Yesterday I played a 20 player (15 rebuys) 50 euro tourney.

3 payouts: 850, 450, 250.

When 5 handed at the FT I'm in the BB with a 13 BB stack (1 BB put in pot as blind, 12 BB behind). There are two +/- 21 BB stacks on UTG and UTG+1, both fold. CO (9 BB) limps, BUT (6 BB) folds. I look down at A4o.

Do we check our option or do we jam here, and why? (I don't see other options than those two).

I think it matters if CO has limped before or not preflop.

Personally I like the jam if CO has limped before because we block AA. If not I just check it back.

The reason I would jam vs CO here is that we are likely going to have to increase our stack to cash. If we check it back we will likely lose this hand and CO will basically be even with us.

I think that all makes sense. I also think that whether or not we have to gain chips to cash is pretty dependent on how ICM-aware the other players are. There's also just significant advantage to jamming as the first player in, which certainly provides safer opportunities to get chips.

I think if CO has limped with any regularity (particularly if they've shown down Broadway-type hands when they do, but much less so if you've seen them limp and call big bets with hands like medium pairs), then jamming is sound. Otherwise, check back, hope you hit, and if not, then just get back to playing your bubble game and waiting for the other players to make a mistake.

Thanks for your reply!

I just realized I made a mistake while writing down the hand history. Villain was on BUT, he limps, SB folds, I'm in BB.

I haven't seen him limp preflop, at least not on the FT. FT went from 9 to 5 players pretty quickly, given how short everyone was it was just jams and calls that knocked players out or made them shorter.

Same as yours, my reasoning was that if we check our option, we allow villain to pull a 'stop and go' on us (just jam almost any flop) as he's first to act on the flop and we can almost only call there if we've flopped an A. I thought my A4o is the best hand here preflop quite often and by jamming I can even get quite a few hands to fold pre, even after he limped.

Thanks for your reply!

I just realized I made a mistake while writing down the hand history. Villain (9BB) was on BUT, he limps, SB (6BB) folds, I'm in BB.

The absolute shortie (6 BB) looked like he knew what was going on and was ready to take it super slow and safe. The villain in this hand looked quite a bit less ICM-aware. My most notable hand against him before the FT was when we were still playing at 2 6-handed tables. UTG+1 I looked down on TT with 20 BB and I openjammed them all in (player in BB had maybe 12 BB, the rest of the players behind me had me covered). Villain called me from the BUT with KQo, which was quite shocking to me. The hand before the hand in my post villain lost 10 BB with AJ < AQ when the player on my left jammed 10 BB preflop and he snapcalled with AJ out of his SB. Obv, it's a call with AJ, but maybe he was a bit tilted from losing that hand and that led him to limp a weird hand from the BUT.

Overall, I didn't see him as the greatest player. I can't really imagine a hand with which it would be profitable to limp in that spot. Even if you decide to slowplay AA there I think limping is worse than minbetting.

You shouldn't be open jamming 20BB with any hand.

Given what seems to be a loose player, I'm more inclined to jam, although I also don't really want to get called by two middling cards in this situation if he's doing something like limping KQ and deciding to call it off-- even being ahead, that's not by enough to want to take the ICM risk. And I also have concerns if he's never limped before but he's doing it now. Having said that, having him covered makes me more inclined to shove, since we can still come back from 4BB if we lose.

Overall, I think I still lean jam, particularly as there are two eliminations left before the money-- if it was just one with similar stack distribution, I'd be inclined to play it safer and wait for the 6BB stack to have to make a move.

Okay, thanks again! I'll definitely look into my openjam strategy with 10-20 BB. I must admit I'm not super sure on the topic.

In the hand my post was about I decided to jam, and he called me with 33 and he won the hand. I think his limp was pretty terrible (33 is a jam preflop) and the call when I jammed was even more terrible imo, because of the ICM implications of flipping there

Yeah, that's kinda what I feared with him. He's bad and loose enough to make a call that hurts him a lot but hurts you too.

Still think the jam is fine, but that's the tricky part about players who just have no clue about ICM and preflop, you can't count on them to make the correct folds.

Jam!

I don't understand this. How do we ever block AA?

We have an A so instead of 6 combos of AA there are only 3 out there

Excuse me, Sir!
At which point may we consider openjamming exactly?

I just don't know.

I play tournaments just once in a while. And once in a very while I do get into those
situations.

I do remember, that far far away there was a book called Harrington On Holdem.
But I cannot really relate to what was in it, because my game was 99% cash.

Sorry.

But I consider taking tournaments more seriously, since the rake in cash games
is just ... brutal. You have no idea.

[QUOTE=nath;58354684]You shouldn't be open jamming 20BB with any hand.

Why not? I think it makes sense with AQ, AJ, 99, any hand that is strong enough to get it in with but also doesn't flop well (would rather see 5 cards).

If you watch Jonathan Little's Sunday poker streams, you will see him jam 20 BBs and even a little more quite often.

From what I've heard it's a mistake with AA/KK since min raising will suck in weaker hands. Why do you say it should never be done?

Not literally never, but I usually reserve it for situations where I'm in later position and I have a hand with good equity that flops poorly, or a hand at a final table I can't raise/call off against a covering stack but is still strong enough / blocker-heavy enough to open jam (something like AQ from the CO or BT with covering stacks behind me, which will have to fold mid pairs for that size but can rejam them over me and get me to fold).

I think HJ is a little too early to open jam 20BB from, and TT is too strong a hand for it. You're mostly only folding out the hands you have dominated-- you might still get called by AQ/AK, you're more likely to fold out 88/99, and you're also denying yourself spots where BB defends, you flop an overpair and BB flops a pair.

Great answer, thanks!