Two hands in $11 pokerstars power path satellite tornament

I mean, general rule of thumb is, if you really think you can fold to a satellite seat, do it-- there's no benefit in playing hands if they just reduce your chances of getting the seat from 100%.

That said, probably don't need to jam the first hand for that reason - you're probably right about getting a good amount of folds, unless our opponent is opening very tight, but mostly you don't need the variance when he does have it. Second hand is certainly fine, don't know wtf villain is doing.

I guess it's unavoidable to post results from the first hand because it sets up the second, but if you don't include results, you're less likely to get answers biased by the results.

Thanks for the reply and feedback.
Yes, I guess the problem was I found it hard to figure if I would beable to fold my way to the prize. It just seemed likely based on my stack size.

Yes ok so you mean when I post another hand I should post up to the point where I had to make a decision with my jacks but not what actually happened after so I can get an unbiased view of what other people might do in a similar spot?

Thank you!

One lesson I've learned the hard way is that in satellites our opponent's mistakes can cost us EV. In the second hand our opponent made a massive punt, but whereas in a normal tournament we would be happy to get all in against a dominated hand, in a satellite we want to try to accumulate chips without risking our tournament life whenever possible. This time their mistakes ended up costing us our tournament life

Regarding when to fold our way into the money. Barry Carter, who literally wrote the ICM book, suggests that we should gradually tighten up more and more as the likelihood that we can fold our way into the money increases.

So in the first hand shoving with JJ was likely a mistake, IMO. Even if it was fine in theory (because our opponents should be folding almost always), in practice people will call incorrectly with stuff like AQ that should be folding. Again their mistakes cost us EV, which makes our rejam worse.

So in that first spot I would be thinking I could likely fold my way into the money, but would recognize that's not 100% certain. So I would just play extremely tight. I probably shove something like KK+, AK. You also prefer to have blockers to the absolute top of your opponent's range as you're really not wanting to get called. So in these spots where people should be calling off with an extremely tight range, the value of a hand like AK goes up in comparison to a hand like JJ.

The second hand was likely fine, and it's just too bad your opponent's bad play cost you this time.

Yes thanks for the insight. I was thinking along the same thing to tighten up my range.. It didnt occur to me to tighten up to the point of only playing KK, AA and AK though.
By blockers I guess you mean if I had AK it would be less likely opponent has either AA or KK.

Thanks for the help.

Yeah exactly, AK makes it less likely they have aces or kings. As for that tight range I threw out, the exact range is going to depend on the stack size distribution, your opponent's opening position and stack size and other factors too. If you're sure you can fold your way into the money you should even fold aces.

My point was that the more certain you are you can fold your way into the money, the more you want to tighten up. If you're interested in going deep into satellite strategy the book I referenced is by Dara O'Kearney and Barry Carter, and it's called Poker Satellite Strategy. Or their other book, Endgame Poker Strategy: The ICM Book, is even better, but it's focused more on normal tournaments.

Yes I can see that its very dependant on the exact situation and yes I can conjure an unlikely scenario on the bubble where I would be correct to fold aces.

Thanks for the help and I will check those books out.

I think the most important detail here is that you are 8th out of 75 with 45 tickets. That means that the distance between you and the bubble (45 - 8 = 33) is greater than the distance between the bubble and last place (75 - 45 = 30). This is when I shut up shop , begin to stall every single hand and fold pretty much everything.

Now I am very familiar with this particular satellite and I find that there are a lot of savvy players in there so the bubble play can drag on, which makes it harder to coast to the ticket. So you probably will need to win a few more pots but you want to do that by stealing the blinds, not by rejamming. When you're re-jamming you're taking on an uncapped range. That may be ok in regular tournaments where the reward can often outweigh the risk. That is not the case in satellites.

I'd fold the first hand here for sure in your spot. I'd probably only re-jam AA here. Even with KK too often you get called by an unsavvy player with AQ and then you're only a 70% favourite. That's an unacceptable level of risk to lose half your stack when you're already so close to locking up the seat.

Second hand is completely different. Now you're back down in the pack and you need chips. AK is a pretty hand but at then end of the day you're going to be flipping with most of people's calling ranges. Basically what it comes down to is...do you think this particular villain will call the re-jam with dominated hands or not...cos that's the real value in this hand. Being completely results-oriented it sounds like you found such a villain so..good shove i guess!

I like Brussels Sprouts math formula above as a quick shorthand but I would also look at the chip distribution of the remaining players. Sometimes the top five stacks are so large that it distorts the average stack of the rest of the field and you may have been in an even more comfortable position to win a satellite seat. When first and 45th pay the same, it doesn’t matter where you finish.

I have punted way worse than this. I once played AA from the small blind on the stone bubble against 4 players with less than a full blind to call. Of course, the smallest stack flopped quads and the next smallest flopped a full house so I got bounced on the bubble. Everyone in the hand got a seat but me. I banned myself from playing for a week.