Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

Small Stakes MTT bubble is about to break when this happens.

Poker Stars, $1 + $0.10 NL Hold'em Tournament, 150/300 Blinds, 9 Players


CO: 28,405
BTN: 8,615
Hero (SB): 7,215
BB: 17,054
UTG: 24,976
UTG+1: 6,285
UTG+2: 6,922
MP1: 8,497
MP2: 3,150

Pre-Flop: (675) Qh Qc dealt to Hero (SB)
2 folds, UTG+2 calls 300, 4 folds, Hero raises to 7,190 and is All-In, BB folds, UTG+2 calls 6,597 and is All-In

Do You like my shove in the SB and Whats the limper calling with here????? Do you like his call and is shoving here plus EV???

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

Since I have seen it probably more than 1,000 times now recently I put the limper on AK. And since you posted this here I'm assuming he hit his A or K.

But in all seriousness.... yes I think that a shove here is appropriate. You have tons of equity of his "normal" limping range from EP.

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

If you are looking to sneak into the money and win 07¢,
then by all means do not shove.

Otherwise, there really is no other option...I don't think
you want to flat and let A2s see a flop.

-ZEN

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

Whats wrong with a normal raise? I know its not great playing OOP, but QQ is a pretty decent hand to be doing it with...

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

[ QUOTE ]
Whats wrong with a normal raise? I know its not great playing OOP, but QQ is a pretty decent hand to be doing it with...

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem with a "normal" raise to say ~T2000 or so would be committing 25% of his stack. If an A or K flops it would be very difficult to play this hand OOP as that flop would most likely hit a hand in his range. At this stage in the tournament with the bubble approaching I think it is much better to be a little more aggressive rather than commit chips without a good post flop plan.

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

Aaah, the old, "I don't really know how to play this later so I'll just push cos its easy plan"... gotcha...

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

[ QUOTE ]
Aaah, the old, "I don't really know how to play this later so I'll just push cos its easy plan"... gotcha...

[/ QUOTE ]

Not that at all... its the 'ol why would I raise without a plan move. Approaching the bubble why commit 25% of your stack with the intention to c\f a "scary" flop?

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

[ QUOTE ]

Do You like my shove in the SB and Whats the limper calling with here????? Do you like his call and is shoving here plus EV???

[/ QUOTE ]

You got exactly what you wanted; 3rd best PF hand in poker against a random hand for all his chips. If he got lucky, NH GG. You aren't going to win much money in MTTs passing up flips like that in this situation. If the stacks were deeper, you could consider a different approach, but not at M=16.

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

i don't know that the intention is necessarily to c/f a scary flop, but rather to not fold out hands you have absolutely crushed, hands that might call a reasonable raise, but will fold to a shove.

At this level, however, I doubt that many Villains are going to fold a hand to a shove that they'd call a reasonable raise with, so I'm shoving here.

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

I also think shoving 23BB over an UTG+2 limp is a little overplayed.

An open-limper can of course be a slow-played big hand like KK+ or (as seen often lately) AK, but most of the time this is a medium or even small PP, or some kind of drawing hands like QJs.

So we want the majority of these hands to come along.

If we over-push here we achieve the exact opposite as we wanted to do - we chase off the weak hands.

QQ is one of the easiest hands to play postflop, so as jammydodga already pointed out making a normal sized raise of about 1k is more than enough.

I think you loose a lot of value by over-pushing big hands in spots like this.

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

Your choices 1) are call and see a flop...You have the 3rd best hand in a micro... not getting enough value. To me(fellow micro donk) You have to rr.

2) RR how much? $1000? or Push? TT/JJ+ will push back for sure on 1000 rr. Many As and prs will push back. Only trash is likely folding. Will trash call a 1000 rr? So the question is does the push win you more money with a lower win % in 10-20% fewwer pots(folds) but a 5 times bigger pot. Sometimes you will fold on flop, but sometimes you will stack and win anyway?

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

lev, first off, I agree with you 100%, that shoving PF here is brutish and playing scared.

I do, however, think that our play needs to be tailored to the stakes, and in a $1 tournament, shoving PF might be the best way to get all the money into the middle with the best hand.

Basically, I wouldn't push because I'm scared of seeing an A on the flop, but because I'm not sure that UTG+1 is limping and then folding this shallow. I don't play this low, but in $5 MTTs I see this type of play a lot from small to medium pairs from players that can't open fold a pair, won't raise cause they're scared and then won't fold to a shove.

On the other hand, all the responses to shove need to be balanced by people explaining that outside of the context of this particular tournament with this buy-in, shoving here is a massive overbet, and is going to lose you value.

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

Oh, and the fact that this is the bubble really shouldn't have any effect on your play.

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

[ QUOTE ]
At this level, however, I doubt that many Villains are going to fold a hand to a shove that they'd call a reasonable raise with, so I'm shoving here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you, that was my point entirely.

-ZEN

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

no the shove doesn't optimize a great hand. make it 1500. then u can shove flop if no ace hits

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

the more i think about the shove is horrible

Re: Bubble Situation What Do You Do?????????
 

[ QUOTE ]
no the shove doesn't optimize a great hand. make it 1500. then u can shove flop if no ace hits

[/ QUOTE ]

agree with this completely

the shove is totally overkill and is just playing to not have tough decisions