Final table, 7 get paid. Villain was 29/29 stats with a cbet of 80% over 50 hand samples. He had shown that he opens very wide such as 79o in the last few hands. We 4bet him in BTN vs BB situation before and he folded.

I'm assuming the defend from BB is standard, wondering about the flop though. I think we want to take an aggressive line here with the gutshot and a board that hits our range quite well, but I'm not sure whether it is better to check/raise to 2400 if he bets 800 or so, or do we want to lead on this board. When he calls the flop I think on the turn we should have clearly check/folded since he is never folding on that turn card. Opinions on the hand?

Given reads I suppose we can 3bet jam this hand, but I think all 3 options are okay.

Imo just check flop and see what he does, when we donk and get called we have no idea where we stand, especially when we bet so little, its just begging to be called and we are out of position.

Our donk looks relatively weak, and taking a line of c/c or c/r would look allot stronger on this board texture.

Yeah, I think checking the flop is better than leading. I'd consider jamming JTs preflop because it has good equity, but I'll just defend this one since he covers our stack.

it's shove or fold vs a raise for 20bb eff or less, we're 21bb so don't flat here

preflop: just fold, we're not desperate and have a nice stack with shorter stacks around

flop: as played, just c/f, I don't understand your reasoning about aggro lines with GS on a paired flop OOP with less than 20bb behind

don't donk like this, as mentioned above, we must balance our c/f with c/r

turn: as played, c/f, betting again is spewing tournament equity

edit: as played, yes b/f

Of course we can flat, we have great odds because we're on the big blind.

Whether we're desperate or not doesn't matter, whether it's +ev or not does. I don't see how we wouldn't be getting the odds to defend with a hand as strong as this.

Pretty sure there is nothing wrong with check/raising here as a semi-bluff and giving up if villain doesn't fold. Not sure whether c/f is better than donkbetting though.

I think the turn is actually the biggest mistake of the hand. There is pretty much not a single hand in his range that is going to call the donkbet on the flop and be folding on that turn.

with 20bb eff or less vs a raise we're too short to play optimally postflop, so we cant flat

same logic why we open shove or fold with 10bb eff

I mean we're not desperate to 3b shove pre, which is marginal, so fold

when we're short with <20bb we cant spew chips post with semi-bluff c/r's, GS is a weak draw, esp not at ICM heavy FT paying 7/9, with stacks shorter than us around

c/f is for sure better than donking as played, don't donk at all, esp not this sizing

edit: don't donk because we cant balance, we're never donking with a flopped three of a kind here right? so balance our c/f lines with c/r lines

another vote for folding pre. Ask if you're willing to stack off with TP on the flop. I hope your answer is no. But if he cbets flop and turn, you'll have put way to much of your stack in to get away from it without costing yourself tons of $EV.

I'm not being snarky, I'm asking honestly, do you understand the difference between cEV and $EV? Cuz (as mentioned by others), it's just not worth it to get into it here, and this might maybe be +cEV but is almost definitely -$EV.

shoving pre would be horribly spewy. Yeah, he ought to fold almost everything, but he won't. so you're slightly taking the worst of it or worse for your tournament life with JTo.

I suppose with an offsuit JT we're not getting the odds to call for anything better than top pair, and yeah, I don't want to get the stacks in with just top pair with 9 left. Of course with JTs we'd play it mostly similiar wouldn't we (talking about the check/raise on flop)? I can see why we would want to fold here rather than defend.

JTs is certainly sexier, but personally I'd hate to c/r with just a draw on the flop, cuz if he has TP or better, it's all going in needlessly when or a draw, or you c/r-fold, which is awful. If you gain 2000 chips, it doesn't change your $ equity a great deal; if you lose 2000 chips you've significantly dented your $ equity and risk finishing out of the money.

The exact same $EV equation applies to V in this case, so it could become a case of who wants to bluff the hardest. It's just a spot for a pissing contest, with a significant cost for whoever loses. the real winners are everyone else not in the hand, who can sit back and watch while someone busts themself out.

JT is a hand that plays great when you are in position, and deep, like over 50BB deep. OOP, in a shortstacked bubble spot, it's not a good hand at all. It could end up being a terrible hand if it entices you to get involved in a marginal spot.