I wouldn't even call him that. He played well enough to get to the top 3500 from 22000 players, and I'd have probably shoved the same as him in his situation. I'd have had to fold enough possible hands that it was a pretty good shove.

It just happens that I had a better hand and that he won. Two right plays, one winner. Works for me.

If you estimate your chance of winning a seat at 90% (which in my opinion is a decent assumption given stacks, positions and blinds) then folding is the best play. Right now you're winning $109 90% of the time, and the rest of the time you are either winning $17 or $0, so lets say your equity at the moment is $100. If you shove here and win, you'll get the $109 100% of the time (not exactly true, but for the sake of simplicity we'll say it is) but if the SB is calling 40% of the time you'll win the hand 85% of the time and 15% of the time you'll get $0. That puts your equity at about $93, so you actually lose equity by shoving AA here. I'm just doing rough estimates in my head and I'm not a math wiz by any means so if anyone finds mistakes in my calculations please correct me.

And yes, minraise/calling and shoving are effectively the same thing but if you minraise there is a nonzero chance that someone will tard out and just flat call you, which means you can burn off more time before the blinds rise, which hurts the equity of the short stacks to your left. If you minraise and then someone reraises you all in you can use up all of your timebank to not only burn down the clock before the blinds rise again, but there's a chance someone on the other table is all in as well. We'd need to know the stacks at the other table and their positions relative to the blinds before determining whether we should do this, though. This strategy works well when there are a couple of really short stacks either in the blinds or about to be in the blinds and you've got a lot of timebank left.

Also, that AQ hand is really standard, folding is a mistake. His play was totally fine/standard as well, just unlucky for you.

are u guys forgetting about fold equity?

The equity gained when we raise and everyone folds isn't significant enough to make playing the hand better than folding.

Hero explained that the big stack was calling with anything. We have to trust his read and assume that FE is so low that it is effectively zero.

The biggest factor in this situation is that anyone that reaches the payout gets the same prize, an entry. A double up here, close to the bubble, does not increase Hero's equity very much.

sorry, but that's a terrible decision. even if the sb calls with any 2 cards, thats giving you about an 90% chance of doubling your chips. i'm taking those odds any day.

85% against a random hand. Not a terrible decision, but quite close I think.

If sb is in every hand with atc, then it's also easier for the three short stacks to double up. If they all get it in one at a time as 60-40 favorites vs sb, then there's a 20% chance they all double up and you are in trouble. I would probably have shoved here, though I would not have been instantly fist pumping if I got called.

Out of curiosity, if this were a tournament where the prize money increases as you move up and up in places would you shove AA 100% of the time in this situation?

BTW congrats to the OP for getting into the main event.

yes of course you do, he has 3bb and the nuts

If your plan is to fold atc for the rest of the tournament, then its probably best to just leave the casino and tell them to put any money you win in an envelope that you can pick up next time you are in :/

This doesn't make any sense. How can this specific incident be correct to fold, but if you run this incident 100 times over it's correct to shove?

Do you not realize that if he folds ATC for the rest of the tournament, he wins the top prize 9 out of 10 times, but if he plays the very best hand and gets called he wins the top prize 8.5 out of 10 times?

This... a lot.

oh. no prizes for winning. so yeah. might as walk away from the table at that point. no use playing any cards.

Satellite. 13 prizes of equal value.

If it were any other setup I'd have shoved my aces without hesitation.

Even during the main event I could have probably folded my way to the money, but I went in with the top hand and hoped for the best. Didn't turn out well for me, but I'm still pretty sure it was the right move.

Yes of course.

neverfolding. have to play this regardless of bubble etc, even more reason to play seeing that people will fold more scared of the bubble.

But why do we have to play it?