$75 mtt with $25 bounty

We are in the HJ with 4 bbs
All stacks infront of us have healthy 25 bb+ stack
There are 3 players with less chips than us and they will all be forced all in before we are BB

Stone bubble

What is our shoving range?

Let's assume that all 3 villains are flipping when forced AI in their blinds. The chance of them ALL winning is 12.5%, therefore you should have an 87.5% chance of making the money.

Considering that you are guaranteed to be called whenever you shove 4bbs (especially considering this is a bounty tourney & most likely you'll get called by multiple players), you're never more than an 82%-87% favorite.

Hence, you should have NO shove range....as your hand equity never exceeds your probability of cashing.

This situation is similar to a satellite/survivor tournament, where the risk far outweighs the reward. Even if we double, we'd only have 9bb-10bb and are still super-short.

I totally disagree. To take an extreme example, is folding AA really worth it here? Assuming you're 78% favorite, is it worth taking a 4-9% extra chance of busting for a 78% chance of 2.5xing your chips? I'm going to say yes. Especially if 4bb is worth more than I would guess a starting stack. 2.5xing your stack here should have more double the chance of making a deep run.

your shoving range here should be strictly {QQ+} only.

THE CHURCH, HOOKS??? THROWEM in the BIN!

I agree with QQ+

All the relevant info is missing. With payout information you can calculate how valuable chips are after each player is assigned minimum cash and with that chip value you can figure out how much it is worth to get allin with best hand. In these spots AA is rarely foldable, but any other hand might be.

Example:

19 players remaining, total chips in tournament 400bb, prize pool 10000 minimum cash 12-18. 150$.

Minimum cashes total 18*150= 2700. After everyone is in the money 400bb of chips fight for 7300 of money and each big blind is worth 73000/400 = 18,25$

Assuming you have a strong hand which you think has 40% chance of leading to bustout and chipEV of +3bb you would pay bubble tax 0.4*150=60$ and win average of 3*18,25= 54.75 making it slightly -EV.

In a satellite, folding AA

In a tournament, JJ+ AK or possibly AQ+99+, and paklu don't forget multiway pots where bubble tax might be higher, but EV also significantly higher, and stack utility can actually improve from red zone to something you can steal with. he coulda been a contender!

Off topic but what hand is “ the church”?

I had the same thought.

Agree QQ+ only for shoving range before the bubble here.

This is not a satellite or a survivor payout and so it’s not defensible to say there should be no shoving range. I mean we are trying to be profitable right? If so then threes always a shove range, even if it can be quite small.

Busting on the bubble when you have a 90% chance of cashing, within 5 hands, is NOT PROFITABLE.

Especially considering that you wouldn't be putting yourself in contention with a double-up, as you'd still be on life-support AFTER a double.

For me, the risk/reward and the math don't add up here...especially when the bubble will burst in 5 hands or less.

The main issue here is letting your stack dwindle to 4bb (or low enough that you don't have any FE). Unless you took a bad beat and got crippled....you shouldn't be in this situation to begin with.

In the scenario you described you should probably be pushing zero hands. In practice, I'm sure I would push AA, and probably push KK unless I was thought the Poker Gods were mad at me about something. You know how they can be. Maybe I'd push QQ but maybe I'd fold it, I'm on the fence about that one.

As the old guy said, you should fold 100% in a satellite in this situation.

Shoving the HJ with QQ+ is going to be profitable because a large percentage of the time you are going to be sitting on 10bb afterwards and you’ll have some cases where you run it up and get a much better cash that makes up for the extra couple of mincashes you’d get folding such a hand over a large sample. When you fold into the money with 3 or 2 bbs whatever you’ll end up shoving any 2 after the bubble and having no chance.

4bbs with money in the middle after a double is 10+bbs - that’s one more double away from being able to play poker. You cant play poker with your mind focused on mincashes - that’s why pros and top players rape people on the bubble.

correct ^

when we shove premiums here, it's not because we're securing a mincash, we also have that considerably higher chance of multiple payjumps

look at Joe Hachem and Ryan R runs in WSOPME

Mincash in a pko tourney is usually only 1 buyin

When you shove with 4bb in a pko its rare even that you will just have 1 caller . Often you will end up with 2 or more callers and sometimes you will get 1 caller or 2 callers and then someone shoves and you get allin hu with tons of dead money . Whatever happens you are usually looking at busting or at least tripling your stack imo
You are going to get called by weak hands too so with the low pay for mincash and the potentially significant stack increase I would be shoving all hands like KQs ATs etc which will do well multiway and most likely dominate a lot of your opponents holdings . Be more inclined to skip low pairs , basically you want 2 high cards or obv a big pair . Folding TT+ would be silly imo in these games where you're likely to get iso'd by 22 or A3o or 75s or some other bs

I agree with this. Who cares about a min cash and securing 1.2x your buy-in. You are trying to go after the larger prize. By doubling up you can do some damage and actually get back into contention.

If you knew that you could shove all-in and get called and be an 80% favorite to win with the chance to win 10bb or bust in this spot, would you take it?

It depends on the value of the chips. If shoving implies a 20% chance of busting and folding guarantees a 1.2 buy in mincash, the cost is .24 buy ins. The break even point would be when 4bbs is = to about 1/4 of the starting stack in terms of chips (after bounties paid are deducted).

In most online tournaments the chips would be worth more than that - in some deep stack, slow structured ones maybe not.

Stone bubble I am always still shoving KK and AA. I also think there is sometimes a gulf of difference between what large bankroll players do and those building one. For some of us a gtd (or likely) decent min cash score far outweighs "the correct move".

Lol nits itt

The reason we can abuse the bubble is because ppl like you exist.

There are no valid arguments, psychological or financial, for making a -$EV play in poker. As in business, we play poker to make as much money as we can. Volume will overcome variance.

I did muse over the idea that securing ones first cash has a psychological and long term benefit that exceeds the $ev. But then I realised that if your first cash is not a min cash but a whopping great 1st-3rd paycheck, then the psychological benefit is astronomical and likely in proportion to the $.

My first cash was huge and I’m still here 15 years later, still learning, still loving it, still full of confidence.

So jam your AQ on the bubble, wear the bad beat with a smile if it happens, and realise that your greatest edge in a tournament is jamming AQ late position and having some dolt feel obliged to call you with A3o or Q9o coz odds.

If I was in the wsop me on the bubble with AK on the button and didn’t shove 5bb when folded to me, I’d never forgive myself.

For me this depends entirely on payout structure.

If first is 100x my BI and a min-cash is just a refund, i'm taking the risk with QQ+/AKs to level up and go for the real money. If the payout structure is a lot flatter, say, max of 15BI to first but 1.5x BI to bubble, i'm locking in my min-cash then getting it in and hoping for the best.

A lot of this to me is risk vs reward. Larger top-end gains justify more risk on the bubble than flat payout structures.

For all those times your locking up a min cash by ignoring the correct play your forgoing those times you make that deep run.

This is not a std stone bubble situation. You have 4 players left to call who each have a $25 incentive to call. BB will always call without looking at cards. SB should call also with almost ATC.

I wouldn't shove without a pair here because we will be the huge underdog to win vs multiple opponents.

I think I would do QQ+. But definitely KK+.

Also, because there are 3 shorter stacks than us, assuming we are at the final table and they aren't at another table, we may be able to time our all-in such that if one of the shorter stacks is in before us, we will cash if we both lose and we will win a bounty if we win the hand.

the Church stands for AK. First person i heard naming it that way wasnt a soul crusher though, as it was ps online pro Kevin Martin.

FWIW, i would almost have 0 shoving range in that precise spot as folding=printing money.

But to be fair, i agree with the (QQ) KK+ range here (QQ is flipping vs AK )

As I was reading this thread, I was surprised at how many posts it took to mention the above. When you start calculating the win of an eventual bounty in the scenario where you push and win, it changes the math dramatically and opens up the range. Of course we do not have information on the bounties and the positions of short stacks, but it is definitely a big part of this equation, as when you win you do not only get the value of your chips, but your cash gets bigger right away!