$11 NL HE MTT: Top pair bad kicker in 3-bet pot

[fundiver199]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Table Format

MTT

Buy-in

11

Game Options

1. Deep Stacked

Currency

$

Hand is from an 11$ "Big" MTT on pokerstars. Starting stack 5.000 chips and still far from the money. Opponent was playing VPIP 45 / PFR 42 with a 3-bet of 27% over 31 hands. Country of origin was new zealand for those, who believe in country reads. Do you get away from this at any point?

PokerStars, $9.80 + $1.20 - Hold'em No Limit - 50/100 (12 ante) - 8 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/hand-converter.php

UTG (Hero): 6,033 (60 bb)
UTG+1: 14,722 (147 bb)
MP: 4,790 (48 bb)
MP+1: 12,409 (124 bb)
CO: 2,920 (29 bb)
BU: 3,692 (37 bb)
SB: 17,511 (175 bb)
BB: 5,000 (50 bb)

Pre-Flop: (246) Hero is UTG with Q♥ T♥
Hero raises to 250, 2 players fold, MP+1 3-bets to 750, 4 players fold, Hero calls 500

Flop: (1,746) 2♦ Q♦ 9♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP+1 bets 1,200, Hero calls 1,200

Turn: (4,146) 5♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP+1 bets 4,146, Hero?

 

[Sopt]

It's a bit tricky hand to analyze as you have double flash draws and a straight draw on turn. With your opponent being quite willing to put chips in the pot, we could assume that he might as well be in this pot with speculative hand.
Now lets see what "real" hands we are beating at this moment. We are ahead of AK,KJ, JJ, TT, 88 and lower pocket pairs. I don't believe he would be betting this much with a middle or bottom pair.
His bet is pot size and with that quite big. So we need to ask ourselves, do we want to commit to this pot and are we willing to call another bet that is most likely coming on river, no matter what card drops.
In my opinion I'd fold my hand on turn, as I would not be comfortable calling any bet on river. The only card that I'd be OK seeing is another Q and even then, I'm nowhere near nuts. There is just too many draws for my taste and we could as well be behind already.
I would love to hear some other opinions on this tho as I struggle playing such hands as well.

 

[fundiver199]

So we need to ask ourselves, do we want to commit to this pot and are we willing to call another bet that is most likely coming on river, no matter what card drops.

He had me covered, and his turn bet was large enough to put me all-in. So if I called, there would not be any river action.

 

[spunka]

Basicly a Villan with those stat, will bet the turn when you have checked to him on flop and turn.
we are fairly deep so why not just call and check on river, we will be ahead a lot of the time.
and make the decision on the river depending on Villans bet there.

Oki so the pot is bigger than I thought, so it is a guessing game, and the bet might be too big for us, if we can-will not rebuy.
but stats is against him and we did call that 1200 bet we should maybe have 3 bet light there to find out where we were, as we now are in nowhere land.

 

[syperyurik]

You have to defend yourself on the turn, because with his tribet of 27 percent, this is a lot

 

[puzzlefish]

This is another one of those high variance spots. Have you seen him 3bet light against other UTG opens? That should almost be a stat in and of itself, 3bet% vs different positions. It's a pretty bold move by him to then continue to keep betting when UTG comes along to the turn and essentially come for your whole stack.

I think if you continue, you are bluff catching and hoping for some weaker pair. I just don't think that is what you will be up against most of the time and it's perfectly reasonable for him to play a set or Queens with better kickers this way. I would let it go on the turn.

 

[Sopt]

He had me covered, and his turn bet was large enough to put me all-in. So if I called, there would not be any river action.

Ahh sorry miss read, thought you were UTG+1. Ye so he pushed you all in there, would make my fold even easier in that case I'm guessing.

 

[eetenor]

Hand is from an 11$ "Big" MTT on PokerStars. Starting stack 5.000 chips and still far from the money. Opponent was playing VPIP 45 / PFR 42 with a 3-bet of 27% over 31 hands. Country of origin was New Zealand for those, who believe in country reads. Do you get away from this at any point?

PokerStars, $9.80 + $1.20 - Hold'em No Limit - 50/100 (12 ante) - 8 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/hand-converter.php

UTG (Hero): 6,033 (60 bb)
UTG+1: 14,722 (147 bb)
MP: 4,790 (48 bb)
MP+1: 12,409 (124 bb)
CO: 2,920 (29 bb)
BU: 3,692 (37 bb)
SB: 17,511 (175 bb)
BB: 5,000 (50 bb)

Pre-Flop: (246) Hero is UTG with Q♥ T♥
Hero raises to 250, 2 players fold, MP+1 3-bets to 750, 4 players fold, Hero calls 500

Flop: (1,746) 2♦ Q♦ 9♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP+1 bets 1,200, Hero calls 1,200

Turn: (4,146) 5♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP+1 bets 4,146, Hero?

As always we want to preplan our hands- the presence of this very agg player requires us adjust our post flop plans with this part of our range.

So when we open this hand we have to expect to be 3 bet often

When OOP with an EQR hand we want to keep our post flop SPR high---we can do that by min raising or even limping hands in this part of our range- Again this is an exploit vs this player type specifically but the limp does not hurt us vs most player types as this part of our range does play well multiway OOP- we can also limp AA vs this player type specifically so we would not be easily readable- however balance in tournaments is not that necessary early

As played when we open and are now head-up our preflop plan vs this player type should include the strategy of having to call off our stack if we feel our hand is strong enough vs their range. So we need to know preflop are we calling with top pair for stacks?
If yes then turn is a call as it puts you all-in or very close to it.
Why call? This is a polarized shove by the V and the HUD stats suggest they are unbalanced to bluffs and betting second best hands incorrectly-
We can only ever act on the data we have and that is what we base our preflop plan on. When we have no data that is when we use GTO or raw equity strategies

 

[dallam]

It's just me probably, but if we open from UTG 2.5bbs this Q10s and this agro player just level it up to 7.5bbs, I'm not sure if we have to make a confortation with this person in this hand. I would be simply more happier to have a combination with connected straight draw apart from the really strong handls like QJs or J10s, 89s, 78s, 67s, 56s to speculate to more draws cause a Q or a 10 top pair in itself is one of the best outcomes could happen but our stack may not let us to speculate much OOP from UTG.

Since we end up out of position, left 52.5bbs while the pot is 17.5bb = exactly 1/3 of our stack. So, if we wanna slow it down this party at any point, it will not be easy, or it's complicated to tell wether we are in advantage of not. We hit Top pair, but it's giving a headache, cause 99, AA, KK, QQ, AQ, KQ, QJ are each ahead. On turn we beat A9s, AK, KJs, J10s, JJ, 1010, AdXd.

I guess if you called both pre and flop you won't fold on the Turn, and hoping to see the chasing or the air side of your opponent. Stats could strenghten these calls. But even tho there were enormous value-bets through the whole hand, some really contender stronger value hands are in from time to time, like KK, KQ or 99, or just an A9s or AdXd, Ks J10s. It's really a flippy one, hope it landed the bright side to you.

 

[fundiver199]

Thanks for the comments. I think, eetenor pretty much nailed it. With a very loose and aggressive player AKA "maniac" like this on our left we have two reasonable options. We can tighten our opening range and just straight out fold hands like this, which are normally near the bottom of our raise first in range. Or we can be prepared to become a bit of a calling station and get quite sticky with hands like this, and basically hand them the rope to hang themselfes.

And this is the path, I took. Often people share hands, where my respons is, that the general population in micro or low stakes games is not bluffing enough, so its fine to just fold. But this is the exact opposite. Yes its a small sample, I have on him, and 3-bet stats are not reliable over just 31 hands. 27% is likely 3 out of 11 opportunities. But its supported by very high VPIP and PFR. And he had twice as many chips as me, which makes it far more likely, he might attempt to run some big bluff, compared to if the opposite was the case.

It was not near the bubble, but there is still power in putting people to a decision for all their chips, and a player like this likely know that. He was also from New Zealand making it unlikely, he is a mass multitabling grinder, since they are mostly from Eastern Europe or South America. So most likely this is someone, who is playing for fun, and who is using a playing style, where he enjoy to be the "table captain" and push weak opponents around

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