OP we want more information
- what's the payout structure for this tournament?
- what were those 3-bet pots UTG played before this hand? Do you have hands history?

The opening range I gave UTG somewhat accounted for a slight loosening.

55, 66, A5s, JTs. I personally believe these are poor opens off 20bb utg but I plugged them in.
It's never that simple. Is he loose from EP, that's what matters.

I find it hard to believe that I can't play AQo profitable in position against even a tight 10% UTG range. I will dominate a lot of hands here such as AJ, QJ, KQ, etc... which should be in their range.

As for the profitability of a Jam... Your range here looks like QQ+? I mean does this sound even remotely plausible? It's fine for a Villan to open like 15% yet we can't even profitable jam AKs on it? Even QQ isn't even looking so hot and you might argue you could find a better spot for that even.

You want me to believe that a guy that 3bets 10% doesn't cap himself when he calls here? It's not that he can't have a few traps but it's not really a big tendency among low-stakes players to trap AA here in my experience.

No it is that simple. It's a $12 MTT, your villains are not that positionally aware.

You're taking a gamble that your assumptions are correct, and if they are you stand to gain over 1.5bb in EV, which is like 15x what a world class player can win per hand*

*Since no one has actually put any numbers to it, if UTG opens a very tight 10%--he's opening wider than that btw--AND plays perfectly against a jam (the latter statement is a big IF, of course by "play perfect" I mean "folds all worse and calls all better including all his pairs he opens with"), then he folds 40% of his open range and we go to the streets with 39% equity. Sure, sometimes those behind us wake up w/ a monster (that we heavily block--there's like a 12% chance the villains who've yet to act have a top 2% hand amongst them), and sure we get trapped by UTG+1 (again, like once in a few hundred hands--maybe my "once in a thousand" comment from earlier was hyperbole--but it's still just so infrequent because we block his traps), then I'd estimate that when you jam, like 75-80% of the outcomes are it folds around to UTG, he makes his decision, and UTG+1 gets squeezed out of the pot.

We win (6.5*.4)+.6*(26*.4-20*.6)=2.2bb in EV when that 75-80% scenario arises. That's worst-case when we go jam, UTG calls, all esle fold. If UTG calls w/ AJs or KQs, we just print in this spot. The times the other 20-25% scenario manifest themselves are no way going to be so -EV to outwiegh the massive (and yes 2.3bb is a massive amount of EV) EV from shoving {AQ} here. Factoring those other scenarios in, the overall EV of a jam is probably in excess of 1.5bb. It's inexcusable to pass up that much EV, especially at this point, when the #1 priority to the accumulate chips like a madman. Survival is overrated when you're still 3 tables remaining and it isn't until another like 20 players are gone before the payjumps stop becoming ******edly small

@bearer here is my scenario for +EV
Let's say I don't care about pay jumps. I want to get to the final table and I go for a thin value whenever I can. This is reasonable strategy because I want to maximize my ROI on this tournament to make up for busting on other tournaments I play simultaneously. From this PoV $EV does not matter, what matters is cEV.
UTG Range : 10.9%, 77+ A8s+ AJo+ KTs+ KQo QTs+ JTs
UTG+1 Range: 4.1%, JJ-88 AQs-A9s KJs+ QJs AA[25%] KK[25%]
I don't have ICMizer, but HRC provides the following 3-bet-shoving range

^^ Reasonable looking

Theres no need for all this. Put it in a calculator to make sure your "once in a thousand" bad outcomes are properly accounted for.

Btw, imagining that players are not that positionally aware is fanciful. Based on what?

This is just panic. As I said, it's not hard to find better spots to get the money in than jamming into two nutted ranges. It's not hard to get dealt 87s and jam into a CO open.

^^Poster above me already did and came to same conclusion I did.

With all due respect, because I've lurked a lot and you're an awesome poster, but I think it's incorrect to say there's no need to go through the exercise of doing a rough 1st principles calculation like I did. Don't you ever wonder what's underlying the work the calculators do (yeah I know they run simulations--you can approximate or even recreate those results, you know)?

And do you disagree with my numbers anyway or are you just dismissing them because you're dependent on using a calculator? Do you think UTG opens more or less than 10%? What %-age of his range do you think he folds, more or less than 40%? How about UTG+? Btw it's pretty fanciful to project the range you'd play as UTG+1 vs UTG open onto this UTG+1 villain--c'mon, he's a random villain in a $12 MTT. Chances are, he's no sicko. Yeah, you don't need to be much of a sicko to trap {AA} here, but you also don't need to be that bad to think {KQs} is an OK flat, or even like {77} (probably folding to a jam, and not even terrible if he makes the call--that 6.5bb overlay in dead money means GII w/ {AQ} as a 45/55% dog is still +EV by .7bb) or {KTs} (obviously awesome for us if his range has lots of {KTs}-type hands). It happens all the time, so often in fact it's my default assumption. Nothing fanciful, just a hypothesis based on what I've seen. You've never seen that?

What do you think the actual EV of a jam is, not just whether it's +EV or -EV or 0 but an actual #. I concede you probably don't need to be that accurate in game to be a winner, but I also maintain that if you CAN do that rough estimation then you have a huge advantage over your opponents, and good luck trying to use your calculator at the table or when you've got 8 online MTTs going at a time

Can you prove we encounter better spots often enough to justify passing up this spot. It's crazy to say that's "easy" to do when you don't control your hole cards and this spot right here is already in front of you. You've never gone 20-30 hands w/o encountering a single good spot to play a hand? If we wait that long we likely have a single digit BB stack. The best we can do would be double up (less likely later than now IMO bc we're getting called much wider--villains are realize their equity o much more then as opposed to right now) just to get back to square one.


What makes you think the villains ARE positionally aware? A very small %-age of villains in a $12 event have any clue as to just how tight they should be opening here. The games haven't gotten THAT tough.

And these ranges are NOT nutted, that's a point several others have already made. UTG is uncapped by virtue of opening the pot, UTG+1 has a tiny amount of traps, but having uncapped != nutted. To me, nutted means ALL or MOSTLY monsters, not monsters and a bunch of stuff we beat

I hear what you're a saying about panic (maybe impatience would be a better word, though still inaccurate IMO--"patience" is an overrated virtue IMO, it's used to justify nittiness) because certainly opportunity cost is a real thing but this spot is just so +EV it breaches any threshold we can reasonably set for playing the hand.

I appreciate the debate btw. Especially if I'm 100% off base here (which I just don't think I am lol), it's been a great exercise.

I appreciate the debate too. Just because I repetitively advocate for my position doesn't mean I'm certain or unyielding, I welcome scrutiny and naturally enjoy arguing.

Wanna give this post a fair go but it's late so I'll get in to it tomorrow. I accept that I'm imagining UTG1 as a killer but I generally like to think it's healthier for current and future winrates to be disappointed in our opponents than surprised. One thing for sure is that given his VPIP/PFR, he has the discipline to not flat every pretty hand that comes his way.

Hopefully OP eventually comes and tells us what happened (how he rejammed AQ into AA and KK). I have bad beat story bias on my side.

With 29BB's left and being this deep in to the tournament there's no way I'm folding this unless the next pay jump is quite significant which in a $12 tournament usually doesn't happen until you get down to the final table so I am either going to raise or shove. In this case I am probably going to shove due to still having 4 people behind me left to act. If I were on the button and it were the CO/HJ that raised and called I would be more apt to just raise.

Lately in this type of spot I have been thinking about going for the win. I hate folding hands like this only to get blinded down and forced to go all in with a short stack later and end up making an extra $12 for my efforts. This hand is perfect to shove because you will either get it all in and generally have a good amount of equity vs their calling range or you get them to fold and sweep up the 6BB's.

So in this hand I ended up shoving. Unfortunately BTN woke up with JJ, rejams and utg opener overcalls with KK (utg+1 folds)

Folding for 2bb is bad and an identifiable leak because:
With results after calling and facing the two all ins then let's debate about folding.

I don't understand your point

You have to account for players waking up behind too. It’s still a shove though.

I honestly believe that HRC calculation took that into account because I only set up ranges/actions for UTG and UTG+1 and subsequent actions are all set to all-in..it would be a big surprise if HRC would just ignore actions behind...

Oh my bad, they are included then for sure.

I think it's difficult to properly weight the the chances of an overcall and utg1 waking up using pen and paper.

Understanding the mechanics is good though. I've seen people say things like "if he only calls with a range that's crushing us, isn't it bad to jam?". Doing the math helps understanding of where the EV comes from.
The UTG numbers are fine. I dispute that UTG1s range is capped but in reality its probably wider than the range I suggested, and not purely uncapped. That's why I listed the range I gave UTG1 earlier, so others can be aware of what predicated the solution.

My intuition was that it was -EV and my calcs supported that. No need for a real-time calculator. Jamming AQ requires a parlay of very good outcomes, whereas in the same config, when hero is in the BB and the supposed loose player in on the button (the position we can assume he will be at his loosest), if he opens a 40% range and defends a not uncommon 88+, ATs+, KQs, AJo+, hero can rejam hands much worse than AQ profitably. In this case, even if I accepted ffsh's HRC solution, AQo is bottom of range territory. Plus ICM was ignored. Saying "I want to win" doesn't magically dismiss ICM. Your tournament life has additional value.

Are you suggesting the solution proves calling is good? HRC doesn't take into account reverse implied odds and equity realisation in general.

Yes.

RIO and Equity realisation do not matter in all-in spots, the raw equity unequivocally defines the outcome in cEV calculations.

In all-in spots. HRC as far as I know cannot prove calling is good.

But even though I think folding is technically superior to calling, in game I probably call because AQo is pretty. But at least I'll know why I got my shyt fooked up on Qxx and won't attribute it to a cooler.

3bet jamming vs wide button range is great spot w/ many hands weaker than AQ, no doubt about that. I just think these spots aren’t mutually exclusive. I’d rather take both spots. Tbf, I agree that AQ is at the bottom of our range. I wouldn’t shove AJs even if its +cev because of icm, tourney life and the huge variance it provides so close to the FT. That being said, AQ seems to be too profitable to fold here for those reasons, imo.