$5.5 NLHE MTT Bounty: What decision with TPTK on the flop against chipleader on the table?

$5.5 NLHE MTT Bounty: What decision with TPTK on the flop against chipleader on the table?

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/324E5Ooao

Hello guys, it was Stadium Series tournament Progressive KO. I was third stack on the table and with this stack on bounty tournament I could win more bounty from shortstacks later. My opponent played well before that hand, he sit down on the table and won a little chips. He was rather a solid player. When he won chips, he showed sensible hands. We have 50 bb in stack, what do you do on the flop with TPTK on this stack against chipleader? I don't see a sense to call his raise on the flop, I see here two options, allin on the flop or fold. When he raised me on the flop I thought that he hit a set on the flop. Do you have some advices for me?

I agree, that there is no point in just calling. If he is raising you with a draw, he will be committed to call it off, and if he fold to a jam, that is obviously great for you. Given that the SPR was around 6, you raised from UTG, and he had you covered, I do lean towards making a tight fold here though. I dont think, he is very likely to show up with hands like KJ or QJ, so its a spot, where you are either far behind to a better made hand or slightly ahead of a draw. If you had started with around 30BB, it would be more of a default get-it-in spot. I would also be more inclined to get it in against a fish, because a fish will flat a lot of hands and raise you on the flop with top pair or silly nonsense a very non zero percentage of the time.

There are many very good players (no way to really know if villain is good or really good) that do not have an UTG +1 3 betting range. They will call the UTG raise even if they have AA or KK as villain did in this spot. Any time I raise UTG and then +1 calls I am always leary. I would be apprehensive if this happened to me since we are closer to the bottom of our UTG raising range and we are being called by UTG+1.

As far as the hand goes the c bet is mandatory and when we get re-raised we are not as good as we normally would be with TPTK. Thinking of villains range here it is probably something like AJ+ with the A of clubs (possible but not likely, AQ+ clubs, KQ clubs, or pocket pairs JJ+. I am not saying he wouldnt call pre flop with worse but I dont think he is flop re raising here with worse than that and also discount bluffs since bluffing an UTG raiser can always lead to trouble and you said he is competent. Given that range we are 54% or so at best given he has the worst equity hands he could have which is AK or AQ clubs. Even though this is a crappy spot to be in to have to fold, its a fold because we cant come up with hands that villain would be doing this with that we beat enough to offset the hands in his range that we are crushed by. But I do agree with your statement that this a jam or fold in your spot, you cant just call here.

AJs is borderline UTG raise. When someone calls us, they often are holding a premium (QQ+, AK). When the chip leader calls in a bounty, the range could expand into hands that can capture all your chips when they hit (pocket pairs, suited connectors).

Let's look at hands that have you dominated at the flop. 55, 77, QQ, KK, AA.
Let's look at hands where you are close but behind. KQc, 89c, 56c.
Hands he might raise that you are close but ahead. AKc, AQc, QTc, T9c.
Hands he might raise semi-bluffing. AK, 88, 99, TT.

If he's playing loose, that's 29 made hands, 7 coin flips, 30 bluffs.
If he's playing tight/regular, that's 15 made hands and 6 AK (with club) semi bluffs.

Looking at all this in hindsight, I would fold to his raise. You would still have plenty of chips to take advantage of lesser stacks. Maybe tighten up UTG.

AJs is certainly an open UTG - the bottom of your Ax opening range here should theoretically be about ATo+ and A9s+ -- anyhow, when we open UTG, and get 3bet we can proceed with caution and in a $5 game not too many of us are going to be folding top pair top kicker so we are likely losing alot of chips in this hand regardless.

Once we limp-call, we flop pretty strong - then we make our second biggest mistake....we donk lead into villan. What this is going to effectively do is polarize our villans range - in a scenario where AKo we cbet this board quite frequently - we now give them the option to fold and thus we receive no additional money for our made hand.

That said - when we lead this board I doubt our villan is raising us with a flush draw and willing to get in 50bb to see if they can hit such a thing. We are going to be up against some weaker Jx here, a few sets, and some overpairs. So when we donk out and get raised here - I think its less likely we are facing those weaker top pairs, those hands should just be calling us, and not raising.

As I said earlier, when we get to this flop its going to be hard not to lose alot/all of our chips in this hand -- the proper line after we find ourselves here would be check-call flop, and turn, and when all the draws miss on the river if/when villan triples off, I think there is no need to raise rivers either when given the action and runout, all we are going to get called by in general are better hands.

In summary, I think this hand was played poorly but I also think its nearly impossible not to lose a good portion of, or all of, your stack in this situation.

Jon Poker said:

Once we limp-call, we flop pretty strong - then we make our second biggest mistake....we donk lead into villan.

Click to expand...

Hero opened to 3BB, and Villain called behind. On the flop Hero bet half pot, got raised and then jammed. Maybe you got this messed up with another hand history?

fundiver199 said:

Hero opened to 3BB, and Villain called behind. On the flop Hero bet half pot, got raised and then jammed. Maybe you got this messed up with another hand history?

Click to expand...

Apparantly so lol...that changes alot. Still not sure I'm shoving all in on this flop - but we are likely going broke here most of the time.

I think, the key here is position. Cold calling from UTG+1 mean, you put yourself up against a very strong range, and you do so with the entire table still left to take position on you or put in a squeeze. And for that reason good players just dont do this without a real hand. Maybe not always aces or kings, but at a minimum something like AQ or a decent pair.