Hi everyone,

I busted out of a tournament today and I wanted opinions on how I played my final hand. Honestly, given the context I think I would play it the exact same way I did. The reason I question my play is because right after busting, the winner of the hand called me a fish. I don't really care what people say in chat, but this still had me thinking back about the hand, and while I might be a fish, I don't think this hand proves it.

So here is how it went. We were on the bubble of a 1.5$ SnG tournament, blinds were 75/150 and I had like 6BB which I know is too low. I wanted to shove before but I really felt like I had a run of very weak cards that I wasn't comfortable shoving with, also I'm not yet very comfortable with push/fold theory so I might as well have missed good opportunities.

I think I'm in the button(I don't fully remember, but for the sake of my reasoning, it was not really relevant).

I hold QQ, I have 860 chips, so about 5.5-6BB.
First player is sitting on 6.5k chips and has about 62 BB, he open shoves.
I call.
The 2 blinds fold.
He shows 55.

The hand ended with him getting four 5's.

Now the reasoning behind me calling was this. The guy is very tight and has played very few hands on the bubble, and in the tournament in general(I have no HUD though). The hands that have me beat are pocket aces and kings, I'm a favorite against any other hand , other than pocket Q.
I thought that his shove was an indicator of weakness given that if he had aces, kings, AK, AQ, he would try to get us in the pot to win more chips instead of scaring us out. Plus, in my opinion, the guy was just bored and wanted to play a hand because with the number of chips he had, he didn't actually NEED the 225 chips in the middle. And, since I was extremely shortstack, with little to no fold equity left and I figured this was my best shot at getting back on track with the other players left.

So, was this the right decision to call? I can't see any good reason not too, other than the fact that I should not have lowered to that chipcount in the first place.

Thanks!

Definite call for me

This is a call, unless there is an extreme shortstack at the table (1BBish)

All right thanks, I just wanted to make sure!

Also, instead of making a new thread, I'll use this one to ask you another question. I'm currently watching the series "Real Life Micro SnG grinder" by Vandweller who is coaching a student. Since this was made 5 years ago, how accurate is this by today's standards? From the games I'm playing, I feel like there is not much that changed, except the fact that more players seem to make it to higher blinds(100/200 for exemple).

I'm not 100% sure myself as I only really started SNG's not too long ago, having played only cash in the past. But I am sure a lot of the fundamentals haven't changed, and maybe not much else has changed at micro level especially.

What speed do you play, regular?

Yes I play regular speed, but not a lot either, just here and there. It had been a while since the last time I had played, picked it up again, when I remembered I had money left there. I haven't really gotten into turbos as I'm trying to improve, and because I'm not very familiar with the push/fold theory, which is obviously still important in regular speed, but I have more time and so I see more hands before having to get into push/fold mode.

So far, following as best as I can the strategy he explains(haven't finished the series yet, and I plan to watch it again sometime), I tend to be on the lower side of the chipcount, meaning that I have trouble building a stack, but I get back in the game with frequent steals when I'm shorter. I'm far from having played enough to know what my ROI looks like, but it feels like I'm cashing a decent amount of time, but I could be wrong too.

The strategy he advertises is extremely tight, if not to say nitty, but it seems to be working. I don't usually bust early, but when I do, it's again very loose players. They seem to chose their starting hand poorly, and follow through with it even though I don't think they should ever call a raise out of position that early in the tournament with hands like K9 suited.. It's hard to fold TPTK to a guy who limped early position, and paid the raise when the flop comes A8J, or something like that... but the guy keeps calling, hopping for his miracle 10, which eventually comes out.. I guess I should learn to recognize these spots and bet larger to discourage action. I think my bets are too small (often 1/2 the size of the pot, should probably make it 2/3 there), and if he keeps calling, than I got to learn to fold the good hand. Oh and this is not the worse hand I've played against after someone called my raise OOP... well anyways haha, it happens!

Sweet I play hyper turbo's, so i'm not very accustomed to regular speed strategy.

But, what you said above their looks similar to a leak I fixed not long ago. I was being far too tight early on. The vast majority of my ITM finishes were 2nd place, and also with a high number of 3rd place finishes where I bubbled out far too often. This was linked to having a low chip count too much when 3 handed and then again when HU. My fix was to become looser when 4 and 5 handed, to ensure I could build enough chips going in to the bubble so that I could command the play more comfortably. This has resulted in many more 4th and 5th place finishes, but benefits from bubbling out much less with 1st place sky rocketing above my 2nd place finishes. This fixed my game massively, so just think how well you play your early-mid game will have a massive effect on your end game.

Well that could be a solution, I could try to loosen up a bit when we are 4-5 handed and see where that takes me. I had a 4 hours drive yesterday and I had a little time to think about my game(while trying to keep an eye on the road..!) and I came to the conclusion that I end up with an OK stack I guess, compared to the other people on the table. There is usually a guy with like 5k chips but I tend to have around 2k-2.5k. I guess that the times where I end up with 800 chips stick out in my memory, but that's not super common. Still, thanks for your tip, I'll try to add it to my game and see how it works out.

Don't let a-holes like that get you down. You were lucky to get QQ when you did. And yes, you shove/call a shove with that hand anytime you're under 10 big blinds. When you're at 5 big blinds or less, you open shove with any two cards on the bubble (even if you aren't on the bubble) unless someone is 1BB or less and you can sneak into the money.

Get Collin Moshman's book called, "Sit 'n' Go Strategy." It will help a lot with bubble strategy and push/fold strategy. Good luck!

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Snap call for sure. Also, ATC shove well before 5bb left. Pick the medium size stack and shove on them. You can't let yourself get that low on chips because you need to keep your stack a threat.

Thanks for the tips. My lack of experience makes me freak out at the idea of shoving ATC! But I guess that busting out when called is still better than getting blinded out, at least it gives a chance at getting back in the game!

Happily call or shove in this spot (unless there's something like a 1BB stack lingering around).

As for the studying you're doing, theory still holds but online players have generally tightened up a little bit since then. As for videos, AMT did a great 8-part "Last Man Standing" video series on Deuces Cracked. Definitely check that out.

Oh I have this one too, I'll check it out eventually. I'm busy with school, so I don't have a lot of time dedicated to either playing and studying, but I'm interested so let's just say that any progression will just be longer. I have noticed that many players are either very tight, or pretty loose. I'm not particularly skilled with post-flop play, and I lose lots of chips on post-flop, by what appears to be calling stations... firing a c-bet with overcards, on a 846 board, don't get many people to fold, and then I'm stuck playing a big pot on turn, not knowing what to do, and then, I'll admit, I get scared and I don't know what to do. This leads to me still having between 1200-1800 chips on the bubble.

First off, on the original hand. You spent time explaining your thought process. This is a situation where you don't have to think. The process is this: "I have only 6bb left, and I almost certainly have the best hand, and if he has AA, KK or outflops me, that's poker."

As for the situation you just described. You shouldn't be firing c-bets with air into multiway pots against calling stations. Sometimes it is just best to minimize your losses, or hope to get free cards and hit on a later street.

You're right, I realize this. When I c-bet, it's usually not on a multiway pot. Thing is, I always ask myself "why would this guy even call my pre-flop raise, out of position, if he holds any of these weak cards". I figure that this should not happen, therefore, my c-bet should be fine. But what I realize now is that people play all sort of trash hands, it's hallucinating... It most likely is my lack of experience talking. I have read before that when you have some post-flop skills, it's profitable to play looser against TAG, so I guess it could somewhat be justified to have more trash hands against me. BUT, i believe that the players on the 1.50s just don't think, simple as that.

I will definitely try to cut my losses and try to buy myself free cards, but also, at this level, there is not a lot of bluff(excepted sometimes where one guy does this blatantly), so I'll have to assume that whenever I get called, the guy shows interest and has at least a little something.