Here are the questions, answers, and explanations from our $173,000 final table quiz.

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Question #1

When the ante is large, you are getting such a good price from the SB that you are incentivized to play a lot of hands. Limping with some marginal hands like Q2o, as well as some strong hands (AKs-AJs) to protect your range, allows you to play the most hands profitably.

You should also go all-in with hands that have good equity when called but are tough to play postflop out of position. Ideal candidates are A2o-AQo, some low pairs, and some suited connectors.

The offsuit aces are particularly nice shoving hands not only because of the reasons above, but also because having an ace yourself makes it less likely your opponent does (see: blockers).

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Question #2

5 Players Remain. Blinds 1,400/2,800 with antes.

You are dealt K♦ 9♦ on the button.
Cutoff raises to 5,600. What's your play?

Stack sizes:

Chun Lei Zhou (big blind) - 53,300
ImLividBuddy (small blind) - 63,000
oivens22 (you) - 51,600
LuckyChewyFan69 (cutoff) - 166,400
MiMosa1 (hijack) - 188,400

🔲 Fold

🔲 Call

✅ All-in

Here's what Nick had to say about this one:

He’s probably substantially wider than normal here, even though there are some re-jam stacks, since he covers us all by so much. I think K9s is a great candidate to jam here. I’d also be jamming a bunch of suited tens too like 9Ts, JTs, QTs. 

I don’t want to do a ton of flatting here. I have a pretty substantial premium on trying to win without showdown. I’m too short to build a linear tight-aggressive 3-bet fold range, so I think I just have to jam.

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Question #3

5 Players Remain. Blinds 1,400/2,800 with antes.

You are dealt 5♦ 5♣ in the small blind
The hijack raises to 5,600. The cutoff and button fold. What's your play?

Stack sizes:

oivens22 (big blind) - 62,300
LuckyChewyFan69 (you) - 167,200
MiMosa1 (button) - 192,000
Chun Lei Zhou (cutoff) - 40,100
ImLividBuddy (hijack) - 61,400

 

🔲 Fold

🔲 Call

✅ Raise All-in

Nick says:

I think being in the small blind he doesn’t want to call too much. The UTG player is still going to have to raise a bunch of offsuit broadway type hands [and fold versus the shove]. If it doesn’t work out he’s still going to be fine in 3rd place with a 35 blind stack.

The opener will have to fold a significant part of their range, especially with some ICM pressure on them. When they do call you will usually be flipping, but with the fold equity re-raising all-in is the correct play.

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Question #4

5 Players Remain. Blinds 1,500/3,000 with antes.

You are dealt J♥ Q♠ in the cutoff
You raise to 6,000. Button and big blind call.

Flop A♦ 8♦ 6♣
Big blind checks. What's your play?

Stack sizes:

MiMosa1 (big blind) - 219,800
Chun Lei Zhou (small blind) - 35,300
ImLividBuddy (button) - 108,600
oivens22 (you) - 62,600
LuckyChewyFan69 (hijack) - 76,800

✅ Check

🔲 C-Bet Small (25-35% pot)

🔲 C-Bet Large (55-80% pot)

Nick says:

I don’t wanna c-bet this. I’m not gonna c-bet this board, in general, almost ever. Very infrequently I’ll choose a hand that has good backdoors with a diamond like TJ or 9T with a diamond, both of which I would have from this position. Other than that I’m doing a lot of checking with my range here.

[The in position player] is flatting a bunch of suited Ax. Three ways vs a chip leader and another covering stack is just a spot where we want to be really tight.

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Question #5

5 Players Remain. Blinds 1,500/3,000 with antes.

You are dealt 8♦ 8♠ in the hijack.

Stack sizes:

LuckyChewyFan69 (big blind) - 73,400
MiMosa1 (small blind) - 189,500
Chun Lei Zhou (button) - 34,900
ImLividBuddy (cutofff) - 159,700
oivens22 (you) - 62,100

🔲 Fold

✅ Min-raise

🔲 Raise All-in

If you were shorter, say 15 BB, then raising all-in would be the play. However, at 21 BB you have enough playability to min-raise.

In fact, in the 20BB section of Nick’s Preflop Mastersheet, in the hijack Nick recommends playing his entire range as a small raise with no all-ins:

At 15 BB, on the other hand, the vast majority of his range is played as an all-in:

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Question #6

🔲 Fold

✅ Call

Nick says:

This one is really close. I think I have to call it vs. the small blind. I’m in 2nd to last place. I think this opponent and most regulars in general will jam 22 at some frequency and even A5s. We will be flipping a lot. 

It’d be a much more difficult spot if he was the big blind, but in the small blind he has to jam some of the smaller pocket pairs, 77 and 66 for sure. For 21 blinds I just have to go with it.

Results: Nick called and won versus AJo.

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Question #7

🔲 Call

🔲 Re-Raise Small

✅ Re-Raise All-in

Nick says,

We’re just always gonna shove it. Cutoff vs big blind, that [hand is] a slam dunk shove.

AJo blocks a lot of the cutoff’s call range and has plenty of equity when called. Combine that with the ICM pressure on the CO from being 2nd to last in chips and you have an easy shove.

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Question #8

✅ Call

🔲 Raise to a Standard Size

🔲 Raise All-in

Nick says

The big thing here is we do want to still have a really substantial limping strategy when we cover by this much. We barely want to do any folding. 

Usually the way we construct that range is we do a lot of limping, we do a lot of [raising] with our suited cards and AK, and we do limp AK sometimes. AQ and AJ offsuit end up being some of the hands we use to protect our limping range. So we go for a limp-all-in or a limp-call [vs an all-in]. 

The only issue we can run into with this strategy is if the opponent doesn’t isolate us enough. I know this opponent is a really good regular managing his frequencies well, so I know he’ll isolate the correct amount here. He’ll still find those junky card isolates against the chip leader, so I go for a limp raise or limp call vs. an all in.

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Question #9

✅ Check

✅ Bet Small (20-35% pot)

🔲 Bet Large (50-80% pot)

Due to ICM implications this is an extremely complex spot. Before Nick goes on to show us what he did here, he showed us a PioSolver ICM simulation he ran.

(He spent 10 minutes explaining his preflop strategy here and how the big blind should respond to it as chip leader. It’s amazing, high-level stuff. Get Nick's High Stakes MTT Sessions course to watch it now.)

To simplify it though, essentially he has to play extremely passively in this spot. Being 2nd in chips with a significant lead over 3rd and 4th, there’s a ton of ICM pressure on him. The last thing he wants to do is play a big pot against the chip leader with a medium-strength hand.

That being said, Nick said he would mix between checking and betting small on this flop, so either answer is technically correct! Checking is slightly preferred because it denies your opponent the opportunity to check-raise you. This will allow you to get to showdown more often and for less chips.

In situations like this (against the chip leader, with a medium hand, and lots of ICM pressure), getting to showdown is the goal.

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Question #10

✅ Check

🔲 Raise all-in

Nick says:

Intuitively I think a lot of people will go for the shove here when the SB limps, but we want to check A2s-A7s. We’d like to keep some Ax in our range, but the offsuit Ax play too poorly postflop. With the low suited aces we like to play a check there.

We will have some non-all-in raises, but not with those hands. They just play well postflop and they’re the aces we want to keep in our range here. So we check this one.

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