Been waiting to post this hand so bad. About 85 left, was my 3rd hand at the table, no reads on anybody. This was the grossest spot I can remember having preflop in a long, long time.

I have 2 questions:

#1 How seriously should I consider folding (and would QQ be an insta muck?)
#2 If I continue, should I WTF flat, 6-bet small or just shove?


Poker Stars, $200 Buy-in (5,000/10,000 blinds, 1,250 ante) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand #12845702

UTG: 706,358 (70.6 bb)
MP: 925,037 (92.5 bb)
Hero (CO): 549,266 (54.9 bb)
BTN: 1,128,969 (112.9 bb)
SB: 742,357 (74.2 bb)
BB: 702,026 (70.2 bb)

Preflop: Hero is CO with K K
2 folds, Hero raises to 20,300, BTN raises to 53,250, SB raises to 118,800, BB raises to 186,969, Hero ????

all in

I'd rather get it in vs a BB shove but BB's 5 bet sizing seems pretty strong

gross spot

any reads would help you know (like OPR, have you played with them before, any hands on them if you use HEM etc)

then we can comment, could be a jam, could be a fold.... this looks like BB has it but being 85 left and 50bb deep I doubt I can fold readless

also dont flat and dont 6b small please

ew. I'm all in, hoping sb and bb are overvaluing worse hands bc late pos raise and 3bet.
I agree this is not a fun spot.

I had < 20 hands on 2 of the people at the table and none on the rest, so I didn't put any stock in the HEM stats that I had.

The 3-better has OPR blocked
The 4-better has 45k in total prizes won with a really high ITM% (and ROI is blocked but likely not too high)
The 5-better has 1.5 mil in total prizes won and a really good looking OPR.

easy shove, i prob wouldn't fold qq either tbh

i almost think i find a fold.... BBs shoving range is v tight and I believe his sizing suggests even a tighter range so i think i muck em.... at best his range is QQ plus surely

fwiw opr results have big role in my decision- is the kind of sizing u expect from good reg in the fishier scoop tournies

I'd shove then

I've done some calculations assuming that I only get called by AA/KK and only 1 villain has AA/KK.

If I do so assuming that BTN 3-bets 15% and SB 4-bets 5% of the time, then I need BB to not have AA/KK 44% of the time to break even, which I think based on the quality of the BB makes sense.

Now, having said this, I think that we are sortof bluffing with this shove (as in we arn't really expecting to get called by worse). So the blockers that we have with KK help a ton, and which makes me think that we should be shoving AK as well, but quickly folding QQ.

vs a BTN, SB, BB I doubt im mucking the KK.

We are not "sort of bluffing" with a shove here. The point of a "bluff" is to get somebody with a better hand to fold some % of the time. That is never going to happen here. It is true that it is very unlikely for a worse hand to call here but that doesn't reflect on the strength of our hand, it reflects on what the strength of our hand could be if we were to bluff.

And our blockers don't really help us with KK because it only makes it more likely that we won't chop with another KK which is a very minor consideration. There are still 6 combos of AA out there. It reduces the number of AK combos by half but that is irrelevant because we don't expect to get called by AK anyway and even if we do, we are substantially ahead. It matters if we have QQ because we have no KK blockers then, which is why I agree we are quickly folding QQ.

Your point about AK is interesting though. There is actually one fewer combo of AA/KK out there than if we had KK. So we stand to get the same number of folds (or a slight % higher) in this spot by pushing with AK. Maybe we even get KK to fold some of the time (if we are thinking about folding KK with this action in front of us - imagine what somebody with KK would do once we push...).

reads on BTN/SB/BB are crucial, because we need to know if SB's capable of raising light knowing that BTN might think you're opening light etc.

KK does block out half of the AK combos, which is not good for us.

if the table is super soft I think we can find a better spot to get their chips, that's a consideration also.

if the table is tough and players are not wild, I would lean towards a fold. def. don't include call or min6bet as your options.

Easy flat, see 3, reevaluate.