Spew or good play? Late stages of WSOP Tournament of Champions
Earned an entry into this free roll by winning a Circuit ring. All WSOP bracelet winners and Ring winners from the 2023-2024 season were invited to the Commerce in LA for this $1M free roll (at our own expense). There were approximately 1,200 who qualified and just under 600 made it. Top 100 get paid with $200K up top.
25 left and I have $210K at $15/$25/$25. I'm on button and guy to my left (in SB on this hand) is looking at his cards early and I can pretty much tell if he is interested in playing or not. In this hand I can tell he is going to fold/isn't interested. BB I have played with at a prior table (we redrew at 27) and he is a recreational player who plays fairly tight. Barely has me covered and don't see him calling a shove without a top 10 hand.
See the SB look and show he will fold so pretty much decide I will jam if it gets to me. All fold and I look down at Q2 off suit and go with the plan and jam. SB snap folds but BB looks and starts getting a pained look and takes several minutes before finally saying I have to call and turns over 1010. Clean run out and I am out 25th.
Thoughts on the play?
5 Replies
You were correct about SB being ready to fold, so it comes down to how often BB with the same 8BB stack as you will call your jam. With stacks so short, you cannot afford to bet 2BB on the button and then fold to a raise, so a jam seems like a good play with any two cards. I think BB here with 8BB will be calling much wider than you think with 25 left assuming there are plenty of bigger stacks at the table, which seems likely given your description. Against a button short-stack shove, I'm likely calling with JTs+ and 55+ I would figure that the button would be shoving very wide there and since I have a short stack and need to double up, I'll take my chances against such a wide range. 10-10 is a 100% call.
Yikes he took minutes to call a button shove of 8bb- yikes. Live poker is still juicy haha. Hmm I would treat this as a sb vs bb shove spot if you know 100% sb is folding.
Q2o is a profitable shove if sb folds 100%. Not sure I would trust that tell tho bc people can angle in spots like this to look weak when strong but not sure many people are doing that. Might fold as we can’t guarantee a sb fold.
Bad shove per Nash from button but if we know for a lock sb folds- it’s extra juicy with that extra half blind in. Idk fact bb didn’t snap 10-10, I think he’s folding super wide and prolly folding a lot of hands that crush you so may even be a better shove. I’m iffy on the play. I like it in theory but not sure it’s great?
Probably ok as an exploit against players who are going to wildly overfold, but nowhere near theoretically correct. Not even sure Q2s is a good jam there.
I just think we're going to find better spots where we have Kx or Ax, which have better blockers, or pairs. And with your stack, it might be better to try to find the better spot while hoping to squeeze out a payjump.
Fist pump jam given that TT was the bottom of his calling range, and knowledge of the SB…
I probably jam in this spot based on the reads.
Problem is if BB is not really calling tight. Against most people with 8 bb's we will get called by any Ax, any 2 broadways cards and basically any PP. Sometimes SC's will call. Some of the time KXs will call. But here the read seemed to be on target. Just got unlucky.
