Hey everyone. This hand was at a 45 player sitngo. We're about half way there, 25 players remaining, 7 places paid. I'm in the chip lead with 36 BBs. I don't have much hands on Villain, only 16. He's on 19/15 stats, has been short stacked the whole time we've shared the table and he raise-folded to my shove a couple of hands before. That's about as much as I know of him thus far.


PokerStars - 150/300 Ante 25 NL - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3

Hero (MP): 10,761 (35.9 bb)
CO: 3,330 (11.1 bb)
BTN: 2,775 (9.3 bb)
SB: 3,280 (10.9 bb)
BB: 3,946 (13.2 bb)
UTG: 1,608 (5.4 bb)

6 players post ante of 25, SB posts 150, BB posts 300

Pre Flop: (pot: 600) Hero has
fold, Hero raises to 750, 2 folds, SB raises to 3,255 and is all-in, fold, Hero ???

If I give him a range of 55+,A7s+,KTs+,QTs+,A9o+,KJo+,QJo,JTo which is about 16% of hands, my hand has roughly 42% equity and I'm getting 1.78:1 to call, so it's a marginal call without ICM considerations.

What are your thoughts on this?

If I was facing this situation I would think about how the villain perceives me. I know it is only 19 hands but they have an opinion of me in that amount of hands for sure. If they have me as an aggressive person with the chip lead and is opening quite wide then I can see them having broadway cards and maybe even some suited connector type hands. If I havent been raising a lot pre flop then they might think I am not opening wide which then changes their opening range quite a bit. I think we have to factor in how we have played these 19 hands with villain and how we would think of ourselves during those hands if we were playing against ourselves. I will say though that at 1.7 ish to 1 price you only need to be good upper 30% of the time to break even. If we run into a bigger Ax we are about 30% and if we run into KK or QQ then we are about 33%. I think a lot of villains range is bigger aces and pocket pairs so it does come down to how wide they think we are which would make them jam broadway cards we are beating. I personally am a nit so I would be folding here probably but without a solver, I am guessing the solver would say call as long as you put J10 off and Q10 off type hands in their range.

Hello,



I recommend the fold. Villian could be 3-bet shoving light to take away position but I just don't believe I would call with the A5s. Best case scenario you are flipping and the worse case is villian has you dominated with a better Ax hand. If he folded a previous hand to your shove I'd give him a little bit more credit. Fold and continue with the chip lead.

When everyone behind you have 13BB or less, I dont like opening to 2,5BB. The best play here is to open jam, since it is the effective stack, that matter, and not your own stack. The second best play is to min-raise and fold to a jam from someone else. As played it has to be very close, but since you should not have created the spot, I am not going to spend time plugging it into ICMizer to get the exact answer.

I would probably lean towards folding though, since accumulating another 4.000 chips wont significantly improve your situation. However losing 3.300 chips while also dubbling someone up will create a much worse situation for you. You can no longer open jam, when he is left to act behind you, and this opens the door for everyone else to rejam on you. Right now you have a great situation at your table, and preserving that situation for as long as possible is valuable in itself even without doing the actual ICM calculation.

Originally Posted by 300HPGOD

If I was facing this situation I would think about how the villain perceives me. I know it is only 19 hands but they have an opinion of me in that amount of hands for sure. If they have me as an aggressive person with the chip lead and is opening quite wide then I can see them having broadway cards and maybe even some suited connector type hands. If I havent been raising a lot pre flop then they might think I am not opening wide which then changes their opening range quite a bit. I think we have to factor in how we have played these 19 hands with villain and how we would think of ourselves during those hands if we were playing against ourselves. I will say though that at 1.7 ish to 1 price you only need to be good upper 30% of the time to break even. If we run into a bigger Ax we are about 30% and if we run into KK or QQ then we are about 33%. I think a lot of villains range is bigger aces and pocket pairs so it does come down to how wide they think we are which would make them jam broadway cards we are beating. I personally am a nit so I would be folding here probably but without a solver, I am guessing the solver would say call as long as you put J10 off and Q10 off type hands in their range.

I've been raising about ~25% of hands but since everyone else is short stacked, there haven't been many showdowns, just one where I showed AKo. So maybe I'm regarded as tight? I wouldn't put JTo in his range, QTo maybe. But regardless best case scenario, I'm flipping for 1/4 of my current stack.

Originally Posted by Brett R

Hello,



I recommend the fold. Villian could be 3-bet shoving light to take away position but I just don't believe I would call with the A5s. Best case scenario you are flipping and the worse case is villian has you dominated with a better Ax hand. If he folded a previous hand to your shove I'd give him a little bit more credit. Fold and continue with the chip lead.

My thought process exactly. I did fold because I figured I'd be flipping at best. And I prefered to maintain my chip lead rather than risk losing 1/4 of my stack. If this had been a bounty tourney, I might've called.

Originally Posted by fundiver199

When everyone behind you have 13BB or less, I dont like opening to 2,5BB. The best play here is to open jam, since it is the effective stack, that matter, and not your own stack. The second best play is to min-raise and fold to a jam from someone else. As played it has to be very close, but since you should not have created the spot, I am not going to spend time plugging it into ICMizer to get the exact answer.

I would probably lean towards folding though, since accumulating another 4.000 chips wont significantly improve your situation. However losing 3.300 chips while also dubbling someone up will create a much worse situation for you. You can no longer open jam, when he is left to act behind you, and this opens the door for everyone else to rejam on you. Right now you have a great situation at your table, and preserving that situation for as long as possible is valuable in itself even without doing the actual ICM calculation.

I see your point. I raised to 2.5BB because I figured it would get me a bit more fold equity, in my experience playing these sitngos for the past few months, once the stacks get shallow most players wait it out and don't really jam without a top 15-20% hand before reaching the 5BB stack threshold. It might be wrong, idk, it's the impression I get.

I did fold, actually. Finding a better spot seemed like the right move here; as you said, losing 3.300 chips and doubling someone else is just not as valuable as maintaining the chip lead.

As Fundiver said above, make sure to pay good attention to the effective stack which in this case is 13bb making shove or fold your best options. Typically from middle position or later with shove/fold stacks, it will be profitable to shove any suited ace and that's exactly what I would do here -- move all-in pre-flop to maximize your fold equity.

Originally Posted by Collin Moshman

As Fundiver said above, make sure to pay good attention to the effective stack which in this case is 13bb making shove or fold your best options. Typically from middle position or later with shove/fold stacks, it will be profitable to shove any suited ace and that's exactly what I would do here -- move all-in pre-flop to maximize your fold equity.

Fundiver hit the nail on the head, i love this reply and thats what i am doing a good portion of the time as well here is open shoving. As played we have to call, just too good of a price - i know its been touched on already but no need to open 2.5x here with all the effective stacks below 20bb. 2x - 2.2x is more than fine here. I know it seems mineute but proper bet sizing will save us/earn us more chips long term so reinforcing good habits is always a good thing.

I was not going to do it, but since it is so easy, and ICMizer knows this exact tournament, then why not get the actual NASH equilibrium. 45 man turbo, 25 left, MTT mode, Hero open to 2,5BB from HJ, SB jam, stack sizes as posted. Hero calling range: 55+, AT+, KQ, A5s, A7s+, KTs+, QJs. Calling A5s gives Hero a profit of 0,01% of the price pool.

However the calculation of course assume, Villain is playing NASH equilibrium. In this case that means jamming 14% of hands. Based on my experience with these 45 mans, both the 1$ and the 3,5$ variety, I will say, that most regs are on the tighter side of the spectrum. So maybe he is only jamming 10% of hands. This is still 66+ and AJ+, so I will say, that its pretty realistic. And now calling with A5s will lose Hero a substantial 0,38% of the price pool.

When calling is barely profitable in, what looks like a best case scenario but massively losing in a more realistic scenario, then its definitely fine to follow the path of least variance and fold. And especially so when calling and losing will hurt future playability. So as played I will say good fold, but as already said dont open to 2,5BB in the first place.

vs the global MicL,LL and populations SB jamming range its OK to Meh fold better to open w/ a jam though unless your bubbling .