$1.50 NLHE STT: Bubble of an STT

[LuisBoaC]

Villian Stats (VPIP/PFR/AF): 24/13/1

I played this hand a few weeks ago and I'm not certain what my thinking was at the time. ICMizer has this as a fold pre-flop and that's what I now think I should have done.
I believe I am normally too tight, too risk-averse, on the bubble. Here I was (probably) trying to avoid that, looking to increase my stack and give myself a better chance at winning the tourney, rather than blinding away while expecting to make the money fairly easily.
Post-flop I feel was far too passive, scared of being bubble-boy.
Would you play this hand and if so, how would you act post-flop?

pokerstars, $1.29 + $0.21 - Hold'em No Limit - 60/120 (15 ante) - 4 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

UTG: 5,940 (50 bb)
BU: 4,462 (37 bb)
SB: 572 (5 bb)
BB (Hero): 2,526 (21 bb)

Pre-Flop: (240) Hero is BB with T♠ K♦
UTG raises to 300, 2 players fold, Hero calls 180

Flop: (720) 5♦ 3♠ T♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets 400, Hero calls 400

Turn: (1,520) 4♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets 1,811, BB (Hero) folds

Total pot: 1,520
UTG wins 1,520

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
ICMizer can only analyse push or fold spots, so what the program tells you is, that you should not push here. Which makes a lot of sense, because you would be pushing into the massive chipleader on the bubble, when someone else is running on fumes. That is quite obviously a kamikaze move AKA "ICM suicide", and we dont even really need software to tell us so.

Calling is different though, because you are getting a price, and you are not committing your stack just yet. You do put yourself in a position, where he can potentially put a lot of pressure on you though. So if he was a particularly tough opponent, I can see letting this one go and basically hope, that SB bust within the next orbit. My default would be to call though and look to play some poker.

Flop
As played a standard call.

Turn
If I made the call preflop, there is no way, I am going to fold top pair second best kicker on the turn, when I only started with 21BB. This is an extremely appealing spot for him to put you to the test, and he could even have a worse kicker than you and think, he is doing this for value / protection. So as played I am sticking it in here and hoping to see some some kind of hand, that I am ahead off.

 

[LuisBoaC]

Preflop
ICMizer can only analyse push or fold spots, so what the program tells you is, that you should not push here. Which makes a lot of sense, because you would be pushing into the massive chipleader on the bubble, when someone else is running on fumes. That is quite obviously a kamikaze move AKA "ICM suicide", and we dont even really need software to tell us so.

Thank you for your response. You are, of course, right about ICMizer and I'm not playing shove/fold with these stacks. And I definitely agree that shoving here would be "ICM suicide"! I think I was looking to justify taking the easy way out and folding here.

Calling is different though, because you are getting a price, and you are not committing your stack just yet. You do put yourself in a position, where he can potentially put a lot of pressure on you though. So if he was a particularly tough opponent, I can see letting this one go and basically hope, that SB bust within the next orbit. My default would be to call though and look to play some poker.

Here you give better justification to folding pre-flop. But in honesty I want to be where you are - the default being to call and play some poker.

Flop
As played a standard call.

Turn
If I made the call preflop, there is no way, I am going to fold top pair second best kicker on the turn, when I only started with 21BB. This is an extremely appealing spot for him to put you to the test, and he could even have a worse kicker than you and think, he is doing this for value / protection. So as played I am sticking it in here and hoping to see some some kind of hand, that I am ahead off.

Yeah I definitely got scared off of this one.
Thank you for this advice, and all your posts across the forum.

 

[Badday94]

Would have folded this preflop but if played this way I don't know, tough one. Most certainly would have called since very likely he's a big stack looking to push people around, but he might have had it, who knows. I hope you did well in that tournament, maybe it was the right call

 

[fundiver199]

Just want to add two points:

1) Preflop we can certainly rejam with a 21BB stack. This is just not the spot to do it. KTo is not exactly a premium holding, and we would be doing it in a situation, where there is way more ICM pressure on us than the opponent. But if I had something better like say AJ or 88, then I would certainly not be afraid to rejam. Rejamming dont make us bubble the tournament that often, because the vast majority of the time he is going to fold, or at least he should, and even when we get action, we will have equity.

2) Postflop would lean itself more towards a fold, if this was the bubble of an MTT with 8-9 players at the table, and we were facing an EP open. The reason for that is, those EP open ranges are much tighter and more top heavy, so now there would actually be a pretty decent chance, we were against an overpair, and much less chance we were against a hand like QT, JT, T9 or T8. Here however he opened "UTG", but really its CO, and he should be opening near 50% of hands. And is he then not going to play fast and get it in on this super draw heavy board? I think, he is, and then we beat a fair amount of his value. And whenever we beat value, we typically should not fold.

 

[AKQ]

to play that spot properly in theory
I need their vpip and pfr
You may have noticed the bubble and
they may have noticed you noticed the bubble
has this player raised 40% of the last 10-20 hands?
or has this player played 15%? or less?

you gotta play your opponent and we dont know his range or if he would do this with ak

and notice the board was 234T
with ak against your bb range
i'd shove here all day with ak

 

[QA77]

If it was 2x, I’d call. 2.5x probably fold since SB is so short.

 

[theANMATOR]

Agree with AKQ above. Play the player - also 4 handed this is an easy call from the BB. I'm pretty sure you got pushed out of this hand by an aggressive big stack - who had a worse hand. Easy call on the flop and I'd turn the tables and lead jam the turn. Let him know you have the best hand and put the pressure back on him to call with his flush draw or Ax hand.

 

[Lucky_Shark]

Call preflop is obviously good. Flop you need to play check-push with your stack. But if it is important for you to get into the prizes and not become a bubble boy, then it is played normally. Although why play a tournament if you don't want the top 1.

 

[fundiver199]

But if it is important for you to get into the prizes and not become a bubble boy, then it is played normally. Although why play a tournament if you don't want the top 1.

In a 9-man SnG the winner only gets 150% more than a min-cash. So especially in a situation like this, where someone is running on fumes right on the bubble, we do need to be very conservative as a mid stack. We are literally donating money to SB here, if we bust before him and allow him to cash after having lost 2/3 of his chips. Looking at this again I think, the best play is to simply fold preflop and hope, that SB will be all-in and bust within the next orbit.