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Game time: Bubblish spot
(This might be lame but it might be fun...)
We are on the final table bubble of an $2.50 180 man turbo. We have 14bbs (all stack sizes are before posting antes/blinds) and action folds to us on the button with A2s. The small blind has 4bbs and is a decently winning reg. The BB has 14bbs as well and the only note we have on the BB is they limp/folded to a 9bbs shove bvb last orbit.
We:
A) Min-raise/call the shorty and fold to the BB. We have have an Ace blocker and Ace high is likely good vs the shorty. No reason to risk our stack vs the BB, and A2s plays well if we are flatted.
Min/call either player. A2s is a pretty strong hand, plus we have an ace blocker. This is a good time to gamble because if we double up now we can own the final table with a 30bbs stack. We also gain fear equity and discourage other players from playing back at us in future spots.
C) Shoving is best. A2s is an unexploitable hand with these stack sizes and therefore an easy shove. We can't give the BB a chance to exploit our min raises by playing back at us with hands he would have folded to a shove.
D) Limp. No reason to bloat the pot with a weaker ace. Limp and try to see a cheap flop. We'll call the shorty if he jams, fold to the BB, stab at decent flops and fold to any aggression. Aggression is great in mid game but we need to learn how to change gears and be cautious on the final table bubble and other ICM spots.
E) Fold. We rarely hit a flush so we really only essentially have a ragged Ace. We need to play tight because of ICM from the final table bubble and if we fold here the sb will likely stack off with the BB with any two cards and we can usually get to the final table without risking a single chip.
We are on the final table bubble of an $2.50 180 man turbo. We have 14bbs (all stack sizes are before posting antes/blinds) and action folds to us on the button with A2s. The small blind has 4bbs and is a decently winning reg. The BB has 14bbs as well and the only note we have on the BB is they limp/folded to a 9bbs shove bvb last orbit.
We:
A) Min-raise/call the shorty and fold to the BB. We have have an Ace blocker and Ace high is likely good vs the shorty. No reason to risk our stack vs the BB, and A2s plays well if we are flatted.
Min/call either player. A2s is a pretty strong hand, plus we have an ace blocker. This is a good time to gamble because if we double up now we can own the final table with a 30bbs stack. We also gain fear equity and discourage other players from playing back at us in future spots.C) Shoving is best. A2s is an unexploitable hand with these stack sizes and therefore an easy shove. We can't give the BB a chance to exploit our min raises by playing back at us with hands he would have folded to a shove.
D) Limp. No reason to bloat the pot with a weaker ace. Limp and try to see a cheap flop. We'll call the shorty if he jams, fold to the BB, stab at decent flops and fold to any aggression. Aggression is great in mid game but we need to learn how to change gears and be cautious on the final table bubble and other ICM spots.
E) Fold. We rarely hit a flush so we really only essentially have a ragged Ace. We need to play tight because of ICM from the final table bubble and if we fold here the sb will likely stack off with the BB with any two cards and we can usually get to the final table without risking a single chip.
Comments
This is good stuff, I just sat here and thought about all the scenarios. We are getting it in all day against SB but against the incompetent BB (limp folds 9bb shove wtf), we have to be on our toes.
Personally, I have to go with either C or E, leaning towards C tho, for sure.
I tried to make all the options somewhat viable.
People can vote without saying what they chose, but its nice to hear different players thoughts.
Of the other 2 I prefer c over a or b. E is almost never
Easiest shove in the world
BB is never calling wide enough to make this not +EV as fuck
ripping here, 100%
ja
I chose A) Min-raise/call the shorty and fold to the BB. Here's my reasoning why...
Fold? I think its pretty clear to everyone when we have +ev decisions on our plate its really hard to straight up pass them up by folding, but I put this one in because its important we always consider folding in ICM spots because it gives a chance for other players to bust each other. Although its not so ideal here, if we were really worried the BB was going to reshove us, and we didn't have a strong enough hand to shove, we might consider folding if the sb and bb are shoving/calling each other really wide...in that instance folding is going to show and actual $ profit, even though we don't ever pick up any chips.
Limp? The same goes for limping, I don't think this is quite the right spot, but we want to ask ourselves especially with short stack play, if a limp might be optimal. Like Actyper said, if we had even a little bit of a read that the BB might flat/fold to our reship, this might be a great spot to limp. Also if a tight multitabling reg is in the sb, he'll often fold to our limp all the same, and if the BB is tight passive, we might do this with certain part of our range. Here though we have no reason to assume a limp will work better than a raise.
Min call both players? This spot most recognize as not ideal either. In a chip ev spot (not near the money), verses agressive regs we can min/call and expect to be ahead enough to call of either player. Here, even if we were ahead enough to gain chips in the long run, we prefer a lower variace line on the final table bubble.
Shoving. Shoving is obviously +ev, but it might not be optimal. The BB limp folded an orbit before in a spot where regs almost always shove any two cards (occasionally they will take a weak and and go for a limp and go and fold to a shove), so we can start to assume they are playing tight/passive on the bubble. Another important point is we aren't sure villain won't call us off with alot of better aces, where any ace dominates ours. Its a travesty if the BB calls us with hand like a6o.
Min call the shorty/fold to the bb. I think this is optimal. Most of the time both players will fold and the blinds we pick up will allow us to pick up uncontested pots with min raise/fold situations. Sometimes the sb will shove and the BB will fold, we will often be ahead, and regardless we will be getting good odds with only a small portion of our stack. If the sb folds and the BB flats, we can often take down the pot with a very small (1/3ish) cbet, or we can often check back the flop and or the turn and see a cheap turn/river/showdown where ace high can often be good. If we min and sb jams and bb jams we can safetly fold and know we are dominated by AT+ and TT+ quite often. If we min/fold we are left with 12bbs and if we play with this strategy 12bbs will likely move use up two or 3 payspots with out even risking our stack.
I thought you had darb on ignore? And please don't... ty..
If our strategy is to shove it out through till the end, I might even recommend shoving in this spot because min raise/folding gives us a near crippled stack. But if our strategy involves exploring all five of these options, and we aren't afraid of min raise/folding (or even limping) 14, 12, 10, and occasionally even less then 10bbs stacks, we can see the value of conserving our tourney life (on the bubbles and pay jumps is the key).
Another key point is, if we pay attention to our image (and identify those that might react to our image) then plays like this will help us get paid with our monsters later on. Where as if we are always shoving and then we min raise with QQ+, even fish will catch on. Furthermore good regs (and there are some decent ones in the 2's) will note you for having a capped range, and they'll exploit you by calling lighter and folding some hands to your min raise that they would have called if you jammed. If we simple shove everything I think we are losing value with qq+ vs the vast majority of players who don't understand the types of hands that are in your shoving ranges (and if we got shoved on and call with monsters it give our min raise ranges credibility).
Lastly and something Awice pointed to in a post on 4, the ICM model assumes that all players are playing nash and the same as each other. In reality many people under value their stacks in ICM spots and risk their tournament lives more than they need to. This is a key mistakes that bad players and medium level regs make (see this hand
That being said, if we think we will get played back at a lot, we need to shove our suited aces because the fold equity the Ace blocker creates bring in a lot of $ev (ICM chips).