$530 NLHE MTT: Call vs Shove Turn IP with AQ Top Pair

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JEN005

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$530 NLHE MTT: Call vs Shove Turn IP with AQ Top Pair

This hand was played in a pokerstars Winter Series Event, Final table, you can watch it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oxww7SJIfQ?t=1978 (Time 33:01)

My question is, is it better to 3bet shove or just call on the turn?
If we call, are we committed to call on any river cards, or can we fold if certain cards fall?

Prior info: Villain (N.E.C. NMGN) was very active and aggressive throughout the game, and was caught 3 barrel bluffing OOP

PokerStars, $500 + $30 - Hold'em No Limit - 100,000/200,000 (25,000 ante) - 7 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

PaNdaY (UTG): 12,067,834 (60 bb)
N.E.C. NMGN (MP): 10,872,006 (54 bb)
boerni21 (MP+1): 6,662,630 (33 bb)
Lucky_Jew_17 (CO): 13,960,693 (70 bb)
LudwigVVonMises (BU): 3,640,335 (18 bb)
dodi papa (SB): 9,624,930 (48 bb)
olle1FIN (BB): 4,071,572 (20 bb)

Pre-Flop: (475,000) Hero (boerni21) is MP+1 with A Q
1 fold, N.E.C. NMGN (MP) raises to 400,000, boerni21 (MP+1) calls 400,000, 4 players fold

Flop: (1,275,000) 9 3 3 (2 players)
N.E.C. NMGN (MP) bets 1,200,000, boerni21 (MP+1) calls 1,200,000

Turn: (3,675,000) Q (2 players)
N.E.C. NMGN (MP) bets 1,911,000, boerni21 (MP+1) calls 1,911,000

River: (7,497,000) K (2 players)
N.E.C. NMGN (MP) bets 7,336,006 (all-in), boerni21 (MP+1) folds

N.E.C. NMGN shows A♥4

Total pot: 7,497,000
N.E.C. NMGN (MP) wins 7,497,000
 
Last edited:
Jon Poker

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I do not play these stakes by any means so dont take my word for it - but here goes my thought process.

First off I watched the cardschat replay because for some reason the YouTube version wont load.

We flat the raise IP w/ AQo - I dont hate the flat here - but i think short handed and IP this should be a 3bet preflop. That being said, we flat and take a flop.

Our opponent cbets almost full pot on a 933 rainbow board...I dont see how we call here just to float. We are getting terrible odds, it's a decent portion of our stack and we are really only drawing to 6 outs if we are behind and our Q is still live. I could see possibly peeling one here with like AQs and there being one of our suit on board giving us a backdoor flush draw - but other than that I think we have to fold this flop and lose the minimum.

We decide to float anyway here and we turn top pair top kicker - our opponent bets 1.9m and gives us an SPR of 1:1 ‐ for me, this is my moment. I either jam it all in right now, or I fold and just preserve my chips. I have ZERO fold equity on any rivers and certainly dont want to face an all in when the K comes down and my opponent triples off - so I avoid this spot - shove it all in on the turn and the rest will be what it will be.

For me, when we float the turn and actually connect with one of our outs it's our moment - why wouldn't we be ready to commit all of our stack? Hell we called off 25% of it on the flop!! How much better does our hand need to get before we do decide to go with it? Are we ever folding any non K rivers? Even an ace isnt bad for us! If we are not folding non K rivers, then why put in over 50% of our stack to fold to this one river card in particular? What gave us the read that our opponent 3 barreled some sort of Kx+ hand? That's giving our opponent a pretty narrow range for sure...limiting them to tripled off AK, AA, or KK. We block QQ heavily and I am not so sure 99 doesnt try and slowplay just a little on such a nutted flop.

Again I do not play at these levels, but for me I would have probably 3bet preflop, if I didnt and I flatted I would probably fold to the giant flop bet. If I did decide to play passively AND float the flop I am jamming the turn for sure - no point in me floating and connecting with one of my cards for me just to fold awkward rivers so I would pile it in on the turn with my SPR of 1:1 and the rest will play out on its own!
 
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I do not play these stakes by any means so dont take my word for it - but here goes my thought process.
...
I don't play these stakes either Lol. Just saw it on YouTube.

Thanks for your reply, by the way. It's insightful how you broke down the hand.

One more question though. Let's say you somehow got to the river by calling. Are you ever folding any river getting ~4:1 pot odds, the difference being between becoming the shortest stack if you fold and 2nd biggest if you call?

Ps. That dude triple barreled with air, A4h
 
TheDude6622

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I don't play these stakes either Lol. Just saw it on YouTube.

Thanks for your reply, by the way. It's insightful how you broke down the hand.

One more question though. Let's say you somehow got to the river by calling. Are you ever folding any river getting ~4:1 pot odds, the difference being between becoming the shortest stack if you fold and 2nd biggest if you call?

Ps. That dude triple barreled with air, A4h

Sometimes you can pull off the triple barrel if you have that read and you had the perception of playing tight. It's all about that timing!
 
Jon Poker

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Sometimes you can pull off the triple barrel if you have that read and you had the perception of playing tight. It's all about that timing!


No doubt but when we get called on the flop for a pot sized bet and again for a large one on the turn - I would imagine even the most aggressive players shutting down on the river...our opponent should never be floating us on two streets without a strong hand. How the AQ didnt jam the turn is beyond me and on the river they have just sunk their own ship by giving up, even though the line from the aggressor looks super strong, they have invested too much of their stack to fold and are getting odds to make a 2nd pair call pretty profitable. I think I would fold the river to a 3 liner here - but with 5m in my stack and just over 5m in the pot on the turn when I float and connect I am just jamming when my SPR is 1:1 and if I am beat, so be it because I didnt come this far in the hand and invested a big chunk of my stack just to fold after I connect.

Got it to play back correctly this time...yeah holy cow, the guy with A4 has some stones...if I am him after getting called for full pot on the flop I have alarms going off, then when they float my turn bet as well I am completely done with the hand
 
hackmeplz

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Flop flat standard, his range is way too wide here to fold what's the best hand really often. Unless we have a read he cbets only his made hands (or bets smaller with weak hands bigger with strong hands) folding flop is burning money. Turn would also be a really bad shove. Pretty much every hand that calls our turn bet would shove almost all rivers and he has plenty of bluffs. Think about the other hands you can have after floating this flop. Think of how many of them want to fold the turn, and think of how many of them fold the river after calling the turn. As played obviously river is the worst card in the deck. In a cash game that's a snapcall, I still think it's gotta be a call but I think in tournaments people are less likely to bluff rivers. Still we have the top of our range here (apart from boats and quads, maybe KQ I guess) so I don't really see how we can fold. If we do it's an exploitative fold thinking our opponent is making a mistake by not bluffing this river enough.
 
Jon Poker

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Flop flat standard, his range is way too wide here to fold what's the best hand really often. Unless we have a read he cbets only his made hands (or bets smaller with weak hands bigger with strong hands) folding flop is burning money. Turn would also be a really bad shove. Pretty much every hand that calls our turn bet would shove almost all rivers and he has plenty of bluffs. Think about the other hands you can have after floating this flop. Think of how many of them want to fold the turn, and think of how many of them fold the river after calling the turn. As played obviously river is the worst card in the deck. In a cash game that's a snapcall, I still think it's gotta be a call but I think in tournaments people are less likely to bluff rivers. Still we have the top of our range here (apart from boats and quads, maybe KQ I guess) so I don't really see how we can fold. If we do it's an exploitative fold thinking our opponent is making a mistake by not bluffing this river enough.


I disagree with the ideal of NOT floating the flop being burning money, their range being too wide, and not shoving turn.

As the earliest position at the table our opponents range should not be wider than ours - though the way we played this hand makes it seem as though we flatted behind with a little pair - 88s, 77s, possibly even TTs though I think lots os players are raising TT+. We are simply too passive here with the AQo so preflop I would prefer the 3bet. Since we dont do that here we are on an awkward flop.

We are not burning money by folding the flop - we are simply not getting odds to float. If both of our cards are live we have roughly 24% equity in the hand and we need 33% to make this flop call profitable. We are not burning money by calling, we are burning it when we float for a bad price and dont connect! We are doing waaaaay worse if our Q isnt live (facing QQ+) only getting about 12% equity or so on the flop. So the huge bet should polarize our range and fold out all of our holdings like what we have.

After we float getting bad odds and we connect with top pr we are now in front of JJ and TT, AK, KQ and so on - our opponent bets 1.9m and makes the pot 5.3m - we have 5m left in our stack, 3.1m behind if we just flat and have to face a GUARANTEED river jam - so after we do hit our hand it is a tragedy and a huge mistake not to go with it here (I think). If we are beat now, we will be beat on the river, we put ourselves in this spot - time to shove it all in here with the 1:1 spr, realize our fold equity and attempt to win this hand while we have the best chance to do so. Putting in well over half our stack to connect with the turn and fold river is just bleeding money and asking the table to run us over.

We avoid all of this nonsense when we 3bet pre though! :D
 
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fundiver199

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As other respondents I am also not playing anything near these stakes, but I will just pretend, this is my usual 5$ tournament, and analyse the hand accordingly.

Preflop
I strongly prefer a 3-bet to 6-7BB. When we just flat a mini-raise, we invite BB to realise his equity for an amazing price, and we invite everyone behind to squeeze. This is particularly bad, because two players have a perfect stack to jam on us. If this happen, our hand is strong enough to call, especially if original raiser gets out of the way, but its not so strong, that we actually want to induce that action. It is much more benefitial for us, if everyone fold to our 3-bet and we pick up around 4,5BB uncontested. If our 3-bet gets action, our hand is strong enough to do well in a 3-bet pot.

Flop
When he almost pot it, it look bluffy to me, and it goes completely against modern theory of betting small with a wide range on paired boards making him look more like a fish than a very competent player. But on the other hand we have A high, and while he is very unlikely to have trips, he can certainly have a pocket pair, which we are now a 3:1 dog against. So I probably just give up my 2BB and let it go. Its kind of weird to me to pot control preflop but then put in a lot of chips on the flop, when our hand has gotten significantly worse, and to do so without fold equity.

Turn
As played I dont hate the decision to just call again. The only real bad card for us is a K, and I assume there is some dynamic at play here with Hero maybe trying to let an overly loose and aggressive player hang himself. If we jam it all in here, I am not sure, how many worse hands he actually call with. Maybe a worse Q, but we shut down all his bluffs, which kind of defy the whole purpose of taking a passive line until now.

River
Unfortunately the K did come on the river, and now the spot sucks. We clearly only beat a bluff, his AK and KQ just got there, and calling is for our tournament life. Its probably an ok fold, even though this time he was actually bluffing.

Conclusion
The turn and river decisions in this hand are probably ok, it was just an unfavourable river card and outcome for Hero. The preflop and flop dicisions on the other hand were questionable.
 
Jon Poker

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Turn
As played I dont hate the decision to just call again. The only real bad card for us is a K, and I assume there is some dynamic at play here with Hero maybe trying to let an overly loose and aggressive player hang himself. If we jam it all in here, I am not sure, how many worse hands he actually call with. Maybe a worse Q, but we shut down all his bluffs, which kind of defy the whole purpose of taking a passive line until now.


No merit to jamming turn when our SPR is 1:1? I don't think our opponent can fold TT or JJ when they have come that far and have to call just over 3m to win a $10.5m pot - they would be over folding at that point and only losing to 99 and Qx hands seeing as we didn't 3bet pre we shouldnt have KK or AA in our range. I just feel so justified of when we float the flop and put ourselves in this spot on the turn - I see NO scenario where we should be folding river when we are that committed - if our opponent is competent at all they will likely know a K is probably a bad card for our calling range and we shouldn't have many Kx hands calling a flop AND turn bet. I think our opponent shuts this down if the river does not come an A or K but that is never going to be the case in this example so it's a GREAT card to triple barrel on and if our opponent is not bluffing this card they are not being balanced in their range and likely only betting made hands - both of which are NOT good for this river and our holding.

As for our opponents giant turn bet - I LIKE this from our opponent because it forces us to really polarize our range because he is giving a terrible price to alllll kinds of Ax floats and backdoor flush possibilities with 2 overs. This bet should really only narrow us to pocket pair holdings that should not 3bet preflop - and if they are using that read on us the turn is a great bluff card and so is the river! I also like the giant bet because when a Broadway card doesn't roll off on the turn then i think they can just give up the hand and move on and the only price they paid was one large bet vs having to cbet flop standard sizing - check seemingly blank turns and then bomb rivers to get it through. Kind of a large one-and-done sort of deal on the flop when blank turns roll off.

Anyhow - going back, I just think when we float the flop and connect with our hand that it is soooooo gross to fold rivers and we are only folding to Kx rivers anyway that we can stick it in and the rest will be whatever it will be. If our opponent calls our all in on the turn with QQ+ they will be calling us on the river with the same thing so we get the same end results no matter what. If we are ahead of TT or JJ, AK or some weird A9s combo - then we dont want them to get a free river card to try and out draw us. I understand wanting to keep their bluffs in - but when we are getting such good odds on the turn to stick it in and we actually hit one of our outs - I think its go time seeing as we already know we are never folding to any non Kx rivers. For me, in my thought process - I am NEVER folding after I hit the Q...I've invested too much, I actually hit my hand, and my opponent should be 3 barreling tons of Broadway cards to get me to fold PPs of JJ and less. For those reasons, I think I am calling ALL rivers, so I am jamming turn.
 
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fundiver199

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No merit to jamming turn when our SPR is 1:1? I don't think our opponent can fold TT or JJ when they have come that far and have to call just over 3m to win a $10.5m pot -

I dont think, Villain is betting TT or JJ on the turn. The bottom of his value range is probably KQ exactly, and apparently he can also have a lot of bluffs. Some bluffs picked up a draw, which is an argument for jamming the turn, but apparently he is also firing with no equity hands like A4s, that were drawing to 3 outs. So maybe against this particular opponent the question is more, if we should follow through on the plan and call even on this bad river card. He is obviously fully capable of tripple barrel bluffing, and if he can have A4s, he can have many other hands as well. But then again I pretty much never play the hand like this, and if we 3-bet preflop, it likely ends right there. Or he 4-bet, we snap him off, and we dubble up at showdown.
 
hackmeplz

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I disagree with the ideal of NOT floating the flop being burning money, their range being too wide, and not shoving turn.

As the earliest position at the table our opponents range should not be wider than ours - though the way we played this hand makes it seem as though we flatted behind with a little pair - 88s, 77s, possibly even TTs though I think lots os players are raising TT+. We are simply too passive here with the AQo so preflop I would prefer the 3bet. Since we dont do that here we are on an awkward flop.
We heavily disagree on his opening range. This is a minraise late in an mtt, most people have a range of roughly 22+/A2s+/A2-A5o/A9o+/78s+ and then of course the random "I'm running hot why not raise Q6s this time" raises as well. AQo is way ahead of his range on this board and it's not close. I also don't see this as an awkward flop at all, it's a very good flop for us. We have position, a strong hand given ranges, and are going to be able to play very well on the turn/river after calling.

We are not burning money by folding the flop - we are simply not getting odds to float. If both of our cards are live we have roughly 24% equity in the hand and we need 33% to make this flop call profitable. We are not burning money by calling, we are burning it when we float for a bad price and dont connect! We are doing waaaaay worse if our Q isnt live (facing QQ+) only getting about 12% equity or so on the flop. So the huge bet should polarize our range and fold out all of our holdings like what we have.
Again we see things way differently. If this was an all-in bet with no cards to come I think it's still a call, you don't always have to hit a pair to be good. I think AQ is the better hand in this situation the vast majority of the time, and the times it's not we still have strong equity as well as some runouts where we can turn it into a bluff. We have a hand where we're not going to make a ton of mistakes while our opponent is going to be put in a ton of tough spots and have an opportunity to make mistakes with a large portion of his range.
After we float getting bad odds and we connect with top pr we are now in front of JJ and TT, AK, KQ and so on - our opponent bets 1.9m and makes the pot 5.3m - we have 5m left in our stack, 3.1m behind if we just flat and have to face a GUARANTEED river jam - so after we do hit our hand it is a tragedy and a huge mistake not to go with it here (I think). If we are beat now, we will be beat on the river, we put ourselves in this spot - time to shove it all in here with the 1:1 spr, realize our fold equity and attempt to win this hand while we have the best chance to do so. Putting in well over half our stack to connect with the turn and fold river is just bleeding money and asking the table to run us over.
Why do you think there's a guaranteed river jam? People bluff flop/turn/river at different frequencies and also may vbet thinly on the turn. And if you really do think it's a guaranteed (all caps!) river jam, why on earth would you jam here? Why not just call/call any river? What about the times he has A4s and folds rather than bluffs the river? What about when he does have A9 and folds to our jam whereas if he checks and we shove river he convinces himself we are turning hands into bluffs or turned a FD and missed and calls? Or maybe he's convinced that on this board he can value shove A9 and get us to call worse whereas he would fold to a shove because it's not like we're shoving 98 on the turn lol.
We avoid all of this nonsense when we 3bet pre though! :D
This is the one thing I agree with generally, although I think it's relatively close and flatting is not bad. If we 3bet pre we avoid squeezes from behind as well as get folds from hands with good equity against us, calls from hands that we actually play pretty well against IP (AJ/KQ/lower pairs), and we can pretty comfortably fold to 4bets.
 
Jon Poker

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I definitely agree to the 3bet pre and fold to a 4bet. If our opponent is 4betting us light (like with A4s) good for them getting us to fold the better hand - I think more often than not a 4bet would just indicate supreme strength and we can fold our AQ and move on. For me, missing the 3bet pre is the biggest problem in this hand and doesnt get us into this awkward situation post flop.
 
Bozovicdj

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OK, so I read through most of the comments and most fail to realize that Hero (one with AQ) put himself in that spot.

Pre-flop, Flop are fine, Turn is also fine IMO, river could be arguable but I think I am fine with the fold considering the specifics of the situation.

If we are calling the turn, I have to ask why? My first thought is so we could let Villain bet river again, considering the stack sizes and the differences in stacks, I would expect a shove from Villain. What really changed on that K? well some bluffs got there, but I'd still call the river most of the time:
However:
this is a high stake MTT, it's the final table, ICM kicks in so much here, when you see that there are 2 players that are around your stack (round 3mill) that can bust out any moment - payjums are huge and no one wants to risk it at the FT of a major tournament.

The way hand was played out, can't say I would do much different IN THIS SPECIFIC MTT, but otherwise, I'd call the river.
Also, for future reference, if anyone thinks about folding this hand in later stages of the MTT, any MTT, just because someone is very agressive every street, should just fold AQ pre-flop (not a made hand) and play it like a real nit.
 
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fundiver199

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I think, this is a really interesting hand, and it perfectly illustrate the concept, than when we take a passive line to induce bluffs, we often end up getting more, than we bargained for. And this is why, I am not a big fan of such a line in general. If we 3-bet preflop, he might not make many mistakes against it, but we end the hand and protect ourselfes from making mistakes later.

The other point is, that it is important to have a plan for the hand and then stick to it. If the plan here was to induce bluffs, it is a mistake to bail out on the river, just because the runout was a bit scary. If Villain is this bluff machine, we need to assume, that scary cards will be used to bluff.

Finally I feel, a lot of people get to hung up about payjumps. Hero was the third shortest stack with 7 players left, and payjumps between 5, 6 and 7 are usually insignificant. So this was actually a perfect spot to try and dubble up to content for the top 3 places.
 
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bonanzaJay

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This hand was played in a PokerStars Winter Series Event, Final table, you can watch it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oxww7SJIfQ?t=1978 (Time 33:01)

My question is, is it better to 3bet shove or just call on the turn?
If we call, are we committed to call on any river cards, or can we fold if certain cards fall?

Prior info: Villain (N.E.C. NMGN) was very active and aggressive throughout the game, and was caught 3 barrel bluffing OOP

PokerStars, $500 + $30 - Hold'em No Limit - 100,000/200,000 (25,000 ante) - 7 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

PaNdaY (UTG): 12,067,834 (60 bb)
N.E.C. NMGN (MP): 10,872,006 (54 bb)
boerni21 (MP+1): 6,662,630 (33 bb)
Lucky_Jew_17 (CO): 13,960,693 (70 bb)
LudwigVVonMises (BU): 3,640,335 (18 bb)
dodi papa (SB): 9,624,930 (48 bb)
olle1FIN (BB): 4,071,572 (20 bb)

Pre-Flop: (475,000) Hero (boerni21) is MP+1 with A Q
1 fold, N.E.C. NMGN (MP) raises to 400,000, boerni21 (MP+1) calls 400,000, 4 players fold

Flop: (1,275,000) 9 3 3 (2 players)
N.E.C. NMGN (MP) bets 1,200,000, boerni21 (MP+1) calls 1,200,000

Turn: (3,675,000) Q (2 players)
N.E.C. NMGN (MP) bets 1,911,000, boerni21 (MP+1) calls 1,911,000

River: (7,497,000) K (2 players)
N.E.C. NMGN (MP) bets 7,336,006 (all-in), boerni21 (MP+1) folds

N.E.C. NMGN shows A♥4

Total pot: 7,497,000
N.E.C. NMGN (MP) wins 7,497,000

I think i would have tried to trap him on the turn with the A Q when i knew i had the best hand. I would have check raised the turn. Mabye even all in. If he checked back the turn, then i would check called the river.

My feeling on the hand is that if he really had hit that king on the river, then would he really want to push out AQ (second pair on the board) with an all in bet. I think not. He might make a half pot value bet instead. It is a more profitable play if you do hit the king on the river.

Chin up. We all make mistakes
 
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fundiver199

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My feeling on the hand is that if he really had hit that king on the river, then would he really want to push out AQ (second pair on the board) with an all in bet. I think not. He might make a half pot value bet instead. It is a more profitable play if you do hit the king on the river.

Hero was the effective stack, so the river bet was actually only for a little more than half pot.
 
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I'm not sure I'm floating post-flop here, I'm also jamming turn once I connect. I'll add this type of hand highlights by far the most frustrating type of poker player. Clearly this dude put zero thought into what he was doing, just barrel away your entire stack and hope for the best. I'm not even sure what this guy is trying to represent here. A button masher at playing for $530. Yikes.
 
hackmeplz

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I'm not sure I'm floating post-flop here, I'm also jamming turn once I connect. I'll add this type of hand highlights by far the most frustrating type of poker player. Clearly this dude put zero thought into what he was doing, just barrel away your entire stack and hope for the best. I'm not even sure what this guy is trying to represent here. A button masher at playing for $530. Yikes.


And this is why you play CC freerolls instead of $530 mtts. There's been some good discussion on why above, maybe read some of the thread and learn something. Outside of some crazy reads that he's a nit the flop float is beyond standard. Like no one who's profitable at $20+ mtts is folding there because it's such a standard float. I outlined why above. Turn is also a really bad shove, like it's a huge leak if you're doing it. The fact that you think he's the one who's the button masher while criticizing play that is standard for anyone actually playing tournaments for a living is laughable.
 
Jon Poker

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I think, this is a really interesting hand, and it perfectly illustrate the concept, than when we take a passive line to induce bluffs, we often end up getting more, than we bargained for. And this is why, I am not a big fan of such a line in general. If we 3-bet preflop, he might not make many mistakes against it, but we end the hand and protect ourselfes from making mistakes later.

The other point is, that it is important to have a plan for the hand and then stick to it. If the plan here was to induce bluffs, it is a mistake to bail out on the river, just because the runout was a bit scary. If Villain is this bluff machine, we need to assume, that scary cards will be used to bluff.

Finally I feel, a lot of people get to hung up about payjumps. Hero was the third shortest stack with 7 players left, and payjumps between 5, 6 and 7 are usually insignificant. So this was actually a perfect spot to try and dubble up to content for the top 3 places.

If payjumps are $300+ in each spot then we absolutely have to take busting into consideration but I generally tend to agree here that usually between these places paid the jumps are not too significant - in the larger buy ins though I think the jumps definitely get larger.

That being said - I know its been touched on over and over but - this is why we should be 3betting this hand. We 3bet, get called and we are IP - flop comes down and we cbet 1/4 ‐ 1/3 pot on the flop, then when we are called and the turn rolls off the Q - I am shoving with what should be an SPR of 1:1 or possibly a little less. Also i would personally like to think i call off x/r jams on the flop. Even tho it's hard for him to be bluffing in that spot I think I go with it because I would be too committed to fold at that point and i do fair decently vs some of his range like underpairs.
 
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fundiver199

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If payjumps are $300+ in each spot then we absolutely have to take busting into consideration but I generally tend to agree here that usually between these places paid the jumps are not too significant - in the larger buy ins though I think the jumps definitely get larger.

That being said - I know its been touched on over and over but - this is why we should be 3betting this hand. We 3bet, get called and we are IP - flop comes down and we cbet 1/4 ‐ 1/3 pot on the flop, then when we are called and the turn rolls off the Q - I am shoving with what should be an SPR of 1:1 or possibly a little less. Also i would personally like to think i call off x/r jams on the flop. Even tho it's hard for him to be bluffing in that spot I think I go with it because I would be too committed to fold at that point and i do fair decently vs some of his range like underpairs.

Exactly. I guess, Hero decided to not 3-bet, because he wanted to pot control and not bust. But it just put him into a position, where frankly he got outplayed after the flop.
 
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kkonicke

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And this is why you play CC freerolls instead of $530 mtts. There's been some good discussion on why above, maybe read some of the thread and learn something. Outside of some crazy reads that he's a nit the flop float is beyond standard. Like no one who's profitable at $20+ mtts is folding there because it's such a standard float. I outlined why above. Turn is also a really bad shove, like it's a huge leak if you're doing it. The fact that you think he's the one who's the button masher while criticizing play that is standard for anyone actually playing tournaments for a living is laughable.


I should have clarified, I'm check/jamming the turn. Open jamming I admit would be stupid.

I didn't really have a problem with the float, I just don't know that I'd do it in this spot. The play I'm criticizing is the guy triple barrel bluffing with A rag. It's hard to believe a guy doing that is profitable at all. He's not even trying to represent a hand, at best he's looking at the board as a tough runout and hoping to pressure a fold...at worst he's just clicking and hoping. If I found myself in the AQ spot on the river, I'm definitely making the call. The only hands he's folding out are hands like AJ spades or sticky pocket pairs. He's getting called by every K and Q here.
 
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I think you have played perfect. I dont like idea about push on the turn. I think we always will get calls from better hands.
 
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Ok so here's my take on it.

TLTR:
Our aggressive opponent is likely to put us all in in the river anyways, so letting him blast off is more beneficial than having him fold some weak/good draws, having him call with an unlikely worse two-pair, or with an even unlikelier trips+

Preflop:
I don't mind a 3bet or a flat preflop, but we do have to 3bet at a higher frequency

Flop:
When villain bets pot on the flop (essentially begging for his opponent to fold), what is he representing really?
- Mostly 9x, small pocket pairs seeking protection 22-88
- Less often TT or JJ
- Unlikely QQ-AA, 99, 33
- Unlikely 3x
- Hands trying to win the pot uncontested, such as Broadways and backdoor flush draws.

His pot sized bet leans more towards a bluff, and we beat all of them, so I don't mind a call (even though practically I'd be a chicken and assume he has a pair already and fold--which even if he does, will mostly shut down at the turn)

Turn:
After we call, the villain continues with a ~53% pot bet on the turn.

What is his range?
Value hands:
- Given the flop bet, value the hands that make most sense are QT-QA, Q9 (we block many combos)
- Make some sense JJ, TT (could bet or check)
- Make less sense but still possible T9-A9 (as they would mostly check)
- Unlikely 33, 99, AA-QQ (unlikely 'cause of the flop pot bet) (we block many combos)

Semi-bluffs:
- JT (open ender), gutshots T8s J8s KT KJ, flush draws, flush draws with a straight draw

Bluffs:
- Too many to list
- Less likely 22-66 turned into bluffs

Now, Call vs Shove the turn (never folding)

If we shove, what better hands would we fold?
None. It's extremely unlikely a better hand would fold to a turn shove.

If we shove, what worse hands do we get called by?
- Most Qx
- JJ or TT at some frequency
- 9x at a small frequency
- 22-88 bluff catching at a very small frequency
- JsTs specifically
- Flush draws with one overcard and/or with a gutshot, ie. KsJs, KsTs ATs, J8s (which might sometimes fold here given that it's paired board and that it would leave villain with an awkward stack if he misses)

If we shove, what worse hands do we fold?
- Gutshots, and probably an open ender or a weak flush draw
- Also all his non-equity bluffs

Pros to calling:
  • Giving our opponent one more chance to bluff, since he's already shown to be very aggressive and willing to triple barrel bluff.
  • Even if he catches a K (pair) on the river, it's not very likely he will bet it because our hand looks too strong given the line.
  • Trips 3s might look to check-call many rivers, especially if another spade falls.
  • Even a better unlikely two-pair (AA, KK, Q9) might look to check-call sometimes as they might think they've already invested many chips and our line looks too strong.
  • Sometimes even some draws that get there might check-call at a low frequency (eg. straights when flush comes as well), hoping for us to bluff/turn our hand into a bluff, or being too excited they got there and not realizing we'll never check back a full house or a flush.
  • We have one more street to get the money in if we believe we still have the best hand and want to get hero-ed by a smaller two-pair (22-88, 9x, JJ-TT, Qx)
Cons to calling (rather than shoving):
  • Letting him draw without paying extra chips
  • Giving him a slightly harder time to hero with a worse two-pair on some rivers
  • If he misses and checks the river, not getting paid by some hands that would have paid us on the turn
Given that the villain has few made hands here, his range leans much more towards semi-bluffs and non-equity bluffs. We definitely wouldn't mind the villain folding a hand that has more than 20% equity here, but he probably wouldn't because he's getting the right odds (~21%). We have little fold equity against a flush draw with an overcard (25%) and/or with a straight draw (villain has 32% equity with KsTs against any two pairs).
The only hands we wouldn't mind forcing to fold here are KJ KT (15% equity) and JT (18%), and a weak flush draw such as 78s (18%, might or might not fold).
We can't be too concerned about not getting value from his TT-JJ (make little sense), Qx (we block many comobs), or 9x, because they constitute a small portion of his range, plus they aren't that much less likely to call on most rivers anyways.

So to make the decision it all comes down to do how many weak flush draws and K high gutshots our opponent has in his range compared to non-equity bluffs, and how likely is he to fire again if he misses the river.
Given the his aggressiveness and willingness to bluff, I'm calling 75% of the time and shoving 25% of the time on the turn, and absolutely calling ANY RIVER, be it a K, spade, or a f*cking atomic bomb.

I would, however, be much more inclined to shove if I had a 'read' that villain gives up on the river if he misses his draws or non-equity bluffs.

PS. The river fold is so terrible not only because we're getting great odds against a very aggressive player, but because it is the difference between being the 2nd largest stack vs. being the shortest--which means we'll probably be out next anyways.
 
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fundiver199

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PS. The river fold is so terrible not only because we're getting great odds against a very aggressive player, but because it is the difference between being the 2nd largest stack vs. being the shortest--which means we'll probably be out next anyways.

This is actually a very important point. Of course its always possible, that we can get lucky and cooler someone with aces against their kings within the next few orbits. But barring something like this, we are not in a great position to level up several places, just because we survive with the second shortest stack.
 
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