Just busted this tourney. The chip leader was decent and pretty active as people were playing very tight.

Here are my notes on him:

opened for pot on button w aces
min bet turn and river with weakish hand oopp

I debated just flatting seeing a flop and making a decision or repotting for value, as he was chip leader.

I think we are ahead of his range here. Whats your line preflop? Play it safe and live to flop another day

I don't really see an issue. You 3 bet for value and fold equity especially if he has been exploiting table nittyness by opening wide. He could be levelling you with his sizing, but at this value of tourney I doubt it.

Inspite of your perceived 3 betting range being strong and therefore his calling range being pretty strong as a result, with the SPR and flop fit you have to jam. Seems standard all round.

The only comment I would raise for discussion is maybe sizing. 3 betting slightly less gives you a larger bet with which to jam post. I don't play much Mtts these days so there are betting qualified people to comment on this aspect.

Run better

I guess my question is preflop.

Is it worth 3b ing even if we are ahead here 2nd in chips vs the chip leader OOP, or are we better off flatting, keeping the pot small OOP and going from there.

I wouldnt 3bet pre... but as played its standard

Well mostly I wouldnt call it 3betting for value. We want him to fold. Even if our hand is ahead of his range, it's not ahead by nearly enough that we want a call, or to stack off with it. Especially when he's CL.

Depending on pay structure, I could prefer to flat and not play for stacks if possible because you have enough chips to wait.

The problem with pushing your hand pre flop is you don't have amazing equity against a range that continues. I would favor three-betting only if this guy showed a tendency to call with much worse hands.

Or if he folds to 3bets too much. Which seems unlikey, particular as the CL.
So ICMwise I prefer flatting. It's really only good for the other shorter stacks at the table if you go to war with the chip leader and with less than the nuts.

if you think he will call then flat, other wise raise.
bad luck though if he didnt hit the set or something big you get to win it likely.

generally against the big stack it doesnt pay to play a hand where you need to run him off the pot.

I believe he would call with much worse hands, however even with that I think AJ2* may be a little to weak to take advantage of it. What do you guys think about 3b'ing if our J was a Q or if our hand was double suited? I feel like AJ2 is right on the line.

Giving it more thought I think it depends greatly on the player obv. A better player would have given me waaaay more credit in this spot and I would expect him to fold a lot of his almost premium hands.

What hands would be good enough here to outweigh your possible tournament life and 3b for value?

Thanks guys. So Basically, at this point our chip value and ability to move up in the money outweighs the slight equity advantage we may have.

This is clearly both a 3 bet for fold equity (hero has intimated that no one had been doing so and will therefore should be given significant credit) AND for value if called (hero has stated that sizing with AA** was indeed larger). We also need to consider the balance of our 3 bets.

That said payout structure is certainly a critical factor influencing our decision as well as the speed of the tourney - we aren't actually that deep and our chip advantage over the others could significantly be being overstated because of this.

I agree. With these stacks, I would play it identical to hero. We don't have a 4-1 chiplead on the shorter stacks.

From villains perspective, he doesn't want an allin confrontation with us either. Let him decide.

Another things to think about is how fast the other players are expected to bust. Are they people that fold til they have 2 bb's? Or will they gamble? If I think they will bust soon, then I will just call.

You're coin flipping against a 20% range.

these decisions are close so no really right or wrong answer, unless you give other information. such as is it easy to rob small pots from those left. if so you can build without any chance of going broke so dont here.

is the leader dominating the table by forcing allins. then dont raise and get out early as he will be busting a few with you gaining tournament equity.

is he picking on you. then you need to play a big one or get ground down.

those are the kind of things that determine how you play in these spots. not so much your hands value unless it is huge.

Excellent advise ray thank you

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Slam dunk flat pre