Good catch, thanks! I'm not quite sure why it is, but this is the 2nd or 3rd time I've had trouble conceptualizing this and/or articulating it in a video. I appreciate you jumping in right away to set us straight. Understood about your point of his range quite possibly widening, thus improving our EV. 

When you first saw this 4b from the BB in the video, what was your thought? Did it look like a clear get in to you? What is your approach in these spots, if you're making 1% EV, do you get it in? I struggle to have defined rules for approaching these spots, and I'm wondering if you, or anyone else out there (!), has any guidelines for these spots. 

Awesome stuff, AlterEgo. Adding in the threshold of +EV you'd need if this were the Sunday Million does wonders for me conceptualizing this spot as a whole. I'd imagine everyone is making some sort of adjustments based on field strength, but it's nice to have some concrete numbers, thanks for sharing. 

I'm inclined to agree with you about nearly any +EV spot being good to go with here. Especially when there is a very real chance our EV is better than we estimated because the BBs 4b range is wider than we assigned. It's nice to know that the boundary for our lowest EV/villain's tightest 4b range, makes us breakeven. 24Caliber made  a cool comment about our resulting stack size from each of the 3 possible outcomes affecting our decision. I think that should definitely have a relatively significant influence over our decision when facing this 4b shove. What do you think of that idea? 

IzidorAQ, good question about ICM. Any situation this deep in a tournament begs to be thought of from an ICM standpoint. ICM remains a weakness of mine, so read this comment with that in mind, but in this spot ICM isn't a crucial factor in our decision. The reason is our stack doesn't have a ton of equity in and of itself at this point. We're relatively short compared to the field, and will need to gain chips in order to have a chance at moving up the pay scale in a significant way. That said, a general rule in these spots is that chips won aren't quite as valuable as the same amount of chips, if those chips were lost from your stack. Do you follow that? I still don't think this should be the main factor in our decision though, because of our relative standing vs the field (needs help). Anyone else have something to add/adjust here? 

Thanks for the confirmation, 24Caliber. Also thank you for bringing up this idea of resulting stack sizes of each of our three possible outcomes. See this is what I love. Thinking about the game in these abstract terms, that are essentially impossible to quantify. This is definitely something that I think about in these spots, though I failed to mention in the video, as I was caught up in the sheer mathematics of the situation. Dang, this would have been a good concept to go over. Hopefully people read your comment! 

In this particular case, I actually don't see a ton of difference in my playability, and overall equity in the tournament at different stack sizes, apart from the obvious that more chips = more equity. But to me this idea is almost a wash in this spot. I have a tough table, though the nut seat to be at this table with a 20-25 BB stack, so it's not like I'm desperate to get to 40+ BB to the point where I'm willing to take extremely marginal gambles to get there. However, I really like what AlterEgo said above, in that we've established that if villain's 4b range is as tight as it can be, we breakeven by calling. It can reasonably be wider, and if it is, our EV would improve. At a tough table like this, I'm not looking to pass up on too many spots that are likely to be +EV. It still feels dirty to me calling a cold 4b here with 88, but I think we have to defer more to the science than the gut feelings in this spot. Thanks for a cool comment 24Caliber, and GL. 

Hey buddy,

Thanks for the response! Your comment is similar to one AlterEgo made above, and I am in strong agreement with you guys: 1. In that the softer the tournament/table, the less variance we want to take on, and the move EV we need to commit a lot of chips to the the pot. And 2. I agree with you guys in the proportions pretty much. I think I might be require a little bit more than AlterEgo for example, but it sound like you and I are pretty much dead on. 

In this spot the table is definitely on the tougher side, so I'm not looking to pass up on too many clearly +EV spots. 

Hello Jean! 

You know, if I had the chance again, I might go with 88 here =) Definitely going to go with 99 and AKo. Geeze AQ is a close one as well. I would for sure go with AQs, but AQo has basically the exact same equity as 88, so those are the cutoff hands for me. 

Hey bud!

Absolutely not too basic, I'm glad you asked. It's easy for me to take spots like this for granted given my reads, history, and my image. But it's definitely a close spot and worth talking about. 

But yes, I was 3b/calling this and relatively happy about it. Frenzuh opens a lot and is well aware of how wide other people are in a response to that. The kid plays tough. I assumed (which I think is very reasonable, but I'm not certain it's correct), that he would (correctly) expect me to be 3betting quite a bit here, and would therefore respond with a robust 4betting range. I expect him to 4b all pairs here vs me OTB, and definitely some high card hands, and perhaps some A5s. I think 88 does great here, even if his range isn't this wide. Additionally, 88 benefits from 3bing and knocking out the BB from the hand. 

Hey man, big couple of months ahead. You're a killer and I expect you to play with that in mind every session. Results are coming mang! GL. 

Hahah, hey I can only take so many needles okay! Keep playing tough at the tables man, hopefully not at the tables I am on though :P 

My man! Thanks for the feedback. My thought is to kind of add a little section here or there so the video isn't just 100% hands. Like the short math segment, or a small speech beforehand, etc. I'll keeping doing things like that since you/others seem to like it.

Wooo, that's what I like to hear - not that you're watching my videos (well, that's great too), but that you have a plan to prepare for these two important months. In my view, it's not good enough to just show up on gameday and play and see what happens. You need to prepare. You need to have made some sort of effort and sacrifice before it's time to play, so that you're more invested mentally in the session and in the result. Quite simply I think preperation is a great way to improve your chances for success. Cheers, and hears to it paying off. GL. 

Hey Phil,

Man, I see where you're coming from here. This spot is never going to look or be a great one, even if the opener is opening very wide. The reason is, no matter how narrow or wide the openers range is, we still have to worry about 5 people to act behind us. If we give them each the top 5% of hands - AQo+ and 99+, well then that's 5% chance times 5 people = 25% chance one of them wakes up with a hand that's for sure calling. That's a fair amount of the time. 

However, I still think this is a must shove. Even when they do wake up behind us a combined 25% of the time, we still have equity vs those hands. And yes, the opener will call us a lot too, though he's usually folding, and particularly this player, who I felt would be opening this spot wider than most. And again when called, we've got equity to win there as well. Simply put, I think when you add all of these components together, and run all the math into a single equation, we make money by making this shove. 

Again, I don't love the spot per se, but I do like it, because I think it's going to be a clear +EV play. also, I don't think the fact that the chipleader is in the BB is going to change his range much if at all. I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't change it whatsoever.