Played in a $60 live tourney in Biloxi yesterday. Pretty typical low stakes, fast-paced donkament. Starting stack of 5K but added 2K for bringing a toy for Toys for Tots and 1K for playing cash game before the tourney, so I start with 8K (as do most people). Blinds 25-50 to start, increase every 20 min. 38 runners, 6 paid, $650 for first and $110 for 6th. Get to the 10-handed final table with about 18K, but almost everyone is pretty short as chip leader literally has more than half the chips in play.

Down to 8-handed, I'm sitting with about 16K, blinds at 800-1600 with 200 ante (gonna go up in 3 minutes to 1K-2K 200). Chip leader has been raising about 2/3 of the hands and has shown down plenty of mediocre holdings (K-10, K-9 etc). I'm on the button, chip leader is UTG +1 and opens for 5K. Folded to me and I've got two black 10s. Insta shove?

I mean, at least give yourself a couple seconds in between looking at the cards and touching your chips, but yeah, shove. Him raising so much looks like he's just trying to steal the blinds + antes. I wouldn't be surprised if he looks you up here w/ Ax, Kx and any pair.

What else could you be hoping for?

You can't flat and your not folding. The pot is 9000 (200x8 + 800 + 1600 + 5000) before you act.

When a huge stack's raising all the time, he's got nothing much most of the time. He's just taking advantage of his big stack and its intimidation factor to accumulate blinds/antes, since he can end anyone's night with minimal risk. Few will play back at him.

Put it in. Hope he calls light, flips over some crap and doesn't spike a 3-6 outer.

Yeah u should shove for sure here its not even close really unless the UTG is really tight which hes not.
You should shove here with 77+ AJ+ for sure maybe lighter u even have fold equity if he has like KJ or QJ.

I think I may play this hand differently in this spot. If your 8 handed and your 2 to the money and from what I assume your around 2nd or 3rd in chips and everyone else is short stacked, theres no reason to put yourself at risk until your in the money.

Lets say you smooth call there for 5k. That leaves you with 11k and the pot is roughly 13k or something like that. If the flop comes 3 6 8. Depending on his action thats a pretty good flop for you and takes some pressure off, also if he checks it u can shove and he does have fold equity with his AK. But if the flop comes A K Q and he shoves, you could get away from the hand by folding here, and still leaving yourself with 11k and being behind the deal, assuming some of the short stacks are gunna bust soon anyway. All im saying is that if you do shove preflop the big stack may end up calling with a range of hands like AK AQ AX, KQ KJ, which your a coin flip against for your tournament life, near the bubble. If you smooth call and the flop comes down good for you he can get away from those range of face card hands. Rather than if u shove preflop have him call you with a random hand like AJ and the board come 3 4 5 turn 4 river J. Then your out and miss the money. Theres a lot of crucial survival decisions to be made at the late stages of a tournament, and I just think id want to see the first 3 cards before I put all my chips in vs a big stack.

Perfect time to play back by pushing it all-in. Can't wait for much better holding than this so its a good spot to hopefully double up.

My initial reaction was "easy shove" but you do make a good point here.

And then what? Do you really want him to fold AJ on the 368 flop?

I see your point, but we are near the bubble.

I'd fold on the bubble here if there were two very small stacks (like 1-3 BB small) that likely will disappear in the near future.

Unlike a lot of the forum, I agree with your bubble philosophy, but I think this is too large an edge to pass up.

If he is actually opening 66% we are 70% against his range, and he is priced in to call with a lot of junk.

Even if he is only opening 33% we are 64%.

I don't see how this is anything but a shove.

I think this could change depending on how short the field is though.

Kkot, I agree that we shouldn't pass this up as in just fold preflop or whatever. And I certainly don't think a preflop shove is a terrible play (it was my first instinct for sure). But I can see where, because of the bubble, just calling, seeing a flop, then proceeding depending on the flop texture could be a sort of compromise. (If we did that, I'd probably shove any flop that contained no ace and had no more than one face card on it.)

YOur stack size makes shoving better than flat calling. (due to u having fold equity, and taking down 7k pf is a nice addition to your current stack size)

If however, u had like 11k, and he raises to 5k, he should never fold to your allin, so you got no fold equity and are giving him 5 cards to get lucky and bust you before the cash. There is a chance he would fold to your flop allin on a 4-4-7 flop etc. I would just call with 6k-12k and be shoving w 13k-20kish. If u got more than 20k, I would actually reraise less often, trying to trap him, disguising your strength, and keeping the pot small as u got a nice stack and should make the money somewhat easily.

most of the time there will be overcard(s) on the flop, for example flop comes 39J and he shoves u fold? or 78K u fold?
i knoe that if u have kings then an ace will arrive in 17%, if u have Queens, an A or K comes 35% or sg like that, so it is much more than 50% that an overcard will come, and there is sg like 15% he hits the one overcard (if he has overcard)
U cant allow him to bluff you out here.
If you just wanna make the money so much than fold preflop. I know its almost ridiculous, but what is your goal? Folding gives you the best chance to make the money, and shoveing to win the tour...
(i would shove of course)
Unfortunately i got busted out from my last 3 tours by this thinking. I had flopped a monster draw 12-15 or ever more outs, called an allin bye a made hand, and nothing came.
But i think u always have to decide what is your goal. Climbing up the ladder one by one, or winning the tournament

I think if you flat the flop you arent getting enough value out of Ax type hands. Either your folding this hand to an overcard, or you are playing a coinflip where he gets to see if he catches up.

I ship and not think twice.

^^ This

Folding is far too nitty, flatting, well there's far too many flops that kill us. I ship because you are ahead of villain's range based on your read. He wakes up with a monster or hits his overs, so be it. These kind of tournaments pretty much play like online tournaments.

He is most likely holding Kx Ax here so I'd definitely push. You are not in the money yet, but if you don't take this chance you'll get blinded out pretty soon