9d9h good call?

You didn't mention whether you were in the money or how many players were left vs how many got paid? That's what's so powerful about HRC. It will calculate how the strategy should change based on where you are at in the tournament. For example you should play much tighter on the money bubble or facing big money jumps on the final table compared to how you would play at the start of the tournament.

The payout implications will also effect whether it is better to call or shove, such as in your example with 99.

You could call, then fold to a SB shove.

You could call, then call if SB shoves.

Or you could shove yourself, and make SB call for your full stack if they want to continue.

These 3 options are all somewhat reasonable but what's best will depend on factors like how many players remain and how many get paid.

You're absolutely right. I'll add those parameters for the next hand.

But I remember there were 112 players left, and 47 were in the money. I was far from the bubble.
The tournament BB levels are 8 minutes with a antes of 12.5%.
With these parameters I gave you, could you tell me if the call was the best move?

Call seems fine. Shoves usually are more profitable than calls because they win the blinds without showdown a significant % of the time.

I think off 15 BB, we're not getting all of those hands shoved-- some of them will be raise/folds and some of them will be raise/calls. The value hands will be the big pairs, though, which is good for you.

What are the stakes? That would give us a good estimate about how close to optimally we can assume a random player to be playing.

Hello Nath
Micro-Stakes
$1 and $2 dollars only. 😃

I want to become a professional player, working my way up to the very low levels. In the past, I played from $5.50 to $215, but I never studied the game; I only watched videos and a basic MTT course. I quickly ran out of money and had no control over the game. Now I'm reading books about mental poker and studying a lot of strategy, math, and using analysis tools. I also post hands on forums and Discord groups. hahaha 😃

I think at micros a call is fine because players probably are less likely to have raise/fold bluffs. But they're still probably not open jamming QQ-AA. Maybe JJ-TT, but just as likely 88-66. And then some players will really go for it and jam any pair here, or hands like A8o / A2s-A5s, some of which might be better as raise/folds.

The guidelines I have seen when deciding whether to fold/call/jam facing a jam is something like this

1. Is it profitable to call? Here that is yes.
2. Is the call for more than 1/3 of the effective stacks? Here the answer is no
2a. If if it less than 1/3 of of the effective stack, one strategy is to call with your entire continuing range. This allows you to call a little wider (think hands like AJ, 77) without committing your stack. You then fold those hands to the reshove. You also have all the premiums, so that you can call a reshove.

Whether this hand is a good call off if the SB reshoves is player dependent. I'd say it probably isn't in most fields, but you will get players who think they can get it heads up with some pretty weak hands with a reshove; against them we call/call. This is why it is good to flat your entire continuing range. You get your money in great when they get out of line.

One other step (before 1!) is what was the size of the shove? If it was very small, ie <3 BBs, you would play a more normal strategy of raise or fold; You can treat these micro shoves as 'dead money' when you have a playable hand, go ahead and raise...