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When we are one of the bigger stacks remaining and have the massive chip stack bully on our immediate left, we are just in a cage. We can not make aggressive moves without risking our tournament life. We just need to nit it up and hope for a better seat draw when we get to FT (hopefully to the left of big stack).
Having said that, I think I would prefer a call vs HJ open. When bully 3 bets we can see what HJ does -if he jams, we fold and if he folds and the price is right we can flat QQ and play a smaller pot OOP.
Alternately we can make a much smaller 3-bet say 5bb which still puts pressure on HJ (if big stack folds) and may give us correct odds to call if bully 4-bets.
Thirdly, I know it’s nitty, but we can just fold preflop and wait for the final table bubble to break, similar to the money bubble.
This is a difficult spot and like I said we are in a cage with our position at the table and just don’t get to make moves with the big stack to our left. As played, I agree with the fold.
