Won a small donkament at mate's house last night. Not sure I played this hand correctly...

SB: ~4BB
Hero(BB): ~26BB
CO: ~8BB
BTN: ~15BB

Dealt to Hero: 9T, 1 fold, BTN calls 1BB, SB calls 1/2BB, Hero...?

I tanked a few seconds and checked, but then I was like, ...shouldn't I shove here? Also, I know SB's limp looks ridiculous...he's pretty terrible and I've played him before, he spews pre a lot although he has gone all-in the last few hands and picked up a couple of blinds, and because of his short-stack so there's no maneuvering postflop.
BTN is a relatively good player, but still a bit weak post-flop and lies to lay down big hands and fold a lot, especially tolarge preflop raises, and his limp means he's weak. With more-than-usual fold equity (they respect my raises), I should have shoved, right?

Oh yeah, payout structure is: 2nd place makes a return on his $, 1st place takes the rest. 1 person had rebought at this point, and the game started with 6 players.

If you don't want to straight out give me the answer, that's fine...I just can't find an online simluator that takes postflop into consideration in donkamentz

If you shove sb is never folding so consider that...has btn been limp folding a lot? I just check and hope to hit a flop

Snap shove this? not a profitable move in the long run, the beauty of BB is you don't even have to limp with a nice hand, this is a nice hand, but it's not a shove for sure.

SB has 4BB so he's going in anyway...I'm happy to flip with him although not sure whether that's +CEV..?

And button mainly folds when his limp is raised. I think he called the raise once and then jammed the flop, but that looked like a bluff to me and I wasn't in that hand. He hasn't limp-reraised. He tends to raise pre with good hands, I've seen mid-pocket-pairs, broadway, (and a couple of QT at showdown, but that was when the stacks were at ~50BB). He's also raised pre with air a few times in good spots, gotten away with it, and shown the bluffs. I'm not sure idea how much he's adapted to the blinds (recently) doubling though. Also, he tanked a while before limping pre...

My reason for shoving is because we might?? have enough fold equity from BTN, and don't mind flipping with SB assuming he calls 100% (which he will). Not sure how valid this reasoning is though

Why risk another 4bb to win SB's stack by shoving pre-flop when you can check and either get away from your hand when you miss or put the last 4 in when you connect?

If BTN folds, then SB shoves 100%, so what % do I call (or...what % of boards do I fold on?, what % of boards do I call? Or do I call 100% because it's only 3BB more, and there's 3BB in the pot?)?

And do you know about push/fold strategy? If you don't, you won't know where I'm coming from

(GRUNCH)

I'd check. You are fairly certain you dont have the best hand here (as you are trumped by any overcard, even) so you can check and take 3 free cards to outdraw your opponents.

Why do anything else? The equity gain from getting the pot heads up against the SB doesn't match up to the benefits of checking.

By checking you keep the BTN in the hand too, and he's 15BB deep, which at this short stacked stage is a lot. You've got a hand that can flop well and can stack him if he flops something second best.

Basically the choice is between taking odds of infinite:1 on outdrawing two villains (one of whom is the second deepest player left in the tournament,) with what is 99% of the time the worst hand, or making a shove and risking 15BB of your own stack, (which is more then half) to get it heads up in (hopefully) a flip vs the SB villain.

Just stepping in...

Well if you're getting 2:1 odds, you require 33% equity to call. So you call on boards when you make a hand that has 33% equity vs the Villains shoving range. Your ability to determine these situations is a matter of experience.

Also, I'm not familiar with push/fold strategy, but as chip leader vs short stacked opponents you don't play push/fold. Your only job is to keep your big stack, you have no task to attempt to knock out villains unless you're fairly certain you have the best of it by a pleasing margin. That's one of the benefits of having the big stack - there's no pressure to do anything, you can let the others knock each other out and try to double up whilst you wait for the good spots.

chk and take a flop. you have T high

ask yourself "WHY didnt SB shove THIS time??"

also theres a small but costly chance that BUT knows SB is shoving light so is trapping. if thats the case....theres a good chance your putting a fair chunk of your stack in jeopardy. i just think the risk v reward here doesnt warrant shoving and i dont think its close.

you are in a great position to take this down and yes, we want to get a chance to stack SB but i dont like this spot given the stack sizes.

i suppose you could raise an amount to get SB in that could get BUT To fold...but i dunno how great this is. anyone care to comment?

Isn't this terrible thinking? We miss most flops. Also, "trumped by an overcard"? Are assigning villain a particular hand, and not a range?

Sorry, I'm quoting all the things I don't agree with and you do not mention any equity calculations, but make illogical claims. Your next post is a little be less illogical...

Dude, look up push/fold strategy and then come back. When the relative stack sizes in a tournament are less than or equal to 20BB, a Nash Equilibrium strategy is the push/fold one. I know that the strategy where either shoving or folding here is the correct strategy, and in which case my instinct tells me that shoving is better because of my large fold equity %. Raising to 3BB pre has no benefit in my opinion, because if he shoves, I'm not folding obv, and if he calls then I'm clearly shoving all flops.

However limping pre puts me in a tough spot because if he shoves then what range do I assign him? If he checks, what range do I assign him? How do I know his reaction to my shoves if he checks? (like will he call with all his range??).

Basically, I don't like the spot of checking pre because I miss a large % of flops and then I don't know what the correct play is, or even if the correct play is flop-dependent or not.

I have roughly 45% equity against his limping range (I think, I don't have pokerstove atm), and this range is suited connectors (up to 4-gappers), A6s-A2s, A8o-, KJs-K6s, QJo-Q7o, J8o-JTo, 66-, actually, I dunno exactly, but stuff like this. If I shove, is that bad in terms of tournament equity?

SB is terribad btw

This is a very good point

This is another possibility, Ozi. However, would you not be more inclined to keeping the deeper stacked BTN in the hand with such a good flopping hand as T9s? I mean I know he's only 15BB deep, but with infinite:1 odds with the free check that's a pretty great set of implied odds.

We can effectively have a free look at 3 of the 5 coming cards and decide on if we want to call the inevitable shove or not from the SB. When we're likely to have the worst hand like this, I'm heavily inclined to taking as many free opportunities to outdraw the villain as I can.

Fair enough, mate. I'll have a ponder over this stuff when I get back.

I mean, I certainly don't claim to know it all like, I was just having a stab to help you find the right answer. You may have helped me think about some stuff instead!

yeah i prefer taking the freebie here but im not a sng expert or a homegame expert since i play mostly cash so i was throwing the idea of raising not not shoving to see what others say

I'd check the option. You have a T high. I know you have a bad opinion of the SBs game but he has to call 3 BBs to win 6. That is an automatic call from anyone with a brain preflop, even with 23o.

More likely, from you description of the players, post flop if the SB hits anything on the flop, his chips are going in. You can then assess the situation there. But if he misses and checks, and you bet air, you are likely to get them both to fold.

I actually like this option if you choose to raise. If the button has trash he will fold, but if he was slow playing something big and goes over the top, you can get away. And against the SB, you are heads up if the btn folds.

But I'd prefer checing here over the raise I think. I would prefer to riase with a junk hand like 92 off than tkae a chance to get blown off it by a button play that can get me to told a hand with some post flop potential.

Check > raise > shove.

It's only 15BB effective though, so what's the point of a raise? He's either all-in or all-out...if it were 30BB+ I might agree with you

This has been quite an interesting thread. The whole time I was out I was having little thoughts about it.

OP seems to have some knowledge here, and I've been left feeling like I don't know anything lol

Even if I know 10x more than you (which is overexaggeration lol, but...) that's good, but I still haven't scratched the surface tbh

People limp fold 15 BB effective unless you have a read that he wont. While a raise here could very well get you HU flipping v SB, you're losing your awesome implied odds if you flop something nice and can get a good amount of BTNs stack. My line here might be folding flop if air comes and sb shoves, calling if you flop a nutty type hand (sd+fd, top 2, something like that) to try and induce button, and raising if you have something vulnerable (like mp or tpwk).

A hand like 10-9s is the exact type of hand you want multiway, especially when the SB is committing his stack no matter what. You can flat and button will call a fair amount of the time because you could really be calling the SB shove with ATC.

Also, with effective stacks 15bb deep I really don't want to be shovebotting this tourney. You need to keep your big stack, and opening to 2.5x 15bb effective 4 handed will get you a lot of steals. Steal enough and people will shove wide into you and you can take their stacks. What you don't particularly want here (even though mathematically it's probably not the worst) is to jam and have the button flip over some sort of monster, which imo is well within his range given the SB jamming every hand. If you check here you can get away cheap but you really cost yourself little to no value when you hit.

The button's 15 BB stack is exactly why the less risky play is warranted here. There are two reasons. If the button comes over the top and decides to play for all 15 BBs preflop, you are beat. You can fold and save yourself 12 BBs.

The second reason is leverage. If the button calls and the SB folds (not really the most likely, but a possible scenario) then a c-bet on the flop can induce a fold where the button may have decided to call a shove preflop. leaving more chips behind for a move later has more FE than shoving all in, when you can keep enough behind to induce a fold.

Imagine the button has a hand like 66. To a shove he may decide it's worth it and call. But if you raise 3 BBs and he only calls ( a mistke on his part, but it was alos a mistake for him to open limp this pot) then he sees a flop AQ7 and you c-bet, he is more likely to let go of the 66 then.