$2.20 NLHE MTT Rebuy: $2.20 2000gtd limping into ITM as a shorty

[theANMATOR]

Hello all.

The daily 2000gtd on ACR has a 4 hour rebuy period. This is kind of nice when I get off of work a little early and the blind levels are within reason. I will often late register for this event if I'm able to do so with 25+bb. I feel that gives me enough wiggle room to make a run if I catch some cards.

Yesterday I was able to late register with somewhere around 30bb. I think their were about 7-8 levels remaining before late registration closed, so I felt comfortable.

I played conservative and managed to hit ITM with about 10bb and then was able to increase my stack up to slightly under average stack to roughly 23bb, when this hand happened. I think average stack was about 30-35bb.


Here is the hand in question.
One of the large stacks at the table (65bb) from MP opens 2.7x - This opponent has only been on my table for about one full orbit, and I have not seen him do much. I have no info on how he plays. I have no relevant stats on him.

Another opponent, roughly 30bb calls from CO position. This player has slightly LAG stats, 23/18/12, over 500 hands. He has been active - but nothing out of line from what I have seen. He was a big stack until he opened and made a preflop shove call - the opponent hand QQs and he had A/K and didn't improve. That hand happened about an orbit and a half ago.

I decide to make the call in the big blind with pocket .

I never even considered 3betting in this spot. I feel that is -EV long term play - and overly loose in my opinion. Ya'll might think differently, and can let me know if you do.
I actually - really did consider folding pre, but I figured - I'm not a damn NIT - lets see a flop.

I don't know if this is relevant or not but thought I'd mention - I've played pretty tight in this one. My stats for this one event, about 120 hands are 16/14/4.

Pot is roughly 10.6bb
I have 20bb remaining in my stack.

The flop

MP big stack leads out for 4.5bb.
CO raises to approximately 12bb leaving himself about 15bb behind.

WTF do I do here?
I can make an argument for pretty much every action here, except of course just calling - their is not valid argument for calling here in my opinion, but I would love for everyone to give their thoughts on this spot.

 

[abgvedr]

Well thats certainly a pickle. I think i would fold this one.

No chance that 66 is good here. And even if you shove and manage to get one fold and go vs some flush draw with 2 overs, that would still give him ~60% to win.

So you only really hoping to catch 6 outs for straight, kind of 8 but if someone s holding flush draw he probably going with it.

6 outs ~24% to win pot is 10 you have 20, not worth it.

What did you do?

EDIT:
And even if nobody have FD you would still need to get 2 calls to play you straight draw profitably here. 10 bb + 20bb heads up is not enough. And yeah ofc calling is not an option.

 

[fundiver199]

I think, the preflop defend is totally fine. On the flop I agree, that you cant just call with so little stack left behind, and you also have no fold equity against CO, when he already put in this much. So we can pretty much treat this as if, CO had shoved for 20BB into a pot of 10BB, which makes it a simple math based decision.

I plugged the hand into Equilab, and depending on how likely CO is to raise his flushdraws, you have just about 40% equity against him. If he raise all his flushdraws, its a little bit more, if he never raise a flushdraw, its less. This is just about, what you need factoring in the overlay from MP and ICM, so if MP folds, you are doing sort of ok but not really making money.

However some percentage of the time they will both call. Then you are paying 20BB to win a pot of 70BB, and you only need 28,6% equity in chip EV. To account for ICM lets round it up to 30% though. And here is where, it begin to look bad, because with the ranges, I assigned them, Equilab say, you only have 26,5%. These numbers are of course not exact, since they will depend on, how they actually construct their ranges. But it does look like, the spot is break even at best, so I would fold and and look for a better spot to risk my stack.

 

[theANMATOR]

Well thats certainly a pickle. I think i would fold this one.

No chance that 66 is good here. And even if you shove and manage to get one fold and go vs some flush draw with 2 overs, that would still give him ~60% to win.

So you only really hoping to catch 6 outs for straight, kind of 8 but if someone s holding flush draw he probably going with it.

6 outs ~24% to win pot is 10 you have 20, not worth it.

What did you do?

EDIT:
And even if nobody have FD you would still need to get 2 calls to play you straight draw profitably here. 10 bb + 20bb heads up is not enough. And yeah ofc calling is not an option.

Great points abgvedr. I didn't even run the numbers on this hand. So I will and see what we come up with - assuming each opponent can have the same range of hands.
Since each opponent is essentially an unknown I'm assigning a reasonable 23.38% range
This includes All pocket pair - since they are all either overs, or they are sets, or they are connectors to the straight.
All suited Aces - of hearts, except A/6. All suited Kings of hearts, except K/6, QJ thru Q/9 of hearts, J/T thru J/8 of hearts T/9 thru T/7 of hearts and all other suited heart connectors all the way down to 5/4 suited of hearts. Except 9/6, 8/6, 7/6, 6/5, 6/4 can not be included since I hold the 6 of hearts.
And I also threw in 9/8 thru 5/4 off and A/2, A/3 off since they are marginal gutshots - and this is the micros - and we all know how micro players love to continue with their aces.

WOW - running that range 66s are 43.4% vs 28.30% for both villains. I mentally put my hand in this situation at about 30% at best.

This range is OF COURSE pretty wide - but none of the hand are unreasonable - and we can not exclude any hands just because it make less sense. Since these players are unknown we do not know how they would play pocket 33s here - we do not know how they would play overs, nor sets, nor OESDs.
We have to include a range where all hands that connect with this board are included.
Sure - one of these opponents most likely has an over pair, one opponent might have just flopped the nuts here, but we do not know - so we have to run the numbers as if they could have any of the hands that connect - within reason.

I attached an image of the ranges from Equilab for clarity.

I'm going to wait for a couple other CC members to provide comment before I say what I did and the results.

@Jon @fundiver @eetenor @Badday @JB where ya'll boys at?

 

[fundiver199]

I think, your ranges for the opponents are to wide. There will be a high frequenzy of CO just calling with his playable but not nutted hands, and MP will only continue with strong made hands and draws against a raise and a jam. You are deep in the tournament, so just because its the micros does not mean, people will stack off for 20-30BB on this flop with hands like 33 or A2 offsuit. And if they are really that bad, then it has a lot of value for you to stay in the tournament. So you should avoid spots, where even with very optimistic assumptions you will bust from the tournament 60% of the time.

 

[theANMATOR]

I think, your ranges for the opponents are to wide. There will be a high frequenzy of CO just calling with his playable but not nutted hands, and MP will only continue with strong made hands and draws against a raise and a jam. You are deep in the tournament, so just because its the micros does not mean, people will stack off for 20-30BB on this flop with hands like 33 or A2 offsuit. And if they are really that bad, then it has a lot of value for you to stay in the tournament. So you should avoid spots, where even with very optimistic assumptions you will bust from the tournament 60% of the time.

Good points FD. If this was the very first hand of any micro event - I would say my ranges are good - vs 2 totally unknown players.

But as you point out at this stage of the event - those ranges are probably slightly wider than they should be.
So lets apply some assumptions here and we can tighten them up.
One opponent has a big stack - we will assume he built that stack using skill rather than blind luck. The MP opponent (big stack) opened a larger size than the average open.
And he was not shy about his cbet - making it just under half pot.
Those are the three point of fact we have. With those facts and a couple assumptions I'd put his realistic range at 13.88% All pockets except 66, 33, 22. All heart suited Aces except
A/6, All suited heart Kings except K/6, Q/J - Q/9 hearts, J/T-J/8 hearts T/9 & T/8 hearts, and we can throw in 8/7 of hearts as well.
CO range - the guy that raised on the flop - his range is even a little wider because I'm throwing in 8/6 off and pocket 33s - which are reasonable hands to have and consider re-raising as the nuts or semi-bluff. His range is at 15.38%
Pocket 66s are still at 41% vs those two ranges. Still my assumption on the flop was at best I was at like 30% - assuming one guy had overs and the other had a something like the nut flush draw.

I'll wait until tomorrow to update with results to allow a little bit more time for others to weigh in.

 

[fundiver199]

40% against one opponent sounds just about right. However as I wrote, some percentage of the time MP will also call (CO is never folding), and then in a 3-way pot you only have around 26-27%. This is because, when you are against two players, it becomes more likely, that at least one of them have a hand, that has you in bad shape. There is no reward for showing down the second best hand multiway

 

[QA77]

I would fold this most of the time. If its just a bet and call, then a shove seems decent. Since you’re ITM maybe you can argue shoving it here and trying to build a big stack but you still have 20bb and can find better spots.

 

[theANMATOR]

Results

Fold or Jam - there is no call.

I had already made my buy-in back x2 and decided to shove since I have a strong combo draw, and a pair which is most likely not good, but I also have blockers to hands that the opponents may need. So that was my - illogical reasoning.

They both called and the Big stack turns over QQs, the Flop re-raise player turns over 88s

Neither player had a heart in their hand.

Turn is the King of hearts

River is the BEA-UTI-FUL 3 of spades.

I ran the numbers vs. those two hands - 66s were close to your numbers FD - somewhere near 23-24% on the flop.

I got lucky - but we all need a little luck every now and then. Propelled me to a 13th place finish in this one.

 

[easy play]

Difficult spot.
Very rarely 66 is good here, we are mostly against higher pairs or High cards with flush draws. Either way we have a tough spot.
I will fold if I think the field is soft and I will have better spots.

 

[theANMATOR]

Fold or Jam - there is no call.

I had already made my buy-in back x2 and decided to shove since I have a strong combo draw, and a pair which is most likely not good, but I also have blockers to hands that the opponents may need. So that was my - illogical reasoning.

They both called and the Big stack turns over QQs, the Flop re-raise player turns over 88s

Neither player had a heart in their hand.

Turn is the King of hearts

River is the BEA-UTI-FUL 3 of spades.

I ran the numbers vs. those two hands - 66s were close to your numbers FD - somewhere near 23-24% on the flop.

I got lucky - but we all need a little luck every now and then. Propelled me to a 13th place finish in this one.

I miss-typed - I placed 7th rather than 13th.
Yay pocket 66s!! FTW.

 

[fundiver199]

I ran the numbers vs. those two hands - 66s were close to your numbers FD - somewhere near 23-24% on the flop.

It was actually a little unlucky to run into 88, since that hand killed 4 of your outs. Only two 8`s left in the deck to make you a straight, and hitting a 6 would be no good, because then he makes a straight.

I got lucky - but we all need a little luck every now and then. Propelled me to a 13th place finish in this one.

Thats true, and with the analysis, we ran, this was not a massively losing jam. But probably still a slightly losing one, which it would be better to not make next time

 

[Lucky_Shark]

25 blinds is a great steak. You have a blocker on the flash draw. + you have an oesd. But getting an overbet is very unpleasant. Probably there is a 7x that does not want to call on the chances of flashdro and oesd. I would play a fold.

 

[theANMATOR]

It was actually a little unlucky to run into 88, since that hand killed 4 of your outs. Only two 8`s left in the deck to make you a straight, and hitting a 6 would be no good, because then he makes a straight.


Thats true, and with the analysis, we ran, this was not a massively losing jam. But probably still a slightly losing one, which it would be better to not make next time

You read my exact thought when he turned over the 88s. Before the runout I was pretty certain I was behind but had about as good of a chance as we calculated - I actually over estimated slightly. But when I saw those 88s I was 100% expecting to lose the hand.
Magical river though

In a different situation I'm gonna fold here - but I late registered and had already made money back x2 so I was content in the fate of this hand either way.
The only thing that was surprising to me about this hand was the re-raise didn't have the nut flush draw or an OESD - or the nuts. He must have been tilted still from that A/K losing hand.

Thanks for your input FD as always your opinion is always respected - even when I prove them wrong. LOL kidding kidding.

 

[fundiver199]

The only thing that was surprising to me about this hand was the re-raise didn't have the nut flush draw or an OESD - or the nuts. He must have been tilted still from that A/K losing hand.

Thats possible, but I dont hate raising 88 in his situation. His hand is to strong to fold, and if he just call, he allow you into the pot as well, and a lot of turn and river cards are going to be very awkward for him. So I can kind of see, why we would rather fastplay and avoid complicated decisions later. I think, a hand like TT or JJ would play better as a call, since it has less equity when behind, and it also needs less protection. With 88 specifically, if he can get called by a hand like 66 and also fold out AQ, thats a pretty great result for him, and its probably enough to compensate for the times, he get it in bad against a hand like QQ.

 

[theANMATOR]

Thats possible, but I dont hate raising 88 in his situation. His hand is to strong to fold, and if he just call, he allow you into the pot as well, and a lot of turn and river cards are going to be very awkward for him. So I can kind of see, why we would rather fastplay and avoid complicated decisions later. I think, a hand like TT or JJ would play better as a call, since it has less equity when behind, and it also needs less protection. With 88 specifically, if he can get called by a hand like 66 and also fold out AQ, thats a pretty great result for him, and its probably enough to compensate for the times, he get it in bad against a hand like QQ.

Ah yeah that does make a bunch of sense. I didn't think about if form his perspective. It's always good to put ourselves in the seat of another player. Great follow up bud. Thanks.