Close spot (?) late in Live! tournament

I think you just gotta call and decide on the river. You can deny equity to flush draws if you shove but you can also get snapped off drawing to four outs if he has Tx (and would you normally shove Tx here?). Flop is fine; this hand has too much equity to bet/fold but also hates bet/calling.

I'm of mixed feelings on the preflop call. In general, I don't mind speculating in position with hands that flop well when you think you have a skill edge over your opponents. However, a 2.66x PF raise means you're calling over 10% of your stack to speculate, and I think that's too much. Plus, it seems like you're trying to outplay the best opponent at your table from your description of the table; I'd rather try this against a softer and more passive opponent. If you think he's opening too wide, then you can bluff 3-bet-- generally preferable to take down the pots preflop at this stage of the tournament.

Last question: You said villain is below average but you didn't say what his stack was. If he's a good player, I feel like his raise size off a below-average stack would indicate a tighter and stronger range than the typical GTO. (Maybe he raises this size all the time, but under 30BB at this stage of the tournament I wouldn't raise more than the minimum. So if he knows that and is raising bigger here anyway, then that would also make me want to fold preflop instead.)

Agree with check on flop. No reason to encourage a big pot with middle pair. On turn just call. Most likely, aggressive player would have bet flop with a 10 as a semi-bluff (maybe not Q10 or J10). Also, based on your description, he would have bet strongly on the flop with a set because of the draw heavy board. You have most other hands crushed. There is a good chance that he is bluffing/has a pair but V is a worried as you are about the straight. Shoving is also an option, but, if you think you are ahead, there is more value on the river as a bluff catcher and V is just as likely to call a big bet on the river. Personally, I plan to check behind on river as QJ is certainly also in his range, but there may be value if V has a pair. If V bets river, I probably make an uncomfortable call as I think I am ahead but that may depend on your read.

I know you said don't say fold pre. I don't think this hand is strong enough to call with. I would say this is 3! or fold pre. I don't mind a 3!/fold against a loose opener with a hand like this which makes draws.

I also don't think you have to accumulate chips. If you get short, you can open shove or shove over a raise or limps.

I agree you have to flat call the turn.

Yes, I didn't touch on this but I think it reveals a mindset leak. Back in the day we'd make fun of OMC types prioritizing their "tournament life," but they did it to an absurd degree, passing clearly profitable situations, letting themselves get too short, and not leveraging fold equity.

Tournament life is valuable, especially at the ICM peaks of the tournament, and you can get by longer than you think. You aren't in a position where you have to make a move - and plays like flatting here will more often than not bleed off the chips you could use for fold equity in a shove spot or double up when you get an actually good hand.

I never worry about getting to a specific stack size anymore. I simply try to make the best, most profitable decision every time I have a decision.

Thanks for the comments. The three-bet/fold flop option did not occur to me in real time with those cards, but something to think about.

As played, I did not want to call the turn and reconsider on the river. If villain was on a draw and missed, he might still bet the river and I'd be in the same spot again. A spade on the river would make it an easy fold, but I did not want to let him get there if he was on a draw, and he might bluff at it on a spade river. The combos I was losing to came down to ATs and KTs and TT, so 14 combos. No other combos with a Ten that he would have opened from early position with and then checked the flop. Meanwhile, he had all the AK combos and AJ and KJ along with all the Ax of spades that turned equity for a flush draw.

I decided to shove, which was for 85% of his stack.

He snapped me off with KTss. I still had 4 outs but missed. The river (as it turned out) was 5d, so a total brick that would not have changed anything if I had called the turn.

Appreciate the thoughts.

Making a move like that to avoid making a tough decision later, a move where you fold all the bluffs and get called by all the hands that crush you, is usually a mistake.

Yes. You're absolutely right.

Fold pre.

Flop bet is fine, though our hand doesn't need much protection and Hero rates to be ahead.

Call turn is standard though I think it could easily be better to overfold for ICM reasons rather than have to bluff-catch on some rivers.

Pre: If you're going to call it's better to call against fish than good, aggressive player.

Flop: Check is good.

Turn: You've just got to call. This was your biggest mistake. You should call every time with a straight too to protect your calling range and give him a chance to bluff off into you.

The problem for me with calling preflop with J9s is that we have <=25 bb's. So like was said above I don't like calling preflop in this spot.

Given that Villain is aggressive (which I assume means he opens wide) I would 3-bet jam here preflop. I do this because my normal 3-bet sizing which is 3x would be 24,000 here which is over 30% effective stack. My guess is that Villain folds most of the time. I do this because Villain is in MP. If Villain was UTG or UTG+1 I would likely fold here preflop unless I saw that he was raising wide in EP too. If Villain had raised to 6,000 I likely would have 3 bet to 18,000 and bet the flop and then lost everything on that turn which I would likely have jammed (but even if I checked back I would have a tough river spot if he jammed which would be somewhat polarizing).

The other problem for me is that a MP open can be ATo/KTo/QTo/JTo as well as TT and some other TXs hands. And yes they would have checked the flop with ATo/KTo if they were checking this flop with KTs because the reason Villain checked the flop is that he is OOP and didn't want to be in the awkward spot of having to call a large raise. So on the turn I think it is likely Villain has a T or is way behind and is bluffing (like does not even have top pair or Jx). It is hard for me to fold with 2 pair but I just don't think Villain would be overbluffing in this spot and we will in all likelihood be facing a large bet on the river. There are also 2 flush draws out there. So we are not getting the right implied odds to call vs Tx hands and there are many ways for Villain to get there and take all our chips if his flush hits. I doubt if Villain is bluffing that we would make any more than what is in the pot on the turn if we call.

Why I wouldn't jam the turn is that we will likely be called by Tx hands and all else will fold. So if I thought it was worth it to continue with two pair I would only just call because basically we are ahead of bluffs only. Qx hands would have likely bet the flop and checked the turn.

You already gave outcome so I won’t comment on that but just wanted to add that a river Q or 8 are also horrible run outs for your hand in addition to all the other horrible river cards you could see. Also, you were very unfortunate that you improve your hand and villain turns the nuts with a nutty redraw to the flush. There is no ****ing way he ever folds on the turn.

Shallow stacks to be speculating with such a weak holding.

OP said he is more agg postflop and is "solid" not a maniac. Ripping 25 bigs with J9s from the CO over a MP open feels insanely aggressive. What would your jamming range be in that case? Are you jamming QQ+ also, or just the stuff you don't want him to call when you have?

My jamming range would be everything I 3-bet with. I do 3-bet with some SC's and occasionally some almost SC's like this but typically I don't do that unless my 3-bets to this point have not been wide and when disclosed are no worse than AQ/TT. If the table has seen me 3-bet with 76s then I basically don't do SC's again for a while. And same with hands like A5s/KJ. So my solid 3-bets are 99+/AJ+. But again if Villain is tightish preflop I usually don't 3 bet with 99 or AJ or SC's or lowish suited Aces.

You should absolutely have non-all-in 3-bets at 25bb.

I don't always 3-bet all in with 25 bb's but if the opening raise is >= 2.5 bb's then I will always be jamming when I 3-bet. From a sizing perspective if I don't then my standard 3x 3-betting size will be > 33% effective stack and for me that is pot committing. And if I raise for less than 3x then it will get called a lot more than it should.

When somebody min raises and I have 25 bb's I will be 3-betting to 6 bb's all the time.

The reason I 3-bet jam with my entire range when my normal 3-bet sizing would be > 30% effective stack is that I want to make it impossible to know the strength of my hand. If I 3-bet jam with some hands and and then don't with some hands then it becomes very obvious what the likely strength of my hand is. Even if I balance the non-jams with some strong hands as well as the weaker ones it still is easy to tell which type of hands I have. And of course it helps that I am an old white guy. I get a lot of folds from hands like AQ (and AJ/ATs/PP's/etc.)

If there is a Villain range reason why I don't want to 3-bet jam then I typically just call. Especially in position.