Hi all,

Turbo tournament, blinds 500/1,000. My stack is around 8,000. Unknown villain in CO (stack 15,000) open to 4,000. SB (stack 15,000) calls. I am dealt 10c-9c. I call.

Flop: 7c-Qc-Kd so I've flopped a gutshot and flush draw.

I have 4 jacks to make a straight and 9 clubs for the flush, 13 outs.

Assuming I can't win with just a nine or ten, my hypothetical equity is 1- 13/47 * 1 - 13/46 = 50%, or using rule of 4, 4 * 13 = 52%, right?

SB checks. My action? Was a call pre wrong given stack size? I figured I should shove flop but wasn't sure. Pot at this point was whopping 12,000.

Thanks,
DT

If you're going to play this hand just get it in pre, just flatting for half your stack is horrible. Probably won't get any folds, SB might go away, but you're never ever folding postflop. As played you've flopped close to the nuts so jam

Minor point, but you only have 12 outs for you counted the jack of clubs twice. Assuming the outs are clean, your equity is 12/47 + 35/47*12/46 = 45%. When facing two opponents with top 10% and top 25% hands, Equilab shows your showdown equity to be 39% .Without any further data on tournament status, the pot and equity are large enough to justify a shove.

To show this, assume the 25% player folds 60% of the time. Then the EV equation is as follows:

EV = 0.6*EV(vs. 10% villain) + 0.4*EV(vs. 2 villains)

= 0.6*(0.45*16000-0.55*4000) + 0.4*(0.39*20000-0.61*4000) = 5144.

The 0.45 value is your showdown equity vs. the 10% villain.

The EV is actually higher (5360) if both villains call the shove. While tournament factors (e.g. ICM) can alter this conclusion, I think it unlikely that over a doubling of expected stack size can be ignored assuming my estimates of villain ranges are reasonable.

If villain had minraised, you can 3-bet jam pre, but the stop and go also works. Just jam the flop as played. You've got a ton of equity even against two pairs (and about 45% vs one pair), but might sometimes make villain fold ace high or an underpair.
It's much weirder when he makes it 4x pre, as that's half your stack, leaving you with almost no fold equity on the flop, and a useless stack when you check-fold. There's an argument for just folding pre vs the oversized open. You'll probably have a better hand and a more profitable jamming spot if you save your 8bb for the SB position on the next hand.

I disagree because I've come back to win tourneys on numerous occasions with even shorter stacks.

I'd call preflop and I'd check call the flop. If the flop checks through I shove the turn.

Folding preflop? That would likely make it correct for the cutoff and button to raise very wide, which only means less realized expectation for hero here.

Unless the small blind has 45k or something ridiculous, I think co made a sizing error preflop, which is probably shove or fold territory with 15 big blinds.

Unless the tourney has just started, this is a mental game error that you have made. Whether you were watching tv, or porn, or whatever, you missed vital information in previous hands and this is a rather large mistake.

fold pre

So you think the EV-maximizing play to combat that is to call 50% of your stack with T9s?

I read the op as having 8k behind after posting the blind. Getting about 3:2 on the preflop call with 5k behind seems good to me. However, if we only had 7k behind after posting the blind, I'm not so sure and I'd probably fold.

It's 3:1 preflop assuming no antes however I can't see calling off half a stack preflop being the best play because you really want to see all cards. If you jam you give CO the option to isolate which would be a huge deal, however with a 4x open and a flat from the SB at a 15bb stack you can assume both of them were at some point deprived of oxygen for longer than healthy and are unlikely to shove/fold.

Would need to look at the actual ranges and see how T9s does assuming it's a 3way all in. It can't be super bad to get it in and if I have JTs it is getting in for sure.

I thought the small blind folded. With him in there I think it's an even better call than hu.

This, exactly.

It's interesting that the CO bet half your stack, knowing you're in the big blind. This suggests to me that he wanted the bet to be big enough that you can't reasonably call without being committed, which forces you to shove or fold. Possibly indicative of a steal.

No. Saying you disagree he has a useless stack because "you've won tournaments with less" is results oriented thinking and just creates wiggle room for incorrect thinking. The way you have it worded is if the flop completely missed you, like AKx then you would fold or something. That's horrendous.

Calling 100% no matter what postflop sounds like a great way to make a slightly profitable preflop call into a big money losing play.

If it's so useless then why even play at all? Why not just quit anytime you have <5 big blinds?

Good point. He'd just been sent to our table, which is why no real intel. My only experience with him during a previous tournament was when he got it all in for around 40BB on a K-J-3 flop with top and bottom pair versus my top two. (He was probably in the blind that hand.) Otherwise, no intel on him. I'd peg him as a middling-weak player based on how much he overvalued his two pair in that spot.

That makes sense now, I thought it was 4 handed, in which case you would've been at the table together for a while.