330 players left. Hero with 65BB. 1st hand after bubble.

1. CO with 6BB goes all in. Hero at button with QQ. SB with 15BB, BB with 30BB. BB aggresive and just open/folded to 3bet from hero in previous hand.

Hero calls 6bb all in to induce potential sqz from blinds. Can you rate this play? Is it optimal or should hero raise in this spot more often/always?



2. Hero with 15BB on UTG, Hero open 2.1 with AJs. CO,Button and BB calls.

Flop AJ6 rainbow, Hero bets 30%, 2.5BB and BB calls.

Turn 2, no flush draws. BB checks and Hero...? Hero has 10 BB left, can he check and allow free river to induce bet from BB?

I figured that any bet on this board will look too strong with 10BB left and 13.5bb in the pot and will fold most of the hands that could pay me on the river or bluff. But of course i have to give free card for that. There are no flush draws and with top 2 and a call on the flop i figured i am just avoiding 4 outer for gutshot broadway.

Can You rate this play as well?

Big thanks

1. I don't think it's an awful play, but if the SB is going to squeeze all in, he'll have no fold equity with only a 2.5x 3-bet size, so if he has a hand strong enough to squeeze with, he has a hand strong enough to just call your jam. For BB it's a little more marginal, since with 30BB he'll have some fold equity, but there are two points that push me toward just shoving. Firstly, people feel relieved after the bubble and the few hands after the bubble many will jam lighter than they would otherwise. Secondly, you have a very large stack for this stage of the tournament, and they're going to view you as likely getting out of line to steal the smaller stacks' blinds. I would jam here.

2. I don't think shoving preflop is terrible. It's unlikely you're going to see a hand this good again with 15BB, and if you raise, miss, c-bet and get raised, or even called, you're going to regret not shoving pre. It's one of those things where if you hit an ace your opponent will probably miss and fold, but if you miss, he will probably hit and bet. So it's best to just see 5 cards. I also think you should bet the flop bigger against 3 people in a live tournament. You could go as high as 2/3 and nobody with an ace is going to fold. As far as the turn spot, I like your idea of using a bet-check-bet line. Just shoving might do the job too, but a river bet after a turn check looks much more suspicious and many players feel it's their duty to pick it off.

Thanks, any more views on that, especially 1st hand with QQ please?

About 2nd hand i am not sure tjat shoving would be ok with 15BB. Think min raising and poss 3bet calling with AJs is ok here if needed/ all in call from blinds. I just have doubts if i can ever check that turn. Just not sure if i can ever bet there at all with 10BB. To me its like all in or check to stack on river.

Thing is that in both hands i tried to play it slower and induce bets which ended up loosing tournament so i question both decisions

In the first hand you should make more on average by flatting than jamming. Some BB's will jam as wide as 22, A5s, JTs, trying to get a flip with dead money. If you jam, BB can only continue with like TT+ AK. Flatting also allows BB to make loose flat calls. SBs range shouldn't change much whether you flat or raise, although even that will tighten slightly should you isolate.

In the second hand, this is one of your best trap combos, alongside AA. You block the opponent's main continues vs a jam (Ax) and can call vs a jam on any river.

1st hand I am jamming. Normal 3-bet would be to 18 bb's but with effective stack size of 30bb's that is meaningless. I'd rather have somebody think I would jam with hand like 66-TT rather than 3-bet which would seem stronger. Its not worth just calling and having someone with KJs call and a K comes. Or worse two players then call one with an A and the other a K.

2nd hand I will typically jam pre flop <= 15 blinds. As played its a strange spot. Pot is ~10 bb's and flop favors our range massively. I would typically bet about 6 bb's here but since that would be half our stack I would just jam. Betting 2.5 bb's can make us more chips but allows people to go with their gutters on an implied odds basis. If I was going to bet small it would be 4 bb's (but again I don't like it). As played, on the turn I would just jam.

Hand 1- you can jam or call. I think call is yielding more chips long run when sb or bb rip with a meh hand which may happen once in a while. As played- they should know you are almost never folding. You can’t fold to a 15bb rip in this spot/ you can fold to 30bb but I would prolly fold most hands that would fold to this jam. Like bottom to mid of call range is going to fold to a 30bb jam. Obvious saying this though. As played- I like it. I think jamming can fold out hands we have crushed.

H2- I would just open to 2x. No reason to make it 2.1x. I would just bet small on turn like- 25-33% of pot. Sure it looks strong but who cares. Idk do you want to let K-10 or a pp like 88 see a free card and realize equity. At least make a small bet so they have to pay to see the river. I don’t think there is much value checking turn here as villian should not be bluffing river really unless they have shown to be a spazz in prior play.

Thanks for all the comments. I am leaning towards more aggresive play next time. It doesnt feel that i made mistake here, I am still unsure for the spots but noticed that there are too many traps in my game and being more aggresive in this situations and in the ones with stronger holdings will actually help.

In the first hand, BB shoved with 33 and hit that 3. Shortstack had KT

In the 2nd one K made the gutshot to QTo from BB. He bet like 6.5BB on the river and i pushed for 10bb just to get busted from the tournament.

1. I like this play. I think you will get people to spazz here by shoving.

2. I think for you to check back (I agree with your reasoning), you need to know a little bit about the player. Is this the kind of player that will spazz out? It seems to me that you just want to bet to entice the player and let him call you down with his weaker Ace or maybe his J if he is feeling lucky. There might be some rivers that let him get away from his hand.

Hand 1 I'd flat Hand 2 - think about what BB's range here is on the turn. BB isn't going to "spazz" when we check here - he called a bet 4 ways here leading me to believe his range is heavy Ax, good Jx - maybe he even folds Jx to the flop bet since it was 4 way. We really only get value from Ax and that's a good portion of his range - if you check and he checks behind and you jam the river I think it looks a lot more suspicious. Would tank jam the turn and try to look nervous