Hi guys, just busted out of a tournament and wanted to ask advice on whether I made two big mistakes or just got unlucky.

I have 20bb left and we are two from the money. I'm in the Sb and it fold around to me and I have j8o. I shove on the bb who has 10bb's left who calls with A2o. J on the flop and A on the river. I'm now left with 10bb's. Very next hand I'm on the button. Utg limps with 10bb's which is of course suspicious but this guy was limping a lot and was not a very good player. I have kjs on the button and I shove my 10bb's and Utg calls with 99. 9 and flop and that's the end of my night.

Did I make two big mistakes here, 1 mistake? Or did I make the correct moves and it just didn't work out?

Many thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

I'm not a tournament player but first hand looks bad but not terrible and second hand looks extremely standard.

Thank you for your reply. It's actually the second hand I'm more unsure about. I'm pretty sure the J8o blind vs blind is pretty standard. Could be wrong though.

So I just took a quick look at push fold charts and thought J8o is too weak 20bb deep but I see it's only 10bb effective so probably correct.

KJs is a monster vs. a wide limping range and 10bb deep it looks like the most standard shove ever unless there are other factors going on e.g. you have several super short players who are about to put you in the money.

Ordinarily the plays look fine, but two off the money I'd fold both hands and hunker down until the bubble bursts. Particularly the second hand is a fold (if the guy is two off the money and has more than you he's probably not that bad of a player).
- assuming there are a decent number of other tables still going and chances are high others will bust before you (from your description you have at least one player at the table whom you can very likely outlast.)

All really good points and thank you very much for all your feedback. I suppose I could have played it a lot differently being so close to the money. Will take this on board and aim not to make these mistakes in the future. Thabks again guys.

If we talk about bubble play, we need the payout structure.

Easy example, 10 places paid:
A) winner gets 100, 2nd 90 and 3-10 get 10.
B) winner gets 100, 2nd 99, and 3-10 get 98.

In one scenario, both hands are standard shoves, in the other one not so much.

you made the right move getting it all in. well done comrade.

Depending on how many players left and what the average stack is, BB pretty much committed suicide there with that A2o call. He rarely dominates your hand and is like 58% favorite in the best case scenario. With antes J8 standard shove, take note that this player doesn't give two ****s about the bubble for the next one.

KJs standard shove if UTG limps at any frequency that isn't just TT+.

It's a good idea to pay attention to what people's calling ranges are.

At the stakes I play at people are happy to call off Ax and QJ+ even on the bubble (I've seen looser too).

My strategy then is to fold until I get deep in the money. Sometimes I can fold my way to 2nd if it comes to it.

Both are fine. I'm wary of EP limps in push-fold territory but you say he's been limping a lot so I'm shoving KJs too.

The bubble isn't that big a deal, assuming it's not a satellite or DON or something like that. You're not playing for a mincash. Imagine these shoves had gotten folds instead as they usually will, you'd be sitting at 26bb and probably have a good chance to chip up some more with (most players) tightening up on the bubble.

The only time you really want to go into lockdown on the bubble is when you're super short, but there are other even shorter stacks.

Agree with madlex, not enough information. ICM calcs are tricky. In a vacuum I'd say, fold first hand, shove second hand. I could even be wrong about that depending on structure. You could probably fold your way to money, but of course the real longterm payoff in tournaments requires finishing near the top sometimes.

Sounds like somebody misunderstood something he read in Harrington's tournament books.

IIRC, Harrington's point was this: late in a tournament(edit: and there are antes), if you're in the BB and it costs you less than 10% of your stack to call an all-in, you should probably call with any 2.