Played a hand last night in a $125 live tournament that led me to a broader question about pre-flop strategy.

Here's some of the hand basics: antes about 0.2BB. Fish limped UTG1, probably not trapping as he has limped JTo and other weak hands before. Sharp aggro player raised 3x over the limp from hijack. I was just stacking a pot so didn't know my exact stack size but it was between 25 and 30BB. Let's say 30BB.

If I had 15BB I would shove or fold in this spot. I'm risking 15BB to win 7.5BB. Even if somehow I lose every showdown, if he folds 2/3 of his hands I break even.  If I have 25% equity against his calling range, I only need him to fold half the time to break even. I'm short enough that I will want to gamble some to chip up. 

But when I get 30BB, shoving seems much less appealing as I'm risking 4x the pot. If I lose every showdown, he needs to fold 80% of his range for a shove to break even. If I'm 25% against his calling range, he needs to fold 2/3 of his hands to break even, which he might do if he's opening wide and trying to pick up a lot of chips uncontested. Still I'm deep enough that the risk seems too great for the reward.

So if I'm too deep to shove a lot of hands here, my options are to 3-bet / call with some hands and 3-bet / fold with others, or to have a calling range. The problem with 3-betting is that any 3-bet size gives me a very good price on a call if he shoves. If I 3-bet to 8BB and he 4-bet shoves for 30BB, I have to call off 22 BB to win 42BB (his 30 + my 8 + 1.5 from blinds + limper plus 2 from antes).

There's two ways to think about this 2:1 ratio that are slightly conflicting.

a) Either I should make assumptions about his range and call every hand that has 33% equity against his range.

b) or I should ignore guessing at his ranges and call the best 2/3 of my hands to be unexploitable.

Going with the first approach, against the top 10% of hands, I'd have close to enough equity to call hands like 86s or KTo. This would mean my 3-bet folding range wouldn't have many hands at all.

Going with the second approach, whatever hands I put in my 3-bet range, I call with the top 2/3 of them which again has me putting in my stack with a lot of mediocre hands at the service of math. This seems technically correct but emotionally nerve-wracking.

My last option is instead to build a calling range. Initial candidates would be those mediium strength hands that I don't want to risk all my chips with but do well against villain's perceived wide late position opening range and give myself the option to leverage my positional after the flop. 

Flatting has some obvious potential disadvantages

– no chance to win the hand pre-flop,

– gives players behind me good odds to call 

– opens myself up to a squeeze from other players meaning I either don't get to see the flop or create a situation where a squeeze gives me great pot odds and I am again are forced by math to a big pre-flop race as a dog.

So from all this rambling

1) Is my reasoning sound?

2) At what stack depth do you start to consider a 3-bet fold range?

3) At what stack depth do you start to consider calling an option or do the downsides of calling outweigh the benefits?

4) Why are there no good options? Anyone else getting the pre-WSOP crazies?