea of going for a big stack on the final table versus just getting there (as the real money is in top 3 spots), but this isn't close to the right way to do it.

Re-raise loose players and put pressure on in marginal spots. People who play tight enough for you peg them to AK and AQ are playing super predictably.

Trust yourself to take advantage of your reads and put them in difficult positions instead of trying to get tight players to fold their premium hands before the flop you should have better results.

Good luck!

I always have a red flag go off when utg player limps. To me that smells strong. Im ok with a raise here like you did. Mostly I am folding I think. When the big blind re-raises you he needs to be strong because he is out of position with two players he is now trying to push out. Utg calls so that should tell you that you are dead to the re-raise or dead to the utg. I’m for sure folding with that action and then looking for a better spot. Good luck on your next tournament!

Suited connectors are speculative hands that play best when deep stacked. I would have folded facing a 3 bet.

my opinion is that it was played too aggressively and taking into account stacks is an unnecessary distribution, then that you determined the range of players is good, but just an unnecessary distribution, good luck

As people already pointed out suited connectors are speculative hands that you generally want to play post flop, not raising heavily before it. As other said I would most likely just limped and then folded to re-raise. There are always better hands you can have in late game tournament situations.
Personally I would never have shoved such hand pre flop, especially if you read opponents to have the hands that you put em on yourself. I believe you were banking on both of them having similar hand, hence killing each other outs. They could also have a middle pair and you'd be kinda beat before the game actually started. Too many times I've also seen just no one hitting anything and something stupid like a Q high hand winning (similar to what happened in your hand).
So honestly I'm not a fan of how you played your hand at all. At best you got lucky and tripled. But that is if you got lucky.

It sounds like you made a reasonable decision given the information you had at the time. With a decent stack size and a read on your opponents' likely hand ranges, raising 78 suited from the button seems like a "OK" play (agressive style). When the BB re-raised you, you had to decide whether to fold or push all-in (i would choose to fold), and again it seems reasonable to make the all-in play given your read on their hand ranges.

Unfortunately, the hand didn't go your way, and you ended up getting chopped out of the pot. But even with hindsight, it's hard to say whether folding would have been the better choice. Your opponents could have had a wide range of hands, and even if they did have AK or AQ, you still had some chance of winning the hand.

In the end, poker is a game of incomplete information, and you can only make the best decision you can with the information you have at the time. Sometimes you'll make the right call and still lose, and other times you'll make the wrong call and get lucky. The important thing is to keep learning and improving your game, so that you can make better decisions in the future.

I got booted last night from a tournament only a few spots away from the final table.

Click to expand...

In order to live, you must be willing to die.

The short answer is fold.... the long answer is also fold👍

I think that this is not "the worst decision of all time" or anything like that. I understand your raise and the reason you found to shove. I admire your courage, actually. But facing a 3-bet, and also a call, the best is to fold. When you shove with 87s, specially reading them so well, you are gambling your life in the tournament, and this will never be good. Sure it is better to gamble with 87s rather than doing it with AJ, KQ or QJ, for example, but it is still a gamble. If you are ok with it, good, if you win, you will probably be the new chip leader; but you can't complain for being eliminated.

I look at what the pay jump is from 5/6/7th to making it into the final table look at what your chip value is in other words the ICM factor. You had a good position and stack size you were right in assessing the hand range however, even though you had position probably one of the two opponents will call your shove and your a huge underdog and out of the tournament. Those hands like suited connectors nd small pairs go way down in value as the tournament progresses un less you have a big stack and it is a deep stack tournament. Bottom line for me is too wait it out with a decent stack yes I want a big as stack as possible to get a deeper run when I make it to a final table but with 78 suited in a multiway pot its too risky to shove unless you have seen them fold / over folding etc other option was to just call and evaluate the flop but I'm not calling off more than 10% of my stack then its a fold in this situation due to ICM consideration.

Most of the times I'm in favor to play to win the tournament, so, I agree to play aggressively, but in that situation I would definitely fold.

UTG limp is a red flag. At that stage of the tournament, raise or limp from early position should indicate strength as they should have a very linear holdings.

Putting your opponents on correct holdings (very good) and yet still proceeding to call knowing you are behind (what?) is a mistake. It is just gambling with odds not on your side. So that is no bueno.

As others here I like a limp there. You have position post flop and your hand likes to see cheap flops. Once BB raises, if UTG just calls then you might consider a call to see the flop. But most of the time you should still only fold. Never shove all in.

It's a good thing to gain experience, my friend
Not to despair🌹