Hi 2+2,
I discussed this hand with a pokerfriend and would appreciate your perspective 🙂

Tour info:
25$ online sattelite, just made final table
4 tickets 250$ guaranteed.
42 entries, 9 left
2 players with > 70 bb, but most stacks between 15-35 bb.

Actual hand:
Blinds 4K/8K-8K
Everyone folds to Hero (16 bb) in CO with 8♤8◇.
BTN (~45 bb), SB (14 bb) and BB (25 bb)
Action on Hero...?

Preferred action - why?
1. Shove? If so, would appreciate if anyone could explain buttom range for shove with 16 bb left...

2. Min raise (2 - 2.5'ish), planning to Fold/Call/Raise vs. 3 bet or blind-defending?


Additional question: Since it's a sattelite with 5 more to go before winning - does this have any influence on our range, the way we play the hand, or overall strategy?

Thank you in advance - your input is appreciated 🙂

It's not possible to give an exact answer without the full stack distribution. From what you've said, you are in at best 6th position out of 9 with 16bb (2 players above 70bb, button with 45bb, BB with 25bb, and someone else with ~35bb).

This means in order to win a ticket, assuming everyone is ICM aware, you will need to win more chips (i.e. folding to a ticket is not an option yet). In this case, you should take the line that provides maximal chipEV. This looks to me to be a raise and call off vs any single all-in. Button's 3-bet shove range will be tightest given they have the most players to get through, the highest probability of cashing, and the most chips to risk out of the players left in the hand, so you could arguably fold to their shove. Open shoving will show a profit but you narrow everyone's ranges and remove the options to fold to multiple all-ins behind or to win a slightly bigger pot postflop with or without showdown.

Should it fold to BB and they defend, or one of the other two players call your raise, you can just play standard postflop. Bet when you flop well or the board favours your range. Try to reach showdown if you beat large portions of their range but cannot build the pot against worse hands. Induce bluffs if you flop a dry set or full house. etc etc.

Hope it helps.

You should really be looking at average stack at this point and what average stack is 4 handéd to determine how much you need to gamble to make the cut (not that you need that exact amount). From the info provided, you appear to be short stacked with two other players. The 70bbs stacks can probably fold to the win, you probably need to quadruple up.

TY Asjbaaaf. Correct Hero is 6-7 place at the moment.

I agree on picking the max ChipEV line. But I see some trouble with raising in this scenario:
1. Fold Equity reduces.
2. BTN get an easier call.
3. Raise (2 - 2.5 bb) leaves us with ~ 13.5 bb). If we need to fold, stack is crippled and less useable if we need to defend bigger hands (+88, >AT) = smaller stack, blind increase = Villain gets better odds calling + Hero has less fold equity...
4. We rarely hit a flop texture for C betting/jamming and were playing OOP against BTN. Jamming the flop will in most cases be blindfolded, since overcards will hit most of the time. So I hardly see that 88 plays well HU postflop OOP against BTN with 13.5 bb left.

I imagine fold or Jam might be the best options?

The button really shouldn't be playing very many hands considering their stack means they can probably fold to a seat, so if you're trying to pick a strategy based on safely navigating a rare occurrence, I think you're focused on the wrong thing.

I'm not a satellite expert but Asjbaaaf's advice makes sense to me.

I would jam here. And I do suck at satellites (I did win a ticket to big event at Commerce but I don't play a lot of them).

My problem is that if we min raise and somebody else jammed I wouldn't want to call. At best we will be 54% and at worst 20%. I think it is fairly likely the BB will call a min raise so it will be a tough hand to play postflop since we hit our set 12% on the flop and there will likely be overcards.

I also think that we will get AJ to fold and 99 and maybe even TT. I have even seen AQ fold here. Either way I am OK to play this vs AK to double up and yes JJ+ would put us in a bind but I think that would occur less than 6% of the time though.

Another factor is how quickly levels are rising. And how close we are to the next level.