$.11 NLHE MTT Turbo: Against aggressive villain TPGK

[skrsh76]

Background: This is a satellite with 2FPP BI for an entry to .11 tournament.. 6Max table and 12 entries S&G

The villain has been extremely aggressive ( he had played almost all the hands of about 20 hands we have played so far) and surprisingly winning a lot of pots in the showdown and due to aggression. I wanted to use his aggressive against him when this hand comes.. with tables really short handed as there was only 7 players left and top 3 get entries to the tournament and 4th get 3FPP. Should I have GII on the turn?

pokerstars No-Limit Hold'em, 0 Tournament, 15/30 Blinds (3 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://poker-tools.flopturnriver.com/Hand-Converter.php

Hero (BB) (t1,390)
Button (t2,164)
SB (t7,745)

Hero's M: 30.89

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q

, 7

1 fold, SB calls t15, Hero checks

Flop: (t60) Q

, 8

, 2

(2 players)
SB bets t120, Hero calls t120

Turn: (t300) 5

(2 players)
SB bets t90, Hero raises to t210, SB calls t120

River: (t720) 3

(2 players)
SB bets t600, Hero raises to t1,030 (All-In), SB calls t430

Total pot: t2,780

Results below:

Spoiler

SB had Q

, 3

(two pair, Queens and threes).
Hero had Q

, 7

(one pair, Queens).
Outcome: SB won t2,780

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

well, blind vs blind and you both flop top pair; this is kind of a cooler...being more deep stacked or facing a normal opponent you could maybe get away from this hand; but vs. this guy you gotta figure your top pair is good a lot of the time.

Now, I don't think I could have folded this hand on the flop or turn or maybe even the river...but I might have played it a bit differently.

Preflop: About 30% of the time, I would raise his limp to a total of 3.5bbs and the rest of the time, I would check like you did.

Flop: Yay! top pair. double yay he bets into us! triple yay...he overbet the pot! While I'm pretty happy to play Top pair in position, I also want to protect it from overcards and flush draws. So I might have raised on the flop to about 350 or 400. if I decide to just flat call....it is with the intention of slow playing/flat calling/pot controlling the whole way down and letting him hang himself.

Turn: kinda scary card. And he bets tiny. My only 2 options here would be to flat his tiny bet, or jam all in....basically gambling that he doesn't have a flush and that he can't call my bet. The possibility of him already having the flush would probably scare me into just flatting. I don't think I'd raise here any less than all in, but once I do and then he just flats my turn raise...alarm bells are going off in my head. I'm really wondering if he has a flush or a better queen as both holdings would make sense given the action thus far.

River: crap...NOW he bets big. this polarizes his range. I'd probably be inclined to fold right here as I'm suspecting a flush or total bluff. If I elect to call I'm using my Q as a bluff catcher only. generally he'll show up with a total bluff, a flush, a Q with a better kicker, or 2 pair or better. The only "worse" Queens now are Q6 Q4 and Q2 as every other Q either out kicks you, or made 2 pair. Which hands do you think your raise is extracting value from? Which worse hands do you think are betting like this?

Never raise in position with your bluff catchers....

let's recap his betting actions and what each might mean to me if I was in the hand:
first he limps from SB (weak hand?)
then he donk bets 200% the pot (caught a piece of the flop, wants to protect it?)
then he bets 30% pot on the turn (scared of the scare card, but doesn't want to give me license to bluff?)
then he calls a turn raise for 120 getting 4:1 pot odds (maybe not scared of the scare card. maybe has 1 diamond and a pair)
then he leads out for 83% the pot on the river (total bluff? or he had it on the turn...)

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

so i think for me, I would have raised on the flop to try to take down the pot right there

OR I would have tried to play a small pot in position by:

calling flop bet 120
calling turn bet 90
calling reasonable river bet of up to about 300.

total loss: 510 (not counting blind which belonged to the pot all along)

Interesting hand. tough to play. thanks for sharing it!

 

[Arjonius]

I pretty much echo what missjacki said with one addition. I'd at least have thought about shoving the flop. While I could make it 300-400, If he's folding to that, he's likely also folding to a shove, so it doesn't matter which I do.

Since he's aggressive, it's unlikely he limped a pocket pair, an A, two high cards, maybe not even even a K. So my top pair is in pretty good shape against his likely range. There aren't even many better Qx hands in it since I'm guessing he'd have raised QT+.

What if I make it 300-400 and he re-pops? For one thing, this isn't very likely, and I don't know if I can fold anyway.

Shoving does give up value when he folds a hand that would have put more chips in had I just called. But how many are there? He might well call with Qx, so 8x, 2x and flush draws that weren't worth an open-raise.

Shoving might also help slow him down, which I don't mind, being the short stack at the table. Or maybe I get lucky and he calls my presumed bluff-shove with his 2nd or 3rd pair.

 

[skrsh76]

Thanks for feedback much appreciated.

1. I flatted pre and flop to conceal as I believed he will 3 barrel with a pair and mine was better than his range.

2. I don't understand how my shoving ~1200 on a ~400 in the turn is +EV and hence i min raised. Of course when flat calls I worried about Flush.

3. When he bets this big on the river with an apparent crap river I didn't believe he had flush anymore.. But I agree he could play 2p exactly like that.. May be I should just folded and lived to fight another day

 

[RamdeeBen]

Call flop, call turn, fold river.

All your raises look really bad to me even vs this sort of player, you have a terrible kicker for a start and the board has so many draws. Do you think you're raising for value on the turn/river? It just looks like you're turning your hand into a bluff from here more times than not. Not sure what you're expecting him to call the river with when you raise apart from all hands that beat you.

Flop turn is fine, turn raise looks bad but by far the biggest mistake of the hand was the river. Calling the river seems very optimistic but if he's that bad and it is a 2fpp tournament I might call it's the raise that's the big error. You have to try and think of the range of hands this guy has and unless you're trying to represent a strong hand yourself which by the river looks like you're doing because there's no real value in raising Q7 here. His bet/call on the turn looks better than Qx and his lead on the river really means there's very few bluffs here. You have to expect villain has a hand which is better than yours which is going to fold when getting a good price and there really aren't any hands I can see at all he's bet/folding here given his line which are better than yours. There are only bluffs (which seems very unlikely) which we beat so again makes no sense in raising.

 

[Arjonius]

2. I don't understand how my shoving ~1200 on a ~400 in the turn is +EV and hence i min raised. Of course when flat calls I worried about Flush.

An action doesn't have to be +EV across the board to be +EV against some types of opponents. In this case, say he's the type of player who will call a larger raise or shove with one pair, which he can afford to do with his big stack. Given he only limper in pre-, it's quite likely you're ahead, so if he's willing to make a bigger mistake...

 

[skrsh76]

Thanks guys... I see my problem with his hand has been I was 'convinced' he is just bluffing and wasn't seeing how my actions are being interpreted.

 

[horizon12]

Can added only what need reraise in flop 400, what shove in turn , with any card what be, this will be right game in micro limit,,,