You were never shovelier

I'm reusing one of my favorite blog post titles again tonight. In the earlier posts, I focused on holdings which are good enough to shove (go all in) with. Tonight I want to focus on holdings which aren't good enough to shove with on their own merits, but are plenty good enough to shove with given the specific circumstances in which they arise. Such a situation occurred in last night's session. On hand 66 of the only MTT-R NLHE I played, I found myself short stacked (2,410 chips) and in the big blind. After the forced bests of ante (150) and big blind (1600), I was down to my last 660 chips. I was dealt 7h Th, and the flop came 9s 7d Kc. Even though I'd only flopped bottom pair, I shoved. Why? For the simple reason that doing so gave me my best chance of making the money. Sometimes your best chance isn't great, but you must take it anyway. If I'd folded here, I would have been forced all in on the next hand by the ante and the small blind (which I call falling in). Bottom pair now is worth way more than who knows what next hand. Also, I was what's known as being "priced in"; most of my chips were already in the middle, and it would be sheer folly to desert them. Luckily for me, my bottom pair held up, and against not one but two opponents. This enabled me to limp to the finish line, making the final pay spot by a whisker. Don't look now, but I'm up to three winning sessions in a row :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    74      67   15    15   310000

delta: $160,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $36,921,500
2018 balance: $3,540,000
balance: $49,053,260