late stage in a live tournament. Hero has 15BB left in co. Button is a loose aggressive player who has more than 30BB. Hero looked down Kd9d

Hero raised to 2.5BB.
V called on Button.
SB and BB all folded.

Flop: Qd 8d 4c

With 12.5BB left and 7.5BB in the middle, I thought its an open jam spot. If V calls with a Q, hero still have enough equality.

Hero went all in for 12.5BB, V called with KcQs and won the race.

Question, could I have done better here?

I prefer open jamming pre. I think we're late enough position where we can expect folds most of the time, especially if we have someone that's going to be peeling relatively wide on the button to min opens. Although I think depending on how late in the tournament we are matters.

On the flop, jamming is ok I guess but I think it allows our opponent to just play perfect - they can call with a queen and fold everything else. I think against a loose aggressive player I'd prefer a check/jam, as then we get them to commit some chips with weaker holdings that have to fold, and in the event they have a bet/call hand, we have some equity.

I like going for the check raise with 1.5-2SPR and a draw. If it checks through, we realize our equity, if Villain bet/folds, we win an extra bet. We also keep some made flushes on diamond turns.

That being said, it can't be terrible to open jam here.

I don't get the 'opponent plays perfect'. Are they calling with Ax? Small pairs? Sure, they aren't folding Qx, but so what, we are getting it in versus that no matter what we do, if our choices are just jam, or check jam. OJ says 'they fold everything else', that is fine for us, to take down this pot with no showdown.

I don't think it's terrible, there's obviously value in denying equity, and if somebody is playing too loose there's probably a lot of value in it. I just think check jam against a loose aggressive opponent is going to be more profitable. The main reason being: by jamming we don't allow a loose aggressive player to overbluff this spot (one of their biggest leaks), thus allowing them to play better. Additionally, it is highly exploitable to just rip flop here, which admittedly doesn't matter against many opponents. I do think good thinking opponents though are going to think "are they really jamming Qx+ here?", because I certainly wouldn't be jamming with a value hand. Then we're potentially going from semi-marginal EV differences to pretty big ones.

I prefer jamming pre here, too. I don't think you should be opening 2.5x off a 15x stack ever.

Check-jamming the flop makes more sense, I think, especially against a loose-aggressive player.

2.5x off 15bb isn't ideal. You want to either minr or jam. Jamming is the theory play but in a soft live $200 a minr probably makes more $ against weaker players in the blinds.


You cant really play this flop poorly unless you fold at some point. Open jamming probably isn't ideal but is still +EV. This is a flop that you are supposed to check a lot so a c/r cant be bad either. And of course the simple bet flop/ jam turn will print as well.

Most of the time you'll get excess folds pre via open ship

Most of the time you'll get a dearth of 3b ships when you minraise

Pre is take your pick (but there may be ICM reasons to go 2x)

I am not entirely sure what you mean by "late stage" but given what you said here is what the solver says:

if you're around final 3-4 tables it likes a jam from the CO 92% of the time and a min click 8% of the time.

if you're around 25% of the field left it likes a pure min click out of the button.


OTF the solver likes betting 25% of pot, I would presume this is bc the board really smashes both your opening range and his calling range, OTF you have 50.1% predicted equity.

to answer your question, you also do have some checks as well but never a jam

overall though a think a check works best, as you probably just wanna see more cards here, espeically because the BU has 50-50 check/bet small OTF so you should in theory be able to continue for cheap.

TLDR; your action will depend heavily on tournament stage but depending on average stacks and player reads your moves can swing, end of the day your decision is based off your comfortability, at your stack depth it is hard to have a bad line especially with what the flop comes out as but id presume if you dont jam pre betting small is the best OTF, feels like a board you are just always C betting on