This hand was from the SkyCity Festival of Poker $275 event played yesterday in Auckland, New Zealand. 75 entrants, top prize was $6000 and the right to the name the tournament for 2017. Starting stack of 15,000. Blind levels 20 minutes. Unlike the USA, poker in New Zealand is still catching up. In the past few years, it has definitely gotten bigger and better but we are still miles behind the rest of the world. Simple ABC poker works well in these tournaments.

Anyway on to the hand. This hand came just as we had broken down from 3 tables to 2. I was OTB on my earlier table and had just taken down the blinds when we moved and redrew for seats. I was seated UTG at a full table of 10.

The chip leader who has about 140K is sitting in MP1. The remaining stacks all vary but I am currently the short stack.

My stack was 21K, blinds at 2K/4K. I look down at 64dd.

Is this is a shove everytime?

fold 6-high ofc

I would fold

Close call, but I think you need to let it go and pray for better. The average stack should be about $60k now ... and that means much of the table can afford to look you up even if they've got A9o, 77 or other hands that are top 20% but not super-premium. You've got a little folding equity here, especially from medium stacks that need to act before the big stack commits. But from the big stack onward, you're a pretty tempting target.

Add it up, and with nine players yet to act, you don't have as much folding equity as you'd like. Slice tells me you're about a 2:1 dog against top 20% hands, so if you get action, that probably wouldn't be a good ending to your tournament.

The real question is: does your situation get slightly less horrible if you pay the blinds and hope for a better situation to get it all in? I played around with what would happen if you got it all in with a 16th percentile hand like KTo or A7s, against a top-20% opponent. You've then got about 42% equity, which is a bit better. True, you don't grow your stack as much by waiting to shove after the blinds. (Winning heads-up would net you 36k instead of 48k if you shove now and win.) But you've got a better chance of being alive. And I'm modeling this with conservative assumptions of what the next orbit might bring. If you catch a true premium hand, that makes life nicer.

Overall, I like your audacity. If you were acting now after a couple folds, it's probably an appropriate shove. With nine to act, a 59th percentile hand and limited folding equity, not so much.

lol skycity auckland, played there for a living for two years ago when the cash games were super juicy, my god those were the days.. still used to reg it up a bit there before going on my OE.

Yea deffo fold mate, wait for a better spot

Any of the sicko's play like cole swannick, david yan, koray turker, big kev? Buy in proly too small for them tho

Ok guys, I don't mind a fold; I think it's fine 10 handed as fold equity closes in on Zero. But, to stir the pot, how about this?: limp and see if you get like a 5-handed pot. If someone raises, well then you're getting it in; if you go multi way and catch a piece (which will often happen) then you put the rest in? I'm not saying it's right, but we may be overlooking a bit of value here.

Thanks for the replies everybody. With my stack size and position, all I can hear was Dan Harrington's voice saying "first in vigorish" haha however, I ended up folding. My question is can the value of "first in vigorish" be more than your actual cards? Obviously in if folded to you in LP it becomes an easier shove but at what position do your cards no longer matter? I guess it also depends on the calling tendencies and stack sizes of the remaining players?

The next hand I'm dealt A2o in the BB. UTG min-raises with about 50K behind. It folds around to me, go with it?

Yup the cash games are still super juicy, droolers everywhere, even on a Monday night. Still plays like 2NL from 5 years ago. Swannack came 2nd in the $1100 warm up and no doubt he and the others will playing the $1650 Main Event which starts on Thursday. No balla's in the small fry $275 events.

yea i might go with the A high we are ahead to some of his range and even if he has like KK we are around 30%.

Thats nice the games are still juicy, last time I was there was just table full of nits with the casino winning, they said they guna put poker in the convention center, i rekon that will be good for the game, more foot traffic.

My god another good bink for swannack.. Jackson will proly be up in that main too

I met the famous Angie for the first time on the weekend. Hadn't heard of her before but the stories of her run-good and suckouts were amazing haha

They've moved the poker room up one floor above the main floor but not where it used to be. A terrible "hidden" stairwell from the main gaming floor takes you up there. So bloody hard to find. A lot nicer though.

hahaha angie my god I remember a massive pot when we all super deep and ii flopped a set and won like a 1k pot or something from her.. she paid for so many of my nights out hahahah

Yeah from the start of the tourney, I could hear this woman shrieking YES! YES! YES! everytime she won a pot/sucked out. At the time I didn't know who she was so I just said something like she must be running good and then some of the other regs filled me in about her. Had about 10% of the chips at one point when there was 20 left but donked it all away. She actually won the $275 ladies event for $2K but probably blew through that amount to get there though haha

I wonder how she bankrolls her game?

By shoving 64s here you lose 0.38BB on average according to HRC. 98s is actually the worst hand you can shove profitably. It doesn't tell the whole story since it doesn't understand that you have to post BB in the next hand, but also I think it assumes that people call more correctly than they actually do, and every "wrong" call is bad for you since all those too loose hands are better than yours anyway. I'd shove something like 87s 76s for sure but 64s just has got to be too loose. I think you can pretty comfortably still fold your BB too assuming the blinds won't go up in a while, just wake up with a hand within the next 10 hands and you'll get super +ev spots to triple / quadruple up with overlay.

Thanks for that maths and explanation Chuck. Yeah I figured it was a bit too loose but my situation considering position etc was getting pretty desperate.

Would like to hear some opinions on the hand that happened after?

UTG min-raises with 50K behind. It folds to me in the BB and I see A2o. Is this as good as its gonna get?

That's a pretty scary raise given he's got 12BB. If he's some dolt who has no clue about anything and can have KQ then yeah, sure. But if he's some nit who's trapping with QQ+ then no.

Either way I'd just flat the minraise. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference but I think it's better than shoving. You can still fold on the worst flops like QJ9 etc. You can still shove virtually every flop and once in a blue moon he might fold heaps of equity. Like, if he's some clown with 87s and you donkshove KKQ he'll probably fold his 6 outs etc. I'd only shove the A2 pre if I was sure he was some complete spastic with a 30%+ range or something to now get owned myself (it's certainly a disaster if you fold the best hand yourself on like KQ9 against two undercards). But realistically vs virtually everyone I think flatting and donkshoving something like 80%ish of flops is better than shoving.