$2.20 NL HE MTT: AK top pair + nut flushdraw vs 3 barrels from villain

[rhoudini]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Table Format

MTT

Buy-in

2.20

Freeroll

1. Freeroll

Game Options

1. Turbo

Currency

$

Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - 500/1,000 (100 ante) - 9 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat
Attention: in the replayer, as well as in spoiler below, the results are available! Be careful if you don't want to see the result.

UTG: 158,674 (159 bb)
UTG+1 (Hero): 50,820 (51 bb)
MP: 60,190 (60 bb)
MP+1: 66,654 (67 bb)
LP: 26,780 (27 bb)
CO: 28,750 (29 bb)
BU: 75,791 (76 bb)
SB: 71,410 (71 bb)
BB: 43,100 (43 bb)

Pre-Flop: (2,400) Hero is UTG+1 with A♣ K♦
1 fold, Hero raises to 2,100, 6 players fold, BB calls 1,100

Flop: (5,600) 6♣ K♣ 8♣ (2 players)
BB bets 3,200, Hero calls 3,200

Turn: (12,000) 4♦ (2 players)
BB bets 3,200, Hero calls 3,200

River: (18,400) Q♠ (2 players)
BB bets 9,200, Hero????

COMMENTS: I don't know much about opponent. I am not using a HUD and villain was not on table for much time. This is a $2.20 Re-entry Big Freerolls on Americas Cardroom. So, opponents can be recreative as well as regular winning players.
My question is: this hand was correctly played? And even more important: is my thought process right? It was like this:
FLOP: just calling, to control the pot, because hand is simply too strong to fold in this moment.
TURN: Again controlling the pot, because despite having flushdraw, I just have one pair.
RIVER: Does this size usually demonstrate more strength than one pair? Here, KQ now beats me, but I am blocking KcQc.
What to do in this spot? Well, certainly I should not raise, but is calling fine, or fold is more safe?

Spoiler: RESULT OF THE HAND

Hero calls 9,200
Total pot: 36,800

Showdown:
BB shows Q♣ 5♣ (a flush, King high)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 36%, Flop: 68%, Turn: 84%, River: 100%)

UTG+1 (Hero) shows A♣ K♦ (a pair of Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 64%, Flop: 32%, Turn: 16%, River: 0%)

BB wins 36,800

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
With stacks this deep I prefer to open all my hands to more than 2,1BB. This is a bit to fancy for me, especially in a freeroll, where players tend to not fold.

Flop
Obviously we are not folding here, but I also dont think, there is much reason to raise, when you have the nut draw. If you raise and get 3-bet, you probably end up in a situation, where you stack off against all the hands, that are ahead, and not much else.

Turn
When he bet the same amount again on the turn, it looks pretty weak, so now I feel fairly confident, you have the best hand. I think, there could be a case for putting in a small raise, but ok you call.

River
Now he size up. The only logical hand, that improved, is KQ, and he could possibly have that. But even so I cant see folding a hand this strong, especially after he made that small turn bet. I dont want to raise either though, so for me this is an easy call, get to showdown and see, what he donked out on the flop with.

Results
So he flopped a flush and won the hand. Good for him and very much whatever.

 

[puzzlefish]

freerolls are a bit counterintuitive for deciding whether a hand was played well or not. On the one hand, you want to think about your opponent playing a hand logically and representing strength appropriately through bet sizing. On the other hand you are playing against opponents of all skill levels but more likely bad players that play anything but optimal logical poker.

Against an average level player, showing strength on the flop, weakness on the turn, and again strength on the river - you are facing off your top pair top kicker against a large number of combos on a wet board for 18bb of your 51bb stack. It smells a lot like two pairs at least, but can also be a slow played set, straight, or flush.

I agree with playing it to the river as is, since you're really just fishing for the ace flush, but on the river I don't think you are getting a good price to essentially bluff catch with the paired king and ace kicker. I would fold the river.

 

[eetenor]

Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - 500/1,000 (100 ante) - 9 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat
Attention: in the replayer, as well as in spoiler below, the results are available! Be careful if you don't want to see the result.

UTG: 158,674 (159 bb)
UTG+1 (Hero): 50,820 (51 bb)
MP: 60,190 (60 bb)
MP+1: 66,654 (67 bb)
LP: 26,780 (27 bb)
CO: 28,750 (29 bb)
BU: 75,791 (76 bb)
SB: 71,410 (71 bb)
BB: 43,100 (43 bb)

Pre-Flop: (2,400) Hero is UTG+1 with A♣ K♦
1 fold, Hero raises to 2,100, 6 players fold, BB calls 1,100

Flop: (5,600) 6♣ K♣ 8♣ (2 players)
BB bets 3,200, Hero calls 3,200

Turn: (12,000) 4♦ (2 players)
BB bets 3,200, Hero calls 3,200

River: (18,400) Q♠ (2 players)
BB bets 9,200, Hero????

COMMENTS: I don't know much about opponent. I am not using a HUD and villain was not on table for much time. This is a $2.20 Re-entry Big Freerolls on Americas Cardroom. So, opponents can be recreative as well as regular winning players.
My question is: this hand was correctly played? And even more important: is my thought process right? It was like this:
FLOP: just calling, to control the pot, because hand is simply too strong to fold in this moment.
TURN: Again controlling the pot, because despite having flushdraw, I just have one pair.
RIVER: Does this size usually demonstrate more strength than one pair? Here, KQ now beats me, but I am blocking KcQc.
What to do in this spot? Well, certainly I should not raise, but is calling fine, or fold is more safe?

Spoiler: RESULT OF THE HAND

Hero calls 9,200
Total pot: 36,800

Showdown:
BB shows Q♣ 5♣ (a flush, King high)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 36%, Flop: 68%, Turn: 84%, River: 100%)

UTG+1 (Hero) shows A♣ K♦ (a pair of Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 64%, Flop: 32%, Turn: 16%, River: 0%)

BB wins 36,800

Using gtowhizard to look at hand
Preflop fine of course

Flop
BB is supposed to check range on this flop so BB already non GTO---BB preflop is 3 betting TT+ but calling Q2s-QJs so flushes are possible

BB leads hero has a 50/50 raise the flop GTO choice with this hand---range we are calling 61%--our sizing is 2.5x when we raise

Turn BB leads 3.2BB --GTO is 8.4- hero again raises 46% of time with this hand to 8.9bb total less than 3x

River GTOwhizard explodes it is very hard to analyse river because of the low freq of the BB action but it is a call if ever a bot got there


This is a great example of how well we can use GTO basics to decide how to respond to non GTO players
By reverse engineering this hand we can dive deep into the thinking of our standard Villain vs GTO and apply that thinking to many other V

The very first post flop action the BB takes tells us they are not GTO which means we want to adapt our play away from GTO

So on flop with the V leading flushes we would seldom raise- Turn same situation call-

River is where we now want to dive deeper into exploit ranges and how do we respond to them with one pair

First thing we think about is over folding rivers-vs standard V who bet 3 streets with this type of sizing. Why?

The bluff freq of "standard" V to run a 3 street bluff at these sizings is very low- so low that we can simplify our game and over fold

Secondly- V are not usually good at thin value betting rivers for half pot sizing so that means fewer bluffs and fewer value hands that we beat-again over folding becomes the best reaction- we are also blocking Kx hands If we had say AA then we unblock more thin value but V may choose 40% pot or 60% pot more freq than exactly half pot if they were betting thin--those are the type of notes we want to be taking on our player pool if you use a hud you can look at just those spots in hand history to see the freq of bet sizing on river.

You may also want to data dive on turn sizings as the small turn bet may often be please call me by standard V especially when they follow it up with a value river bet sizing

 

[fundiver199]

I agree with playing it to the river as is, since you're really just fishing for the ace flush, but on the river I don't think you are getting a good price to essentially bluff catch with the paired king and ace kicker. I would fold the river.

The issue is, bad players just do so many things, that makes no sense at all. Like he shows up with A8, that he played like this, and he dont even know why. So I am just never folding here in a million years, and I actually think, Hero got away very cheaply. Its so easy to be results oriented and say "of yeah he had a flush", but its anything but obvious, that this has to always be a strong hand.

 

[rhoudini]

Guys, you are amazing! The thing is that this is spot is sooo close when thinking in the moment.
Maybe the "freeroll" word teased me to call. I don't know. Really difficult.
Well, at least I did not bust and went crazy in all-in haha.

 

[ratbat615]

Is this a bad beat story ? cause you did nothing wrong. Maybe 🤔 raise a little more but that may cost you most of your stack . He had something but what ?

 

[puzzlefish]

The issue is, bad players just do so many things, that makes no sense at all. Like he shows up with A8, that he played like this, and he dont even know why. So I am just never folding here in a million years, and I actually think, Hero got away very cheaply. Its so easy to be results oriented and say "of yeah he had a flush", but its anything but obvious, that this has to always be a strong hand.

And we can also replace "oh yeah he had a flush" with "oh yeah he had a set/straight/two pairs". At some point you have to draw the line with calling down a bet with only top pair top kicker. Simply labelling a player as bad doesn't justify paying them off because more often than not even bad players are not bluffing or betting big with top/middle pair.

 

[eetenor]

And we can also replace "oh yeah he had a flush" with "oh yeah he had a set/straight/two pairs". At some point you have to draw the line with calling down a bet with only top pair top kicker. Simply labelling a player as bad doesn't justify paying them off because more often than not even bad players are not bluffing or betting big with top/middle pair.

Both concepts are correct the key for us is how do we balance the calls and folds because neither is 100% in this spot- That is why we want to data dive into our player pool- Fundiver plays vs many players who will over bluff that spot so a call may well balance out- that is not every player pool however and so we cannot just say there are enough bluffs here or bad value to make the call the correct play- The River Q does hit the V's most likely bluff Qcx so river could be a very bad bluff sizing or even worse value sizing but what freq does a Villain with just the Q lead flop on a K high flush board the dreaded AK hit board?- then bet small turn? If it is high in your player pool that it is a mindless bluff then you can call- If not then you can over fold

 

[fundiver199]

Simply labelling a player as bad doesn't justify paying them off because more often than not even bad players are not bluffing or betting big with top/middle pair.

True but in this case the opponent did not bet big. On the turn he only went 1/4 pot, and all in all he only put in around 1/3 of his 43 BB stack. Which could easily be a worse hand for value like KJ, KT, K9 etc. Or a bluff. If he had bet almost full pot on flop and turn and jammed the river, then I would be much more on board with folding. But here I think, Hero is simply good to often to fold. Facing a half pot sized bet we need to call, if we are good more than 1 out of 4 times.

 

[rhoudini]

Is this a bad beat story ? cause you did nothing wrong. Maybe 🤔 raise a little more but that may cost you most of your stack . He had something but what ?

This is not a bad beat story. This is a hand that I had a feeling to play right, but yes, I confess, the result made me doubt my thought process.
Sadly there is no way to completely avoid being result oriented.
I decided to include the results just because of that, but I am not interested in the results, just in the hand and what I could learn about it.

Many thanks to all who commented, by the way!!!!

 

[fundiver199]

I decided to include the results just because of that, but I am not interested in the results, just in the hand and what I could learn about it.

It is highly recommended to not include the results, before people have had a chance to comment. This usually gives a better and less biased discussion. You can then reveal the result later to answer peoples curiosity.

 

[rhoudini]

It is highly recommended to not include the results, before people have had a chance to comment. This usually gives a better and less biased discussion. You can then reveal the result later to answer peoples curiosity.

I am sorry, fundiver199. Actually I've read this recommendation in the post "How to post your hands for analysis", and after giving a lot of thought, that is why I've included it in a spoiler, and I also have warned those who like to use the replayer that the result was also available there.
In future hands I will do what you said, thank you!!!!

 

[ratbat615]

This is not a bad beat story. This is a hand that I had a feeling to play right, but yes, I confess, the result made me doubt my thought process.
Sadly there is no way to completely avoid being result oriented.
I decided to include the results just because of that, but I am not interested in the results, just in the hand and what I could learn about it.

Many thanks to all who commented, by the way!!!!

Okay 👍