20k gtd 8max. Top heavy payouts.
5th of 9 remaining.
Hero has 17.5bb left.
Players 6 through 9 have 10 to 13bb.
At table with 4 players, smallest stack.
To our left player has 100+ bb. Using it well.
5 mins to next level.

Hero is on button. Folds to you.
Qj suited.
Big stack in sb. Bb also covers.

Is this a shove? If not, what is your range?

Thanks.

Easy shove. I'm shoving 40-45% of hands in this spot. GTO is about 35% I believe, but realistically villains never call anywhere near wide enough, so you can comfortably go wider than GTO.

It'd be different if this was the money bubble, but ICM pressure isn't THAT significant for the final table bubble when the payout structure is top heavy.

Except the fact that villian has 100+bb and is likely calling wider than normal. The statistics need to account for that.

The question is, is it optimal to shove even if you know you're at best coin flipping vs villian in 80% of his calls, and only getting villian to fold maybe 25% of his hands at the highest %.

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QTo+ is GTO, so this is actually a little bit more marginal than I thought. Still chip +ve but perhaps may be ICM question

I had very close to this exact scenerio at a tourney Wednesday night. I did shove and the villian had 10's which held up. I was also second guessing myself. I don't mind a flip, but I do prefer to have the pair!!

I would look at it like this. With blinds and antes, you're looking at probably 2.5 BB. So your return is 2.5 / 17.5 or about 14%.

Your probably not going to be called by anything worse. Let's say villains calling range is 99+, or AJ-AK. Odds are about 12% that someone in the blinds has a better calling hand.

If you ignore ICM, it's a good value play.

If you consider ICM, The upside is that you will walk away from the hand with 20BB in chips. Probably not worth a lot more than 17BB. The downside is that you bomb out in 9th. 5th can easily pay 2x as much as 9th.

Not an easy decision. With 17BB left and M ~ 6, I'm personally waiting for a better spot to ship it in.

Edit: I see the word bubble in the subject line. If 8 spots are paid here, I'm folding.

I'm not sure if the term bubble is correct, as I meant to use it in the context of making or not making the final table. 9th got paid, but it was a top heavy structure.

Thank everyone for their feedback.

I think am leaning towards always shoving here in top heavy tournaments. And folding in more even structures.

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