$Freeroll NLHE MTT: Wrong to take betting lead?

Where did I go wrong in this hand?
Now before you all go crazy about me calling the all-in. I beg you to look at the preflop action. Who would expected a limp with AQ?

I figured in the worse case I was facing QJ, maybe QT, but having a blocker, it seemed unlikely.

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/9qqSP5C

AllenKll said:

Where did I go wrong in this hand?
Now before you all go crazy about me calling the all-in. I beg you to look at the preflop action. Who would expected a limp with AQ?

I figured in the worse case I was facing QJ, maybe QT, but having a blocker, it seemed unlikely.

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/9qqSP5C

Click to expand...

Thank you for posting

Watching replay stopping at each important action

In real estate location location location

In poker? Aggressive aggressive aggressive

You just called preflop. Raise to isolate, do not try to outplay 3 or 4 players every hand especially with KQ off

Qs3s4c
This is a great flop for us. Ohh wait we did not raise so Q3 Q4 34 As2s 4s5s 6s5s all possible
As well as 33 44 and we are 4 way


UTG leads we min raise giving UTG great odds on all draws

Q34J check you bet half pot no draw is folding and QJ just got there

Q34J10 V shoves we beat bluffs. Do we know this V bluffs?

What do you think V thinks you min raise flop with. Strong or weak?
Why would V think you would fold strong hands?

Is your player pool so bad they have no idea that you min raise top pair and better?

We want to be thinking about what are V are thinking
Hope this helps

I very much appreciate your response. You make some great points.

eetenor said:

You just called preflop. Raise to isolate, do not try to outplay 3 or 4 players every hand especially with KQ off

Click to expand...

I should have raised pre-flop.

eetenor said:

UTG leads we min raise giving UTG great odds on all draws

Click to expand...

Perhaps I should have sized larger on the flop raise... I see your points there.

eetenor said:

Q34J check you bet half pot no draw is folding...

Click to expand...

The comment regarding the turn is curious. Why do you believe that no draws would fold there? with 3-1 pot odds, V would need 10+ outs to call. What could his draws possibly be? up and down straight with an over card? Flush draw with 1 over?

It's a rare day that I would see the proper pot odds on a turn bet of that size to continue. Or is there more to it that I'm not seeing?



This particular hand was fairly early in the game. Later in the game I found out that V's play style was ... lets say, erratic.... and no amount of bet sizing would have caused him to fold this hand. his range was random, as was his bet sizing. And he always went to showdown. Made me feel a little better for playing this hand so poorly.

Hello, IMO in freeroll tournament you can in this situation limp or isolate pre flop, but in tournament on real money for me it is fold pre flop, because my experiences in real money tournament are that limp from position utg on deep stacks sometimes means that somebody has strong hand and then opponent want to egg on all players at the table to isolation or to going all in pre flop. As played - I think in freeroll tournament you played good this hand. Admittedly opponent plays pot size bet on the flop and he shows you that he has something strong, but I think with top pair and second best kicker on this board you have to call the river card, especially in freeroll tournament. In real money tournament you will have big mess in this situation end better fold this top pair.

In this spot you should not be calling pre flop. I think you need to raise or fold and I dont think folding is terrible but raising is better. If you would have raised the hand would have played differently since it would have been checked to you. I will give my opinion though on post flop as played.

I would not recommend the flop raise (and if you do it you have to do it for more than a min raise) because what are you looking to accomplish with it? A lot of worse hands are just going to fold which is not what you want and the better hands like a set will call you and let you dig your own grave. I think a call here is better and let villain bet a lot of turns where you normally would be ahead. When you do raise and he calls you get no information out of it because it is a min raise.

On the turn I would have bet about what you did but as soon as he calls I would just be looking to get to showdown. The all in on the river I would be folding to. He called your flop raise, he calls your turn bet, and then jams the river on a non scare card. He is bluffing a very small % of the time and all you have is one pair.

Thanks for the advice, playas!

The more I think about this hand... the more I think folding pre should have been the best move.

Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play... LOL