Another installment of our column where we ask poker specialists and/or professionals to follow in the footsteps of the protagonist of a hand and say how they would play in his place.
Today we asked for the regular MTT’s viewpoints for a spot that really happened tonight at the final table of Sunday special by PokerStars.
The hand
The closing table of the Sunday special is prime time jokes. hero is up big blinds and pen Ak
with a 27bb stack. from mp opens a player with 17bb, button pusha 25bb.
thoughtfulness important others sit at the table for ICM purposes two players with stack inferior at 20bb plus middle layer: to be exact you have 11bbthe other 16bb.
Even the payouts is very vertical of the tournament fundamental to calculate the ICM:
1 €15,269
2 €10,884
3 €7,759
4 €5,531
5 €3,942
6 €2,810
7 €2,003
8 €1,428
9 €1,116
The Viewpoints
Giuliano Bendinelli
I play, here I play JJ+ AK!
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Mario Buca
Without giving any specific information, I value how strong I am because at 28x I can still play on a soft table. But on the ranges I expect a strong hand on the Special AK, I should be above the middle position player and the button could also have busted ranges. So with AK on the special I think I can be very strong against the straight stack shove range and if I win against him I’m in the tournament with 600k.
It’s a damn point, I think the stronger I feel the more I fold, on the contrary the more I think I have no advantage the more I call. Let’s say a trained player who folds to a soft table here can sail to 5th place and then play. I better look at the stacks, there are 3 shorts… So fold if I’m a prepared player, call if I’m impromptu and/or don’t know how to handle an important final table. Either way, a few thousand dollars will dance in the crease, and even if you play a 5/6 left shot, you’re wagering it with a similar win probability, but with a bigger prize in your pocket. But I think between that fold and the next three eliminations a casual player can find a lot of opportunities to loosen the stack, so I recommend going all-in.
Jade Fang
The spot is borderline because we have an intermediate stack, there are 3 shorter ones, but if we think about the button’s reshive range, it should consist more of cards with blockers AJ AQ KQ that put pressure on the short, which is in this Spot here 77 66 is 88 should all fold in its place. We’re crushing the opponent’s range and this is a spot that can really move us in the tournament, we would become the chip leader and we could play the subsequent stages much more freely. Even though it’s very sick/borderline I think it’s a spot I’ll take with AK.
Ettore ‘pro-fumato87’ Esposito
Pretty close, lots of thinking to do here, OR has combos in the range with pieces blocking the BB range (ATo, suited aces, some K both suited and off), so let’s move on to the BTN range (the very a few flats) I remove AA KK and in QQ frequency (with this depth there is still margin from 3betcall and we also block with pieces of the Nuts AA KK) Also I calculate the EV generated by this spot ( from 25x to 55x moves in future play see also verticality of payout) I click call here without too many doubts
How did the commercial end?
Here is the video of the hand: Two of the protagonists, ‘Gioemil71’ and hero ‘aieio17’, then reached the final head-to-head where they signed a deal for ICM (i.e. for the value of the chips available respectively, in regarding the cash prize to be won) before the latter prevailed.
