Hi guys,

Staff casino tourney, winner goes to Sportsman Casino London to play with the winners from the rest of the casinos (about 11-12 total); the winner in London goes to a WSOP event $1000 BI, with all expenses covered + cash to spend.

Structure - 5000 starting stack, no re-buys, 15 min blinds, blinds start at 100-200, 200-400, 300-600, 400/800 etc. I made the final table and the game was 8 handed. Players description:

CO - very fishy young lady, no clue what she's doing, running incredibly good, random limps, min-raises, calls with 0 equity etc (Called an all-in flop shove by a short stack TAG w J2o on an AQ8rrr board) seen her limp 99, KK.
BB - laggy fish, capable of folding to resistance and agression;

I have K9o w 6 BBs in the SB at 400/800, no ante. CO limps, button folds, hero??? CO was chip leader with prolly 20 BBs, BB has me slightly covered, would fold to a push if he doesn't have a hand, CO will likely call a shove - trembling and shaking, desperately wants to win.

Shove and pray.

I just call and hope to hit the flop. Sounds like BB won't raise without a better hand than yours. Possible, based on your observations of the KK and 99 hands, CO has you dominated. If you flop a hand like 2nd or 3rd pair and push then, maybe you'll get really lucky and BB will fold with a better hand than you and CO will call with a worse one.

I fold, but I don't like shoving trash hands when others have already expressed interest in the pot.

What range are shoving in this spot? I was sure s.o will find a fold there.

FWIW I had a tight image, literally played 2 hands for the entire time but CO barely would consider that... Is it ok to limp w 6 BBs and fold if we dont hit? I thought this is wrong. Is it ok if youre up against people who doesn't have a clue of poker theory and limp for the most part?

I'm shoving AJ+, 99+.

If my strategy relies on my opponents definitely folding, then it doesn't matter what I have. I can shove 83o. Which I probably will do, if it's folded to me in the SB, especially if there are antes. But once someone enters the pot, all that goes out the window.

If CO doesn't consider your image, then it's not an image. When your perspective is on how you view yourself, that leads to you outplaying yourself.

I don't like limping the SB, ever.

I'm by no means an expert. Most people around here disagree with me. So if you do, too, then you're in good company.

So... what hand did the CO use to bust you?

If lady that limps has a range of something like 71% holdings 22+,A2s+,K2s+,Q2s+,J2s+,T2s+,92s+,84s+,73s+,63s+,5 3s+,43s,A2o+,K2o+,Q3o+,J5o+,T6o+,96o+,86o+,76o,65o
assuming that she never raises any premium hands then this is an easy jam with K9o, you are an equity favorite.

Even if BB rejams optimally (and he very may well play too tight in this spot), K6o+ should be +EV. If this is a winner takes all satty, you may consider jamming any K in this spot.

Asking for strategy in this forum is a bad idea mate.

I shove 100% of the time in this situation with K9o and 6BB. Let CO call you with a crap hand or even a naked A. It only pays 1 winner so you need to get chips and this is as good an opportunity as you may get.

And why is that? Is this not a poker forum?

Not sure if we should be insulted or not...

So you're folding 8-8 with 6 BB's? Just calling to setmine?

If she stacked a guy with J-2 offsuit on that board, then she'll call with worse than K-9. This is a shove all day long.

Unless there are ICM factors... how many players left? What places get paid out? What are the other stack sizes at the table?

Based on some of the responses I've seen in this thread (and others) I would agree.

You play too tight.

**** no, it's not OK. It's ******ed.

Still not OK.

Pfap has already established that he leans pretty hard to the nitty side (no offense, kitteh). I don't see how he finds a fold in this spot with 88 or AT either.

Agreed. Absent some ICM consideration or a strong read, I shove K9 here and expect CO to call with a ton of hands that I'm beating or flipping with. I'm not super happy about it - I don't have any fold equity and K9 is near the bottom of my shoving range - but I'm not folding.

There's a lot of good advice from experienced players in this forum. There are newbs and not-so-newbs who give bad advice too. But honestly, I don't see how that makes us any different from other strat forums at 2p2.

I keep tellin' y'all, I'm not very good at this. I'm willing to believe I'm too nitty for this spot, or that I've been influenced by the "must've lost, otherwise why post" syndrome.

Please don't be. I just think that strat goes in the strat forum that is all; low stakes live b&m forum was made for this, and OP's post seemed to just land in the wrong place as far as I could tell.

I think that the home poker forum deals with a wide range situations specific to home poker very well, running a good game, sharing research on things like chipsets-tables, providing insight on how to deal with diffucult players and the sticky ethical situations they create and so on. I think quick strategy questions that can be quantified, though certainly my analysis of the above question is incomplete and is really best left to the guys grinding out these games on a regular basis. In any case, everyone posting is trying to help OP, and I am no different in this regard.

No offence intended whatsover, perhaps I should probably take an extra minute or two when typing out my posts.

She limped JJ, I shoved K9o, did not hold , she limped KK literally 2-3 hands ago... I am not limping SB EVER w 6 BBs vs a late pos limper. Its so bloody close! I think K9o is +EV in the long run tho... It was a live turbo basicly with no ICM.

I wanted to throw up and still hate life but thank you guys for the opinions. Based on the experienced players' posts I seem to have made the right decision.

None taken after your explanation, and honestly, you're probably right. For a pure strat question, LLNL is the way to go. We tend to be a little strat and a lot of other stuff here.

However, I would argue that there are differences between low-stakes B&M games and micro-to-low stakes home games. How you play against a random 1/2NL Villain is often very different from how you play against Joe from Accounting who shows up every week for your .25/.50NL home game. So you may find that the answers you get from HP are slightly different than those you get in LLNL, or that some of us put more of an emphasis on reads and history and less on the pure math.

Neither approach is wrong IMO, they're just different.

Ugh. I had forgotten about CO limping 99 and KK in your OP - was she also limping weak hands PF? If I had been in your shoes and noticed this type of pattern, I probably could have laid down the K9 pre.

Also, I failed to catch this the first time:

Had the shaking been going on for a while, or did you notice it when she limped this hand? This is a common "I HAVE A MONSTER" tell with inexperienced players.

Apology accepted

No, she was shaking from the very beginning, esp. after she started to run good. She was limping everything....

I was sure we could find a fold there, thing is what range would you shove in this spot. What range would you shove against her in general in a vacuum, HU?

If she's limping anything my shove range in that spot is quite large. I'd even go down to suited connectors such as T8. Since only first place is paid you're going to have to take advantage of her limps even though you have to accept that she'll call almost every time and you will be an underdog a good man times. But with her limp there's simply too much money in the pot to justify folding too many hands here.

I'm not that concerned with BB in these spots as he'll generally have to have a better than normal hand to call your shove. if he does and she calls as well you're not in good shape but the pot will be so big that if you do win it's worth the risk.

If this were a standard tournament with graduated payouts then my answer would be different and I could find a lot of reasons to fold.

I understand. In a standard tourney would you shove KJ+ in this spot?

Almost certainly I would. It would depend on the specific situations of that tourney though. Are there even shorter stacks about to take the blinds? Ladder principle. etc. But with 6BB and a limp and me in the SB KJ+ is very shovable.

What's a Ladder principle? How would you consider ICM with <15 BBs in general?

Ladder principle is when you are in the money and each step up the "ladder" (as players get knocked out) means you make more money. Sometimes this means you want to fold hands that you might bet with, especially if a player with more chips than you is active in the hand. It's more prevalent in higher buy in casino tournaments, particularly those that use top heavy payouts. But I find that I play better if I always keep this in mind.

ICM is a great concept. In actual practice it may be difficult to apply for smallish home tournaments that typically have very high blinds at the end. I don't think that 15 BB is push mode though. <10 BBs is for me. If the blinds are going up gradually and the round lengths are decent (at least 30 minutes), and the payouts are spread significantly then ICM becomes a more important concept. Your chips become a lot more valuable at the end of these types of tournaments and you should be using them to put pressure on the other players but at the same time not playing crap hands. Fold a bunch of small blinds if theres a limp. Fold a bunch of BB's to a raise. and especially to a raise and a call. you're not really getting the right odds (when you take ICM into account) with J2s in the BB.