Hello All,

First post here on 2+2.

I got pocket pair 99 with $37K chips left where I was ranked around the middle of the pack. Blinds were $1500/$3000 with antes. 767 entrants. 103 or so left. 80 places pay starting at $496, top place pays about $27K. sb has 58k bb has about 32k.

I was UTG+2 in a full ring.

At 12.3x BB I'm close to just shove-botting steals in the right places with first-in-vigorish or cards in mind. No one is limping, some people are 2.1-2.2x betting. Others are just shoving 2xBB to 12xBB.

I shove and the blind who had about 58K insta-called my all-in, flipped over Jacks, and I busted out 103rd, out of the money.

Considering the stakes, and my table image of shoving 10xBB maybe one more than proportionate by luck per round (not loose, but not ultra-tight), was there a slightly higher EV play here either a.) limping where I have a short history at the table and can be limping Aces, or b.) 2.0-2.2x BB min raising and folding to a re-raise on theory I'm probably facing 80/20 or 50/50 at best?

I mean given most the entire table was TAG from what I've seen, is there some survival equity in betting 2.1x BB, not being shoved on ace or paint on the flop, and either bluffing non-ace paint, or us both scared-check-checking overs to the river and keeping the pot small? Or was it somewhat inevitable the chips go to the center?

Relatedly at these stakes, without further information other than everyone appears to be playing solid TAG, if I bet 99 on a 2xBB bet, and everyone but the BB folds, what is the minimum hand that the median or average player might repop all in with 10-12x BB? I'm thinking 66-AA, AJ suited or better, KQ or better, or do some think 22-55 and other Ax , other Kx should be included as part of an expected range.

Suppose instead of the BB repopping, the small blind with 58K repops me all-in for 37K. What is a reasonable range that one can expect here? My thoughts are AK, JJ-AA. Maybe 40-60% of the time AQ suited repops me all-in, maybe 99, TT also repops me half the time, call/muck/repop mix from 66-88 to varying degress. No one was getting tricky on this table so I wouldn't expect someone to risk most their chips on 22-55 though sometimes people just suddenly lose it abruptly under pressure unpredictably.


It's a subtle difference, but I was wondering if there were an optimal tweak there given the available info. My goal isn't to barely bubble in the money, but to final table or top 3 generally. Thank you much!

Didn't read much past the fact that you have 99 and 10bb. Don't be results oriented it's simply a shove and nothing else.

I had a little more than 10. I was doing fine chipping up stealing in spots went from 10bb to the 12.5BB when i was dealt 99. I can accept this is still a shove. But I should’ve prefaced I’ve final tabled 200ish field $1050 buyins and $500+ buyins when pokerstars was common in the states in 2000-2006. I’ve read Harrington, super system, etc. most every book you can think of on poker and poker statistics. When I wasn’t having wild fluctuations on my bankroll with the $500+ buyins, I was playing $2-$11 mega fields just to keep from losing too fast on a bad run because even with bankroll management in mind the flutcutations were significant. I’ve placed first often in these snall stakes in fields as large as 2000+. So I’m not talking basic shove the mid to high pair on the 10bb a la Harrington. What I mean was my gut sense told me if I raised 2-2.2x BB with my 12-15ish stake I was wondering what people with a lot of experience in the 109 buyin felt would be a repop range, flat call range and what frequency and if there were an opportunity to squeeze some minute amount of additional ev there with a 2x-2.2x B.B. bet rather than a shove. My gut sense tells me yes. Regardless of not being results oriented—I think the contemporaneous analysis suggests the possibility of higher ev not shove-botting here without analysis. You missed the reason why that is sound to not think purely from results but on contemporaneous probabilities— because you have perfect information you didn’t have beforehand and should base analysis on information known at the time, otherwise suffer from what financial analysts call hindsight bias. I get that— my day job is equity analysis for a billion+ fund. I have 2 professional financial charters of the highest reputation which I cannot mention here and knowledge of grad-level stats and skills training apply them (anova, regression, inference, experimental design, behavioral finance , bayes theorem and applications including to poker, sas, r, etc.)

What I was hoping for in coming here was getting the razor thin extra ev from the people experienced in these buyins who have observed the success rates of the smaller min to 2.2xbb bets (when they might be appropriate) when the blinds are between 10x to 20x and separately at these parameters when you’re dealt a borderline hand mid position and you’re not trying to tj cloutier into the bubble. My feeling was the play at these stakes at least at bol was so tight I wouldn’t get repopped most the time without 88-AA to AK by similar sized or larger stacks maybe which tells me There being more situations where you’re dominated 80/20 than the 20/80, and a coin flip vs Ak that there’s some ev there in folding against a nitty table calculating combinations and expected value. That’s all— I noticed from observation at the 12-25ish B.B. there are people seemingly doing slightly better with the min bet or 2.2bb bet at these blinds at these stakes which was the info I was fishing for— the diff between great and excellent. Again if someone with a deep experiential knowledge of this particular stake tells me shoving is proper here I’ll be convinced.

I guess we could easily say that there's a sort of Omerta over GTO deviation amongst (bad-average-good?) regs.
My experience tells me that shoving 99's in that precise spot regarding all the intel you had + your stack size, your position etc... is obviously the way to go, as long as we put that decision in a "vacuum".
Outside of that alienating vacuum though:
One could argue that a deviation from a GTO pov will automatically lead to exploitative play and therefore to a -EV approach.
But i m also pretty sure we will never hear of debatable play made by some top reg at one crucial stage in a SHR.
Deviating from GTO has to be obligatory in some precise situations and i am not talking abt being scared-money on the bubble of a "not on my budget mtt".
But simply from a strat pov.
In that regard, there are for sure situations where you can deviate from GTO for different reasons like intel you got from playing a certain player, from playing on a certain table or simply from a certain global dynamic associated to a certain time of the mtt.
I am not able to give you the slight EV increased or decreased gain that min raising 99's in that precise spot sitting on 12.5bb might offer, because i doubt that there would be a mathematical proof that this would be more profitable than jamming.
All i am saying is that from a rational pov, min raising anything sitting on 12.5bb might look pretty strong indeed but on the long run and in a vacuum, it will certainly not give you extra EV.
However, and in a precise situation, it could fit that situation better than a jam

Lol, i guess i did not answer your initial question. Sorry abt tht, my bad.
But i still gave a (useless) personnalo-rational opinion.
#forumlife

Too much assuming of players tendencies to decide what is better.

Some players will see the limp as prob AA, others might think its weak. (so balances out)

Same with 2x'ing, some think this might mean marginal hand 50% of the time and superstrong 50%, others have different ratios.

If you know for a fact people only overshove TT+/AK, u can open-fold yes.
If you also know noone will ever flat, this becomes profitable.
If people do flat, imo shoving makes ur life way easier, cause of 80% overcards on flop.

My experience on the meta in these shortstack situations is at maximum 55$ buy ins, but i doubt itll be widely different at 109's.

Basically what swissodds said.