Following hand took place ~a month ago with one of my students against Moorman ITM of the ACR $88 nightly. I've had a lot of interesting discussions about this spot and curious what you all think.

They are ITM with 4 tables remaining, Chris is the CL on the button with ~120bb and my student is average with 30bb in the SB. BB is another reg with 25bb.


Folds to Chris on the button who open jams all-in (for 30bb effective) covering both. What is the worst hand you'd call off with in my student's shoes from the SB?


This spot is especially interesting as you all know the solver doesn't do this with anything for 30bb, so it's a process to figure out what Moorman's range may look like for this unorthodox jam. Assuming he didn't misclick here, what do we think his jam range is and where do we draw the line for calling off?

On average the jam is:

-JJ with grading off to some TT and QQ
-AKo with some grading off to AQo

I'd call JJ+ and AKs as SB

Something like 66+ AJ+ maybe KQs (maybe 77+)

I think he’d want to induce with a lot of stronger hands. I’m guessing he’s got something 22-55 KQo ATo maybe some suited broadways and suited A2-A5

Sorry forgot to mention think he'll also have some KQs, KJs QJs

callink AKo too

With BB yet to act behind, i call with 99+ and AQs+

We have position on him, there are way better spots.

You're really gonna fold AQ eggs? That seems bad. I cannot imagine he open jams AKo or 99+

Strange spot.

I have been HU in two live tournaments in the last year where a guy had >=30 bb's and shoved all in.

The first one was JTo and I insta called with AQo (and held)

The second was TT which I shoved and I was called by A4o and I held.

I think it matters how your student has been playing and how CL has been playing.

The reason I called with AQo was because I knew the guy was shoving anything like two broadways, AXs, most PP's.

The reason I shoved TT was because I had lost a hand and looked like I could be tilted. I did not expect to be called with A4o though.

I think I would call with AQ+/TT+ because I just don't think CL is shoving with AA/KK. He could be shoving with AK but I think also ATo+.

And if your student has been very tight and hasn't been 3-betting much and has only shown big hands (like AK/QQ+) then I think I would stretch it to AJ+/99+

Interesting spot. Curious to see what Moorman had.

Was there any significant pay jump or other considerations in play?

I feel like in these spots hands like QQ+ and AK are decently discounted right?

I wouldn't discount AK much because post flop against blinds anything can happen. But all in you are basically at worst flipping. Even if one of the blinds has AA/KK its going in pre-flop anyway so that doesn't matter if you are thinking of jamming.

I figure AK would want to give a chance for worse Aces to 3 bet.

I don't disagree.

But the thing is who raises 30 blinds preflop?

OK I did once. But it worked...

I would think its a lot of 22-44. Or A3s kind of hands. But if that's the case then the assumption is that maybe some big hands like AJ/AQ will call anyway.

The other question is if the SB and BB haven't been 3-betting much or at all but they call a lot then maybe AK is a really good all in hand here.

You think that's his range for open jamming the button? That doesn't make any sense to me, that he would open jam 30BB effective with a narrow range of hands this strong.

The jamming range seems very likely to be hands with decent equity when called but that don't want a call and don't want to raise/call. Hands like small pairs and suited Broadway hands. Maybe some small suited aces, A5s/A4s in particular. Maybe a smaller frequency of strong hands like AKo / TT for balance.

88+ AJs+ AQo+ might be the profitable calling range here, off the top of my head.

Not familiar with ACR, but is this perhaps a PKO tournament? Was there any other reason that an openjam might have occurred (i.e. blinds rejamming frequently or calling off jams way too wide)?

If we assume a range of something like:

22-44 (100%), 55 (50%), 66 (20%)
A7s-A8s (20%), A9s-AJs (50%), AQs+ (20%)
A8o (20%), A9o (50%), ATo-AQo (100%), AKo (50%)
KJs+ (20%)
KQo (20%)
QJs (20%)

and if we assume some ICM in play, BF of 1.34 and RP of 7.3% (SB vs BTN) then the range we can call off profitably is 55+, AQ+.

55 is pretty thin and we are making some pretty big assumptions on the range of villain, so 66+, AQ+ seems fairly nice here. I think we can go wider with pairs than usual, as dominating the 22-44 which seems the most tempting to jam, and hardly ever running into bigger pairs that would be way happier just inciting?

This is almost exactly where my head was at. Chris is pretty aggressive and keenly aware that others know how aggressive he is so I think he has a slightly wider raise/call (induce) range from the button here so I would discount that portion of his range which looks something like AJ+ KQ+ 77+, so my natural assumption is his jams would be somewhere right below that kind of like persian pointed out. Heavily weighted to 22-66, KJ, QJ, QTs, KTs, K9s, a4s, a5s, a8, a9. I think AT/KQ I could see him going both ways with.

Nath pretty spot on as always (always enjoy your posts in this forum). Shouldn't our range be slightly wider though based on these assumptions? If he's jamming stuff like A4s,a5s, a8o, a9o, KTs, QTs, JTs, shouldn't ATo be a call for us? Not only are we dominating a number of his hands but we shouldn't be dominated by anything based on these ranges we're giving (with AT and 77 being the best hands he might ever jam outside of the balance outliers you mentioned which I'm not entirely even sure he does)

My gut here is it's an imbalanced spot but just the least evil option given to him at the moment (and not one people can exploit anyway) and it's mostly exactly what Nath said- small pairs (22-66) and broadways)

I really like a lot of this, although I'm uncertain he'd jam the AJ/AQ (I think these are clear r/calls for someone as known aggressive as Moorman) and not entirely sure he's doing any frequency with AK, but maybe he is mixing it in (hard to guess in such an unorthodox spot we never see come up)

I like the 55 call definitely since I do think the most likely hand he shows up with at highest frequency is the 22-66 bunch (also with the broadways) so we really only have to be worried about being dominated versus 66 and we dominate 22-44, a4s, a5s and flip against the broadways. Like I mentioned to Nath above, I don't see a universe where folding AJ makes sense since we are dominated by nothing and dominating so many hands, arguably same for ATo but I understand this is a bit harder to stomach. Further question, if we add in hands like Q9s K9s, can we ever call with a9s based on same pretenses above?

So when I give him this range that looks like this



Our equity looks something like this.

I think its clear he never has 88+,ATs+,KQ - really the jam eliminates the top of his range more than likely. I would say 22-77, maybe A6s-A9s,A7o-ATo,QTs,QJo, KJo,KTs,JTs.

I would agree that the part of the range that we're most likely to see is the small pairs. We can quickly be pretty bad if he's not jamming much of the non-paired combos, especially when you consider the ICM tax for getting in 30bbs with 4 tables left. Seems like a fairly high variance spot to get in AT here and pray they jam enough broadways. I could maybe be convinced AJs can be part of the calling range, but I'd not be willing to risk my tournament life on a spot we can't be that confident with at all.

By the way - should he really be shoving 30 bb? I think with his stack size, skill edge, and being somewhat later in the tourny he can leverage must better spots than this to jam.

I do agree with this sentiment, however, I think in some instances there's just not a good option (only a less evil option) and leaning into what we were assuming the brunt of his range is, 22-66, I think if you weighed the other options relatively (raise/fold, raise/call, limp/??, and fold) jamming is the least evil of the 5 options presented to us so I couldn't blame him for just ripping in the small pairs (especially judging by what the general population sentiment seems to be on calling range)

I suppose raise/fold could be a close second but still feels really weird for someone like Moorman who may be inducing rejams from Axs and other small pairs. I suppose 22-44 maybe we can r/f but couldn't imagine r/f 55 or 66 with his image. Further, if he jams 22 or 33, seems like population is folding 44/55 and even some 66 quite regularly so it can't be that bad?

Interesting spot, appreciate the dialogue, guys.

Any results or did both fold?

Well, I didn't run the numbers, that was an estimate off the top of my head. I probably lean slightly cautious based on a)the fact that I can't be 100% confident in my jamming range assessment and b)having the BB yet to act.

and c)accounting for the ICM effects. Even though they aren't huge yet we are still deep enough into the tournament that they matter a little, so I don't want to call off 30BB in a 51/49 spot. (Note in the calling range persianpunisher posted that all of the calling hands are at least +5 in equity. (I forget what that number measures, is it BB/100?))

Maybe he was just exploiting SB or BB with a monster?