What would you do here?

[Raoni_Poker]

Hi all,

After 2 weeks without playing, I decided to try a freeroll at Pokerstars. The total prize was $1000 and 52 players were prized. It was a turbo tourney (5 min) with about 2000 opponents registered.

I think I played well for most of the time. However, I wonder what would you do in this hand...should I have folded here? I called for 2 reasons:
1) The BB could be shoving wide, since my raise appears to be an attempt to steal the blinds and antes. I put him on 99+, AQ+.
2) The SB would not after me without QQ, KK, AA. And if he had these hands, he would have reraised me.

At this point we were 106 players and many players were being elimined (turbo tourneys are a lottery). I'll post the results later.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tournament, 600/1200 Blinds 125 Ante (9 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB (t18850)
UTG (t30845)
UTG+1 (t70834)
MP1 (t16143)
MP2 (t16608)
MP3 (t11933)
Hero (CO) (t21241)
Button (t59513)
SB (t38082)

Hero's M: 7.26

Preflop: Hero is CO with J, J
5 folds, Hero bets t4800, Button calls t4800, SB raises to t37957 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero calls t16316 (All-In), 1 fold

[Im_new]

raise less, around 3000-3500.

wait for the pros to replay about call or not because I'm 50-50 here. I think he's squeezing lightly with his stack size.

[drmcboy]

with <20 BBs and JJ you're almost never folding, def not here.

[revolvingiris]

I'm never folding here...If you did want to fold this to a shove re-raise. I would certainly not bet 4x pf.

[drmcboy]

re the raise size it's great with JJ but horrible for stealing, so unless you think they suck so bad you can raise less when stealing, raise less. In a freeroll that may well be the case plus it may be impossible to steal anyway.

It's been said before but every time you balance you leave money on the table if people are not going to exploit an unbalanced line.

[fjuanl]

what drmc said is good

i'm mashing the call button

[Outlaw]

Why are you raising here with less than 20 BBs? Put your opponents to the tough decision, not yourself. Either shove or get out of the way.

[Raoni_Poker]

Why are you raising here with less than 20 BBs? Put your opponents to the tough decision, not yourself. Either shove or get out of the way.

I see your point. I thought that my stack was not that small for a shove here... despite the relative low M, I had some manouver space. The raise of 4BBs was intended to scare hands like AT-AQ, KQ and get value of 99-TT. If I had shoved here, both players could call me. In the way it happened, the SB would call me only if he had QQ+, which he didnt (he showed AQ).

The question here, I think, is about putting the BB in a range. As i said, I thought he had 99+, AQ+ and against this range is a coin flip. If I win, I'm around 40.000 chips (I would need about 60.000 to get very comfortably ITM). If I lose, thats the end of the game. If I fold...could I recover it in a turbo game? Could be, but it's not the smartest choice. In fact I could be now complaining about not calling it...

[fjuanl]

Why are you raising here with less than 20 BBs? Put your opponents to the tough decision, not yourself. Either shove or get out of the way.

IMO its pretty easy to play JJ with 20BB's in the CO. Why make it easier for villains to fold and completely shut out the possibility of someone restealing?

[drmcboy]

Why are you raising here with less than 20 BBs? Put your opponents to the tough decision, not yourself. Either shove or get out of the way.

Are you sure that's what open shoving with JJ is doing?

Sometimes you just have to fold when it comes AK8, that doesn't mean open shoving is good. poker isn't chess

[Outlaw]

limp shoving is an option.. you want it all in the middle here with aj

[drmcboy]

we have JJ

and open shoving is terrible unless you have some reason to think you'll get called by worse and even then as Juan said you're taken the bluff away from them.

would you shove with 25 BBs?

[mcatdog]

Why are you raising here with less than 20 BBs? Put your opponents to the tough decision, not yourself. Either shove or get out of the way.

Well first of all your concern should be maximizing EV, not some stuff about "tough decisions" but even if we do accept that framework. If you raise and get shoved on, you have a very easy decision -- call. I'd say raising small so that you might be bluffing, puts your opponents in the blinds to a tough decision if they have a hand like A9 or KJ or 22. They aren't sure whether or not to try to push you off your hand. If you just open-shove you give those hands a very easy decision -- fold.\

Being the shover yourself isn't the best way to get all the money in the middle preflop here.