$400 FW Bubble Boy Hand

If you were jamming to fold everyone out, I think you should have waited, or even disregarded that option, given you misread the board. In my experience, players tend to not fold that street once they put money in, have you outchipped and possibly a better hand. I think I would have waited to see what comes on turn. I may have open jammed if I did not misread board.

I think just fold pre, the factor of it being last hand before break is negated by the button's play style and chip stack. Too many people to get through, and one of them covers you by a lot, has the button, and is looking to play hands. When you raise pre in an ICM-heavy spot you want to take it down pre, and you don't even have any blockers.

On the flop, I think you should be way more worried about the small blind's holding than you are. On the bubble, called a raise off 15BB, called a flop bet... they started the hand with 180k and they've put in 72k of it. On the bubble. That should be a huge red flag unless they're just a total donk not paying attention to anything about the situation. A set is a great hand to flat here. There are a lot of straight draws, but with two people behind you before the flop action closes, you can also get a ton of money in the pot with a nutted hand by flatting.

BB might have a draw but you can't be sure. His PF range could be very wide.

I think your play discounts everything you need to not be true about their ranges for it to work. Button HAS to be just stealing here (significantly likely) and SB's call HAS to be one pair or a draw (not confident at all that that's the case) and also BB HAS to not have a stronger hand (not very clear given their wide preflop range).

Checking flop is fine even reading it correctly-- you are 4 ways. If button bets and both blinds fold, jamming is fine then. Button betting and both blinds calling... I'm just not messing with it anymore on the stone bubble. I probably just fold and hope one of the other two players busts the small blind.

Im folding this pre from early position generally.

You are right about the break so thats a good spot to loosen up but having an aggro btn who covers you probably makes you want to tighten up more. So at best those two factors cancel out for me.

On the flop, call > fold > jam. I dont expect the btn to keep blasting with air into 3 players, one who has committed half his stack so if you are ahead I think you are getting to showdown easily.

I might fold this pre in a heavy icm spot utg. If im raising- I still think making it 24k >27k. I see no point of raising more than a min when stacks are very shallow: especially when we have 22-23bb.

Hmm not a fan of the jam. Idk we easily can run into better 9x here and punt our stack. I don’t think we want to give them the easy ability to play perfect by jamming bc they almost never call with worse.

I almost kinda like the raise though bc I feel people tighten up a lot around the stone bubble and the fact there is a break- people tend to play even more ABC around that last hand it seems. I don’t see point of jamming here. We get called by 2 pair a lot from blinds or sets. Button might have A9 or K9 which we lose to or other Q9 J9. I might just lol fold this spot bc it’s not worth battling over pre itm. If you wanna go high variance and don’t mind cashing your line is ok. (Like you said you have a drive) but you also could just open jam even though it’s bad and pick up 2.5 bb sometimes.

When jkpoker talks about apply the brakes not the gas you nay be playing a tad aggressive.

I thought about giving up on the hand because just calling was not going to work. Whatever the next card was was likely going to help one of the other players. As it turned out I had 0% chance of winning if I called on the flop.

I was OK with getting knocked out by the BTN or BB because of my car thing. But also because I believed neither of them had a decent hand and they were likely to fold. If I was trailing the BB then I think he would have c/r jammed. The BTN sizing made me think he was doing what I do on the hand before the break. Just trying to steal it when everybody else was likely to fold especially me because I had checked.

What happened was funny though. I jammed instantly when it was my turn to bet. So it looked strong. BTN folded right away without a thought. SB tanked. Then he started talking out loud. Saying "I know you have an overpair" and I tried to act like he had hit the nail right on the head. I'm guessing he had A9 or possibly K9s. He ended up folding because he did not want to get knocked out before the money. BB folded showing me 87o which means I was basically drawing dead if I called on the flop. I did not show my hand...

In the end I made it into the money and finished 15th. I opened QQ EP and BTN guy went all in with A9o. At that point he had a shorter stack than me because I did gain about 220,000 chips on the T9s hand. I called with QQ of course and he hit an A on the flop. So I was short stacked and lost to AA with J8s. I did get home at like 2am and was lucky to make it there. My car had 17 miles left in the battery when I finally got to a fast charging station in a highway service area...

I think it's fine even without the dynamics of break. Why did you title it bubble boy? Was it the bubble?

^^^ True gambol of the evening [emoji851]

I hit 0 miles once. ICE so it was probably fumes in the tank that kept me going.

Yes, he says in the first sentence it's the first hand of the bubble.

For one, basing your play on what your opponents had (or you think they had) after the fact is no bueno. I also don't understand how you are "drawing dead" vs 87o who has 7 outs against you. SB sounds like an absolute moron flatting half his stack off on the bubble then folding (not to mention discussing hands multiway on the bubble) so giving him exactly A9 or K9 seems crazy and if he folds flop, he could just as easily fold to a turn jam if you elect to do it.

Agree with nath and ledn's posts, fold pre, ck/call flop seems good, ck/fold is also totally fine.

fold pre.

playing as a mid stack on the bubble is a folding war. the +$EV of folding outweighs the +chEV of risking your stack to gain chips. this applies especially to marginal situations like T9s from EP where you will basically be forced to play the hand very aggressively post flop to maximize your EV since the hand doesnt really make Thin SDV hands very often so its incentivized to play big pots and bluff (or protect its equity like in the actual hand).

The only time I would want to get LAG is when it folds to me in late position and the only remaining stacks have less chips than me.

I did not base my play on what I thought my opponents had after the fact. I based my play on what I had and what I realized the flop actually had (a 9 and not an 8). I also based my play on what my opponents did prior to my flop jam. SB did not c/r. BB did not c/r. BTN bet close to 40% pot.

It turned out I am drawing dead against SB and BB combined if I just call the flop. If I hit my 2nd pair that is a straight for BB. If I hit trips I lose to SB as I am trailing SB at this point (unless he had 98 or something worse which is very unlikely). Of course I don't know this when it is my turn to act (if I had I might have folded).

As for giving SB A9 or K9s I didn't until after I had jammed. His tanking and talking about being certain that I had an overpair (which technically he shouldn't have done while the BB was still in the hand) was what led me to believe that. If I had known SB had a better 9x hand than me I might have folded to BTN's bet. But given my previous jams at the table that were overpairs or better I did have an image that ultimately caused SB to fold. So in part I jammed immediately when it was my turn to act to give everyone the sense that I had a monster. In part I jammed because I thought I might actually be ahead.

As far as calling the flop bet and then jamming the turn I doubt I would have done that and possibly I wouldn't have been able to. There are no cards that could come that wouldn't pair the board or be higher than the board or complete a straight. So I didn't want to see a turn...

You're guessing what SB had, he easily could have 76s, 77, 88, a hand like that, rather than K9 or A9, which would make his play make a BIT more sense, as a shorty is probably folding A9 and esp K9 but sometimes will call a pair or suited connector to try to smash a flop. And I was referring to comments like "the turn was likely to help someone else" and "you were 0% to win if you called", which I just don't think are likely to be true.

I probably overstated it somewhat, and apologize for that.

What you are saying is possibly correct about SB's holding but I ended up thinking he was tanking for so long and saying the overpair thing because he had a big 9 (like A9/K9s). You could be right because with 88/77 he would not think I had a 9x type hand (except for maybe A9s) so me having an overpair was what he was most afraid of. Also, I think you are right that he would call pre-flop with 88/77/76s/98s/65s type hands more than 9Xo type hands. But he could have had A9s/K9s/Q9s/J9s type hands as well which would call my 2.2x pre-flop raise in the SB after the BTN called. And BB was an OMC like me playing very passive.

So maybe I am wrong about basically drawing dead if I called the flop. But even if I was ahead there are no turn cards except a 9 or T that would make me feel comfortable about what to do next.