Pacific Poker - 32500/65000 Ante 6500 NL - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

I had around 20bb around 30 hands previous to this and was leading in stack size. Everyone was playing pretty tight and scared to lose the tournament. The tourney had around 330 entrants and it was the final four and the last 3 win a 109 dollar ticket to a med stakes tournament. I was really card dead for the last 30 hands, hands like 92, 73, all the worst cards possible. I finally pick up Q5s and got jammed on, Should've called? I only had 3bb left and after giving my bb and ante, I think I would of had the smallest stack about 2ish bb's. the other two guys played fairly tight but the sb was willing to make moves within reason. The sb tanked along time before jamming so I thought whatever he had was probably at the bottom of his jamming range. probably around 25-28%


CO: 4.83 BB
BTN: 2.43 BB
SB: 5.03 BB
Hero (BB): 3.31 BB

4 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.9 BB) Hero has Q 5

fold, fold, SB raises to 4.93 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 2.21 BB and is all-in

I think it's a fold. The current button is going to be forced all-in before you if it comes down to that, and they will be very uncomfortable after posting their next set of blinds in 2 hands. You also still have fold equity with the 2.5bb you will have after posting the sb, so you can take a spot when folded to in the next orbit if the stack distributions changes such that you need to do so, or if you get a top tier hand.

I think Hero will have only 1.61 bb's after posting and folding the SB if he folds here which would not be a lot of FE moving forward. Also that means that Hero would only make it to the next SB if he never plays a hand.

The BTN will have 1.2 bb's after his next BB and then 0.6 bb's after his SB. But BTN would still have 0.4 bb's left when Hero is running out of chips in his 2nd SB to come.

So Hero will have to play a hand before BTN if both fold all of their hands moving forward. Is this the hand?

Personally I would prefer a hand that is more solid (like one with an A or K that we are first in on, or 2 broadways, or a SC or even a SC gapper kind of hand). And I prefer a hand where we are first in. Obviously if we fold here and raise with a hand where CO or SB is in the BB they will auto call except maybe the next hand where our shove would be for 2.11 bb's against CO who would still have 4.82 bb's at the time (so for me it basically it is basically an auto call for 1.11 bb's more getting over 2.3:1 odds but you never know...)

I would wait. I have been in tourneys where the person who could wait me out chooses not to for whatever reason and not even with a great hand. Because this is a satellite and we are on the bubble I doubt BTN will make that kind of mistake but you never know. It is possible or even likely that we have > 50% odds here to win. I doubt SB would have waited to shove with an A or a lot of Kx or most PP in their hand. So I get that it is tempting to call.

You're right Rick my b. Hero will have 1.71bb if they fold this hand and the next, 1.61bb after posting the ante on the button. Things are much dicier than I initially interpreted.

If the current button folds the next 4 hands they will have 0.53bb left. If hero folds the next 4 hands they will have 0.41bb left and be forced all-in at the small blind before the opponent is forced all-in for their big blind. It will be very difficult to find fold equity in the mean-time with sub 2bb. I'm now leaning towards call although it must be very close.

I wonder if you could stall enough in this hand and the next hand such that the blind levels increase, guaranteeing the other player will be forced all-in before you. If you can pull that off I'd say it's going to be higher EV than calling off here. If the next blind increase is a fair ways away you may need to flick it in.

Very clever.

Would love to know what the next blind level would be and when it would take effect,

I forgot to write down the time when the next blind level increases. it was a turbo so Idk maybe 5 minutes?

the short stack was willing to put it in with anything decent when around a bb and got lucky like 3 times in a row