My last hand at LAPC, Commerce

I would fold pre with 68s and 22 bbs eff vs an open when not on BB precisely. Even 78s is iffy. This hand does not play very well short stacked. Pairs and high cards are much better.

As played, I'm not sure how many bbs you have after the call (see below). But I'll assume you have around 20. I don't mind the shove as an ICM move as BB should not be calling most hands on this board after the check. Also, could see a pot control move (probably what I'd do if I called pf) with a small bet flop, check turn/bet turn depending on card that came.

Also, not sure about sizing as you say BB was at 50k, and you had 22 bbs, and EP raised to 125k, which is more than BB's stack, apparently. We need to know what the blinds were in chip values since you are flipping between describing bets and stacks in bb and chip value.

easy fold pre, not really close.

87s is probably the worst hand that defends here. Solver mostly calls 25bb deep and sometimes calls 20bb deep.

As played there is 7.5bb in the pot and about 19.5bb behind. Your opponent's cbet frequency is going to determine whether not jamming prints or punts here.

Villain is supposed to check over half his range on the flop, which would therefore make your jam a total punt. Solver doesn't have 86s in its range obv, but 98ss prefers a small bet when checked too and loses significant EV with big bets. Villain should still have a lot of overpairs and strong top pairs after checking flop, as villain did.

If villain is not very studied and plays fairly face up with cbets, then a jam probably prints vs a mostly Ahi and worse range.

If my math is right the pot was around 7.5 BB and you shoved 20 BB, so it was an almost 3X pot shove?

I can't imagine you ever doing that with a very strong value hand like a set. If I was your opponent I would conclude it is almost always a strong draw of some sort. With such a strong draw it's likely "fine," but I would prefer you play your hand more like you would play your strong made hands.

I would likely bet either 1/3 pot or 2/3 pot. That's what I would be doing with the rest of my range, likely splitting into 2 sizes on the flop. The smaller size is more of a merged range with lots of medium strength made hands that benefit from protection against random over cards and hands with decent equity like JQ that benefit by betting but can fold to a raise, also along with some draws and made hands that can call a raise. My 2/3 size is more polarized with strong made hands and draws as well as some weaker bluffs to balance. I likely don't call your hand on the button but if I did it could fit into either range.

I think the main takeaway is that you want to play your draws the same way as your made hands.

Disclaimer: ICM is definitely a factor here and I'm not as well studied regarding postflop ICM play (few are). I mainly see people plug ICM preflop raises into something like PIO, but that's still not totally accounting for post flop ICM effects. I think you typically want to either bet small more often or go very large to apply max pressure, so your play might actually fit into a theoretically-sound ICM strategy. I think my main point is still valid though that you want to use a similar size for your draws and made hands.

Anyway I wouldn't beat yourself up over the shove. It couldn't be too bad in that particular spot.

Edit: Didn't see ledn's post until after I posted, but I was also assuming that in a $600 live tournament most opponents probably don't protect their checking range as well as they should. But even if they do you have a lot of equity with a flush draw and gutshot. I play a lot of those types of live tournaments and I would think your play should be profitable against overall population tendencies. Might still not be the most profitable way to play your hand though.

This is a fold pre for sure. Your stack isn't big enough to call with hands like this, and we're getting late enough in the tournament that you don't want to be splashing around speculatively with your chips.

I wouldn't be flat calling that much preflop with 22xBB. You can shove, 3!/gii, or 3!/fold. This hand is way to weak to call with.

Shove on flop kind of looks like what it is. Not sure if checking or betting normally is better though.

I agree with above comments about calling with 86s an 22 bb's. I will call with 86s on the BTN vs minraise but I have to have at least 27 bb's. It also matters whether SB and BB are 3 bet raising pre-flop a lot especially with one caller. Also with a BB having 10 bb's I probably don't call much because it is a spot where BB jams and I have to fold (again it matters if BB has been waiting a lot to jam with their short stack).

jamming 20 bb's on the flop to win 7.5 bb's doesn't make sense to me. We have a decent chance of getting a fold vs hands that missed the flop if we bet like 4 bb's. And if we get called we can check back the turn and get a free card. This type of jam looks like a semi bluff because why would you do it with a set or 2 pair? With a single pair it might make sense if you had fewer chips and were OOP but here I would basically always make a half pot type bet so my bet sizing would be no different than a strong hand. But given our stack size I probably check back and am grateful for the free card.

I do think your read that Villain missed could be right a lot of the time because who raises in EP and HU doesn't cbet on a flop like this with top pair or an overpair? I have a feeling that Villain was going to c/r jam if you had made a bet...

Agreed with this and other sentiments.

I do think that while 'shove looks like what it is', there isn't much Villain can do about it...

He will fold out unpaired overcards. He will have a shrug call with overpairs. He will be put in a tough spot with his Tx.

The shove is +ev, and certainly plus ev for chips. Since it is an ICM spot in a tournament, you'd likely do better just betting 1/3, hope to get a free turn card, and realize your equity. Notice however this puts Villain in a tough spot with his hand too. This is another case of mutually assured destruction. While the effect isn't large, the rest of the field benefits when your 2 stacks clash, and will eliminate one player (or close to it), and double the other.

This was my reasoning as well. I do think I made a mistake preflop. And I could see the case for making a smaller c-bet on the flop. The reason I didn't was that if he check-raised me, I still would have shoved all-in as I had the same # of outs and equity %. If he flat called on flop and then bet on the turn, I would have had to fold (not shoving with just one card left to see).

Basically, the scenarios were:

1) Shove, get called, ~45% equity to double up with just 36 players remaining, get a big stack and hence increase my chances of making the final table
2) Shove, he folds, still increase my chip stack by ~35%
3) Check back on flop, he bets turn, I fold
4) Bet smaller on flop, he raises, I shove (and then same equity % as scenario 1)
5) Bet smaller on flop, he calls, he bets turn, I fold

Given that villain had top pair with a strong kicker, unlikely he checks the turn but even if he did, he's definitely betting the river, and having missed my draws, no way I can call. And I would have lost a decent portion of my stack to chase a draw. That's overall negative EV move.

The preflop call is a significant mistake this late in the tournament.

I didn't have an ICM solver that could put out ranges with 3% of the field left, but even at significantly earlier stages in the tournament, we really don't want to have many flats at all vs. an EP raise off this stack. We want to three-bet/call our best hands, three-bet fold a few blocker hands like lower suited Ax/Kx, 3-bet shove some of our best blocker hands (AKo/AQo) and some suited Broadway hands (like KQs-KTs or QJs,) and medium pairs sometimes-- depending on opener's position and how we perceive their range. What few flats we have tend to be right on that "too good to fold, not happy to shove or 3-bet/call" line-- at 20BB vs UTG/8 with ICM25, AJs is our only pure flat; we flat some ATs, KQs, and very rarely 77-99. Vs. UTG/7, we even turn a lot of those into shoves (or folds with 77-88).

We don't have the chip stack for a speculative hand like this to be a profitable call at any point, and especially so this late in the tournament. We have no medium suited connectors in our range, let alone suited one-gappers. In general at this stage of the tournament, we want to have big cards to get involved for both blockers and hitting top pair (and the big suited connected hands also have straight and flush outs) and we don't want to be calling off very valuable chips. In general at this stack depth, our plan postflop is going to be "Hit top pair and go with it," and you're not hitting top pair with 86s.

1) I think you are overestimating your overall equity when called. Villain should also still have a lot of dominating flush draws in his range.

2) This is definitely the best case scenario

3) Why do you have to fold to a turn bet in position with a fd + gs? Half pot or less and you have near direct pot odds. Villain would have to overbet to justify folding turn.

4) Why do you have to shove if he raises? If you think theres no fold equity then you can peel and see what he does on the turn. Calling flop raise and folding turn isnt some disaster.

5) Again, why would you have to fold to a turn bet unless it was large. Yes if villain check/calls a small bet and then donk shoves 1.5xpot on the turn, then you just have to sigh fold

What about 6? You bet 1/3, Villain calls, turn checks through? Check/call lead is both rarely used in practice, and seldom right in theory.

You are taking that Villain had top pair as a given. He might (should) check call with some other hands (if he needs to make a pair to call 1/3, then betting that size on the flop is absolutely PRINTING).

One other good thing about the 1/3 option. Given the above, when he does call, not only do you have your s/f outs, making a pair might be good as well.

BTW, I think that if this scenario had come up with you as the BB (where defending is clearly correct) your hand probably does a fair amount of check shoving.

The big difference in this new scenario and the actual one is that you had position, and basically killed the value of that position by making it a one street game.

You're basing your analysis on villain's actual hand and the actual runout, which is bad. You ignore scenarios such as he check calls a smaller bet and then you turn your straight or flush. Or you check back flop, turn is As and you double through his AK. Etc.

fold pre

I don’t know if i fold pre but you did not even seem to consider that villian could have 10s-Xs and flopped a monster of top pair with a dominating flush draw.