$2.20 NLHE MTT: Heads Up Second pair in a draw heavy board

Villain was playing HU 60/30 with 17 3bet

pokerstars, $1.96 + $0.24 - Hold'em No Limit - 9,000/18,000 (2,250 ante) - 2 players
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SB (Hero): 760,200 (42 bb)
BB: 1,045,800 (58 bb)

Pre-Flop: (31,500) Hero is SB with T♣ K♠
Hero raises to 45,000, BB 3-bets to 139,500, Hero calls 94,500

Flop: (283,500) 7♣ T♦ J♦ (2 players)
BB bets 198,000, Hero calls 198,000

Turn: (679,500) 8♠ (2 players)
BB bets 706,050 (all-in), Hero ?

If you are in HU on even on FT it is worth to rememeber that we don't want to build the pot too much. 2,5x open is too big, 2,1 or 2,05 (Lex Veldhuis always open that size in the late phase of tournament). In HU you probably never fold KTo to 3-bet, when stacks are similar, call is good here. Huge c-bet on the flop, 198 to 283? Is it value bet? I don't think so, but like I see, more and more people play that way because they know (or are weak and they don't) we know it is incorrect and we don't believe them, but imo, I would call here once. The problem is we don't have a diamond and we don't block flush draw.

Let's think about his range, he made a 3-bet with what?
low pairs he would call, medium pair like 99+ If I were him I would make 3-bet. KQs AJo AJs and mosnsters of course too. He hit the flop imo, so he can have sets, flush draws and straight draws, top pair with good kicker.

But you have a medium pair, it is better than nothing and in HU it is quite a lot.

Turn is bad for us, maybe he can have 99 and straiht know, he can't have there Q9 of course.

Tough decision because like I said above, it looked like bleff on the flop but here if he want to make a bet he has to play all-in, because any bet is pot commit so better here than on the river and allow you see the river and improve your hand.

Tough decision and first time when I was writing this analysis I wrote "I would fold" but I opened a program and I counted.

His range you can see here (suited I marked only diamonds, so I narrowed down his range): http://gyazo.com/cb62469e16caaa3532dc8d07fb60d63b

Like you see, you have 41% to win this hand! A lot of equity! and you have to pay
420k to (420k + 680k) so 420k/1100k *100% = 38%

From mathematical side it is call if we add our thoughts about opponent It is good call! Good game, but I think you didin't think that way, am I wrong? Too much informations to count and that's why the best poker players are the best
Good luck!

Its pretty obvious, that your hand is only a bluff catcher. So really the first question here is, what is our Minimum Defense Frequenzy, and is this a hand, that we should default fold or call? And this almost certainly has to be a default fold. There are a ton of hands, you can have on the turn, which are better than this one, and you should aim at folding around 40% of the time given his bet size.

You also don’t have the best removal. Its good, that you don’t block diamonds, but you do block KQ, which is another possible draw. For that reason calling with AT or AJ would be slightly better. It would also be better to call with two pair or a set, because then you beat a hand like an overpair, which he jam, because he does not know, what to do.

The next question is, do we think, this is a spot, where he is bluffing to much or to little? This is something, only you can tell, because you were the one playing with him. So you are the one knowing, if there were signs, that he was pushing you around, or if he tended to have it, when the pot got big. Heads up poker is a very dynamic thing, and you need to pay attention and develop a "feel" for it.

For the rest of us we can only say, if we think, the average population in a 2$ MTT is bluffing to much or to little in this spot. And my general take on the micros is, that people tend to bluff to little in big pots. So I typically lean toward giving my opponents credit and not make these kind of hero calls without a very strong read.

Turned out he was in fact bluffing, and he did not get there on his million different outs. Cool, good for you, probably helped you win the tournament. But was this the right decision, if you repeat it 100 times? I am not so sure about that.

Brawo said:

From mathematical side it is call if we add our thoughts about opponent It is good call! Good game, but I think you didin't think that way, am I wrong?

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Thanks for the analysis and good luck to you too!
The reason I don't make a standard min-raise HU it's because we are quite deep, I am confident in my postflop play HU so the extra chips in the middle should impact my opponents game more than mine.
If this was a 10-30BB effective min-raise would be my only option.
As for the mathematical aspect of the decision, I didn't run any equations but I put them on that range that you did plus A5s+ of diamonds, so in my mind I had at least 45% equity.

fundiver199 said:

Turned out he was in fact bluffing, and he did not get there on his million different outs. Cool, good for you, probably helped you win the tournament. But was this the right decision, if you repeat it 100 times? I am not so sure about that.

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Thank you for your input.
Villain was playing a lot more loosely than the average micro mtt player so I don't think we can make assumptions on whether they are bluffing or not based on that.
I'm very uncertain as well on whether this is the best decision in the long run, in poker it's easy to get results oriented negatively and positively as well.