Live tournament, in the final level before late registration ends
7 players get paid, 14 remain

Villain:
New player at our table that just got busted at another table and re-bought.
He was very talkative when he sat down. Talking about how he lost with his AA hands four times all-in preflop. He mentioned he plays on ACR a lot, but that this is his first live MTT. And he brought up his poker mentor, who's favorite game is 6-card NLO.
He's played about an orbit+ of hands by this point, raising pot pf in 3 of those hands--one of them he got a walk, the other two he went to the flop HU, cbet pot and took it down uncontested both times. We were 5-6 handed during some of those hands. By the time this spot comes up, his old table broke and we now sit 7-handed.

Blinds 800/16000, 1600 BB ante
I sit BTN (28,000) w A4JTds
I'm covered by the two players to my left. All other stacks at the table are in the 25,000-32,000 range.
Villain in CO has me covered by 3-4k chips.

...folds to CO who bets pot (5,600)...

What's your approach here?

I don't play tournys but if it's a 1600 anti PLUS the blinds than I prob. Going to raise pot

I clicked the wrong button last night, which sucks because I did look at this.

I don't play tournaments, but I think it's a clear rip.

• You have a lot of immediate fold equity. 15-30% of the time he will fold immediately. (Based on a 45% CO opening range).
• If you get called / shoved against you have a lot of equity and are probably a flip against his shoving range.

I think it's a case where you likely have the "best" hand, which doesn't mean a lot in PLO, but also have a decent overlay where you are rarely too far behind, often ahead, and will simply win right now a fair amount. If you wait you will not likely get a much better chance to chip up.

ship it

^^^

^^^
Let me start off by saying, "I don't play tournaments."
^^^

Now that we got it out there that I don't play tournaments besides anything that came as a reward for rake or hours per week or month, next let me say with no offense that your approach is wrong from a tournament mentality. You said that there are 14 players left and 7 make the money. You said that 3 players at your table have you covered, therefore you are in 4th place at your table. Well what about the other table? If there are not more than 3 players at the other table with a chip stack larger than your stack, then your you are currently on pace to be in the money. This is the whole damn secret sauce to tournament strategy. Furthermore, you didn't tell us if you planned to re-buy if you lost this hands. additionally, you didn't tell us how many bb anyone that rebought would be getting. If some existing or new person late regged are they gettting more chips or less chips than your 17.5bb. Or put a different way are you going to be ahead or behind someone that rebuys or late regs? I could go on and on.

In my opinion, if you currently have a stack that is on pace to be in the money and you play this hand, then you made a horrible play.

Yeah, I don’t say it in my post but I was on the fence between 3bet or fold. I think this is why I am bad at tournaments… the icm aspect of things because this is a clear 3bet hand in ca cash game with 10bb and 25bb stacks (I checked this), and I feel like the description makes me think he is a looser opener than he should be and that he is capable of folding so I think we have a lot of FE.

But I suspect you are right and this should be a fold… tournaments are weird.

Idk bout that seems like a balance between capitalizing on spots if there were 11 players left and he was 7 of 7 itm than that's different but if he's 7th with 14 players left and it's close I think you capitalize here and also like I said in op post that 1600 anti with blinds as they are leans more towards rather than against

Later in tournaments you capitalize by being the open raiser and everyone else, especially mid-stacks, are in stuck not being able to get involved. Hero is not the open raiser. And hero is one of those mid-stack not able to get involved or else he loses his rung on the in the money ladder.

Seems like a standard play to me considering info given 1600 anti..

Ah right, good questions...
A starting/re-buy stack is 20k chips, so I have more in my 17.5bb stack.
I was not planning to rebuy if I lost because I allotted for two bullets that day, and I was already on my second bullet.

One thing I had not considered was the sizes of the stacks on the other table. This was my first live tournament in quite some time, and first live PLO MTT period. I'm so used to online where information like that is readily available and displayed for you. So I spaced on gathering that info.

For a cash game, I agree with InTheFold, MarkD, and others that we'd rip it against this Villain. But I lean more towards your argument for this spot in an MTT, wolf...especially this spot...

If I call, I know I'm going to face a full pot cbet (15,200) on every flop--almost 70% of my remaining stack--so I don't really like that line.
Sure we can 3! gii, and I bet there's a decent chance we're even a 55-60% equity favorite. But do we really want to flip for our tournament life with 17.5bb this close to the money? I elected to fold, preserve my 17.5bb stack and wait for a cleaner spot.

Can we make a case for calling and deciding on the flop?

^^^ bolded part in particular

No.

CO didn't open raise small, CO open raised pot. Call the flop and then decide to fold would mean subtracting 5,600 chips from your 28,000 stack and now you are in LAST place at your table. You went from on pace to be in the money to now being well out side the money. Stop trying to lose a money cash you are already on pace to have.

To play tournaments well requires several strategy adjustments from cash. You are already on pace to be in the money late in a tournament. Stop trying to find reasons to play hands. You should be finding reasons to fold. And the biggest damn reason to fold is, wait for it, you are already on pace to be in the money. Stop trying to lose a money cash that you are already on pace to have. Furthermore, from a tournament standpoint, 15bb+ is usually a mid-stack. It is usually below 10bb AND outside of the money pace that requires you to step up and be aggressive.

Seriously, you will start doing exponentially better in tournaments, if you sit there late in a tournament and repeat the mantra, "stop trying to lose a tournament cash you are already on pace to have."

I think this is a great answer and a solid framework to work from in these spots at my stack depth...finding reasons to fold.

The counter-argument to this approach may come from those in the "you should play to win, not to min-cash" camp, but I believe that to be more of a NLHE approach. I think you can take a shorter stack much further in PLO (and especially PLO8), so getting itm with any stack presents a real opportunity to final table.