WSOP Circuit event, JJ on the bubble
As a cashgame player I was struggling with this spot. I still have no idea what I should have done here, maybe the tournament players can shed some light on it. For all I know this could just be a super straightforward spot.
Live MTT, stone-cold bubble, we're playing hand-for-hand: 38 players left, 37 itm. Blind level 3000/6000, big blind ante 6000.
I'm in the big blind. I put in the ante and now have 72.000 left, so 12bb.
UTG big stack min-opens to 12.000, everyone folds, I have JJ. What to do?
Relevant information:
-Either the next hand or the one after that blinds are up, to 4000/8000. If I fold, I'm left with ~8bb.
-At the other tables I saw a couple of very short stacks. As it turned out, one or maybe even two players were short enough for mandatory all-ins from the big blind a few hands later. At the time however I wasn't aware of this. Only that there were shorter stacks than mine, but I thought they had about 4-5bb. At my own table, there were two other players with about the same stacksizes that I had.
-The UTG opener had a big stack, but I couldn’t tell if he was the kind of guy that wanted to open a lot of hands on the bubble. Until now, he had stayed quiet, because another big stack was opening most hands.
12 Replies
I would call and see a flop.
Perhaps I really under value sliding past the bubble with 10-12bb, but I'm 3bet jamming this without hesitation. I expect to get called by 66+, Ax, maybe even KJ+.
I think that I can ~never realize my equity by flatting pre and seeing a flop. Am I gonna lead on small card boards? Am I gonna x/f on flops with overcards? Am I gonna x/c off my stack by river? Unless I flop a set, I hate every postflop option at these stack depths.
The question depends on how many starting stack you have, because doubling up is worth more if you have more starting stacks.
Also depend on what is the mincash 1.5x or 2x?
If starting stack is 50k or less I jam. You are still very likely to take down the pot assuming he raise fold 50% of the time and you have 60% equity when called.
Even though you are risking your tournament life many things in this hand works in your favor:
As BB you get good chip odds for playing the hand.
If you jam you still have fold equity
There is no player behind you.
Your hand is very strong
On the bubble with JJ in the BB I just call the raise. We are at least set mining because we got a good price.
If an A/K/Q comes on the flop I probably don't even call the c-bet. If we don't flop a set and there is no card bigger than a J I probably just call the c-bet and see what happens on the turn.
Ultimately if there is a large turn bet I might fold because Villain can easily have QQ+. If we jam preflop we will have a 20% chance against those hands and roughly 54% against AK/AQ which will never fold to our jam. UTG opens typically won't include hands that would fold to our jam. And we are blocking AJ which likely would call. If Villain has TT or 99 they might very well call a preflop jam but 99 might be folded because we are on the bubble and would very unlikely be jamming with anything worse than JJ and certainly we might have QQ+. I likely would just be calling with AK/AQ here because I'd want to see the flop in case we are up against a PP.
It depends on how many buyins you have and how many buyins the mincash is. You should have FE, as the big stack could be stealing and your range appears very strong.
I would generally shove. However, calling has to be better than folding. I would probably check/shove over a cbet with an overpair. If he has a bigger pair or flopped a set or something, so be it.
Thanks everyone for the responses so far.
The starting stack was 30k, and the mincash was exactly two buy-ins. These WSOP circuit events have really weird pay-out structures: mincashes are decent, but there are basically no (meaningful) payjumps until you reach the top 15 or so. So in this tournament I think there were 37 players in the money and about half of them were mincashing.
I think I like a jam regardless of the bubble, because you have a big hand and still fold equity, and even against a standard opening range you're far ahead of so much. You don't want to flip, for sure, but QQ+ AQ+ is all you're really afraid of. And the nice thing about a hand like JJ is that you'll get KQ to fold but probably get called by TT-88.
Against a big stack who is abusing the bubble, it'll work not only because his opening range is wider, but he'll recognize the value of keeping you in so he can continue to abuse the bubble.
With the mincash worth about as much as your stack, IMO flat calling and looking for a good flop is best.
12bb with JJ into a single UTG opener on the bubble, I'm shoving close to 100% of the time. The math on folding to 8bb and hoping shorter stacks bust before you is almost always a mistake because you're not guaranteed to cash even if you survive one more level. I've done exactly that at 9bb on a bubble, folded into the money, and min-cashed for less than two buy-ins. Shoving JJ and losing is a cooler, but folding it there is an ICM leak you'll regret when you're grinding that 7-8bb stack into oblivion.
If UTG was table chip leader and acting like it, I like a shove. If he was 2nd or 3rd in chips his open would seem stronger, I would call and evaluate flop/turn action.
If he was 2nd or 3rd in chips his open would seem stronger, I would call and evaluate flop/turn action.
Calling is basically the worst option here regardless of villain's stack. You put in half your stack and now you're navigating the flop with 6bb behind and no fold equity. Shove-or-fold is the framework at 12bb, not call-and-evaluate. If you think his range is strong enough that shoving is wrong, the answer is fold, not call.
Calling is basically the worst option here regardless of villain's stack. You put in half your stack and now you're navigating the flop with 6bb behind and no fold equity. Shove-or-fold is the framework at 12bb, not call-and-evaluate. If you think his range is strong enough that shoving is wrong, the answer is fold, not call.
Calling a minraise at 12bb is not putting half of your stack in.
