A few nights ago I played a tournament where only 3 places paid. A the final table we ended up in an unusual scenario where, with all 9 players remaining, the average stack was 11bb and the blinds were increasing every 20 minutes so it was playing more and more like a hyper turbo.

It folds to me in the small blind. Big blind is a regular who is a very loose passive player generally. He limps a lot and probably has a VPIP north of 60%. He arrived at the FT short stacked though and has been playing tight. He hasn't limped at all. We haven't had a BvB interaction yet on this FT.

He is down to about 6bb. I have 12bb and am dealt T 8

We're playing a bb ante so there's 2.5 bb in the middle.

What should I do?

You are probably shoving way too tight if you even thinking about this.

I hate this spot because we don't have much fold equity. Villain is likely to call with any A, K, and possibly Q, JT/J9/J8/J7 and PP.

So I would limp especially because Villain likes to limp. Would I fold if BB jammed? Yes! Probably. We are likely to win 40% a lot of the time BB goes all in. Calling 5 bb's to win 7 bb's is literally right on that 40% border.

The funny thing is if BB also had 12 bb's I would jam every time. Even 9+ bb's I would jam.

This is a good hand HU. You need to keep stealing. Limping is horrible. I would push significantly lighter than this and push this hand from CO or earlier. I agree you can limp or minraise with these stacks are don't have to push everything. However, this is a really profitable push.

I think jam is pretty standard. You're still far from the money, so you might be getting called a lot, but you're generally gonna have good equity when you are called. He still has to fold a lot of hands, even some hands you're ahead of, and limp/folding sucks.

The push picks up at least 1.5xBB on average compared to folding. If you get called and lose, you still have chips and can push at the next opportunity. If it was 11xBB effective, it would still be a push. You are OOP and don't want to play postflop. I am pushing close to ATC here. Would push this hand for 11xBB from CO.

Thanks for the feedback. In game I shoved this without too much thought about it. Villain moaned and groaned before sigh calling with T 9 which held. I busted on the next orbit in a standard spot and since my shove in this hand was pivotal it was eating away at me.

When you are short in late position, particularly live, you should shove really light. With a bigger stack, some people make a mistake of shoving because the software says it is profitable rather than folding, when miniraising, limping, or folding are better plays.

OK I got the math wrong a little.

We are shoving 4.5 bb's to win 7 bb's. And as everyone has mentioned it is +EV.

However, if we are called we will likely be down to 7 bb's close to half the time (~ 45%). So lets say BB folds 25% of the time to our shove. That's worth about 0.625 bb's. The other 75% of the time we win 7 bb's about 30% of the time for 2.1 bb's and we lose about 45% for -2 bb's. So net ~+0.7 bb's.

If we limp this BB will jam about 20% of the time for a loss of 0.5 bb's when we fold even though it is still marginally +EV to call (for a total of -0.1 bb's), about 20% of the time we will check the flop and BB will bet and we will again fold and lose 0.5 bb (for a total of -0.1 bb's). About 25% of the time we will bet the flop and win 2.5 bb's (for a total of +0.6 bb's), about 25% of the time BB will check back the flop and we will bluff the turn and win again 2.5 bb's (for a net of +0.6 bb's) and then about 7.5% of the time we will be called on the flop or turn and lose 4.5 bb's (for a total of -0.35 bb's) and about 2.5% of the time we will be called and win 7 bb's (for a net of +0.15 bb's). Overall net in my estimation would be ~+0.8 bb's. Roughly the same as jamming pre-flop.

Our risk of putting ourselves in an untenable position with 7 bb's, with basically little fold equity, drops from about 45% to 7% when we don't jam pre-flop. The gain of 7 bb's when we win the pre-flop jam puts us at 19 bb's whereas the win of 2.5 bb's when we don't jam pre-flop puts us at 14.5 bb's or 11 bb's. I'd much prefer to have fold equity virtually 100% of the time.

In these spots, even with a modest risk premium and some ICM pressure, we should be jamming wide. Not sure it's any two, but I'm guessing it's 60%+ of hands because BB has to be tighter than normal because they're the player at risk. So T8s is a clear shove.

BB's call off is actually probably pretty close. Normally in these spots you're way more inclined to want big cards that can dominate some of villain's jams, so T9s isn't as good as even some weaker Kx-type hands

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I am a fan of limping short stacked late and from the SB. However, limping is just awful here. The only alternative to pushing IMO is like minraise and shove most flops.

When you push, BB should overfold, due to potentially being knocked out and that most people don't push wide enough. OP lost 2 flips and was out. You win the first flip and become a big stack.

Really bad late tournament play to be worried about what happens if your pushes get called and you lose.

I just hope villain didn't win because his kicker played.

BB should almost never fold with 4 blinds to call and 3 already in the pot. So 4 bb's to call and end up with 11 bb's. So if I had A6 and you showed me AK or KK I would call every time.

If I were BB I would fold hands like 72o/83o/94o/etc. Maybe like 20% of the time I would fold.

Which means that in this hand we are trailing most of the time when called.

However the description of Villain indicates he is a limper preflop. Which means he is not aggressive. He will call in the BB with most hands. So it is an ideal situation to limp.

Because we have virtually no fold equity we don't gain the normal fold % from BB when jamming preflop which means that a whole segment of the advantage of jamming with SC's pre-flop is out the window.

We are not close to the money so it doesn't matter if it is late tournament or not.

We are going to lose 4.5 bb's and drop to 7 bb's more than we will win the 7.5 bb's in the pot and get up to 19 bb's (which incidentally won't happen the other 50% of the time). Maybe 20% of the time BB folds and we end up with the same 14 bb's we would have if we win when we limp (which should happen close to 50% of the time).

Why would we want to have 7 bb's almost 50% of the time? That would give us virtually no fold equity preflop. Having 19 bb's does not give us a big stack. It does give us the ability to minraise a little preflop but because the average stack is 11 blinds we are just as likely to be jammed on as we will be called. Of course if the effective stack size of the remaining players in the hand is below 15 bb's I would jam anyway (I know most of you would minraise above 12 bb's).

I would jam here with Ax/KXs/QXs/K8o+Q9o+/ and any PP. I would likely limp/fold K2o-K7o/Q8o/JT/J9s/J8s/T9s too

BB should almost never fold, but what real BBs in live tournaments call that loose. That's why SB shouldn't be folding either.

T8s is a better than average hand and it plays well against a calling range.

You need to shove aggressively from late position or you will get blinded out.