Just had this horrible spot in on the Final Table of the Bounty Builder.

8 left.

I deliberately don't want to shove pre because of ICM and expect a hell of a lot of folds to my check-shove on the flop - Villain is a very good player who had been putting a lot of middle stacks under pressure on the Final Table bubble - This was about 8 hands into the FT after losing a player in 9th on the second hand.

Not sure if I've made a mistake or not.

Payouts were: (plus bounties)
1st $2,334.48
2nd $2,326.91
3rd $1,094.26
4th $771.96
5th $544.58
6th $384.18
7th $271.02
8th $191.19

PokerStars Hand #215049799583: Tournament #2920099216, $3.29+$3.40+$0.81 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level LIII (60000/120000) - 2020/06/07 21:43:00 WET [2020/06/07 16:43:00 ET]
Table '2920099216 348' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: Valduk f (9,900,823 in chips, $390.96 bounty)
Seat 2: Etistuta (2,794,712 in chips, $142.04 bounty)
Seat 3: NightGuiden (2,210,432 in chips, $79.53 bounty)
Seat 4: jelworthy (5,624,258 in chips, $173.45 bounty)
Seat 5: Macmonsters (5,559,723 in chips, $169.42 bounty)
Seat 6: Amaurt (8,397,955 in chips, $371.42 bounty)
Seat 7: all in19802 (2,049,553 in chips, $134.61 bounty)
Seat 8: tips4all (1,982,544 in chips, $233.39 bounty)
Valduk f: posts the ante 18,000
Etistuta: posts the ante 18,000
NightGuiden: posts the ante 18,000
jelworthy: posts the ante 18,000
Macmonsters: posts the ante 18,000
Amaurt: posts the ante 18,000
all in19802: posts the ante 18,000
tips4all: posts the ante 18,000
Valduk f: posts small blind 60,000
Etistuta: posts big blind 120,000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to jelworthy [K A]
NightGuiden: folds
jelworthy: raises 120,000 to 240,000
Macmonsters: folds
Amaurt: folds
all in19802: folds
tips4all: folds
Valduk f: raises 540,000 to 780,000
Etistuta: folds
jelworthy: calls 540,000
*** FLOP *** [9 4 6]
Valduk f: bets 780,000
jelworthy: raises 4,046,258 to 4,826,258 and is all-in



Nice chip and a chair story - 1 hour previous to this hand (28 left) villain had 0.2bb - won 12 all ins in a row... amazing.

That's a tough spot but I think I shove preflop (I checked HRC and even with the ICM and bounties it's an easy shove).

As played : shove flop looks ok (good FE + flipping for the lead) but I am curious of what you guys think !

Thanks Zomkah - That's really interesting it said that. I guess if I shove pre he could be folding out 99-JJ +AQ.

Yeah huge FE on flop so I'm pretty happy with that spot.

Love to hear some other thoughts though!

It's a PKO, ICM is exponentially less meaningful due to that.

Ah so I am too ICM conscious for a PKO?

I guess when you put it like that it's a no brainer shove pre?

Since he has the biggest bounty, which you want to get it should be a shove.
The Buyjump is 80$ and hist bounty is like almost 5 times as much.

Villain has the larger stack, you can't get his bounty.

The final table of PKOs is all about the bounties. Your strategy should be to steer clear of stacks that cover you, and focus on the good bounty targets. You also want to avoid wasting chips so you become a bounty target for others.

The problem with flatting here is you waste a lot of chips and will often whiff on the flop. I like a shove pre partly because you said he's been active and putting pressure on other stacks. It sounds like he's a good PKO player, in which case he is aware of what I said above and knows people are going to stay out of his way. That means you have pretty good fold equity with the shove, and when he does call you're only in terrible shape against AA. You're only a 35% dog against KK.

Thanks Darth, a great reasoning and one I'll learn from

So the whole crux and reason we use ICM is that there's sliding scale of higher payouts relating to the buyin right. So like we're at a final table and the jumps are becoming significant for where the MONEY is. In a PKO the money is primarily in bounties and half goes to prize pool right. So it's basically way less important and bounties are more important.

As played what do you guys do on the flop ?

Jamming and also I'm prob just getting the money in pre if possible.