5 people left and 4 get paid. I'm 3/5 in chips. Chip leader with 4,800T is an aggressive stealer at 45% in a 181 hand sample. I 3bet all in with T5 on the read that he's just bullying based on his chip stack, bubble situation, and I have folded in the BB quite a few times earlier.

Is this 3 bet too reckless? Or is this a move I just have to make sometimes to keep aggressive players honest?


PokerStars - 100/200 Ante 25 NL - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 5.92 BB (VPIP: 29.27, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 41)
Hero (BB): 12.35 BB
UTG: 13.23 BB (VPIP: 29.41, PFR: 22.92, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 51)
CO: 7.45 BB (VPIP: 27.06, PFR: 11.54, 3Bet Preflop: 10.71, Hands: 85)
BTN: 24.02 BB (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 20.83, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 181)

5 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.13 BB) Hero has T 5

fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.25 BB, fold, Hero raises to 12.23 BB and is all-in, fold

Hero wins 5.63 BB

You can make these moves obv., but I would rather have a hand with more equity here rather than a hand with just random cards (not connected, not suited, etc).
It also depends on the villain of course. Villain might call your shove wider than he should, which would be a disaster for you. Based on the stacksizes in these spots, I don't see much value in shoving here, so I would let this go. You're in a good spot overall and don't have to risk your equity like this.

I agree. It did feel a bit reckless. I just hate waiting out shorter stacks to cash sometimes, and they just hang around too long and it hurts me, or they end up doubling up and I become the short stack.

Yeah I know what you mean.
Keep in mind that especially in 18 mans it's important to stay patient. In terms of Shoves you have to be ridiculously tight in some spots @ 6 or less left.
Also, the 18 mans have a unique payout structure - as you might have noticed, every payjump has the same value, unlike other formats where prize steps increase by more % every position. So in that case, don't feel bad playing the waiting game with shortstacks and get aggressive when you are the bigstack

Could not have said it better