Hi,

I got into a hand that ended quite weird, but after discussing it with a friend, we were on a disagreement on a flop play of mine.

30 € local tournament. 30 players out of 80 remain, 13 get paid.
Players at the table are quite trigger happy with reraises, aggressive table, and I have been relatively tight for that reason.

Stack : 2,6M (avg 1,5M), blinds 0.05M 0.1M BB ante 0.1M
Villain UTG (0.6M) has shown he wants to double up soon a couple of times already. He shoves his remaining 0.6M before becoming BB for 1/3rd of his stack.
Folds to me on UTG+2. I wake up with QQ and call.

That's it really, the hand becomes quite weird after that, but that is not the point of my question.
The question is, can I have a balanced calling range (for ex. AA, KK, QQ, KQ and KJs) ?
I understand the easier way is to just shove all hands there (never become unbalanced with aces unless opponents are not going to pick it up), but over time I created a calling range, depending on the situation.

Thanks for your (with rationale supported) opinions.

Obviously, the risk is, by calling I invite weaker aces (AQ AJ AT) in the pot. But as AK will not likely be calling here, I believe this risk is acceptable. I would even love an overshove from AQ AJ AT. I'll take those odds any day.

Very difficult post to follow.

Anyway so dude shoves 6bb you flat off 26 with QQ from mid. What’s the question again? I think given there’s plenty in the pot you just want to jam QQ and not try and get cute.

The only thing that really made sense was that it's a 30 euro tournament with 30 out of 80 left and 13 get paid.

I assume the question you have is does it make sense to flat here with a range that has AA-QQ and also some suited broad way cards, as oppose to just shoving over top. You aren't that close to the money so there really is no need to make some fancy play and cold call here, and perhaps face tough post flop decisions.

Like nootaboos said let's just GII.

Not strong enough to flat call with. Flat call with AA.

When somebody shoves with 6 bb's their range will be very wide. When you call with 26 blinds your range can be wideish as well. You may get more callers and they can be in position against you. I would rather just jam. I would actually jam with KK and AA as well.

It gets trickier for me with hands like AJ/AT/66-99 where I might prefer calling rather than jamming so I can fold if somebody with a huge stack jams behind me. But I probably jam with AJ/99/88 anyway.

I'm a bit confused.

I get that most wouldn't add a calling range here and just have a shove-fold range. I may not fully agree, but I get what you are saying.

But apparently it is also worth adding an unbalanced weak hand calling range.
This would implicate folding to any raise to me. Wouldn't that be just plain silly?

Suggest that AA is the only strong hand I would like to create a calling range with, wouldn't I balance it with my weakest non-pair hands? e.g. AA and KQs, which equals 4 strong and 4 weak hands)? Or is there actually a reason to implement a weak calling range with lower pairs (99-TT-JJ) ? Personally I don't see it (if ever you wanted to make those pairs vulnerable, that feels like the way to go, I'd rather shove those). But maybe someone that agrees with this strategy could explain ?

That being said, the longer I think about the hand, the better I like the QQ KK AA + weak hands calling range as it opens up the possibility to trap the triggerhappy opponents that do not even have a clue about what is happening here. Plus free option to fold those KQs or whatever weak range we create in case of a repop.

You have not convinced me of shoving the hand in order to prevnt those A highs from calling. I'll gladly take that risk as I think that risk + A board is less important than the chance of a triggerhappy opponent repopping a worse hand at this table. Which is, of course key to decide to widen up the calling range. biggest disadvantage I can see is me folding KQs to a triggerhappy 99. Not yet convinced.

It only implicates that to you not to the players you are playing against (that you will fold to a massive raise). They won't know whether or not you have strong hands in your calling range.

QQ would never be in my calling range (if I had one). You can get called by two or more players considering you are in EP by hands like AXs and KXs and or AJ/AT/KQ/KJ/KT and if an A or K hits the flop you can be behind whereas a jam with QQ gets all of those hands to fold.

Personally I do have AA in my calling range vs UTG or UTG+1 when they make a standard open. But there has to be more than one player behind who has shown massive aggression or looks like a young GTO/Solver and the opener has to be potentially opening wide there as well.

I prefer to jam AA and KK here but if I were in late position I would feel much better about those being in a calling range. Still with KK I much prefer not to be 3 or 4 way post flop.

For the record AA has 6 combos and KQs has 4 combos.