Hello Guys. I played a live tournament two days ago ($200 buy in) and had an interesting hand to share. blinds were 1.5k/3k with 3k bb ante. I was on a big blind with around 85k and a button had a stack around 100k. So everyone folded to a button who raised to 10k (he was pretty active guy who raised my big blind constantly during the tournament) and I looked down to my hand - a10off.

My question would be, what would you do in this spot? Is shoving with a10 off ok with around 24bb and 17k already in the pot? Or I just call and play post flop? tournament had a great structure and 25min blind levels.

Thanks.

No ICM implications I'm fine with jam. Well ahead of his range block enough of calling range and not a hand I want to play oop. When called we're not looking good though.

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No ICM implications I'm fine with jam. Well ahead of his range block enough of calling range and not a hand I want to play oop. When called we're not looking good though.[/B]

Thanks for your answer. There was like 18 players left, 8 got paid. I am always playing to win not to min cash(or at least made it to top 3 or 4 to chop).

In my case I showed and he tanked for a while. He tank called with jj (tanking was very surprising) and hold. After hand I thought I played bad and should have fold but when you consider all the dead money in the pot and his wide opening range this shove is not that bad I guess.

1) What's the avg stack?
2) How much left/ how much itm?
3) You've got more than 24BB

Did this V always choose this size when he opened the BTN? The > 3x open is by no means standard and should drastically change our BB defending and 3 betting ranges.

1) average stack was around 90k.
2) 18 players left, 8 in the money.
3) Yes apparently I had around 27bb.

Since we had bb ante, people usually raised more because bb had a good pot odds to defend his hand, so nothing unusual. I felt I had the edge on most opponents, so shoving 27bb is really questionable.

Another thing, if I flop a top pair top kicker 10, its easy to cooler botton range, since he could have k10, q10, j10, 109, even 108 in his range easily. So I am leaning to just call preflop and play postflop even though if I dont hit flop and check fold I just feel that I am burning my money with a good hand.

pretty std shove

the fact that he tankcalled JJ there should make you feel even better about it

I'd shove, anything that doesn't involve folding might be ok though.

Did he always raise so big?

Actually I dont think he always raised more than 3x, do you think it might his tell of a strength? I noticed that in live tournaments people like to raise bigger with aq and ak type of hands.

Matt Janda gave a formula in his book for "standard" 3 betting %. Against a button open you should be 3 betting a total of about 17% of hands. When stacks are this short, it is better to 3 bet a linear range instead of a polarized range.

ATo is clearly in the top 17% of hands. Although realize, it is in the bottom half of the 17% so it does make it part of the bluff range.

Now we have 2 options: 3bet to about 30k or shove. Is there any benefits to 3 betting small? It depends on the opponent.

Can you ever fold the bottom hands in your range when faced with a shove. You would have to call 55k to win 116.5k and getting 2:1 odds. Current ICM pressure is starting to climb and might be about 20% now. So that would mean with these pot odds, we would need 39% equity for a call.

So yes, you could theoretically fold your bluffs. If he shoves a linear 10%, ATo gets 37% equity against that range.

How is his range affected with the small 3 bet. Does he call a wide range? Will he shove or fold? Is his folding range elastic or inelastic? If he folds the same amount to the 30k as he does the 85k shove, then obviously 30k is superior.

If this is the first time he changed his raise sizing, you can't make any definite conclusions on the reason for the change. There are several possibilities:

1) Hand strength. Some players change due to hand strength. Some bet large to bluff and small to induce, others are opposite, they bet large with value and small to bluff and yet another 3rd option is the hands they expect to be best but don't like to play postflop, like middle pairs/AK/AQ.

2) Position. Some players change their raise size based on the position they are opening from. Some will open more from a steal position trying to get more folds.

3) Who is in the blinds. There are 2 reasons for this. The first is that if there is a really good player in the blinds, you could raise more to try to dissuade a call. Another is an exploit of a weakness you found and the increased size is an attempt to maximize EV against the weak player.

4) Some players are just random. There are some that just pick different amounts all the time.

I have no problem with the shove in a vacuum. His range should be very wide. He should be folding a lot. Because he tank called with JJ you can be pretty sure he would have folded AJ & KQ which is very good for you and supports the shove strategy.

Since he has raised fairly often I would look at his raise sizing as others have mentioned. People tend to raise JJ/TT more than their usual raise size if they don't always bet raise the same amount pre-flop (relative to the blind size). Sometimes AK as well. If this raise was different (more) than his usual sizing, I would probably proceed with caution (and just call).

If he is standard rec fish that has opened 2-2.5x most of the time and then opens to 3x+ I read that as TT-JJ/AQ that does not what action cause they think those hands are hard to play post flop.

Sorry I missed this...

The important thing isn't if he raised more than 3x previously because he is raising only 3.3x now. As numberonedonk said, the question is, did he raise 2.5x mostly? 2.25x? or even 2x?

If his standard raise previously with this kind of stack size, was <=2.5x then yes, 3.3x is significant enough that I would likely just call here.

Open sizing is very suspicious

And this is a very easy ? to answer if you actually put pen to paper and range V.

What do you think his range is OP? Does that range contain worse that'll call (unlikely) or better that'll fold (maybe)?

Think defending would be pretty bad, so clear shove or fold spot IMO.

I think I fold bc that sizing just looks totally nutted and can't be dismissed easily.

Doubt we have better than 35% equity when called and I think that's optimistic--prob closer to 32%. We need to make back at least 17k in EV from fold equity just to breakeven--with the pot being 17k we'd need V to fold 100% which isn't happening.

I can maybe get behind 3b/f to 35k but it'd take a pretty large body of evidence to get me to fully commit to that line. Think we're likely to encounter at least two or three better 3b bluff spots given the described structure and stack sizes, 3b bluff spots that don't involve raising nearly half our eff stack into a very suspicious and quite frankly excessively large open size.

Yeah, I think I just fold (likely exploitatively so though IDK if that's for sure the case) and move on with my stack totally intact.

i'm folding this and jamming AJ/77 or thereabouts

Okay but isn't Janda using a standard 2x open from BTN? He usually does in his books. The > 3x open drastically changes our calling and 3 betting %

53% BTN opener vs BB. Easy jam, especially when he is not calling NASH-ranges, but way tighter. If he tanked with JJ, you can probably jam any-two.



If he calls that tight, you can go all-in with any-two.

No his formula for 3 betting was not based on open sizing but on hand frequencies, and the sizing of your 3 bet.

If we look at the difference:

Pot before open 2.5BBs
Open: 3 BBs
3bet: 9 BBs

You are betting 9 to win 5.5 BBs and your break even threshold is 62%.

If:

Pot before open 2.5BBs
Open: 2.5 BBs
3bet: 7.5 BBs

Now you are betting 7.5 to win 5 and your break even threshold is 60%.

That couple of % points does matter, but not so much to throw the formula all out of whack.

If however:

Pot before open 2.5BBs
Open: 7 BBs
3bet: 21 BBs

Now your break even threshold is 70% is you still 3x the bet. But in this case, if you think and realize that since his bet was so big, if you downsize your 3 bet to 16BBs it will set up around the same math and you would be able to use the same formulas. Now the break eve threshold is 62%.

This is also assuming his open range is static across the sizings. If his range changes, so does the math.

is your analisy affectd by the size of open? I see a raise x2 on your chart and it is ok 53% opening range. But 3,3x I don't believe it works similary...

This is cool and all but you're missing the important piece of information (which most seem to be missing) and that is that he's opened to 3.3x on the button.

Now if you don't play live a lot you may not know this but when someone (weak player) usually opens to 2.2x and then goes 3.2x there is a reason. In my experience that reason is because they have a stronger hand than usual but not "too" strong in their mind so they raise a little bigger to discourage calls because they are ok with winning pot right there.

Ask any weak player the hardest hand to play and I bet most will say TT-JJ and AQ/AK.

So using that information I have ATo as a huge loser shoving as his opening range is pretty strong IMO and def not opening 53% at this sizing.

Okay, so he mentions in the first post that he is opening a lot and in general, seems active. Nothing about the bet size, so how can we make any assumptions based on that, If he says nothing about it? He didn't see anything out of ordinary about it, so we shouldn't either. It might be his standard raise size for all we know.

So how much do you think an active guy, who raised his BB constantly opens the BTN?

If he opens the same amount of hands with 3,3x it will be even profitable, because he will be folding a ton and raising so much.



Even vs 25% open 3,3x we are still fine. I put the calling range for him(which is probably tighter, If he was considering JJ):

55+,ATs+,AJo+,KQs

As I've already mentioned, yes I agree it means something. But what that something is cannot be just guessed at. It takes time playing with the player to figure that something out.

As a US player and playing live only since Black Friday, that something could be:

• Marginal hands he is afraid to play post flop
• Strong hands he is trying to get more value from
• Weak hands he is trying get more folds as a bluff
• Or it could just be a positional raise. Some raise 2x from early mid and 3x from late

By eliminating 3 of the 4 main possibilities without evidence is illogical.

I wouldn't consider it illogical to put weights on these as it is likely that the first might be 50%, the second and third might be 20% each and the last point at about 10%. That would be valid since that is possibly close to the weak live player pool sample.

If button's range is really 40-50% then I think jam is fine and probably optimal. If we think villain might be somewhat more snug, I really don't mind flat as we are getting a pretty reasonable price even to the 3x open and if we stop defending AT vs. an active player we are going to get run over.

The only way I'd fold is if I knew with certainty that villain's range was really something like AJ-AK,88-JJ based on reads or sizing tells.