Should hero jam this hand short stacked, before the money, day 2 of an €1150 tournament?

Even if the villain is capped the two questions I'm asking is is this board texture favor a capped range and given the spr how much fold equity do you really have here. For me the key question really is what do his check signify? Is he trying to get The Showdown cheaply with a decent hand or is he giving up with hands that he would otherwise fold?

We’ve put in half our stack and our KTo has only a very slim chance of being the best hand so I guess we’re committed here.
I understand the rationale behind a river jam and it should get past a lot of villain’s AX KX QX hands that haven’t made a pair.

The problem here is that when we jam on the river for 5 bb's Villain is going to call with some Ax hands and even 77/55 might call. That is why rather than bet 42% effective stack on the turn, I would just jam. Villain probably doesn't have an overpair. I guess Villain would call with any diamond flush draw and if it is AXs we are only at like 16% to win (even if he has A2s/A6s/A9s). But I think Villain will fold a bunch of misses even with 2 overcards.

You're just so shallow so my default would probably be probe ~1-1.5ish, psb jam non ace rivers, followed by probe 1, bet 2 on river probably way worse live and get called way too much, followed by jam turn.

Yeah I basically agree with this line of thinking. I like betting smaller on the turn to maximize fold equity for the river jam. As played I might just give up river as you don't have that much fold equity and you still have a slight sliver of showdown value.

If you're going to probe turn small then continue betting river small as a bluff I prefer to do that with smaller cards that can get more better hands to fold. Hands like 35s, JT and QT benefit from potentially getting both A high and K high better hands to fold. Then you can also lead small with basically any pair + for value/ block bet also including some 2pair+ combos as well.

Yeah, good question. In my opinion the flop check back almost always indicates weakness. Most players are not protecting their check back range with overpairs etc, and for that reason I was 90% sure he was weak.

As far as fold equity is concerned - unless he's willing to call down with ace high, I think I have enough to make him fold the river.

Agreed, this was my reasoning too.

Sure, jamming the turn certainly has more fold equity. The question is - am I really doing this with value hands too? I'm sure I don't need to be totally balanced here, but it's still something to consider.

Yes, I should have used a smaller bet size on the turn, that's true.

I agree, betting smaller on the turn would have been better, in order to maximize fold equity when I jam blank rivers. I'm always going to use a larger size when I'm bluffing the river, as I polarize my range when I probe the turn.

**REVEAL**

That's a tough way to get eliminated. Your thinking in real time wasn't bad, but you got called down light, which always sucks when you're bluffing but it is what it is.

A couple thoughts...

1. At these higher stakes and with such short effective stacks your opponent could have some traps when they check flop. Like sets, aces and kings are all good candidates to trap. I think your read that they're capped is probably accurate in practice though. They might find the check with top set, but probably not with many if any other combos.

2. Villain's river call makes me wonder whether you are shoving for value appropriately wide? That's a mistake I see a lot of players make. They find the bluff combos but then they want to pot control with combos that can jam for value. So then they end up not having enough value combos that jam to balance the bluffs.

Anyway good run winning the seat and making it as far as you did! It sucks getting knocked out before the money but you'll have more opportunities.

Turn bet definitely too big, although maybe big enough that I might give up river if I got called on turn. If you bet 1/4 pot you have nearly a pot-sized river shove which would give you much more fold equity if he calls light once.

Anybody else not love the preflop call?

Nah, it's totally fine. At this depth you can profitably check-jam with a pair and even a lot of draws (probably even as light as Q9x / J9x), and you're certainly not always dominated pre.

Are you ever ahead preflop or in position?

It's a chip EV call preflop per a GTO chart. You're basically calling to try to outflop your opponent, as UTG's range is relatively strong. Like Nath said though, you can pretty much just get it in anytime you flop a decent amount of equity. If you're dominated you're so short-stacked that it's not really wrong to go broke.

You don't have to be getting 4.5:1 preflop, and you're short enough that you can profitably stack off with any pair and a lot of draws. (Maybe not AQx / AJx gutshot boards, but that's about it.)

I guess. Hero does have four full orbits left at this level if he folds.

Folding preflop would be bad. People used to think they had to push or fold short stack and fold hands like this or better, but that is a mistake.

by GreatWhiteFish m

by BullyEyelash m

Are you ever ahead preflop or in position?

It's a chip EV call preflop per a GTO chart. You're basically calling to try to outflop your opponent, as UTG's range is relatively strong. Like Nath said though, you can pretty much just get it in anytime you flop a decent amount of equity. If you're dominated you're so short-stacked that it's not really wrong to go broke.

Wondering if anyone can figure out why the solver has us flatting JJ here, but jamming KK and QQ, as well as 66-TT????

If I had to guess-- and to be clear, that's all this is-- it's two things:

One, JJ blocks AJo, the weakest pure-raise offsuit ace from UTG (ATo raises a lot but not 100% and might actually raise-fold to a jam). So if you jam JJ you're still getting called by AK/AQ and flipping; if you jam KK/QQ you're getting called by AJ and 70/30. (This would also explain why AJs is just a flat here.)

Two, maybe JJ is the point where you can flop an overpair and double through top pair with the bottom of UTG's range on T- or 9-high flops. That won't happen with the lower pairs.

Plus, with TT-66, there are just too many overcards and you're likely ahead pre, so just jam and hope for the best. (I mean, it's a big win if villain folds JTs when you have 66.)

It's a 10 bb chart so I think the result is skewed because it's assuming UTG is opening from a 10 bb stack, instead of a 30 bb stack. Opening off a 10 bb stack UTG's range is supposed to be polarized with all the medium-strength hands open jamming. JJ doesn't perform particularly well against the UTG calling range (vs BB jam) and JJ also blocks offsuit folds, but is in great shape vs the UTG weak opens that will fold to a jam. So the EV is likely marginally higher in that setup as a call.

All that's to say in practice just jam it.

UTG open off 10 BB stack:

UTG response to BB jam:

Vs.

UTG open off 30 bb stack: