Hate to be results oriented but not happy with a hand that I just played in the deepstacks $1100 Main Event at Ocean's 11 casino. There were 40 players left itm(504 runners) with blinds at 6,000/12,000 and the chip average is around 375,000. I had 149,000 chips to start the hand and was in middle position with 88. UTG, a young kid who lost 3/4 of his stack two hands earlier, moves all in for 97,000. UTG+1, a fifty something pro who was real active but lost a few pots and had slowed down to obviously wait for a good spot, looks at his cards and instashoves his last 134,000 in the pot. I tank for a minute and decide to fold and the players turn over A4 and AK and the runout is QQ724. If I had called I would have had 416,000 chips. I ended up busting 20 minutes later in 35th place when I shoved KJ suited from early position and ran into AJ.

I guess these shove/fold decisions should be strictly mathematical…i'm well ahead of UTG's range and certainly ahead of UTG1's range who I believe would be shoving all of his big aces and probably 55+. The fact that he instashoved and obviously loved his hand made me put him on a much tighter range: I thought if he had A10 or AJ or small pair he would think for a few seconds before shoving…in a sense I think my read was right. But in reflection I dunno if folding eights is ever good when you have 12.5 bb regardless of one's “read”. Not the most fascinating hand but I do think I usually play the under 20bb stack close to optimally and thought this was a close one