Could a winning 45 man player please advise on this hand.

I appreciate your input

In this hand I have 21bbs OTB. Behind me I have a 15 BB stack in the BB and a deep stack that has me covered in the small blind.

SB is 18/15 over 177 hands
BB is 9/6 over 152 hands.

We are on the bubble, and there is a <10bb stack at the table but not in the hand.


1) Should I be opening A5 here?
2) I feel like it's too weak to shove but too strong otb to fold???
3) If either player shoves pf I was planning to fold - is this ok?
4) How is my play post flop?
5) If this was not at the FT, but same bb situation in stacks with 20 players left, would the play be much different?

Thanks for feedback

you can and should be opening much wider then A5o on the btn. You definitely do not want to be shoving this, 2x it and fold the jams is fine. Post flop play is fine as well

I am up 76 buy-ins in 251 tournaments at this level Small sample but I don't think anyone apart from Morph3u1 is going to hand around in the 25 cents to get a bigger successful one.

1) Yes. You have the ace blocker and at least an overcard to c-bet with on the flop. If you hit TPWK you have a good chance of showing it down. In these games you can min-raise open almost any two on the button if folded to - they fold too much or will fold to c-bets (half pot is enough) on the flop if they miss. If people are good enough to start check-raising flops or 3-betting a lot pre-flop then make a note and tighten up - but mostly they won't. The mistake I made for a long time was levelling myself into thinking "They know what I'm doing and now they are playing back." - but they mostly won't. They get good hands from time to time and you just get out of their way if you don't also have something, and go back to exploiting them next time it folds you you on the button.

2) Before you look at your cards, decide what ranges you should have given position and stack sizes - otherwise it becomes easy to read you. In this situation I would split the hands into min-raise and fold ranges - a bit shorter and I would have a shove range but not yet. A5o is strong enough to be in the min-raise range.

3) I would definitely fold to a raise from either player. BB would be risking bubbling. SB might be messing about but you would only be flipping if you call and he has JTs or something. You have other hands you can call with here - i.e. because of what I write in 2) you could equally have TT+ AQ+ in this spot. 45 final tables are a lot about folding and moving up - and picking up the blinds and antes yourself when nobody else has a hand. They are not about winning flips - let the other people flip and bump you up the pay scale.

4) Fine. I still think he might very well not have it on the turn but you are going to face another bet for all your chips on the river that you can't call. His bluffs on the flop should include flush draws and gutshots all of which have overtaken you. Random overs have 6 or 15 outs if they have a spade, and you have no idea what the pair outs are. Calling the flop is fine.

5) Not much different but I would maybe call a jam from BB if I had seen him do it more than once before or with other reads that he was a good player (a weak player is going to to this with very good hands only). You only need 41 percent equity and he will have weaker hands enough.

Pre is okey. But i check turn and fold if he bet.

Definitely don't fold, vs better opponents I would be shoving, at this level, mo-fold to either player is the best play.

I don't agree that a good idea to shove. We have 20bb (thats good stack), and in front we have 98bb sack player. I wondering, that he can often call us with wide range. If sb and bb have average stack- shove is not so bad. And if we have 10~bb, shove in my opinion is okey.

Lektoraj thanks for your detailed reply mate, yeah I nearly fell off my chair first time I checked morphs stats. Is he a bot??

Everyone thanks very useful comments

forty games a day isn't really high volume for a bot. I suspect it is someone who doesn't have to go out to work for some reason - either young, old or disabled. The question of why not move up applies equally to a bot owner as it does a real player - but bots play better under 10 bbs as they can refer to perfect push fold tables, so if there are bots on pokerstars they are playing turbos not 10 minute levels.

I spent a lot of my time in 25c playing breakeven and posting hands here showing me being a calling station and messing things up. By the time I exited I had a 30 percent roi overall including the breakeven stretch. Not very scientific given the sample size but I feel I could do 40 percent if I stayed down (I am currently at 34 percent in the dollar 45m) so the roi is consistent with a human with that much experience. One of the big things was learning ICM (morph3u1 finishes 5th more often than any other position) in my case it helped to cure or compensate the call stationing - so counter-intuitively I got more first places after that.

The other things I would suggest is to play fewer tables - I do 2 without a HUD - because often the right move depends on gameflow so you need to watch. Stats can tell you someone is a nit but they can't tell you what kind of nit. An icm/laddering nit might have tight stats but play much looser heads up. A big hands nit might be folding too much in late positions and giving walks in the small blind but actually be too loose utg. Also learn HU strategy because that's where 10 percent of the money is and most people are terrible.

1) yes
2) MR, don't shove 21bb
3) yes
4) fine
5) no

thanks chaps