Made the money but busted after the following hand. Did I play this correctly or was I too aggressive?

I was short stacked with 20 BB, on the button. JT spades. Early position min raised to 2x BB. I called, as it's a good enough hand to call a min raise but wasn't comfortable pushing all-in. Both blinds called. Flop was AQ9, two hearts. I had an open ended straight draw. The blinds checked, initial raiser bet the pot, and I moved all-in. I thought he had a weak ace or a flush draw and saw this as my chance to potentially double up. He got the heart and I was knocked out.

Seems bad as you're only drawing to 6 clean outs and don't have a ton of fold equity if he has a lot of chips and an UTG open and c betting multi way is going to be decently strong so shoving a open ender w/ two bad outs seems like a low equity play.

Especially on an A high board where it will hit the UTG a lot.

Thanks. After the play and reflecting on it, I realized it was sub-optimal. At the time I was getting desperate to double up but that's when you make bad decisions.

Yeah, don't have much to add to the first reply-- preflop is fine, but you don't want to commit on the flop with this draw, in particular with the raiser leading pot into three other players. You're not nutted, if he has hearts he has you in terrible shape (side question - is the Ah on board or not?), and when he leads pot I don't think he's folding even his weakest Ax to your shove.

And I'll add to your last comment, speaking as someone who made his poker money in the old days playing really loose-aggressive and actively trying to double up any time I got reasonably short: What I've learned since is that you don't need to force the action, and 20BB gives you a pretty good amount of time before you have to get it in. Focus on getting your money in profitably and making the optimal decision each time, not trying to force your way to a certain stack size.

Agree with this. At 20bb I think you are closer to dieing than Nath leads on. I feel at 20bb, you kinda wanna find spots to jam over loose openers from late position (or maybe ep if aggro enough) to maximize your limited fold equity potential if you fold down to 5-15 bb. Itm, if cutoff opens and you have 55 in sb or bb, easiest fold ever with 20bb and never going to say omg you are bad bc you ran into a bigger hand.

Hand as played- I would say maybe can call flop pot sized bet but you have almost no fold equity. Your hand is super meh when called here. Sure if you had a flush draw also, go crazy and max out on FE with what prolly 14-15 outs.

Idk I’m even ok folding flop kinda bc we only have 8 outs. Prolly 1 spade is a call bc we can pick up turn equity and maybe villian will check turn once in a while and let us get to shows down cheap.

I almost don’t even hate jamming 20bb pre here a small % of the time. If ep is opening correctly and wide enough, he has to fold some better hands than J-10ss if you rip pre. I kinda hate flatting bc you welcome small blind and bb to call + they also have a great spot to squeeze. If sb makes it 8bbs here, you have to fold which is gross. Jamming against someone opening proper range- you pick up 4.5 bbs/ increase your stack by 22.5% when all folds without a showdown. It’s a little high variance but I’m fine if ep opener is loos enough. J-10as also is a great hand to have when all in. Even against AA
, I would rather have J-10ss instead of say 1010 or JJ.

Villain bets about 10 bb's on the flop and you raise to 18 bb's so it is a situation where you have basically 0% fold equity. The only way he folds is if he doesn't have an A or a flush draw. It makes no sense because if that were the case against 3 opponents he would check the flop virtually all the time.

So you may have at most 33% equity and possibly a lot less if he has a flush draw and an A or a Q.

With 18 bb's I would fold to the flop bet and wait for a better spot where I do have fold equity.

JTs is a mix between call and fold in theory preflop. OTF I would fold even with AQ9 not really hitting SB or BB range because a pot bet from BU is pretty much never a bluff. The semi bluffs that do go with it dominate your hand and you're way behind value.

Assuming you mean "easiest shove ever" and not fold, then yeah. But that's the kind of situation you should be looking for at 20BB, 3-bet shoves over loose opens with hands that have decent equity when you are called. Not getting into a spot where you have little fold equity and you're hoping to be 32%.

I think the chip distribution is an important thing to factor when trying to decide if 20bbs is healthy enough to fold here or if you are closer to dying. If average stack was 20-30bbs, which it would be at my casinos 500 deep stack tournament when just inside the money, I think you can fold this easier and find a better spot. If 20bbs is a small stack and will be 3/4 value on next blind, I would be more likely to gii when folded to in this spot (also agree that A being the heart of not is important).

This last part is something to focus on. Don't be desparate to double up. Ever. Sure, it's not fun playing a short stack when others around you have bigger stacks, but you are at a point where the last of your chips are worth a good bit more than the top of your stack. Look for plus CeV spots, but you want to have good equity when called, AND fold equity. Here you have ok equity when called and zero FE.

I'd rather look for blocker based reshoves than draws in a pot where your equity isn't even great, as here.

I do like this advice but disagree because at some point 5-10bbs you need to find a spot to stick it in so that a double up is worthwhile. I never understand guys that whittle down to 1 or 2 blinds, passing by one on one confrontations when they have $$ in the pot. Table dynamics certainly play into it but generally, the small stack has to gamble at some point,