I can probably answer this myself with a yes but I do want some feedback. I didn't have much of a feel for this particular villain. Villain did go into the tank before their 4bet shove. This was deep in the $75k with less than 100 left.


Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 5,000/10,000 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (UTG+1): 26.11 BB
MP: 91.71 BB (VPIP: 22.50, PFR: 10.26, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 40)
MP+1: 29.63 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)
CO: 25.4 BB (VPIP: 24.00, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 50)
BTN: 2.19 BB (VPIP: 7.78, PFR: 3.53, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 90)
SB: 24.49 BB (VPIP: 20.83, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 50)
BB: 52.14 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 5)
UTG: 35.25 BB (VPIP: 20.83, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 24)

8 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.3 BB) Hero has Q A

UTG raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 5.15 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, UTG raises to 35.15 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 20.86 BB and is all-in

Flop: (54.33 BB, 2 players) 2 7 Q

Turn: (54.33 BB, 2 players) 7

River: (54.33 BB, 2 players) 8

Shoulda jammed the first time. As played I think it’s a fold.

Whats the point of the 3b pre? I feel like we go broke with this runout any way, but I dont think we're bluffing and I dont think we're doing it for value.

Honestly when he 4b shoves, whats his range there? TT+, AK? Are we even priced in against that? I doubt he has any 4b bluffs here when you really dont have many 3b bluffs yourself.

Stack size is weird for this spot. I'm just gonna flat pre.

3-bet jam is too big IMO and 3-bet folding sucks. Maybe at like 23-24bb we can talk about jamming.

[Im with Persian. Never jamming Vs UTG raiser. As played, easy fold. I guess it’s close between flatting and 3 betting; I’d lean towards a flat.

Did the math on jamming. If he opens 8% (roughly AJ+/77+) and calls 2% (roughly JJ+/AK), we net out about 0.8 BB (.75 x 4.3 BBs on folds, .25 x (30% x 54.5 - 26.1) on calls).

For a jam to not break even he needs to call with about half his range, so even if he has a really tight open range of 8% or so, he needs to call TT and at least some combos of AQ, which I just don’t see him doing.

So I think jamming is definitely going to make money. Only question is whether flatting can make more. Given that we have so many players behind and our hand isn’t great multiway, I lean towards no. Flatting lets us keep in hands we dominate like AJ and KQ, but jamming lets us fold out hands we’re pushing against like 77-TT and AQ. Given that he’s probably not opening many offsuit KQ/AJ combos, there are far more combos of the latter, which is another reason I intuitively lean towards jamming.

I think 3b/fold is the worst option because it gives villain good odds with his weaker hands but prevents us from realizing equity against his better hands.

Polo, there are 6 players behind us who are allowed to wake up with a hand. Admittedly, that might only be KK+, but if we are making 0.8 BB vs UTG, that edge will go away whenever we get called by another player.

I would just fold pre...not gonna have much of a flatting range here with ~25bbs. KQs; QJs; 99; 88 prob with a small % of AA. Add AQs if utg is tight.

3bet small range should be polarized here imo so AQo wouldn't ever make it in. AKs; some % of QQ+ and then some sooted A2-A5. I think this is a spot where we can have 2 3bet sizings (2.5x and AI.) Could use AQo in the AI range (along with % of QQ+; TT; JJ; AKo) if utg is loose.

As played would fold. This is the bottom of your 3bet range (could argue for calling entire range) and pretty good blockers but AQo plays pretty bad vs a utg 4bet range.

You're making a lot of bad assumptions IMO. The ranges you assigned would be 7.2% to 3% actual, which is substantially different than 8% to 2%. Also, that UTG range is really tight. And as someone pointed out you're not including the times someone behind wakes up with a hand.

Fair point. But I still think jam is best.

.9% chance of getting dealt KK+
Since we block 1/4 of KK+ combos, that goes down to .7%
If they were discrete, independent events, the chance of 1 of the 5 players with meaningful stacks* waking up with would be 3.4%.
They're not discrete, independent events because of removal effects, but the math to account for that is hard and it won't move the needle THAT much but let's call it 4% to be safe.

The 4% of the time we run into KK+, we lose (21% equity against KK+ x 56.5 BBs in pot assuming we're covered**) - 26.1 BBs = -14.2 BBs

So .04 * -14.2 = -0.6 BBs

Also, having someone call our shove makes UTG more likely to fold his JJ/QQ/AK so we're probably double-counting some of our losses.

So yeah a bit closer but still profitable and I'd still wager we're doing better than when we flat.



*The guy with 2 BBs having a monster doesn't really hurt us.
**We aren't always but to be conservative

7.3% vs. 3% doesn't take into account the hands we block with AQ. I rounded to make the math easier, but it actually is about 8% vs. 2% of the combos we don't block.


And yeah that UTG range is really tight. I picked a tight range to be conservative. Against a looser villain who opens 12%+, shoving is even more of a no-brainer.

And as I posted above, someone having a monster doesn't happen very often and isn't enough to make a jam -EV.

Basically I used the most reasonably conservative assumptions all around. If any of them were off it’s probably on the side of making our jam more profitable

You guys really think QQ or AK is folding behind?

There's also something to be said about not taking marginal shoves in really high variance spots deep in tournaments, which is another reason I'd disagree with shoving. Thanks for the responses polo.

Some will some won't. If 100% out of players call with those hands, we're losing money, but there's a bit of game theory involved here where if they call with QQ/AK, we win more when we have KK+.

I'll admit it's close, but I doubt flatting does better, so idk maybe the answer is to just fold.

On the variance subject, I think people overstate the relative variance of jamming vs. flatting. It's not like flatting is a 0-variance situation, and in some ways jamming reduces variance by getting hands to fold. If UTG has 99, and we flat and flop comes Q9x, we are going broke. That is variance that can be avoided by jamming pre. And when Villlain does have a monster, a lot of times if we flat we're going broke anyways. Flatting just delays high-variance decision-making to later streets.

So again, if we want to avoid marginal high-variance spots, maybe this is just a fold.

How do we block KK with AQ?

People are never folding AK/QQ behind to a shove.

We have 26bbs and while you can probably tweak some ranges or whatever to make this a +cev shove but it seems pretty reckless and unnecessary. Best case scenario is everyone behinds folds and he calls with TT.

If we jam and he calls we are still going broke. You're making an assumption about what villain will do in order to prove your point but at the end of the day you're still just making an assumption.

I said we block "KK+" combos. The "+" being the commonly used nomenclature for "And hands better than this one". There are 6 combos of KK and 6 combos of AA, and we block 1/4 of those total combos.

Well if we are never shoving a hand as weak as AQ here, calling AK/QQ here would be a big mistake. So what you're basically saying is that you think the field is playing in a -EV way. Even if AK/QQ call, we're still basically making a breakeven shove, and if making a breakeven shove will encourage villains to play in a manner that is -EV when we have KK+ here, that's a good thing and +EV for our range even if it isn't +EV for our individual holding.

Playing poker in general is reckless and unnecessary... I'm interested in making the most +$EV play. Best case scenario is obviously everyone folding period or I guess technically his making a monkey call with AJ.


Unless you're in a heads-up pot and your opponent flips his cards over, every decision we make in poker is predicated on assumptions. That's the whole point of the game. If you disagree with any of my assumptions, I'd love to hear why.

Using a reasonable set of assumptions we can see that jamming AQo is probably slightly +EV and at the very least breakeven. If you want to pass up +EV opportunities to reduce your variance, go for it.

But know that if jamming here nets you even as much as 0.2 BB/hand, that's a huge edge that you're passing up. Making 0.05 BB/hand would be an outstanding win rate at these stack depths.

That's my biggest problem with the "we should pass up marginal high-variance spots" argument. It's usually said by people who fundamentally don't understand how thin of an edge they have. It's really counterintuitive in a game like NLHE where you can win 100 BBs in a single pot in a normal deep-stacked game, but having a win rate as high as 0.1 BB/hand is astoundingly good. Most people should be thrilled with 0.02 BB/hand, especially when stacks are shorter.

The implication of that is that if you fold in spots where you can make an edge of 0.5 BB/hand, you are absolutely killing your win rate.

So idk man, convince me that jamming isn't a +EV play or that flatting is more +EV. Don't give me bull**** about unnecessary risk-taking.

/rant over

I know my edge is bigger than shoving AQo against a seemingly tight UTG opener with 7 other players to act but hey if that's what you got to do go for it.

I'm probably just folding and feeling fine about it. If we were mid stages of tournament sure but tournament life > marginal edges at this point. I can't win the tournament if I bust but if I fold and have 26bbs I certainly still have a fighting chance.


tl;dr tournament life > .02bb/hand in marginal spots IMO

Post your BB/100 win rate with a 25-30 BB stack. Prove me wrong.

Edit: And post the sample too obv. And if you don’t know, why don’t you tell me what you would guess it is

awkward spot. 3bet/fold seems bad but vs this particular open from UTG 3bet/GII also seems bad. That's why I think I just flat.

I guess there could be a case for just folding given our position in the hand, but nah

kind of funny that you argue that polos (exceptionally good) analysis itt is based on an assumption and then post your own assumption.

you have little clue of what marginal means. the fact that you have also very little understanding of short stack winrates certainly indicates that your tournament life isnt worth as much as you think it is.

Does anyone think that his tank 4bet shove is a dead give away to a KK+ type hand? Does villain going into the tank and then shoving affect your decision making at all?

I’m not a big timing tell guy. Could just mean the pizza showed up or he’s got active hands on other tables.

Awkward stack size but it’s call or jam for me pre.

flat or jam, dont really like the level'y from 2bb to 5.1bb 3b action. Wht do you accomplish by doing so?

With Polo on this one.

Well, it does discourage other callers and squeezers. It defined the UTG range in a way we could fold. Other than that, nothing.