Watching Sunday Million and the blinds are 1400/2800 and VERY CLOSE to the bubble.

Seat 1: ElkY (89460 in chips)
Seat 5: V (50353 in chips)
V: raises 3388 to 6188
ElkY: raises 82992 to 89180 and is all-in
V: calls 43885 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (39107) returned to ElkY
*** FLOP *** [Ah 5d 4d]
*** TURN *** [Ah 5d 4d] [Td]
*** RIVER *** [Ah 5d 4d Td] [6h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ElkY: shows [6d 8d] (a flush, Ten high)
V: shows [Ad Qs] (a pair of Aces)
ElkY collected 103786 from pot

Yes, ElkY covers him and he'll still get ITM even if he loses, but 86s 3bet shove??? What is going on here? Even if ElkY puts V on a range, still...

because

wouldn't his shove fold out a ton of V's range since it's near bubble? and then have decent equity when called by overcards

Seems like a lot of unnecessary risk esp since V raised from early MP and has almost 60% of ElkY's stack. Then again, he bought in extremely late and probably not playing w/ his own money so wanted to do some moves hahaha.

We don't even know positions based on that, yawn. If that's like CO vs BB it's easily profitable and not even close (I'd prefer flatting tho). With Elky's nit image he can prob get away with jamming more than most as well.

It isn't horrible. If it is MP...while you are crushed against MP's range (probably about 30%) the shove is profitable if your opponent folds 60% of the time. It's conceivable on the bubble villain may only call off with a range exactly AQs+,AKo,JJ+ and fold the rest of their hands, which would be pretty much 60% of the MP's range.

If it's from later position I actually like it a lot.

I'm probably not doing it very often if ever but I see a rationale for it.

I didn't put in the OP but Elky's the bb and V is early MP. Like you said, I wouldn't 3bet either regardless of images and one 'should' respect or at least pay some attention to an early MP raise.


I dunno, I think it's pretty horrible considering they are literally a few places from ITM and his stack is pretty decent-ish and no reason other to make a 'skill move' but the fallout if it falls is to lose 40% of your stack(!). I don't see it passing the risk/reward analysis.

if you have to ask, big man, you cant afford it

Tldr but judging from title he prob played too much hearthstone lately.

Elky has been around for a while and probably hasn't figured out that trying to pwn the bubble like that doesn't work any more. My play has improved a lot since I stopped making plays to exploit weak play that used to work but don't now.

He made a skill move but if you can see V's cards, that shows if you're playing optimally or not. He got lucky there and unnecessarily put his stack at risk. Hey, what do I know, like that other poster said, if I have to ask, I can't afford it lol.

just because villain has certain cards it doesn't prove in any way if a play is good or not dude

Need to know positions and stacks. Probably raiser with raising in late position into only short stacks and Elky.

hes proly experimenting with different stuff, thats proly the reason he is where he is today. Everyone makes mistakes even pros, if someone tells you they made no mistakes during a whole tournament dont believe them

Without knowing payouts, other stack sizes and exactly how close we were to bubble I can't say whether it's a horrible ICM play or not. Probably is. As I said, I'm not 3-betting here but would absolutely consider 3-betting light over a late position raise with something in the neighborhood of 86s.

That being said, I think we can 100% find a better spot than this just because if it's a good shove it's razor thin.

something like this. if this is what shocks you then lol

Dude, pls add value to this thread. What's your opinion?


I forgot to put in the OP but stated later: ElkY in bb and V in early MP. I remember that there were no crazy shortstacks and similar sizes to these 2 (ElkY may have been chipleader).


That seems most plausible. Dude literally late registered a few minutes before closing so maybe he's just gunning for it.


I agree, esp due to literally a few spots from the bubble...I recall maybe 20ppl max if even?

Right, ElkY, Daniel, Brunson, cicakman!!!!

Btw, it doesn't shock, just a bad ICM play imo.

The bubble doesn't have that much negative effect for jam since he's left with 14 bigs if called and loses, wont be posting after the small blind for the next 7 hands, and 20 to the money in a gigantic field . He can shove here, get called, lose, time down to the money easily. All the pressure is on villain.

It's actually only a decent play because it's the bubble. Without ICM considerations this would be spew.

Yes, i think we're circling around this consensus. It's high risk to steal that small pf/dead $, so low reward.

Well if villain is opening 12% but calling like top 4% then Elky printing about a big blind in long run. Thats a conservative estimate. If he had any read Vs opening wider, it becomes better.

I wish I saved the stats, but V wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary and ElkY just arrived at that table, so doubtful he had any fresh reads save for what he might have had in the past.

It is a little bit of an old school play. People aren't folding so much these days because they would bubble out, so I don't really like it. The opener had a medium stack, so he probably wasn't opening light.

Well, I know you're considering that we're circling around, but I'm going to pinpoint it one more time, because I'm still not sure what you really think of this play now that some posters have answered.

These two statements together mean the following:
- With basic assumptions, this move is printing money
- The one risking his tournament life is villain, not Elky. Elky can easily make it ITM even if he loses. That's all that counts icm-wise at this point, this is not a final table but the bubble of a huge field. Which means that the risk is lower than what I expect OP to think. And the expected value higher than if we were not on the bubble, because villain's calling range is tighter because specifically of this bubble


I agree with betgo in the sense that the play is far from being as juicy as it was a few years back. I would do these kinds of plays almost systematically 3 years ago and it was hugely profitable (and it was pretty fun getting hate from some players who didn't have a clue, when I got called). But today is a different story.
Still, if Elky has any reason to believe that the play is EV+ (general stats, stats on this player, or anything), it is wrong to say that it is a mistake.
In today's game, I don't do it anymore. Not because I think it's a mistake or that it's not printing money. But just because I can't afford to play all day every day, because I have a job and all, and that every tournament and every hour that I put into a tournament counts, which in turn means that I need to play a little conservatively and hope to catch spots that are higher EV+ than this one.
But in the long run (veeeery long run), Elky's play is just superior. It just doesn't take into consideration that time spent on a tournament = a resource that you need to manage. (Edit: actually, in the Sunday Million, I wouldn't consider my edge to be very high once the field is reduced, so I might actually chose to pick these small EV+ spots, just because I have to)

PS: I would need to do the math, but there's a possibility that 86s fares better than somthg like QTs or even KJs against villain's calling range in this spot. We are dominated by pairs more often but have 2 live cards much more often against high cards calling. So the hand choice might not be that bad.

From a pure match choice perspective, 86s is really close. If you assume early MP is opening something like 15% of hands:

22+,ATs+,KQs,QJs,JTs,T9s,98s,87s,76s,ATo+,KQo

Then 86s is 36% against that range and is probably folding more than enough to a shove for this to be profitable.

If MP's open range is more like 8%:
77+,AJs+,KQs,QJs,JTs,T9s,98s,AQo+

Then 86s is 30% against that range and it becomes really close before we factor in any ICM considerations, simply because your opponent may not fold enough to have the right fold equity.

And considering where we are in the tournament I'd think the latter is probably more likely.