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Just got back from a poker trip to San Diego with 3 friends for an $1,100 buyin tourney
Made it to Day 2 and had a super interesting hand come up on the money bubble that was highly debated over post-tourney drinks in the bar with my buddiesSituation:
Blinds = 2500-5000 with 500 ante (Our stack = 92K)
We’re on THE bubble. 42 players left, top 41 get paid
Pro raises to 15K from middle position and we’re the big blind with AKo
What to do????Obviously depends on your goal. You plan on playing to win tournament or you ok with min cash? Can’t choose both here. If you want to win the tournament, IMO you push and know that unless you are up against AA or KK, you are likely flipping or way ahead. I doubt you get a call from any two cards but only strong pairs or another AK. I am also assuming raiser has you covered. If you desire the min cash and then effort to try to move up, then fold, fold, fold til bubble bursts. This assumes there are several stacks smaller than your 17-18 bigs stack. No right or wrong choice, just personal decision. Respect either way.
Without bubble considerations AK with 18 blinds is an auto 3bet shove. But, I’ve noodled around with ICM enough to understand that the penalty for going out on the bubble is severe and you need a HUGE edge to get allin as the shorter stack.
So rather than shove or fold, I went with option 3… Call and see a flop. Thoughts?
I think with the info provided, I polarized the decision. Obviously there are other options (call, min raise being two). I think to discuss further, more info is needed. Does the raiser have a significantly bigger stack. Have they routinely been raising as the bubble approached. Have they been playing hands that you can’t put them on at the flop. They have a read on you. You have a read on them. Are they attacking the small blind for some reason. Have you seen the “pro” be capable of a big lay down. What type of hands have they been raising from MP. Their thought of your table image. Prior history. The other is in the value of the prize. Is your entire bankroll in this tournament (I know that seems out of line but I’ve seen it a bunch). Do you need to book some kind of win for morale’s sake.
So, that being said, I could see choosing option three (and other options) but that decision is complex and I would want more info before supporting or criticizing that route.
Fair Enough. Here is some more background info.
Opponent is a circuit pro who had earlier been talking to another guy about the next stop in Belgium or some such place. (Career Cashes = $555K). He hadn’t been abusing the bubble too badly, but I suspected that was about to change. I’d estimate his stack between 300K & 400K.
I must have seemed pretty straightforward to him as I had probably been one of the least active players at the table. However, I did 3bet him light about 15 minutes prior to this hand in an attempt to gather enough chips to join the bigstack bubble bullies. That didn’t work out so well. He put me all in and I pretended to have a tough decision before folding. (He showed QQ)
We were playing hand for hand, so there was a lot of time for chatter between hands. The big topic was that a woman with approx 2 blinds was 5 hands away from taking the BB at another table.
Since you are out of position and under stacked vs the pro I agree with Chuck, your move is shove likely inducing a fold. If you call and miss he’s likely going to lean on you until you either fold and lose a big chunk of your hard earned stack, or post flop shove and probably lose it all. However his open for $15k is a standard open with $5k big blind so good chance you are ahead. But the fact remains you are out of position on a guy that has you stack dominated. Just win the hand while you can and wait until you have position and your 20 or so big blinds left to play him post flop.
In the moment, I wasn’t sure what was the best approach. My head kept saying “play for 1st”, but after lots of noodling around with ICM calcs, I seemed to remember that big money jumps can make SEVERE differences between chip EV and real money EV. Long story short, you need a significant edge to risk your tournament equity just short of a significant pay jump and the the first jump is always the most important in a relative sense.
So then – What to do? Shoving seemed bad for ICM reasons and folding seemed even worse. That’s when I invented plan C. Call and see a flop.
PROS
Getting 2.7 to 1 preflop
If we hit TPTK, our edge is now big enough to overcome the “ICM penalty”CONS
We’re going to miss the flop 2/3rds of the time and have to say goodbye to another 12% of our stack
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