Blinds 60/120

UTG(10000)
UTG+1(13080)
HIJACK(9626)
CO(10000)
BTN(9566)=Hero
SB(8900)
BB(9700)

Utg opens 315, folds to hero on btn with AdKs
Hero 3-bets to 970
SB calls, BB folds, UTG calls

Flop 3h9d2c (pot:3030)
Check,check, Hero bets 1395. SB folds, Utg calls,

Turn 8d (pot:5820)
Utg checks, hero bets 2946, Utg Calls

River Qc (pot;11712)
utg checks, hero shoves remaining 4255, Utg calls.

Utg Shows AhQh and Wins With Top Pair.


Early stage of the tournament, is this a good line i took? i think the villian played it terribly and got lucky but should i have just cold called open preflop from button because early stage of tournament and not 3bet? or i should have i not fired cbet on flop? what do u think?


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At the flop you played correctly, because it was a dry flop and you had AdKs. At the turn there might be a flush draw, and at the river maybe someone had a straight. So you had two draws with no chance to participate. You could hold on at these two streets to see reactions, which would be a bet from the UTG player. Generally I agree with your play, but you where unlucky with the qween!

Originally Posted by makisaa

At the flop you played correctly, because it was a dry flop and you had AdKs. At the turn there might be a flush draw, and at the river maybe someone had a straight. So you had two draws with no chance to participate. You could hold on at these two streets to see reactions, which would be a bet from the UTG player. Generally I agree with your play, but you where unlucky with the qween!

I have Ad which blocks most of his flush draws he would have from utg

3bet and Cbet were ok but Cbet also very Sb dependent. You could even go smaller because at the end you accomplish the same thing. If Sb is not spewing his chips calling 3bets with junk I would check because his range would be mostly pocket pairs maybe up to Js or 10s which would for sure peal at least once maybe even reraise you(I wouldn't flat any broadways here on the sb but who knows what this player does) and there is also the utg player which didn't 4bet so he could have also a lot of pocket pairs(getting a good price to set mine with sb flat) some suited combos with a 9 like q9 t9 j9 98 which have multiway potential and mostly stronger broadway combos.


Now when he calls on the flop(not a terrible call since he has 2 overs, backdoor fd and sd) I would check the turn and give up if I don't improve on the river because he has all sets then combos with 9 where 98 improves to two par where he also could have Jd10d and he is not folding those(although I think that players mostly float A high hands with bd potential we can't exclude them since your flop bet was under half pot). On the other hand his turn call with this exact hand is just horrible when he didn't improve in any way.

River also a clear give up for me early in the tournament where you can't put much pressure on your opponents and it doesn't make much sense to blast off your 40bb remaining stack with air. Specially because the diamond didn't hit to allow you to bluff and a Q is a decent part of his flop floating range.

If I decided to bluff from the flop to the river even if I don't improve representing high pocket pairs and targeting the floating part of my opponents range and his 9x I would size up my bets from the start. But again wouldn't do this early in the tournament and would never bet with air in a multiway pot(with SB flatting your 3Bet just gives you even more reasons to play slow and evaluate on later streets).

Edit: Didn't notice this at first glance. Since it is Rebuy one more reason to be careful for bluffing because players tend to be very sticky with any pair or any bd draw also because it is a Rebuy it makes your flop cbet better imo because SB could flat wider.

Preflop
You can rarely go to wrong by 3-betting AK preflop, and I am completely fine with this.

Flop
3 ways on a low flop I am not that keen on C-betting AK, and especially not in a 3-bet pot, where ranges should be very pocket pair heavy. They are never folding any pair, so you are not getting better hands to fold, and they really should not call you out of position with many worse hands either, although one of them actually did.

So its a little bit of one of those "bets for no good reason", we should generally avoid to make. Although to be fair you do deny some equity and give yourself the chance to perhaps see both cards for the price of just one bet. So maybe its sort of ok, but if you are going to get check-raised a lot, which some players will on a board like this, you really need to check back.

Turn and river
Once you get action on the flop and dont improve, its time to shut it down and cut your losses. If you want to have multi barrel bluffs in your range, then pick hands like A4s, A5s or backdoor spades, which have some potential to make more than just a pair.

In early stage of MTT you can sometimes just call with Ax, your opponents donīt expext this move and if you donīthit a flop you donīt lose so much money. But your play is allright.

I like the way the hand is played until we reach the turn - i would size up on turn as we give any hands that may have picked up equity a good price to continue - my bet sizing would have been around 3200 or so on the turn and if/when called I am shutting down all rivers that do not come A or K. If the board pairs we still have showdown and beat draws and other sticky A hi hands - whereas is we were vs an underpair calling two streets, they are never going to fold river anyways. Save the chips and move on.

Personally I think the AQ float on the turn is a bit light even for your selected bet sizing. They are basically drawing to two overs not knowing one of them is dead if they hit it - so realize here that even though your opponent does hit 1 of their 3 miracle cards on the river, that you had them crushed the entire way. Don't let the end result bring you down - i just think after two check/calls our villan is.never folding rivers so the river bet ends up being a punt even tho we would certainly take this line with KK, QQ and AA.

I think this hand is played well and played as it should be played until we hit the turn. I actually like the C bet on the flop even though we are against two players since we 3 bet pre and can easily rep a big pocket pair ourselves. If we had QQ+ here we would not be checking behind on the flop so I like the bet to rep that part of my range.

The turn bet, though, I am not on board with. I think this is a spot where you can be done trying to rep the big pocket pairs because we tried that and villain still called anyway. I would have thought at this point in the hand we are going up against 1010 or possibly JJ with sets being a possibility too (getting at more than likely villain has a pair). Those are hands that with an 8 hitting on the turn villain most likely is not going away. I would have checked and taken the free card on the river and seen if an A or K hits. If so we can generally go for value on the river and if one doesnt we are either folding to a lead or checking behind hoping our Ace somehow is good.

Originally Posted by fundiver199

Preflop
You can rarely go to wrong by 3-betting AK preflop, and I am completely fine with this.

Flop
3 ways on a low flop I am not that keen on C-betting AK, and especially not in a 3-bet pot, where ranges should be very pocket pair heavy. They are never folding any pair, so you are not getting better hands to fold, and they really should not call you out of position with many worse hands either, although one of them actually did.

So its a little bit of one of those "bets for no good reason", we should generally avoid to make. Although to be fair you do deny some equity and give yourself the chance to perhaps see both cards for the price of just one bet. So maybe its sort of ok, but if you are going to get check-raised a lot, which some players will on a board like this, you really need to check back.

Turn and river
Once you get action on the flop and dont improve, its time to shut it down and cut your losses. If you want to have multi barrel bluffs in your range, then pick hands like A4s, A5s or backdoor spades, which have some potential to make more than just a pair.

This this this

Fundiver beats me to the analysis.

It's refreshing to read through a HH, think of how I would have played the hand, and then see Fundiver post the exact same thing I was thinking.

Maybe I am on to something with this poker stuff!