$20 NL HE MTT: AA in UTG. Did I made the right move?

[duqnuk]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Table Format

MTT

Buy-in

20

Game Options

1. Bounty

Currency

$

This was in the middle of the tourney. I'm sitting around +- 60bb's. I had AA in UTG. I elect to limp (the table was slightly agressive, so a limp would certainly draw more money into the pot.
Indeed I was right, UTG+1 snap raised me around +2.5BB's. MP called MP 2 called and Cutoff called and finaly I 3-bet him, around +- 8bb's and naturally he called, everybody else fold.

Flop was 7-7-3.

Certainly that was good news for me.

My line of thought was: He snap raised me (and I was in UTG playing slightly tight) I 3-bet him and he called my bet, so considering that flop and the hole betting scenario, he coulnd't have a 7 in his hand. even like A7, or even K7, and he certainly was not holding 77.

Turn was J, so flop was 7-7-3-J. rainbow flop by the way, no flush draws.
I bet around 1/3 pot - villan called.

River was 6.
7-7-3-J-6

I go all-in and he called.

He takes the pot with 10,7 offsuited (???)



Did I made the wrong play by not putting in on trips? he played that pre-flop very agressively. I coulnd't imagine he was holding something like 10,7of.

I'm no pro, so I'm looking for advice on this particular hand. Did I start the hand poorly by limping? (I know it's usually not ideal, but in that scenario a limp with AA would certainly draw more money in the pot).

What is your thoughts about this hand and the way I played. Did I got outsmarted?

 

[Andyreas]

It's much easier to analyse your hands, if you use the CardsChat hand converter.

In a bounty tournament, it also depends a lot on the stack sizes and bounty values. Since you did not specify those, it's a bit of a missing info.

But happy to give my five cents

Preflop:
I am not a fan of limping the Aces but with your reasoning, I can see why you did it. I usually opt for a min-raise, which also induces some 3-bets quite often.

With 4 callers, I don't like your 3-bet size. You don't want to play the Aces against too many opponents, so I'd go quite a lot bigger here, around 15-20 BBs probably. Pot is already around 13 BBs, so already a decent amount to take down preflop. You now give them all a decent price to call around 5.5BBs to win 20ish. So you can be relieved, that you only got one caller.

Flop:
I don't like the paired board but I can follow your way of thinking. Any info about the villian about his opening stats PF? (I personally have called in a multiway 3-bet pot with 77 but wasn't so lucky to get some Quads on flop. )

You didn't specify the flop actions, so nothing to give feedback here.

Turn:
Good news about the rainbow and also no serious straight draw, so I like you bet and he calls, ok.

River:
Theoretically there's now a straight possibility but I would also not be afraid of that.
I cannot judge your jam, since I do not know the SPR but I guess you wanted to go for max value?
The question is, with which hands would he call here? Let's assume he didn't have a 7. Do you think he'd call a river jam just with TP?
Personally, I would probably have bet anything around 1/3 or 1/2 of pot but the outcome would probably have been the same anyway since it's likely he'd have raised you.

Outcome:
Well, weird play of him. Probably sort of a "bluff raise" of him. Or he was just playing super loose, idk.
Maybe you could have avoided it with a (much) bigger 3-bet, since you gave him a good price to call this small 3.bet.
Obviously he got the dream flop against your Aces, so he was very lucky here.

 

[najisami]

This was in the middle of the tourney. I'm sitting around +- 60bb's. I had AA in UTG. I elect to limp (the table was slightly agressive, so a limp would certainly draw more money into the pot.
Indeed I was right, UTG+1 snap raised me around +2.5BB's. MP called MP 2 called and Cutoff called and finaly I 3-bet him, around +- 8bb's and naturally he called, everybody else fold.

Hey duqnuk,
I learned a long time ago to NEVER limp with aces no matter what my position is and no matter what the table dynamic is. It only ends in disaster most of the time. In this case, you got kind of lucky with a raiser and a couple of callers, but instead of using it to your advantage, I'm sorry to say that you made even a bigger mistake by opting for a small size 3bet, giving any playable hand enough odds to call. The UTG+1 is already not putting you on a monster since you only limped, so he took a chance and got lucky.
Personally, I would've shoved. Against 4 players, your aces lose most of their equity. And I don't think your opponent would've called an all in 3bet with T7 (Though I have no idea about his stack size that you haven't mentioned or what happened on the flop !).
Well, a mistake is only a mistake if we don't learn from it. GL...

 

[kitchy65]

Did I made the wrong play by not putting in on trips? he played that pre-flop very agressively. I coulnd't imagine he was holding something like 10,7o

I'm no pro, so I'm looking for advice on this particular hand. Did I start the hand poorly by limping? (I know it's usually not ideal, but in that scenario a limp with AA would certainly draw more money in the pot).

What is your thoughts about this hand and the way I played. Did I got outsmarted?

Your limp worked, but it went wrong in three places in my opinion.

The 3-bet was way too small, and should have been closer to 20BB. I wouldn't know what GTO says.

The second mistake I think was in convincing yourself that you were a certainty after being called.
Your opponent holding A7s could easily call that small 3-bet. Nothing wrong with you continuing to bet though.

Third mistake, I cannot understand the shove... the better play was either a bet for value...or the option you don't appear to have considered... check and call on the river. This IMO was the better play.


The only hands that you beat that could call your shove are those that would have been more aggressive on the flop and turn. AJ, QQ, KK

JJ, A7 would bet river for value, and you have a cheaper call or possibly get away from it if they shoved.

Admittedly, it looked good for you....but the river shove was like someone having an epileptic fit at the end of the hand.

He got lucky and then outsmarted you !

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
While limp-reraising kind of worked in this case, I am not all that crazy about this line. For most people its extremely unbalanced. Like are you ever doing this with other hands than exactly AA or KK? Good players might pick up on this and only give you action postflop, if they can beat those hands or have a big draw.

The other issue is your sizing, which might be ok against a single opponent. But against three opponents its like scremning "please give me action", which is again very unbalanced, because you basically cant ever have a bluff. In anything but the softest fields like e.g. a freeroll we want to have at least some balance in our game, and therefore I would just raise AA to the same size, as I use with all my other hands. Maybe someone will 3-bet, and then you can 4-bet and get even more chips into the pot.

Postflop
Not going to go to much into detail with this. But basically the SPR was only around 3, and then I am also willing to stack off AA in a 3-bet pot against a single opponent. I am also not to worried about the paired board, because as you say, he should be more likely to have high cards than low cards, so this is not nearly as bad as a flop like KK3, QQ3 or even JJ3.

My only comment is, that its not impossible, he has a 7. A hand like A7s makes complete sense to isolate a limper with, and he could also be getting a little frisky with suited connectors like 97s, 87s or 76s. Or he might raise 77. This would certainly not be crazy, and when you undersize your 3-bet, he dont need to fold anything, that was good enough to raise in the first place. So I dont think, the density of 7X in his range is zero, but I agree, it should be fairly low.

I would certainly not except him to raise a hand like T7o from EP over a limp. So either he was very loose or bad, or there was some kind of dymanics, where he thought, you were really bad, and he just wanted to get involved with you. But even then T7o is definitely to loose, since he also need to worry about all the players behind him. So most likely just a bad player getting lucky on you AKA a bad beat story.

 

[kitchy65]

I don't think SPR is of any import really (controversial). Like fold equity, even complete beginners are in tune with it without ever knowing what the concept is.


BU 200BB (8d 7d)
SB 58BB (Th Ah)
BB 210BB ( As Ks)

9BB round and 3 players to flop

Tc 9c 2d

What is the SPR for SB?

Checks around and BU bets 3 BB on the flop, the other two are coming along.
It would be completely stupid for the SB player to stack off here. So say he calls, only for the BB to raise 15BB. The BU folds.

The SB has fold equity to semi bluff here, but faced with such a strong bet and possible flush draw, he decides to favour calling.

Tc 9c 2d 4h

What's the SPR now for the SB?

He doesn't care anyway because he's going to shove his remaining stack with TPTK .
The BB can lick his wounds and fold or as invariably happens in low stake tourneys, call it off as he covers the bettors stack.

Either way the SB has played in accordance with his SPR without even knowing.

That's my understanding and If I am wrong, do let me know and I shall revise more into SPR.... because if either BB (drawing to nut) or BU (fold equity) maniacally shoves on that flop. The SB can comfortably muck his hand as he wasn't pot committed with SPR at 5

 

[fundiver199]

I don't think SPR is of any import really (controversial). Like fold equity, even complete beginners are in tune with it without ever knowing what the concept is.


BU 200BB (8d 7d)
SB 58BB (Th Ah)
BB 210BB ( As Ks)

9BB round and 3 players to flop

Tc 9c 2d

What is the SPR for SB?

Checks around and BU bets 3 BB on the flop, the other two are coming along.
It would be completely stupid for the SB player to stack off here. So say he calls, only for the BB to raise 15BB. The BU folds.

The SB has fold equity to semi bluff here, but faced with such a strong bet and possible flush draw, he decides to favour calling.

Tc 9c 2d 4h

What's the SPR now for the SB?

He doesn't care anyway because he's going to shove his remaining stack with TPTK .
The BB can lick his wounds and fold or as invariably happens in low stake tourneys, call it off as he covers the bettors stack.

Either way the SB has played in accordance with his SPR without even knowing.

That's my understanding and If I am wrong, do let me know and I shall revise more into SPR.... because if either BB (drawing to nut) or BU (fold equity) maniacally shoves on that flop. The SB can comfortably muck his hand as he wasn't pot committed with SPR at 5

Not quite sure what your point is with posting this imaginary hand history? SPR is calculated on the flop not on any later streets. And it gives an indication of, how willing we should be to get it in with a hand like an overpair or top pair good kicker. For SB it was 6,5, which is kind of a grey zone. Its not an automatic stack-off, but its also not a never stack-off kind of SPR.

On this particular board the only natural two pair was T9, and BB likely dont have any overpairs, since he only called pre. There are also many draws, BB could be raising. So on this particular board SB can make a somewhat light stack-off with AT, if he wants to. By the way the hand history would make more sense, if BTN had AsKs and BB had 8d7d. For BB to just call with AsKs preflop and then raise, when he completely missed the flop, seems pretty weird. But with 8d7d it would make complete sense.

 

[kitchy65]

Not quite sure what your point is with posting this imaginary hand history? SPR is calculated on the flop not on any later streets. And it gives an indication of, how willing we should be to get it in with a hand like an overpair or top pair good kicker. For SB it was 6,5, which is kind of a grey zone. Its not an automatic stack-off, but its also not a never stack-off kind of SPR.

On this particular board the only natural two pair was T9, and BB likely dont have any overpairs, since he only called pre. There are also many draws, BB could be raising. So on this particular board SB can make a somewhat light stack-off with AT, if he wants to. By the way the hand history would make more sense, if BTN had AsKs and BB had 8d7d. For BB to just call with AsKs preflop and then raise, when he completely missed the flop, seems pretty weird. But with 8d7d it would make complete sense.

Agreed, I just quickly came up with the a hand example.

The point as stated was that it generally isn't that important. You intuitively know when you should stack shove if you hit the flop or simply (keep pot small deep stacked) check/call later streets to realize your equity.

Deep stacked shove maniacal
Short stacked committed

In this imaginary hand the SPR wasn't sufficiently small for SB to risk his remaining stack as the aggressor, he could make a nitty fold with TP, or even with a draw if the betting was maniacal. Or could continue with check calls depending on the price.

It's about knowing whether you are pot committed and the risk, reward of your subsequent action. I think most people play according to the SPR without even knowing it. Ergo it isn't a big consideration.

 

[ratbat615]

Very dangerous to limp with AAs

 

[fundiver199]

Ergo it isn't a big consideration.

Maybe not but its still an easy way of saying, that the pot is already large relative to the remaining stack. And that we should therefore generally not look to fold strong hands. I could also have written "stack off AA for 60 BB in a 3-bet pot", and it would have essentially meant the same thing

 

[spunka]

It is not unusally to lose hands like these, why most wanna shove with AA.
when villan call the 8bb raise, hero has to becarefull, and either play strongly or carefully, after all the call signals strenght, yes so on flop we have to bet a good sieze again, we bet and get called, I dont see why we can rule out a 7 or 77, 33 or A7 suited, that said villan can hold other pocket pair which we are good against.
so we now have to look at villans stats, which we do not have, aggresive, yes, bluffing type ?, anyway most players will not stack off 60 BB on a bluff, or a pair.

The shove is not bad, if you do not want to play poker, ( keeping pot small) but preefer gambling on your hunch, and that is fine, but sometimes you will lose, that play is not BAD but your unlucky that you draw the wrong conclusion ( you rule out villan has a 7 after the flop ) that cost you your tournament life, I hope it was worth it, maybe next time have an open mind towards aggressive player with big stacks.

 

[VladB850]

Almost every time I chose to limp my Aces I lose the hand.
With just 3-bet his raise I think that you asked for a small price for him to see the flop. I don't know how many BB he had.
But I think that this was your intention that someone will call it or maybe you hoped that more than one player will call it.

He got lucky with the set on the flop and from this point I think that your only chance was to get an A on turn or river

 

[duqnuk]

Thanks for the reply everybody.

Now I can see more clearly my mistakes in this hand. The limp with Aces was very dangerous indeed, but as I see it the biggest problem was my 3-bet size. It should be way bigger to chase those marginal hands. And if the villan called a size that big only then my line of thought would be reasonable thinking he counldn't have a 7 in his hand.

If only I could play that hand again
Well, as someone said above. "A mistake is only a mistake if we learn something from it"

thanks again everyone!

 

[kitchy65]

Thanks for the reply everybody.

Now I can see more clearly my mistakes in this hand. The limp with Aces was very dangerous indeed, but as I see it the biggest problem was my 3-bet size. It should be way bigger to chase those marginal hands. And if the villan called a size that big only then my line of thought would be reasonable thinking he counldn't have a 7 in his hand.

If only I could play that hand again
Well, as someone said above. "A mistake is only a mistake if we learn something from it"

thanks again everyone!

Correct sizing only helps you chase away the decent players...worth remembering.

Final 50 players in a $10k tourney with 1,800 starters.
Blinds were 2/4k, I was dealt KK and pushed my 248K stack from CO, and UTG (500k) who opened for 8k, called me with J9o.

You only make them calls when you're an idiot...so you can only do so much to improve your chances.

If it was a LIVE tourney, I'd have socked him in the mouth. So don't have to tell you how it went for me.

 

[eetenor]

Not quite sure what your point is with posting this imaginary hand history? SPR is calculated on the flop not on any later streets. And it gives an indication of, how willing we should be to get it in with a hand like an overpair or top pair good kicker. For SB it was 6,5, which is kind of a grey zone. Its not an automatic stack-off, but its also not a never stack-off kind of SPR.

On this particular board the only natural two pair was T9, and BB likely dont have any overpairs, since he only called pre. There are also many draws, BB could be raising. So on this particular board SB can make a somewhat light stack-off with AT, if he wants to. By the way the hand history would make more sense, if BTN had AsKs and BB had 8d7d. For BB to just call with AsKs preflop and then raise, when he completely missed the flop, seems pretty weird. But with 8d7d it would make complete

I don't think SPR is of any import really (controversial). Like fold equity, even complete beginners are in tune with it without ever knowing what the concept is.


BU 200BB (8d 7d)
SB 58BB (Th Ah)
BB 210BB ( As Ks)

9BB round and 3 players to flop

Tc 9c 2d

What is the SPR for SB?

Checks around and BU bets 3 BB on the flop, the other two are coming along.
It would be completely stupid for the SB player to stack off here. So say he calls, only for the BB to raise 15BB. The BU folds.

The SB has fold equity to semi bluff here, but faced with such a strong bet and possible flush draw, he decides to favour calling.

Tc 9c 2d 4h

What's the SPR now for the SB?

He doesn't care anyway because he's going to shove his remaining stack with TPTK .
The BB can lick his wounds and fold or as invariably happens in low stake tourneys, call it off as he covers the bettors stack.

Either way the SB has played in accordance with his SPR without even knowing.

That's my understanding and If I am wrong, do let me know and I shall revise more into SPR.... because if either BB (drawing to nut) or BU (fold equity) maniacally shoves on that flop

SB can comfortably muck his hand as he wasn't pot committed with SPR at 5

3 Hand Histories That Highlight a Sneakily Crucial Poker Concept (Stack-to-Pot Ratio)​

I cannot link this directly but it may help for you to google search the above.
Most new players are not in tune with the specifics of range adapting due to SPR-

yes we all know when we have a big stack or not
Hope this helps