Hi all,

Half an hour left of late reg, a bit above average stack, 2 times the starting stack. Freeze out tournament. Won two pots in the last 10 minutes where i played pretty aggressively, do not know if that left any impression.

Sitting with 40bb on the BTN with QQ. Folds to me. Shorty in the SB with 7.5BB. I open to 2x (I kind of expected a shove from him with any decent hand as he had just lost a big pot and it seemed to tilt him).

He indeed shoves. BB off of 28bb reraises to 12BB. I jammed.

Was this too much? I thought he could easily have some AT, AJ, any mid to high pocket pair. Do not think he is not doing this with JJ or TT, which equals the combos of 2 hands i do not want to see.

Will reveal the hand after.

yep bb has wide range

That he clicks it rather than shoving is suspicious. However, in this configuration, he should have a wide range and QQ is way too strong to fold.

It's 28BB effective, and you're talking button and blinds? Nah, never folding, even if the small 4-bet is suspicious.

Thank you all for the answers.

I disagree just with the wide range comment. He doesn't need to have a monster, but he at least has some hand. Because even if I fold, he has to beat the SB and that is for 30% of his chips. I think he has a tighter range than if Iso raising me without the SB involved, i.e. if I open and he reraises.

Anyway, funny outcome. BB had KK and SB had KQ.

Yes, he’s bound to a showdown due to the micro-jam, he only has r/c hands in his range, so TT AQ i guess and prolly some r/f like 88 AT but no trash

BB is 4 betting to 12 bb's which is over 40% effective stack so BB will basically always have AA/KK. Because it is all going in on the flop if you call (unless they have KK and an A hits the flop)

If this was an ICM spot then BB could have a range of hands that want to be HU like 88-JJ but would fold to a jam from BTN because of the value of surviving. Also BB might also just call and hope you would call hoping to gain the ICM thing (like get into the money or move up at the final table).

But this is a spot where BB is not going to ever fold to your shove so why wouldn't BB shove with FE? The reason is because either they want a call or shove from you.

The other issue for BB that is problematic is that if you call they will be playing a large pot OOP with basically no FE if they jam the flop. If you called with 99+ and the flop has no overcards you are never folding to a jam. So in general BB will never do this with hands like AJ+. But if they jam you will often be folding 99/TT & JJ sometimes.

The other issue is that by raising BB is giving you the opportunity to jam in order to get them to fold and win some money regardless of whether or not you beat SB. So its like they want you to jam. If they didn't want to give you extra reasons to jam they would just call. Now in theory you could call their raise with AK to see if an A or K hits. So it is unlikely to me that they would do this with QQ.

I would fold here because of all of this.

And today I should have folded with QQ. In the $400 Day 1A at the WSOP circuit in Baltimore I had QQ and the blinds were 1500/2500 with 2500 BB ante. UTG opens to 5,500. UTG+1 makes it 16,500 and for whatever reason I thought UTG+1 had more chips than me (I had 22 blinds and UTG+1 had just doubled up) and UTG had a massive stack of like 70 bb's. So I jammed with QQ. My thinking was that UTG+1 wanted to be able to fold if UTG jammed over the top. But no. UTG+1 had only 19 blinds and basically had raised to 33% effective stack. If I had known that I would have folded. Because I had no FE and neither did UTG. It is possible UTG+1 could have AK. But very unlikely. Why they wouldn't jam with 19 blinds and AK is beyond me. Similarly with JJ and TT. Why wouldn't they have jammed to possibly get AQ to fold? The answer is because they had AA or KK and wanted UTG to call or jam. The irony is that if UTG+1 had jammed I would insta jam with QQ because their range would be possibly be as low as 88+/AJ+ (UTG was opening EP a lot). OK in my situation given UTG+1 had position over UTG post flop they may have done it with TT or JJ wanting to see the flop and get away from their hand if an A or K hit and in theory might fold to my jam. But in my experience over the years in these spots I rarely if ever see TT and JJ and almost always see AA and KK. And I was blocking QQ.

Thank you all for the answers.

Coming from PLO background, I find it fascinating how different the opinions are on quite a simple issue (i.e. no crazy river bluff, no mw post flop action). In PLO there is usually clear consensus and just some nuance. In Holdem it is like: yes, wide range, or never folding or definitely fold.

Maybe this is also buy in dependent? Maybe at 10$ people might do weird things with less than premium hands, but at higher stakes they always have it?

This was the 150$ GG masters.

Thank you for the analysis and your thoughts, very helpful!

in vacuum, average opp will be tighter than below across all stakes, but wide enough for QQ to make it through for us



wouldn't loose my thoughts about his motives to clickraise, when he may not have any (online).

if he had AA and would prefer to trap, wouldn't he just call

if he had JJ or TT and reshoved, wouldn't he fold out many of the hands he's dominating


Ive no data on this spot, but I know people are wider with clickraises than {AA, KK}.

I think BB will mostly play this spot by reshoving or folding, and then occasionally go for a call or clickraise.

and yeah, with QQ we're doing okay, but it quickly gets questionable around JJ and TT.

Id just read through the whole dynamic in the $150 gg masters and opps with their stats and plays and then go for the right deviation

coincidentally I also had QQ in BB after EP raise and EP 3bet that had a dynamic and timing that if I let that read come through in my awareness, focus and go with it I couldve folded in a deep run where people can be tighter

There are psychological aspects to NLHE tournaments that have been romanticized & ingrained by WSOP broadcasts and Olde Tyme rounders' books & interviews, and somehow GTO has added to it. I looked into his soul became I looked into my spreadsheet.

But in small buyin freezeouts the effective AI 3/4bet is always AA/KK.

There seems to be some logic behind folding, as I invested only 2 bb, the small 4 bet is very inducive and this is a freezeout. But QQ is so strong, what are we doing actually with this stack size? Only playing small ball and if we get short then just play fold / jam?

Yesterday I was in a low stake live MTT with re-entry and UTG limps, UTG+1 iso, UTG+2 3 bet half of his stack 20ish BB (he have about 40BB). I have Kings in the HJ and jam.
Everyone folded to UTG+2 and he called it off with A2s.

Stick with significantly tighter than GTO but QQ is just way too inside the GTO range to exploitatively fold. You can never be sure if it is really only AA/KK or with some spazz mixed in the range.

.

The point is in live your sample size is never large enough to be sure.

You folded KK?

I 4 bet jammed, He called A2s off.

Tough spot, I don't think I could find a fold neither.