Bubble stage - AQ vs 33 - BB vs SB
Hi,
I was in a live satellite tournament. Buy in 150 USD. There are 74 players and the top 7 will get a ticket to a 1,350 USD tournament.
There were 15 ppl left. I had 12,500 chips. Average is 18,000. Blind is 1000.
I was BB. Everyone folded. The small blind min raise. He had like 40K of chips.
I had AQ suited spade. I pushed all-in pre-flop. He was acting for a while and called me with 33. His pair stood.
What do you think about my all-in? Especially when I was so closed to the top 7.
My logic at that point is:
- It is hard to get a good hand as AQ suited in this late. I need to play, especially when he just min-raised.
- With my push, he may fold if he raised with a suited connected.
- With my push, if he called and had an A or K high, I was ahead
- With my push, if he had a small pair, it would be a coin-flip
- I was definitely not thinking if he had anything higher than 55.
Comments
You could have run the stop and go play. In the BB short stacked facing a min-raise you should reflexively run that play through your thought processes. Call the min-raise and then shove post-flop. Flops miss most hands so after it misses or hits his hand weakly, it puts him in a tough spot.
If you have a hand you want to go with anyway, this has a better chance of getting the fold you want and also gives you a safety valve.
At 12.5BB, a sub-average stack and still a good way to go before the bubble, I have zero problem with this shove. If there were antes in play at the time, I like it more - you didn't mention but it seems like late enough in the tournament for them to be present. Without antes, you'd be looking to scoop up 3BB with a fold and increase your stack by nearly 25%. This is a good result. If antes were in play, you were looking at 4BB dead money and a chance to increase by 33%. If called you are likely ahead and at worst flipping.
IMO, you were in the danger zone with a premium hand vs an opening range that should have been very wide. Stealing and re-stealing at this stage is vital for success. Your shove maximized your fold equity with a hand near the top of your shoving range. Therefore it was a hand that would have strong equity even if called. That's a win-win scenario to me at a time when you need every BB you can beg steal or borrow to make the bubble so I like your play, despite the results.
hi. thanks a lot for the comment.
This week is my problem AQ week. I was in 2 other online tournaments at late stage (25 ppl left from 642 players). Chance to win big and I had similar situation.
For once, I decided to call the min raise. And push on the flop as the flop came all small - 957. The opponent hit 2 pairs. He checked-called on the flop in SB position.
And the 2nd time, I decided to push pre-flop. And guess what - it is a really big joke. I was against 33 again in same situation. And 33 stood again
You're playing good and running bad. It'll turn around for you. Keep it up.
Tournament poker - its cruel. Can't be results oriented though. You just have to continue to play well, knowing that when you do win these flips, you put yourself in position to run deep. Much better than playing passively and allowing yourself to be blinded out waiting for the nuts. I think we have all had spells like the one you are experiencing now. Fortunately, we also get the runs where we are winning more than our share of flips, so long as we are giving ourselves the chances.
I'll go so far as to say I dont like Villain call at all here. There are less ICM needs to accumulate more chips than necessary as 7th is as good as first. So with 15 left and villain probably sitting on twice average at $40k (maybe a top 3 right now), why would he ever take a flip? I think Villain makes a mistake here and gets lucky.
As the BB, I probably even shove here with 20% of hands. I would not hesitate with AQ because I am expecting more fold equity than normal due to the above.
Agree completely.