I have been at this table all day and it's not a tough one, though Matt Gianetti is three to my left. The guy on his right is uber tight. I have not been out of line and haven't played many hands. I think I won every showdown. We're 130 spots short of the money.

BB is 5k. I'm in the hijack with a pair of tens and I have 88k. Action folds to me. What is your move and why? The blinds each had around 240k and the cutoff had over 500k. I feel that I am just as good at postflop play as those left to act, tho obviously my stack doesn't allow for much playability.

Thanks for the replies.

I'm just going to jam here, because I'm not that excited about inducing someone with KJs or QJs or something to resteal to race when we are close-ish to the bubble. We win $15,000 to survive 130 players, and will then need to survive hundreds more to get the next $15,000, so although we aren't on the direct bubble, +$EV prefers winning without showdown now.

Yeah, I think I like jamming here too. I still think we can (and should have) an open range here with premiums + hands not quite good enough to profitably jam. But at first blush I'd probably jam TT for sure, probably JJ, and then open/gii with AKs and QQ+, and open/fold hands like 87s or A2s.

With < 20bb on the money bubble of the main event I'm open jamming 1010+ AQ+ and probably (to be honest) tank-folding everything else until the money.

I think this is an open.

I don't think opening TT here is a serious error, especially if we think that the rest of the players yet to act are likely to be passive based on where we are in the tournament.

However, if we think we're getting called a lot, it is a rough hand to see a flop with, and if we get jammed on we're probably going with it but not happily.

What are the odds of one of the four players behind me having AQ AK JJ+? Anybody know how to figure that out?

I disagree with the prevailing thought as outlined above. What are your skills? Where do you garner an edge on your opponents? How deep are stacks? What are tendencies of the table in other AI situations?

I lean pretty strongly towards an open here if you possess strong reading skills and reasonable post-flop skills. The goal here isn't to play three full days of poker so you can play a hand of blackjack to make the money. To be clear, blackjack is any situation of 5x% vs 4x%.

It's a fallacy to think that patience is the only skill necessary due to a moderate stack size. The difference between playability with 7.5BB and 17.5BB is HUGE. Treating them the same way is giving value and equity to your opponents.

Bout 3.50

Tendencies of the players yet to act is a pretty important missing information in OP.
The more they 3bet, the more this is an open / 4bet-shove I guess.

Depends how often blinds are defending and/or 3betting. As a rule, probably opening most hands to 2bbs until I get to 13-15bbs, open ripping after.

Agree w/ this, and pretty important imo.

Couldn´t just say Matt is X position with X stack, ubernit w/ Y position and Y stack so we can all understand, now i´m confused !?

I think the cutoff and BB were quite likely to play back at me if I opened. The SB was a little less likely and there was almost no chance of the button getting involved.

I like opening and inducing if we are past the bubble, or if we are 400-500 away, but right now, like I said, inducing action where we have no fold equity and are very often racing is a -$EV proposition IMO.

I don't see the -$EV with the open at this point.

Hands that call an open-shove:
AA, KK, QQ, JJ (82/18) TT (0/0)
AK, AQ (55/45 accounting for suited)

Based on on possible holdings, 32 and 24, and omitting TT, that gives you an EV of -6275 against this range.

Hands that might call an open-shove:
99,88,77 (82/18)
AJ,KQ (55/45 accounting for suited)
AT (69/31 accounting for suited)

Based on possible holdings, 18, 32, 8, that gives you an EV of 34,783 against this range.

That's a super tight range in the first grouping.

75% of the time we win 12k in abandoned blinds and antes.
25% of the time we lose 6275.

(6275)*.25=(1569)
12000* .75= 9000
(1569) + 9000 = 7431

An EV of 7431 if we only play against this range. Below is what happens when we expand to include the looser range.


The second grouping will be folded 50% of the time it is dealt, as a rough estimate based on hand values and player reads provided above.

(34783* .33) + (-6275*.67)= 15682
15682* .25= 3920
12000*.75= 9000
3920 + 9000 = 12920

Including the second grouping, we get to an EV +12920, or related to our stack size of 88k, +14.68% when we shove. Now, we can argue that 25%/75% as identified for the call/fold ratio could be off, but for our purposes it's not heavy either way. 14.68% EV with a high variance doesn't seem to be a prudent to use our entire stack to win a tourney, or to survive a three-hour virtual bubble.

Just cause we're dealt TT out of position doesn't mean we are require to play it in any particular way, or at all.

As for an open here, rather than a shove, the argument is that we give ourselves a chance to get a read on the opponents behind us and a chance to get out of this hand with chips on a bad flop, while also freezing our opponents with a couple hands beating us, a lot we are flipping with and inviting hands in the second range that would've folded to play as well as inviting suited As, smaller pairs and broadway cards to play while giving room to let someone three-bet us from behind.

An open is definitely a SHARPER line and requires kid gloves, but should be far more profitable.

Are you pulling those figures out from where the sun don't shine because that's the only reason for it being obvious at a perfunctory glance how far from reality they are.

Nevermind, I didn't see your previous comment in this thread which ended in this bewildering sentence.
I understand everything now.

id be jamming here

I believe this is a standard open. 130 from the $$$ is still too long - possibly 45 minutes to an hour BEFORE H2H starts. I can see making a eV/ceV adjustment when there are ~30 left, but not so much now.

If you open to 12K or whatever table standard has been, you have a pot of 29-34K (heads up) on the flop with position. Play poker.

Those hands (all off suit combos included) make up 4.22% of possible hands. I guess it's a little more likely they have those hands since we remove 2 Ts from the deck but I'm not gonna get that detailed into it. 4 players behind means odds of no one having any of those hands are (1-0.0422)^4 = 84.16%. So 15.84% of the time one of the 4 will have AQ+,JJ+. A little more likely since we have 2 cards that don't overlap with that range at all. JJ+ is 24 combos and AQ+ is 32 combos though so a majority of the time we are in a flip against that range; against the entire range itself we have just over 40% equity.

The thing about this hand is that it highlights a general concept that I've thought about a bit recently that I don't think gets discussed very often, if at all. In these tourneys with insanely deep structures where the average stack is over 50BBs pretty much throughout (the WSOP main, along with most main events with decent buy ins in good poker series), how do we adjust playing with short stacks? I feel like there should be a difference in how we play 20bbs when all 4 players behind have 50+bbs, compared to when everyone behind also has 20bbs, but I'm not sure exactly what adjustments should be made.

This hand for example, if everyone behind has 20bbs, I really like an open, as we're often going to see 3b shoves from CO/button/SB/BB with somewhat wide ranges. But when everyone has 50bbs, now only the BB can really be 3b shoving since everyone else would be jamming 50bbs effective. I also wonder if people are less likely to 3b light now since they'd almost be forced into calling our shove since we're as short as we are. So because of this dynamic should we be shoving more often, with hands that we'd often just come in for an open with shallower stacks behind? Or is there a better way to look at this? I like the idea that a poster above had of opening QQ+,AK and then balancing that with some 87s,A2s sorts of hands, so maybe when everyone is shallow we now induce something like TT+,AQ+ and open a few more suited connectors and suited wheels?

It depends on stack sizes and the players at your table. If there is a lot of reshove stacks to my left and tough players in the blinds I would OPEN JAM. Pocket tens is very vulnerable to over cards and open jamming would get reshove stacks to fold two over cards to your hand which would be a good result. Open Jamming is definitely my standard line here cuz I would also shove 22+ here as well.

Shoving 22 would surely be a mistake no?

Shoving 22 shows profit and we're far enough from the money that I'd consider it pretty standard.

Couldnt agree more with #19
I dont think 22-99 is a shove.
Its not a cash game and u dont have rebuy
If someone wait with qq or ak he call
You invest three days of poker to make the right call but go home with nothing?
Its maybe right move math wize but situational i dont think jam with 88 is the right move