PokerStars - 100/200 Ante 25 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 29.14 BB
UTG+1: 32.99 BB
Hero (MP): 32.27 BB
MP+1: 36.07 BB
MP+2: 40.4 BB
CO: 17.9 BB
BTN: 35.17 BB
SB: 93.5 BB
BB: 20.04 BB

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has 4♣ A♣

fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.1 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 1.6 BB, fold

Flop: (6.32 BB, 2 players) Q♦ 2♣ J♠
SB checks, Hero bets 4 BB, SB calls 4 BB

Turn: (14.32 BB, 2 players) A♠
SB checks, Hero bets 11 BB, SB raises to 23 BB, Hero raises to 26.04 BB and is all-in, SB calls 3.04 BB

I felt like I shouldn't call, but was pot commited as folding would get me in last place. And we were spots from the money. (7 out of 9 players were paid)

Spoiler alert!

Click to Reveal!

River: (66.41 BB, 2 players) Q♥

SB shows T♥ A♥ (Two Pair, Aces and Queens)
(Pre 68%, Flop 74%, Turn 82%)
Hero shows 4♣ A♣ (Two Pair, Aces and Queens)
(Pre 32%, Flop 26%, Turn 18%)
Hero wins 33.2 BB
SB wins 33.21 BB

I know this thread is old but I will take a crack at it. First, I think we should mention that I don’t think your hand is an open here from UTG +2. It is too weak a hand that will get called and raised by bigger AXs leaving you in a tough spot (exactly like how this hand turned out). I think you should be folding this pre with your stack size and is a hand maybe, maybe you can open if you are a lot deeper.

On the flop I do not like the C bet or that sizing. I think this is a spot that is perfect to check back as the Q and J nail the range of the calling SB and you didn’t hit anything. Bluffing here sometimes is more than okay but in this spot with the given flop I like a check behind here especially since we have a backdoor flush draw. If there was no club on the flop then betting is fine but even then I think I would still prefer a check behind. The sizing is way too big. No need to make it almost 2/3rds pot. If villain has nothing they will fold most likely and if they have any kind of pair they are calling. You get the same results betting 40-50% of pot here and it also will allow you to make future round bets smaller which we find out is a big deal in this hand.

On the turn as played betting is the correct option but again I think the sizing is too big. At this point yes we want value from our hand that could be best a lot of the time but if we are looking to get it all in by the river we don’t need to be betting this large. We have a 26 BB effective stack (our stack) and a pot of 14BB. In this case you can easily again bet 40-50% of the pot and setup a river shove of roughly 75% pot if that is the route that you want to go. Betting smaller here also gives us options if we get jammed on like we did here. Now if we go through our evaluations on the situation and see we are bad we can more easily fold and not feel committed.

As far as calling the raise that villain makes in this hand it is a tough spot only because we made it a tough spot with the bet sizing. I personally think this is a fold just on hand ranges (not considering pot odds yet) because what hands is villain min raising the turn with? He is not doing this with a one pair Q or J hand. This is a two pair or better hand very often and am actually a little shocked he did this with only A10. A10 really has to be at the bottom of his raising range here. So if A10 is at the bottom we should not be calling. However, now I will consider pot odds and with the pot odds that we made by betting too large I think you have to call but I don’t like it. Over half your stack is already in and we are beat a lot but are getting roughly 2:1 on this. Are we good 33% here? Doubt it but with half stack already in I am probably clicking the call button. This is why it’s very important to get bet sizing correct as if we bet smaller here I would be saying fold this with ease and not lose any sleep at night over it.

You have built up this pot that you should not be in. It is very dangerous to enter the flop in this position. Our cards don't look as good as they seem. The villain with the best chances plays the check, and you continue to build up the pot for him. I understand that you were happy to get an ACE on the turn, so you were blinded. But after getting a re-raise, you must realize that you have lost this hand.

Hi, first a lucky river, I in this case would not have entered the hand with A4o I think it is the only difference, then as you played the hand taking into account the raise of the pre-flop that I would not have done everything was fine including the I called on the turn but I repeat maybe you should be more patient in that case and fold A4o in MP position

I think A4s is a fine open from your position.

Once I hit the Ace on the turn, at that time it can be a good idea to play pot control. If villain has an Ace too, it's going to be bigger than yours. Rather than play for stacks, you have a really good bluff catcher.

SB player is smallball player or total noob. He should 3b this hand against you. That makes you can´t expected this hand.

I dont like opening too much A4... thinking you had a very lucky river

Preflop
You will see high stakes players make this open, so it cant be that bad. If the table has a lot of calling stations, nitting up a bit will also be fine though.

Flop
You do have a little something going on here with an overcard and some backdoor draws, but you still basically missed this flop. Its kind of close between C-betting and checking back, but if you are going to c-bet, you should make it smaller. He is not folding many hands for 4BB, that he would not also fold for 3BB, and this C-bet is not exactly for value.

Turn
While the previous decisions were close, betting here is a major mistake in my opinion. You turned top pair but with no kicker, and this is definitely not a hand, you want to try and get 3 streets of value with. So check back and then make a decision on the river depending on the card and his actions. This is also a spot, where ICM is somewhat important, and for that reason you want to lean even more towards doing some pot control with a marginal made hand, than you would in a cash game or the first 2-3 blind levels of a tournament.

It's always a tough spot in tourneys when you hit a weak top pair, but are not really deep enough to get away from it.

This is an attempted punt at the highest level. What are we getting raised by on the turn that is worse than our hand? -- if we are not beating worse - then WHY are we calling the raise? Realize you screwed up, save the chips you have left, and find a better spot - unless you simply want to lose tournaments consistently by making bad call offs.

Pre flop action is all fine - this hand goes off the rails on the flop -- the SB had the least amount of money invested in the pot to begin with and is the LEAST incentivized to call a raise - so when they do, typical small blind calling ranges consist of mostly Broadway cards, pairs, and some higher ended suited connectors (89s, 9Ts).

So given a typical small blind CPFR range - this flop smacks their range VERY much and when they do not connect they likely have a draw they are probably not willing to fold too often - so the issue is when we bet flop - especially large - we have no idea where we are in the hand and are just blindly spewing chips without knowing why we are betting or what hands we are trying to get to fold.

If you are to bet the flop here -- then why bet 66% pot? Its a huge bet and though it folds out some air and underpairs its going to get called ALOT on this texture...we can risk less to get underpairs and air to fold - betting 2bb here is more than fine and accomplishes just that without risking nearly as much - so when we do screw up, we lose less.

That all being said - because of the SB calling ranges I explained earlier - we should NOT cbet this flop. We are going to get called waaaay too often and unless you are ready to triple off with some ridiculous A hi bluff on a board that connects well with your opponents range - we are just wasting chips here a ton of the time. So again - I would check flop. When we pick up the A on the turn - i would bet when checked to and just call if bet into - if we raise our A with a bad kicker - what is worse that is calling a raise? Not too much, right? So we are value towning ourselves vs better hands and pushing out or villans worst hands - so i would just call when bet into on the turn. If bet into on the river, i would elect to call once more for a reasonable (60% pot or less) sizing. We set it up to underep our hand and should be willing to catch our opponents river bluffs.

As played - once we bet huge on the flop and get called we should automatically know villan likely has a piece of this board - so when we smack turn - we should elect to check this back for pot control - because we just picked up showdown value - deception - and to allow opponents to put in more money with a worse hand. Betting huge on the turn here again is just a play that will fold out alot of Jx and Qx - and will get you raised by 2 pr combos and KT - all of which we are losing to -- so the huge turn bet accomplishes nothing but getting better to call and worse to fold. If our opponent bets river, there is no reason for us to raise because as i said before, raising in that scenario is going to typically get you called by better and get worse to fold -- we set up our hand to get to showdown, time to take it and just call a river bet. If it checks to us on the river I would likely go for a bet of about 40-50% pot for thin value.

When we do get raised here, its a disaster - we beat A2 and A3, bare Qx and bare Jx...do you really think our villan is raising us here with those hands? Pretty unlikely...so when we bet huge here and get raised - time to realize you screwed up - just fold and find a better spot. You created the situation because you were blindly being aggressive and so now you have to deal with the consequences or just give up all reasonable logic and stack off.

I hope you read all of this and I hope you find it helpful.