Congrats on the deep run!

UTG 5 or 6 handed I think AJ is strong enough to play for 15bb stacks preflop, regardless of FT bubble. So the question becomes how to put our money in. Do we want to increase our variance by encouraging other players to enter the pot with weaker holdings, or shove a reasonably strong hand with great blockers to maximize our fold equity?

My personal preference is a shove considering the ICM, although I’m more likely to make a small raise (planning to call any shoves) earlier in the tournament. You don’t mention ante size but assuming it is 2k, you’re adding ~15% to your stack with no risk if everyone folds. I think keeping re-shove ranges wider and getting BB to put in extra chips with marginal hands is the better option when pay-jumps are not so imminent but, for me, maximizing fold equity takes priority here.

When raising small, I have recently adopted bigger preflop raises into my game at all stack sizes, and rarely minraise even at 15bb. This is a personal preference, and I’m not sure how much strategic importance it has, but I find 2.25bb has enough impact on BB calling ranges to warrant committing an extra 1.6% of my stack.

On this flop, I think our hand is worth wagering all of our chips with a stack much deeper than 15bb, so I think our only decision is how best to get our remaining 13bb in the middle. BB range will have a lot of Jx, and villain should be willing to go with some weaker pairs. Pot size on flop is ~5bb, with ~13bb effective stacks. I’m a bit reticent to give bet-sizing advice (it seems I know less and less as I spend more time studying it), but I think I would size larger than 44k so that I can shove turn without over-betting. If you bet 60k on the flop villain may still expect to have some fold equity (it is <1/3 of your stack), so I expect shoves from clubs or 6x roughly as often as when you bet 44k. If villain calls, the pot is 200k on the turn, with 140k behind, which incentivizes villain to call a shove with a slightly wider range (but should still force folds from most draws). This line also wins us more chips when villain folds turn.

I think you are correct that you want to win the pot as often as possible due to your stack size. As you say, it is much more important to be focused on extracting value with a deeper stack, but on 15bb any pot we win is a nice boost, and we want to avoid giving worse hands a good price to suck out on us.

theginger45 said

On the flop and turn, your main priority should be ensuring that you can get all-in as often as possible here. I think your flop and turn bet sizing is fine, with stacks this short it really doesn’t matter much that your turn shove is a slight overbet since the board is pretty dynamic anyway and there are tons of weaker hands villain should be calling off with. I’m not a huge fan of betting bigger on flop, simply because you make it harder for villain to check-jam with a wide range. I think 60k would be much too big.

I agree with all of this (and the rest of ginger45’s post). In a rough simulation, 60k vs 40k actually affects Crev continue ranges (folds 7% more and check-raises 1% more), so probably affects villain’s ranges as well. Overbet on turn might even make our range look more draw-heavy with flush and straight draws possible.