2 Hands from WSOP Bracelet events to discuss

Hand 1 I'd either fold or ship. Probably lean towards a fold. Maybe go with 88+ AQ+ and throw in an occasional AJo or A5s.

Hand 2 I'd just open jam.

Hand 1 I’m 4b jamming if I think V has any 3b folds, otherwise I dont need to flip/be crushed right now.

Hand 2 is V the BB? You’re likely getting called, so you’re likely flipping unless Ace wheel, feel like 20bb probably a better spot is going to come up, is day 2 ITM?

Hand 1. What is Vs chip stack? What is average?

Hand 2. Where is V and what was his preflop action?

Hand #1 -- you have 1.1 million at 50K BB level, so 20BB. Villain as described is pretty tight so 3! seems strong from button vs. 77. I'm folding and looking for a better spot rather than calling and set mining out of position for 5 more of my remaining 18BB. Rather shove than call, but flipping is best case scenario, and I don't love that scenario there.

Hand #2 -- Hero has 395K at 20K BB level, so, again about 20BB. As described, you can expect villain in BB to call if you shove, and w/ 55 you'll be in the same flipping-at-best situation, but less likely to be dominated by a higher pair. Slightly better spot to shove, but at 20BB I'm probably min-raising there and hoping that neither of the blinds 3-bet me, with the plan to call a 3-bet shove by villain and taking my chances.

You can expect villain in BB to call a 20bb shove wide because he picked off short stacks? Honestly, I really think this is just a standard shove spot.

Thanks for the advice guys.

I played really well but was unhappy with the way I played these 2 hands and i really wanted to get 2 + 2 opinions.

Hand 1 - I called - thought i was getting a good enough price to set mine/see a flop and re-evaluate.

Flop came AQ8, i checked, he bet 300k and i folded. I could have easily saved 200k there if i folded pre.

Hand 2 - I 2.5X raised to 50k, my thought process was that my hand was too valuable to just jam - not to be results oriented - but i should have jammed.

Flop came 932r, he checked, i jammed and he snap called with 92. (he was BB if i didn't make that clear at first).

Hand 1 is fine. Folding is a little nitty but not much EV difference between flatting and jamming.

Hand 2. With 20bb 2.5x is a little too much. Minr is plenty or jam to avoid postflop. Solver thinks 55 is too strong to just rip in, does it with 22-44 though.

Its the flop I think got misplayed. You have 17.5bb and the pot is 6.5bb. Unless you think villain will call with any 2x or 3x you are letting villain call with better and fold worse. You have plenty of stack left to make this a 3 street hand and get value from worse pairs and air still folds to 2bb. This a common live rec leak I see, esp later in tournaments.

On hand 2, you fell into a strange cognitive trap...(I know it, because I did the same thing recently).

You were considering jam preflop, which was fine. Now, when you don't jam, you should get that out of your hand. 932r is not a flop you ever want to jam 3x pot with anything in your range.

Once you are past preflop, and much more is known about the hands, most jams go away. (I can see open jamming 55 on low connected boards that give you a straight draw).

Hand 1- I lean fold as described bc we flip at best. I feel the lower pps would be in if the villian ripped pre but a 3! Is kinda strong here and a value 3! Where they want a call it seems. I think pre- you should fold or jam the 22ish bbs. It’s a profitable Nash shove so you can take it- we want to see 5 cards if we jam this hand and don’t want to open and then fold on a shallow stack. I would be more fine if at a passive table where you have very little 3!- aka if most likely scenario is all folds or bb defend- I wanna play against the bb defend all day in position: just going to play a super straightforward strat- cbet small like 1/5 to 1/3 pot on boards that favor us with high cards or one high card like a K37 or A28 etc. people over fold bb spots here even to small cbets- just make sure your cbet gets super small as we are shorter.

Hand 2- I would just open rip button. Sure sometimes they pick up a hand and we lose but let’s maximize fold equity- some people in live game will fold in spots they are supposed to call to a bb jam. They might call a min open but fold to a shove.

With the small pps, we really want to max out fold equity. To balance we should throw in some strong hands like maybe AQ, KQ, KJ etc so we aren’t always just jamming the small pps. In spots like this, I’m always min opening AA/ KK/ QQ to induce as an exploit.

Hand 1 is probably a fold but you need some live read info on stuff like this - you're sitting there playing for hours with these guys - how would we know what their range is? You should have more info then us to figure things out. Hand 2 is an easy jam.

Thank you all again for the very helpful insights.

@3for3 - i hate to agree with you, but i have to. I clearly fell into that cognitive trap of "jeez, do i get it in pre.. and when what i see a (safe) board just jam"

even though i am an older person, my huge tournament experience is limited, escp. running this late.

you and @led are correct, the true error is after the flop.