Poker Stars, $ 0.44 Buy-in (100/200 blinds, 25 ante)
No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 4 Players
SB: 1.560 (7.8 bb)
BB: 2.631 (13.2 bb)
Hero (CO): 2.257 (11.3 bb)
BTN: 7,052 (35.3 bb)
Preflop: Hero is CO with A 9 Hero raises to 400, BTN folds, SB raises to 1,535 and is all-in,
Hero?
How would they play? Call or fold? Would you make a different raise?

I would make a bigger raise. Everyone is short stacked so I wouldn't raise alot, but a minimum 2.5BB. I think I would call here. You have pretty strong hand for 4 players game. The only thing that makes me think about folding is the bubble - if there are 3 paid places this guy migh be willing to wait for someone else to bust. But again he is the shortest stack and in desperation. Call.

This is a 4 handed table so your hand strength changes drastically. Any Ax or Kx is a strong hand. Any pocket pair is a very string hand. With 11.8BB I would not be looking to raise all that much unless I was jamming. I would not even try to get cute with KK or QQ here in min raising but would likely jam. Given that, I would recommend open jamming the A9 here. Your hand is strong for 4 handed play and can easily be called by worse as short stacks in this situation will tend to call with any Ace.

As played with the min raise, I still think you need to call here since you have a stack that is so short that you want to avoid raise folding pre. Also SB range here can be worse Aces. I think A9 is too good to fold in these types. They may have you beat but I would be willing to take that chance knowing that SB cant call here. Any hand they like they will be jamming over including broadways and worse aces.

Once I'm down to 10 or 11 BBs, I'm pretty much jamming or folding. Given the action, you probably have to call the SB's jam. Certainly not a fist pump call, but you'll be ahead enough for it to be OK.

Tough situation. I like the min raise, because it allows you to fold without as much damage. It hides your strength, and allows you a wider range. You can often pick up blinds with Ax, Broadways, even high suited connectors you don't want to shove. But when you do this (min raise), you have to do it always. You can't shove your best hands and min raise the rest.

When you get reraised in four handed, the other player has something. Maybe it is a worst Ace, but his range is likely 60/40 against you. Even so, you only need another 5 blinds to win 12BB, so math says call.

But a reraise means probably a better Ace or pair better than 9s.

You might fold and go into your BB with 9 blinds. Not the best situation, but better than 3.5BB. Either way, your game becomes shove or fold.

So short answer, if payout is top two, call. If payout is top 3, fold.

If offsuit jam pre, if suited both minraise and jam is fine imo (tho a jam keeps you out of trouble if you're not comfortable postflop).

As played snapcall. Can't be folding something this strong, 4 handed at these stacks.

Also no matter what u do ignore the advice to bump up your preflop sizing. It's 12bb ish, minraise/jam/fold/limp are ur only viable options imo. Unless the table is really really really soft, and you don't need to be balanced at all. 2.5x and then fold is simply a waste of chips at these stacks.

When I first looked at this hand I thought, it was a clear open jamming spot. However when I plugged it into ICMizer assuming, this was a 45 man SnG on Stars, it actually said, that Hero need at least ATo to profitably jam. And even this is so marginal, that Hero probably want to have at least AJo for open jamming. The main reason for this is the ICM-situation, where 3 players are fighting hard to outlast each other and get those payjumps, which are now significant.

Hero did actually min-raise, and according to ICMizer BTN is now supposed to jam 24% of hands, SB 11% of hands and BB 17% of hands. And against a jam from any of them A9o is a fold. If you will get jammed on almost half the time and cant call, mini-raising is clearly not profitable, and therefore Hero has to play really snug here and just open fold.

However not everyone play optimal, and if they are not jamming nearly as often, as they are supposed to, then maybe Hero can get away with the mini-raise and then just fold when jammed on. I would not bank on them folding to much to an open jam though, because they are actually supposed to play relatively snug against that, and yet its still not profitable, because its such an ICM disaster for Hero to get action.

Conclusion
Against good players this is an open fold, against bad passive players min-raise / fold is fine.

Originally Posted by fundiver199

When I first looked at this hand I thought, it was a clear open jamming spot. However when I plugged it into ICMizer assuming, this was a 45 man SnG on Stars, it actually said, that Hero need at least ATo to profitably jam. And even this is so marginal, that Hero probably want to have at least AJo for open jamming. The main reason for this is the ICM-situation, where 3 players are fighting hard to outlast each other and get those payjumps, which are now significant.

Hero did actually min-raise, and according to ICMizer BTN is now supposed to jam 24% of hands, SB 11% of hands and BB 17% of hands. And against a jam from any of them A9o is a fold. If you will get jammed on almost half the time and cant call, mini-raising is clearly not profitable, and therefore Hero has to play really snug here and just open fold.

However not everyone play optimal, and if they are not jamming nearly as often, as they are supposed to, then maybe Hero can get away with the mini-raise and then just fold when jammed on. I would not bank on them folding to much to an open jam though, because they are actually supposed to play relatively snug against that, and yet its still not profitable, because its such an ICM disaster for Hero to get action.

Conclusion
Against good players this is an open fold, against bad passive players min-raise / fold is fine.

Thank U 4 Posting

I just wanted to say what a great job you did running this though ICMizer and then sharing your research with all of us. This is a spot that is very common and understanding ICM is crucial for all of our long term results.

As always you do a great job responding with supportive data.

Thank you

heads up is hard lol

You took an action against a player with a smaller stack and didn't plan the situation in the first place. Chess players think a few steps ahead. Being ready for any action is the first step to victory. Before you raise, you need to think about whether I'm doing this to steal the blinds or whether it's a good hand to risk everything at the moment.

It's hard for me to judge how it will be more profitable in mathematics, I'm inexperienced, but I would play sol in such a situation (after all, there are two of us left, did BB also fold? Means SB and so into allin), it seems to me that SB should defend his hands, and he is a short stack, and there is probably a pair (any), or someone like AK, AQ ... as well as Ah, Kx, 9X, or suited connectors
.... so A9 shouldn't be too bad a hand, especially since we're losing about half the pot.
Of course, we can assume that there are AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT to which we are losing, then of course we pass.
In other cases, if you haven't missed anything - a coin (again, given the depth of the stacks, we do not fly out, and we can still fight).