Wrong time to take a stand?

[MadMojoMonkey]

Started with 9, down to 3 players
1st place: Ticket to $100k guaranteed tournament ($162 value)
2nd place: $153

Bovada Tournament 125/250 ante 25

BB: 11,060
BTN: 11,610
Hero SB: 4,330

Pre Flop: (pot:450) Hero is SB with 2 2
BTN raises to 950, Hero raises to 4,305 (all-in), 1 fold, BTN calls 3,355

BTN shows: J J

... and does a happy dance, I assume.

Board is irrelevant: I flop a set; it was going in anyway, he rivered a straight, gg.

Was this a bad shove w/ ~9 M behind?

Note: BTN had been raising to 950 on past 3 orbits when he had BTN.

[donkbee]

jam is good

[Pascal]

Jam is good, he's going to be raising like 70% of the time and you've got OK equity against any calling range

[Koko the Monkey]

His open is huge. Has he been doing this consistently? At this stage with normal payouts a shove is fine but I honestly don't mind a fold here either due to ICM considerations. With baby pairs you are either flipping or crushed. You will have a lot of opportunities to steal later. I would rather shove here with T9 suited than deuces.

[Luco]

His open is huge. Has he been doing this consistently?

Apparently he'd raised this same amount the last 3 orbits.

At this stage with normal payouts a shove is fine but I honestly don't mind a fold here either due to ICM considerations. With baby pairs you are either flipping or crushed. You will have a lot of opportunities to steal later. I would rather shove here with T9 suited than deuces.

It's three handed, hero is half stacked and his M is dwindling. His time is shorter than you think, at some point you will indeed have to 'make a stand'.

Having said that, bluffs need to be a huge part of villain's range for me to shove here because it's the bubble. Plus I hate going all in with baby pairs.

[MadMojoMonkey]

His open is huge. Has he been doing this consistently?

Yes. This Villain in particular showed a complete ignorance of pre-flop raise sizing throughout the event.

This guy also bluffed in a 3-way pot to eliminate the 4th place finisher. I don't remember the line, but it was the 3 of us to the flop, short stack all-in, and Villain bet into me on a dry side pot. Of course, I folded my A6o, and he turns up A3o no pair. Luckily, it was enough to eliminate the other player.

[Koko the Monkey]

It's three handed, hero is half stacked and his M is dwindling. His time is shorter than you think, at some point you will indeed have to 'make a stand'.

Hero has 17 big blinds. Hero does indeed have to make a stand at some point but I think he is likely to find a better spot to jam.

Having said that, bluffs need to be a huge part of villain's range for me to shove here because it's the bubble. Plus I hate going all in with baby pairs.

Yes - villain tendencies (last 3 hands where villain is the button notwithstanding) are crucial here and missing from the OP.

Yes. This Villain in particular showed a complete ignorance of pre-flop raise sizing throughout the event.

Even so I still don't like the shove because he's calling you with 100% of his range. Your fold equity is ZERO here and I think that's my problem with shoving with this hand.

This guy also bluffed in a 3-way pot to eliminate the 4th place finisher. I don't remember the line, but it was the 3 of us to the flop, short stack all-in, and Villain bet into me on a dry side pot. Of course, I folded my A6o, and he turns up A3o no pair. Luckily, it was enough to eliminate the other player.

So he's a fish who's very inexperienced at tournament poker.

Still folding.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Yes - villain tendencies (last 3 hands where villain is the button notwithstanding) are crucial here and missing from the OP.

What info would you like?

It's Bovada, so I can tell you what he had on any hand at this point. Even though I didn't know that at the time.

[Pascal]

Balls, saw donkbee's post and assumed blinds were something like 200/400 - I blame you donkbee!

Yeah, I'm folding here too. He's definitely not going to be raising 70% of the time to that size and his range is going to be way stronger than any normal opening size. There will be way better spots than this (you have an easily dominated pocket pair against a big show of strength with plenty of time left to wait for a better spot)

Fold is good. Good post above too ^

[sam1FTR]

Started with 9, down to 3 players
1st place: Ticket to $100k guaranteed tournament ($162 value)
2nd place: $153

Bovada Tournament 125/250 ante 25

BB: 11,060
BTN: 11,610
Hero SB: 4,330

Pre Flop: (pot:450) Hero is SB with 2 2
BTN raises to 950, Hero raises to 4,305 (all-in), 1 fold, BTN calls 3,355

BTN shows: J J

... and does a happy dance, I assume.

Board is irrelevant: I flop a set; it was going in anyway, he rivered a straight, gg.

Was this a bad shove w/ ~9 M behind?

Note: BTN had been raising to 950 on past 3 orbits when he had BTN.

I never like shoving all in with <66 or so. You are almost guaranteed to be no better than a coin flip. I guess jamming and hoping for a fold isn't a bad play, especially with all the money in the middle. It's just unfortunate that the villain had jacks

[donkbee]

You guys that don't like to shove with "baby pairs" need to think about preflop equities a little bit more.

If the villain is raising that amount on every button and you are not jamming with this hand, I am not sure what card distribution you're hoping for.

[Koko the Monkey]

What info would you like?

It's Bovada, so I can tell you what he had on any hand at this point. Even though I didn't know that at the time.

Button raise % when 3 & 4 handed would be good to have.

You guys that don't like to shove with "baby pairs" need to think about preflop equities a little bit more.

But this isn't just a preflop equity problem. You also have to take into account the payout structure. 3rd gets nothing and 1st and 2nd are nearly identical. This can't be overlooked. It also reduces our fold equity to very near zero.

[Fielmann]

Due to ICM-considerations I don't mind a fold. The statement that our fold equity is zero or near-zero is obviously wrong, though.


On a side-note:

This guy also bluffed in a 3-way pot to eliminate the 4th place finisher. I don't remember the line, but it was the 3 of us to the flop, short stack all-in, and Villain bet into me on a dry side pot. Of course, I folded my A6o, and he turns up A3o no pair. Luckily, it was enough to eliminate the other player.

seems like a good play on villain's part.

[MadMojoMonkey]

4-handed: 40% (2/5)
open jammed w/ 33
limped w/ A3o
^^ hand that eliminated 4th place (discussed ITT)

3-handed: 100% (3/3)
1/1 raised to 950 w/ JTs
2/2 raised to 950 w/ QQ
3/3 raised to 950 w/ JJ
^^ hand in OP

gg... He just ran hot at the perfect time.

On a side-note:seems like a good play on villain's part.

No, his best play was to check it down, giving he and I equal chance to bust the short stack, making it far more likely that the short stack is eliminated. The only reason to raise here would be if he actually flopped top 2 pair+ and thought he could V-bet me. It is foolish to bet draws in this situation.

The fact that he bluffed this pot w/ A-high (and made it more likely that the short stack would continue in the event) was bad play. He would have won anyway, with the 3 OTR, and even if he lost to me, he had my stack completely dominated either way.

This was a bad play, and I encourage you argue against this reasoning, I think you'll find yourself making very dodgy and short sighted arguments.

[Pascal]

So he raised large 3 times with what he would consider strong hands and limped once with a weak hand?

[MadMojoMonkey]

So he raised large 3 times with what he would consider strong hands and limped once with a weak hand?

Yes, but the only one I saw during the event was the weak hand that was poorly played. The rest were mucked.

[Fielmann]

No, his best play was to check it down, giving he and I equal chance to bust the short stack, making it far more likely that the short stack is eliminated. The only reason to raise here would be if he actually flopped top 2 pair+ and thought he could V-bet me. It is foolish to bet draws in this situation.

The fact that he bluffed this pot w/ A-high (and made it more likely that the short stack would continue in the event) was bad play. He would have won anyway, with the 3 OTR, and even if he lost to me, he had my stack completely dominated either way.

This was a bad play, and I encourage you argue against this reasoning, I think you'll find yourself making very dodgy and short sighted arguments.

Challenge accepted But it's really quite simple.

(1) Since the event only pays top 2, eliminating the 4th player, in itself, has only a very limited positive effect on other players' expectations. The lion's share of 4th player's equity will be transferred to the player who actually wins his chips.

(2) In the described situation where the 4th player is all-in and players A and B are also in the pot, player A can maximise his chance to win 4th player's chips (and the other 67%+ of the pot on top of that) by trying to push player B out of the pot. Therefore, given sufficient fold equity, betting is good play.