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JJ vs a shove and a call
WSOP Monster Stack (ICM not a factor) – Tight-Passive player in MP shoves for 12BB. They’ve been playing snug and their first WSOP event. He’s been raising only good pairs and AK. Loose-Aggressive player in CO calls with 35BB. Hero has JJ in the SB with 26BB. I put original shover on a tighter range than most regular players ATs/AJo/KQs/88+. I have the CO on AJ+/66+ but exclude AA/KK/QQ, so I’m probably ahead of their range. If I shove here, they will have excellent pot odds to call so I don’t have fold equity. Against 2 opponents, is this a shove or fold and wait for a better spot?
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2 Replies
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So we have to make some decisions here. If we want to make this decision in theory land, this is a clear shove. I know you said no ICM, but I could quickly run a GTO Wizard check using their 50% left ICM spot. At 50% left, ICM is a factor, but not much of one. That’s likely around where this took place or at least can approximate it pretty well. Again, not exact apples to apples, but the sim they had has an MP shoving for 10bb. The HJ off 35bb calls and it gets to us in the SB with 25bb. We’re shoving AK+ and TT+.
So okay, in theory land, this is a fairly clear shove. But we can make some adjustments too. Some of your assumptions lead us even more toward a shove. In the sim, the MP player is wider than your assessment, shoving down to something like K9s+/QTs+. The HJ, however, is never overshoving. So they’re flatting with 77+ (up to AA)/ ATs+/AJo+. This means that in your estimation, HJ is weaker in reality than in the sim. This would lean me even more strongly toward a jam.
But then we also have to take into account the experience. We don’t get to play bracelet events every day and sometimes we need to take that into account vs pure theory plays. I don’t know how often you play in bracelet events, but we can make decisions like, “I want to cash in my first WSOP bracelet event. It’s more important to me than trying to give myself the best chance to win this thing.” If that’s the case, I can get behind a fold. But if you’re just making a pure “what is the best decision here?” play, it’s to pile your chips in the middle and hope for the best!
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Thanks so much for your insights, Chris. This was exactly what I was thinking but didn’t have the tools to show it. As a result, I did want to proceed cautiously since this is my first bracelet event and folded. In the moment, I tended to think of the ranges on the top side with most of big pairs and Broadway over cards. But as I thought about it afterward, I added a bunch of hands in their ranges that I could be beating. Both players had AQ and a King came on the Flop, so if I just called, I would have probably folded to any aggression. As it ran out, the players didn’t hit their pair and I would have won the hand. It’s good to see the numbers on this. Appreciate your help.
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