Playing the $2500 NL two days ago. 40 from the money.
Started the day with 20 bigs. Lost 4.5 bigs right away. Then got it in QQ v A9 for a 10 big uptick, shoved on Josh Beckley twice (3 bet and other time a weird spot where button opened, Josh 3 bet from a short stack in SB and I 4 bet all in for 25 bigs with AQ from BB) to get right around 35 bigs...

So I've been pretty active. This is all the first hour of Level 11 at 1200 BB level.

So my strategy this close to the $$ is spin up a stack without showdowns when possible and it was very successful. Then this hand comes up where I played quite bad...
I open UTG +1 with AKo to 2.2 bigs (34 bigs). UTG+2 3 bets (not much info on him, but semi-fishy) to 6.5 bigs from a stack of 50 or so bigs...

At this point seems like a very standard 4 bet to either 16 bigs or just all in. For some reason, after 2 minutes of considering my options I decided to flat. My reasoning was two-fold: partially to trap and potentially have 70 bigs, but partially to just try and win the hand post-flop in case he has a small pair and the board gets scary...

Math says the shove is super +EV:
Dead Money in pot: 200x9 antes = 1800 SB = 600 BB = 1200 My raise = 2600
3 bet = 7600 (6200+7600 = 13.8k)....
A 4 bet wins the pot uncontested after learning his hole cards so my stack goes from roughly 40k --> 54k without risking post-flop play OOP.

If he had QQ or JJ or 1010 we are flipping which is fine at this stage of the tournament. He is probably folding all his small pairs and AJ type hands to a big 4 bet...Flopzilla gives me a 59-41 edge against his 3 betting range in this spot.


But, by disguising my hand a lot of times I can C/r flop and potentially win another 5-8k depending on his sizing, or if I flop very strong I can get a flop bet and possibly a crying call on river from him (assuming he checks back a lot of turns) and go from 54k --> 68-70k....

Risk-Reward is intriguing in this position. I am not playing to min-cash so the money bubble looming is not important. But, I don't have AA or KK thus the strength of my hand is debatable in this spot.

As played, I flat and the flop comes down AK10 rainbow....I check from a stack of 28 bigs and villain bets 40% of pot.

I was behind on the flop (he had JQ off), did not improve and obviously was never getting away from my hand with this stack size - but I would have won the hand with a 4 bet shove pre so...anyone want to argue for just flatting the 3 bet pre flop (and just chalk up the flop to a weird cooler)?????
If so would love to hear the rationale. Or, possibly a 4 bet to half my stack?

I would shove not because i know ur opponents hand but you have equity, keep winning the pots uncontested with raises pre and no risk post.

Yeah sure you may fear AA,KK but at 40 left theyre wider and you cant put people on AA, KK. I'm ok with flipping or hopefully being ahead.

Sometimes if they reraise very small pre-flop it may raise a flag but i most of the time cant fold AKo pre and would shove in these spots with 40 ppl left and ur BB size.

Yea shoving here prints so much money but your line is better than folding pre. Mbn for the dude who had qj