I was going over this tournament which i was fortunate enough to win and came across two pretty sick spots that i think merit discussion. im gonna try to give as much detail as to what my reads are and thought process at this point...here goes:

Poker Stars $50+$5 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15000/t30000 Blinds + t3000 - 8 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

MP1: t2,200,190 M = 31.89
MP2: t506,552 M = 7.34
CO: t712,383 M = 10.32
BTN: t831,864 M = 12.06
SB: t819,112 M = 11.87
Hero (BB): t973,452 M = 14.11
UTG: t624,331 M = 9.05
UTG+1: t1,252,116 M = 18.15

Pre Flop: (t69000) Hero is BB with T T
3 folds, MP2 raises to t74587, CO raises to t209383, 2 folds, Hero...


Reads: MP2 had been playing pretty tight if i remember correctly so had CO. i know the CO is a good high stakes reg, but i dont have many hands on him. those hands that i did have showed him as playing pretty pretty tight, but this is over less than 200 hands and at no point has he really had a big stack so its understandable that hes had tight stats.

my original thoughts on this hand are: with MP2 as the shortstack, i dont think hes going to r/f here very often. if stacks were much more even i think with his stack he might r/f, but i dont see it happening much with 500k at 15k/30k.

CO is probably open folding most small pairs and possibly marginal stuff like AT this early at the ft, but it gets murky with 88-TT, AJs. I'm not sure hes really gonna want to 3b/c MP2 with 88 since MP2 shouldnt be getting too out of line here, nor 4betting light enough to make 88 a great call. likewise, im not sure hes 3b/c with 99, he might just 3bet shove rather than induce a 4bet or try to get folds with it. if CO doesnt think MP2 is going to fold (since hes not r/f to MP2) then what is his 3b range? is it going to be wide enough where he might fold some of that to a cold 4bet from me? he might fold AQ to me but i kinda feel like thats about it. fwiw my image was definitely laggy during the ft bubble and early at the ft.

whats your play?

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Poker Stars $50+$5 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t25000/t50000 Blinds + t5000 - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

MP: t3,205,871 M = 30.53
CO: t774,930 M = 7.38
BTN: t465,105 M = 4.43
SB: t895,966 M = 8.53
BB: t555,224 M = 5.29
Hero (UTG): t2,022,904 M = 19.27

Pre Flop: (t105000) Hero is UTG with J J
Hero raises to t100000, MP raises to t300000, 4 folds, Hero...



another stupid spot that might be more icm related than anything else. blinds are going up and since no one is getting knocked out at this point there are a handful of shortstacks. villain has good results on opr but i still think has some fishyness to him. he was regularly 3x'ing it pre and making 3bets that were 3x of the original raise. however he was also playing back at me a decent amount throughout the final table, 3betting me a decent amount and floating me oop with complete air, then making weird bets that (once i called) couldnt figure out if they were intended to be a vbet or a bluff...so take that fwiw.

so we're 6 handed but the other four players all have <20bb (two of which have 11b or less) and blinds are going up in 4 minutes. i have no doubt that villain can be light here, but i dont know if shoving is great. if i shove and he folds i pick up 500k and we'll be nearly even in chips, but the value of those chips gained doesnt nearlllly compare to the value of shoving and losing. flatting seems pretty bad oop but maybe im too worried about playing oop. i just think with the other stacks at the table hes gonna make life hard for me postflop

here are the payouts:
1. $20460
2. $14916
3. $10626
4. $7260
5. $5940
6. $4620

so shoving and losing seems pretty awful when it seems like im guaranteed at least 3rd with the way stacks are. shoving here is +cEV im sure, but potentially -$EV. despite always playing for the win, another thing to keep in mind is that ive had a handful of pretty brutal ft bubbles and 9th places to this, and am also 9k in makeup. my previous biggest score is 6k, so needless to say this is the biggest final table ive been at and im no doubt conscious about the money

u should be shoving the JJ with reads. but with the money meaning so much to u...i could see it being a fold for u. however it is a shove. (if they had 3bet shoved i would be folding).

1010 is an easy fold.

shove hand 1
hand 2 is really stupid and it's probably a fold

I'm folding the first hand, CO isn't going anywhere with that sized raise and I'm pretty sure we are behind his range.

I think shoving in hand 2 is an ICM mistake, as you laid out. I kind of hate every option so in game I prolly timebank and click call at the last second.

Fold the 10s, its just not a good spot. As far as the JJ goes I would call and see the flop. If its a dry board I would lead out.