$3 NLHE MTT: Top Pair - Exit plan against this set

Obviously, I played this poorly. Would you play it, if so how....:five:
PokerStars - 50/100 Ante 12 NL - Holdem - 9 players

UTG+1: 9,600
MP: 4,818
MP+1: 8,269
MP+2: 4,422
CO: 5,794
Hero (BTN): 3,400
SB: 9,643
BB: 6,189
UTG: 7,757

9 players post ante of 12, SB posts SB 50, BB posts BB 100

Pre Flop: (pot: 258) Hero has J♠ K♠

UTG raises to 300, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 300, fold, fold

Flop: (858, 2 players) K♥ T♠ T♦
UTG checks, Hero bets 446, UTG calls 446

Turn: (1,750, 2 players) 6♥
UTG bets 875, Hero calls 875

River: (3,500, 2 players) 8♣
UTG bets 1,750, Hero calls 1,750

UTG shows A♣ T♥ (Three of a Kind, Tens)
(Pre 56%, Flop 86%, Turn 95%)
Hero mucks J♠ K♠ (Two Pair, Kings and Tens)
(Pre 44%, Flop 14%, Turn 5%)
UTG wins 7,000

D_godfather said:

Obviously, I played this poorly. Would you play it, if so how....:five:
PokerStars - 50/100 Ante 12 NL - Holdem - 9 players

UTG+1: 9,600
MP: 4,818
MP+1: 8,269
MP+2: 4,422
CO: 5,794
Hero (BTN): 3,400
SB: 9,643
BB: 6,189
UTG: 7,757

9 players post ante of 12, SB posts SB 50, BB posts BB 100

Pre Flop: (pot: 258) Hero has J♠ K♠

UTG raises to 300, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 300, fold, fold

Flop: (858, 2 players) K♥ T♠ T♦
UTG checks, Hero bets 446, UTG calls 446

Turn: (1,750, 2 players) 6♥
UTG bets 875, Hero calls 875

River: (3,500, 2 players) 8♣
UTG bets 1,750, Hero calls 1,750

UTG shows A♣ T♥ (Three of a Kind, Tens)
(Pre 56%, Flop 86%, Turn 95%)
Hero mucks J♠ K♠ (Two Pair, Kings and Tens)
(Pre 44%, Flop 14%, Turn 5%)
UTG wins 7,000

Click to expand...

So, just for the record, villain does not have a "set" here, he has "trips" - and the difference is pretty vast - just want to point that out.

Pre
Pre-flop is fine. We can also fold pre-flop, which may seem nitty, but it'll serve you well in the long run. That said, I'm ok with the calling here as we're deep enough to do so.

Flop
Betting here is a mistake - we need to check this back 100%. Consider the Kings you can have here:

KQ - bet
KJ - check/call
KT - check/fold

I realize the KT would be great and would change everything as you'd be trying to meta-game your opponent into paying you more - but for this, forget about the flop.

I also realize that we're almost never going to check/fold this flop with any of our Kings, again, assume this is in a vacuum.

Another note, if we do decide to bet this flop, we need to keep it small, 1/3 pot - your half-potter is too big. We do this for balance, that way you can bet the same amount with KQ and with KT.

Turn
See how this is starting to fall off the rails? What if we had checked back flop? We'd have an easy call.

As played, I think I like fold honestly. We have no idea where, we're at, and villain has taken an extremely weird line - if he was going to do this, why didn't he check raise the flop?

Additionally, this never gets better for us, we're going to face the same thing on the river.

It makes no sense, we have a mediocre King.... sucks but I think fold is correct here.

River

And yeah, it goes without saying that if we did call the turn for some reason, we have to fold river - our hand is most definitely not strong enough to go 3-streets, we have a bluff-catcher at best.

Yes, he could be bluffing you - and with the really weird line, that's certainly a possibility. But that's a decision you'll need to make outside of anything I can say here.

I think you have a call here pre flop but folding is fine too. I am not in love with these situations and 30 or so BBs but a call is fine and probably the move I would have made in the moment.

On the flop, you should be checking behind. A few reasons for this. One, there is not a card we are worried about coming out on the turn except an ace and even if it does hit (which we dont know hits our opponent) we still have a gutter. Secondly, I feel like when you bet out on a paired board like this it turns your hand more face up than normal. You would not usually be betting here with a 10 as you would not want your opponent to fold so betting here makes us look more airballish or it makes us look like we have a small pocket pair or even a king.

When your opponent calls your bet and then donk bets the turn the sirens in your head need to start going off. What hands would he or could he be doing this with? With no specific reads on the opponent I would say he would only be doing this with a few bluffs and a lot of 10x combos. He would even check a King here. Once he makes this turn bet I think you need to decide what you want to do for the rest of the hand (call down or fold) because to me, he has either those few bluffs or a 10 and not much else.

For me, even though we bet the flop, which I wouldnt have done, I think this is a fold on the turn and the few times you get bluffed should be a lesson in these situations to not bet the flop and let the turn card show before you make an action.

Yes agree turn is a fold, both your thoughts on the flop options and the reasoning is very useful. Thank you both.

Not sure if I can change title to trips instead of set. ��