Im never sure how to play smallish pairs to 3bets from middle stacks,is it correct to setmine v a 30bb stack OOP? Also can we shove 99 here instead of calling?

Well pretty sure 44 are a fold pre (at least vs the 3b) almost always, I just included that combo (and 77 too) because if I were IP player in this hand I'd include a modium of 44, 77 in OOP players range (I dont trust all opponents to play correctly preflop)

TBH I'm pretty sure if I recall the trees I ran correctly that we just dont want too much of a flatting range OOP 30bb eff against a 3b range that can potentially have a lot of bluffs (even if each individual light 3b combo is included very infrequently say 5%)

If you are flatting a pair here (which is clearly something we wany to be doing sometimes, despite how little flatting we may want to be doing in totality), its definitely not to make a set or fold. Doesnt mean you never fold a pair postflop, though.

Why isn’t it correct to include all pp in a r/c range pre and present the same risk of a set to the 3! on all boards? Or are you saying that 44- shouldn’t be in the original OR ?

0.2bb is actually smaller than what i thought.

This is purely in terms of chip EV?

I am in agreement about checking AA specifically / iffy about KK. But what is the grand exploit for not having either as a check?

It wouldn't change the proportion of your range that you call a river bet with, so he can't be bluffing at a higher frequency. It seems like all it does is allow the flatter to slip 88 into their value range instead of it serving as a check/call. 55 can't realistically be added because, while you will sometimes get called by worse, a lot of the hands that're calling are 9x 7x or 6x, which is probably more than half cumulatively.

Crunch the numbers and it would make the value of flatting pre (at 0.2bb) seem yuuuuuge.

Ok thanks,I usually fold small pp to raises when Oop in tournies and I don’t even open raise with them from early position,not sure if this is correct but I just don’t like them😊

entire hand is awkward
i don't like the raise size pre
i don't like flatting pre OOP
i don't like calling the flop
i don't like checking the turn
x/f river is OK as played but i don't like how it was played

if we're going to float the flop i think we should just jam the turn especially when it is this exact turn. only 8s is a better turn which we should also absolutely jam.

whoever is saying fold pre given the odds should be banned from HSMTT


this is never a fold pre given those odds against anyone

you are all full of nits, graphs of you guys please?

As you, Bicycle. Raising pre with 44, at this stack depth is not in my range.

Never mind, I didn't see we were in LoJack, I would be opening 44, but definitely folding to 3 bet.

What is our Eqr in this situation? We clearly have enough equity to call a shove (duh) but will this hand do well post flop? Yes, we have a nut flush draw, but out of position with an easily dominated Ace doesn't exactly seem great.

LOL at a week-old account saying people should be banned and demanding graphs. Please participate for awhile before laying down the law.

holy crap its a joke man, just sarcasm lol

Eggsmcbluffin… calling eggsmcbluffin! Was the 0.2bb gain you computed taking into consideration ICM or not?

If it is measured in BB, I think it has to be Cev.

Just 4b all in pre v a swede/reg who 3b off this stack size to 6bb. Don't let him abuse/exploit this spot vs you. Hand is strong enough and he has enough 3b bluffs. Stack sizes behind him are perfect for this too.

A lot might come down to his stats on you as well/ population doesn't play well enough vs this small 3bs off shorter stacks.

I would have thought so too but the fact that he’s piling on about how much of a slam dunk call it is pre would make me think otherwise since the increased pr of busting near the bubble would clearly be more than the 0.2bbs he calculated.

If edges are so slim that 0.2bb cev is a big deal (and worth of chastising someone over considering passing on) just imagine how impactful failing to consider the value of pay jumps is.

It's a $55 event with $50k up top ICM issues around the bubble are nonexistent, the mincash is a trivial amount of money and it's just a bad approach to forgo .2bb of cEV (and yes that's an absolutely massive amount) in the hopes of ensuring you don't not mincash.

Depends on the value of the chips and the expected number of hands to go before the bubble bursts. Not sure what the starting stack is - if it’s 10k (which I think it is in these deep stack events) a 10k blind is worth about a buy in worth of chips, which means it’s very close.

The pr of busting if you call is somewhere in the area of 1/5 to 1/10. If the pr of otherwise busting before the bubble is <5%, which it could easily be with a field this large (depending how close it is to the exact bubble), folding increases the chances of mincashing by somewhere between 5-15%. A mincash is generally 1.5-2 buyins, and so increasing the pr of mincashing by 10% is worth about .15-.2 buyins worth of chips. Which is incidentally almost exactly equal to the chip Ev of 0.2 blinds (where a blind is a buyin worth of chips).

If you’re almost hand for hand where it’ll likely burst within 1 - 5 hands the pr of busting before the bubble is extremely low if you fold - much less than 5%, in which case the value of surviving this hand would exceed the chip ev.

It’s not really a big deal in tournaments when your stack represents 40 buyins worth of chips (as is the case here) as the value of survival is at most about 1-2 blinds ( in the extreme case where you’re calling an all in bet and you’re on the exact bubble) but in the spirit of recognizing that small edges matter i would think you wouldn’t want to gloss over these kinds of details.

Last sentence is very fair.

Certainly what you say is true in theory but personally I wouldn't feel the least bit bad even stone bubbling this event if it means I did so because I lost a hand and got stacked despite taking a significantly +cEV line.

So I did not do any modeling around the bubble in this spot. In fact, I wasn't even aware it was the peri-bubble stage of the event. How did you know that lol? Did I miss that part of the OP?

Edit: Yes I did miss it, OP said "soft bubble".

What do you mean you werent aware? Your previous post was:

As it turns out my math was way off because i was mistaken in thinking it had a 10k starting stack. The starting stack is 100k.

That means his stack is worth 4 buyins worth of chips, and mincashing is worth 2 buyins as per the payout schedule.

So increasing your probability of cashing (which is worth 2 buyins) by 10-15% is therefor worth 0.2-0.3 buyins which is the equivalent of 2-3bb's in value.

Instead of making a +0.2bb cEV gain into a break even call, your +0.2bb cEV call becomes approximately a 2-2.5bb loser. This isn't exactly splitting hairs.



The lesson is - if you think someone is 3betting you as lite as some have suggested the exploit isn't to start flatting 3bets. You either have to make a bold determination that he's playing very, very far out of equilibrium and 3bet/folding SO often that shoving with weak hands show a profit ... OR just stop opening wide with a vulnerable stack near a soft bubble. Probably better to do the latter unless you have a dead on read because if he isn't extremely imbalanced in his 3bet folds, you're just lighting money on fire.

Imagine being so bad you focus on the least important/most common street (pre)

imagine being so stubborn that you'd gloss over a decision that has a net value of roughly 5% of your stack because it undermines what you thought was right.

care to quantify which decision would show a larger gain/loss than 2-2.5bb's?

in an earlier post I downplayed the significance of preflop because my initial intuition was that it was close. doesn't seem like it is in retrospect.

When I say I wasn't aware I mean prior to reading your post where you mentioned ICM I hadn't even considered ICM in the context of this hand. I did not read OP, I just watched the hand replayer.

ICM calc is way way way off, he's got 46 bb, prob 1.5x an average stack, in the "soft bubble" (whatever that means), a prize worth 4x your buy in is probably well within the top 2% of the field, think about how big a stack one would have to have for their stack to be worth 4 buy ins.

His stack is worth probably 2.25 buy ins, that area.

And you seem to have this weird fixation on mincashing. You are the only person in this thread who would give any thought whatsoever to whether or not that happens. The mincash is trivial--go get them chips and try to win this thing!

Bolded: The SPR is going to be almost 2, you're allowed to flat a pretty robust range and your overall strategy would thank you for the additional EV extraction tool in it's toolbox.

If you're suggesting ATs is an objectively "weak hand" and that perhaps it should just be open mucked pr due to potential 3b pot considerations--not sure how to respond to that.

What do you do with this combo in OPs shoes?

Looking back at the hand, the calc is way off because I was calculating it as if Eisenhower covers him. Given that he's got an extra 10-15bb back the chances of mincashing are close to 100% either way.

The value of the mincash though is definitely not trivial in cases where you can bust close to the bubble. If Eisenhower covered him this call would be a big loser. Given that he doesn't, icm has very little impact. Less than 0.2bbs worth.

"His stack is worth probably 2.25 buy ins, that area."

Who? The op? Why is it worth so much less than the 4buyins worth of chips he has?

"If you're suggesting ATs is an objectively "weak hand" and that perhaps it should just be open mucked pr due to potential 3b pot considerations--not sure how to respond to that."

No, i was suggesting that if there are people with stacks who cover behind that are prone to 3bet light that you not have so many raise/folds in your range in the first place. ATs would clearly still be an open, it just wouldn't be as high up in your range and so could be one of the raise/folds.


In earlier posts I said that AJs/KQs were my worst flats but that ATs was close. I just don't open that wide close to the bubble in the first place if there are larger stacks that will play back, and so it's not as if folding ATs would mean i'm folding a huge percent of my MP1 open range.

The ICM model $EV value of his stack is worth a lot less than 4 buyins because the expected prize that OP will receive given his stack size at this point in the event is a lot less then 4 buy ins. That's the definition of the $EV value of OPs stack--it's a probabilistic concept, it's the EXPECTED VALUE of the prize he will receive given his stack size (in the ICM model the probabilities of where you'll finish in the event are an increasing function of stack size).


4x is a very deep run, 1.5x average stack not even post-bubble is not gonna project for a run as deep as would be required to win 4x buy in.