$225 NLHE MTT: Defend my Blind, then what?

[Jacki Burkhart]

This is day 2 of a 2 day tourney. I have about 95k. 40 players remain and 24 are paid. It is my BB and I decided before the day even started when I saw my table draw that the CO is the best player at the table and he would be frequently min raising my BB when it was his CO and I'd need to defend somewhat wide and play carefully and skillfully against him.



It is my BB and blinds are 2000/4000/500. It folds to the CO and he raises to 9,500 (basically a min raise as is his style). It folds to me and I have . I decide to flat.



My plan is to check-raise if I catch a piece of the board or a strong draw. My plan is to donkbet if I catch some kind of an OK draw. My plan is to check fold if it comes 3 big cards. My plan is to lead out if the board comes 2 small and 1 big card or 3 small cards, or 3 cards of 1 suit.


Flop comes Pot contains 25,500



So I have a gutshot.



For some reason I check and then instantly regret it. The CO Cbets for 16,000.

Now what?

 

[horizon12]

Without position only fold in flop, your stack very small for donkbet or for call cbet, bad pot odds..

The best option here in preflop only shove , because our stack really small only 20bb and if we only call we will play without position in postfop, it is always very difficult with such size the stack.

So steal shove i think here will be fine ( in pot very more dead money) most of the time villain fold, and if he call we will have around 35% equity vs him range hands...

 

[PCK]

The check/fold here is ok,not a good flop for 56 spades,yes,you have a gutshot but with 2 diamonds there..

 

[ZekeRam]

Having a little over 20bb, it's fine to fold pre. You can't really do much with such a small stack. BUT with your read on the guy, 3-bet fold or 3-bet c-bet is fine in the spot.

As played, a fold is fine. A float on the turn is going to cost you a ton of chips and you'll be stuck between a rock and a hard place if he calls.

 

[duggs]

pre is ok, flop is just a fold typically. but id like to challenge having a donning range on this board. this board is going to be cbet a lot as our opponent has a range advantage so id be x/shoving or x/r/calling all my draws. could be convinced this is a good candidate for c/r/f on the flop if it wasn't for the flush draw.

 

[Ambur]

For some reason I check and then instantly regret it. The CO Cbets for 16,000.

Now what?

f.o.l.d

 

[PokerFunKid]

My opinion: It is not a bad check. Checking there is fine. If he bets small you can consider check-raising. But with this sizing from villian all you can do is fold. You played it good there.

 

[suby_rafael]

No need to risk those valuable chips of ours for catching a gutshot. It's not worth it as others have said. Also we cannot even risk check raising because we have to fold if villian shoves.

So anything other than a fold is too much of a gamble it seems. :eek2:

But yes a small donk bet would have been nice as villain can either fold or simply flat and we cannot stand a raise anyway ... so we could have seen another cheap card.

 

[bremensha]

I would make a call w/ 65s only in position. Oop I would jam. There is about a 80 % chance that he will muck you will win immediateley. If he calls you have a decent hand and are only a big underdog vs 55+

 

[IceRedefined111]

Ugh Im so nitty in tourneys, but history or not here I hate flatting (or raising for that matter) OOP post with suited connectors. I don't see a problem with letting the aggressive player have my blinds until I catch him with his hand in the cookie jar. I might widen my 3 betting range to a few more Aces n broadway cards, but that's about it. I cant ever get involved with an aggressive player OOP w a speculative hand. As played I say stick to ur plan. The donk bet would be worse cause he would prolly insta re pop it n ur done, so go ahead n make the power play n assume u have good fold equity. If u have him raising roughly 45% there (not sure if its that high, maybe u can share how often he raises late) then u are still 30%. So if we put u at 25-30% at showdown he only needs to fold 1 out of 4 times to make it break even or better. Plus the board is fairly dry. How many hands can he call with? Not sure why u regret the check if u planned on shoving. Risky, but a good aggressive play if that is ur game n u read him as a wide opener. Roughly even against EVERY King, 99+, n 2 diamond hands u are around 20-23% to still WIN the hand outright.

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

Ugh Im so nitty in tourneys, but history or not here I hate flatting (or raising for that matter) OOP post with suited connectors. I don't see a problem with letting the aggressive player have my blinds until I catch him with his hand in the cookie jar. I might widen my 3 betting range to a few more Aces n broadway cards, but that's about it. I cant ever get involved with an aggressive player OOP w a speculative hand. As played I say stick to ur plan. The donk bet would be worse cause he would prolly insta re pop it n ur done, so go ahead n make the power play n assume u have good fold equity. If u have him raising roughly 45% there (not sure if its that high, maybe u can share how often he raises late) then u are still 30%. So if we put u at 25-30% at showdown he only needs to fold 1 out of 4 times to make it break even or better. Plus the board is fairly dry. How many hands can he call with? Not sure why u regret the check if u planned on shoving. Risky, but a good aggressive play if that is ur game n u read him as a wide opener. Roughly even against EVERY King, 99+, n 2 diamond hands u are around 20-23% to still WIN the hand outright.

Well, in this particular case you might be correct that 56s is too wide to defend, but I strongly disagree with the concept of just letting the aggressive late position player "have" my blinds and then waiting for a strong hand to pop him. That is just playing straightforwardly and your hand strength will be face up to him, making you very easy to play against when you do have a hand.

I think vs. a wide opening range you should have a wide 3betting range and a reasonable flatting range. and also some folding hands too. IMO you should be 3betting with hands like pairs and difficult to play hands like K6s and flatting with playable hands like JTo or T8s, and hands that are likely ahead but don't warrant inflating the pot like A8o.

So I probably defended too wide, but where exactly the bottom of my flatting range should be, I don't know? Assuming there are antes (there were) and the SB folded (they did) then I'm getting 4:1 pot odds to call a min raise. So I only need 20% equity to call preflop which is basically everything....but because we'll be OOP vs a tough player it seems prudent to tighten up a bit. So I'm not sure how wide we should flat/3bet. It seems like at least 50% of hands but maybe as high as 80% depending on our post flop skills.

If villain has an opening range of 60% (it's probably wider) and we have a playing range of 80% then we still have 44% equity vs his range. If we tighten our playing range up to 50% we have 49% equity. If we go much tighter than that I think we're just throwing money away.

anyways 56s comes in at a 72% playing range so definitely near the bottom of a profitable range and therefore optional.

 

[Ambur]

My plan is to lead out if the board comes 2 small and 1 big card or 3 small cards, or 3 cards of 1 suit.


Flop comes Pot contains 25,500

We have to have game plan, seems you already have one, which i like!


I love your preflop play decent % of time -possible, if we have plan.
Flat preflop is fine if we stick into plan which you pointed out! imo

Some decent % of time i will just 3bet light preflop and look what happens.- If our goal is to defend, i would consider taking line like this, because i believe we can win this pot right now+we can narrow villain range, and note that we do not have position+our hand is nicely polarized if he decides to flat our 3bet+postflop our hand is easy to play and we have beting lead!

But fold preflop is safe! imo

 

[WiZZiM]

Think you need to nullify his positional advantage in the hand if he's good. I 3bet hands like this pretty often and flat with stuff that can dominate him more postflop, i don't think this is a great candidate for flatting since it will hit a lot of 2nd or 3rd pair type hands that are incredibly tough to play OOP especially vs a good player.

Having said that i like you wide defend plan, but perhaps come up with a 3bet defend range (polarized vs this type of player) and a middling call range.

so my range typically vs tough good players will be something like this(tweaked in game, I don't follow it religiously)

3bet range

AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 88, 77, AK AQ Low suited connectors like 56s 34s some hands like J5s or stuff that has no value postflop in flatting, so basically plenty of options for 3betting light and again, nullifying that postflop advantage he will have.

Call range KQ KJ KT QJ QT T9 Etc, all those middling type hands that will dominate alot of his opening range, and when we hit pairs they are much more likely to be top pairs with decent kickers we can more easily play postflop...

Just my 2 cents in this hand...

As played we didn't follow our preflop plan (which honestly vs a good player i don't think is a great one since he will likely have the ability to float us wide IP) i think our options are to just accept our blunder and give it up, or it wouldn't be the worst board in the world to c/r him and rep the K on, since it hits our likely percieved calling range more than it does his opening range.

 

[IceRedefined111]

Well, in this particular case you might be correct that 56s is too wide to defend, but I strongly disagree with the concept of just letting the aggressive late position player "have" my blinds and then waiting for a strong hand to pop him. That is just playing straightforwardly and your hand strength will be face up to him, making you very easy to play against when you do have a hand.

I think vs. a wide opening range you should have a wide 3betting range and a reasonable flatting range. and also some folding hands too. IMO you should be 3betting with hands like pairs and difficult to play hands like K6s and flatting with playable hands like JTo or T8s, and hands that are likely ahead but don't warrant inflating the pot like A8o.

So I probably defended too wide, but where exactly the bottom of my flatting range should be, I don't know? Assuming there are antes (there were) and the SB folded (they did) then I'm getting 4:1 pot odds to call a min raise. So I only need 20% equity to call preflop which is basically everything....but because we'll be OOP vs a tough player it seems prudent to tighten up a bit. So I'm not sure how wide we should flat/3bet. It seems like at least 50% of hands but maybe as high as 80% depending on our post flop skills.

If villain has an opening range of 60% (it's probably wider) and we have a playing range of 80% then we still have 44% equity vs his range. If we tighten our playing range up to 50% we have 49% equity. If we go much tighter than that I think we're just throwing money away.

anyways 56s comes in at a 72% playing range so definitely near the bottom of a profitable range and therefore optional.

Like I said, Im prolly a bit too nitty, but maybe that's why Im here to info share n get some different POVs. I hate 3 betting from the blinds with pairs honestly. Do u get a lot of folds in that spot? Like what sort of late position raising frequency (give or take) do u decide u need to ramp up the 3 betting? Also with the hands like JT that flop fairly well, what types (late frequency raisers again) are u donk betting against, check calling against, n check raising against? I re read the numbers n u might have answered some of these questions so hopefully Im not annoying u. Lol. I personally would feel more comfortable 3 betting w Broadway X suited where I could flop top pair or a close to nut draw. Now that I saw villain is raising 60%+ then yeah I kinda see ur point. Is this 60% only on the button on ur BB in particular?

 

[IceRedefined111]

Think you need to nullify his positional advantage in the hand if he's good. I 3bet hands like this pretty often and flat with stuff that can dominate him more postflop, i don't think this is a great candidate for flatting since it will hit a lot of 2nd or 3rd pair type hands that are incredibly tough to play OOP especially vs a good player.

Having said that i like you wide defend plan, but perhaps come up with a 3bet defend range (polarized vs this type of player) and a middling call range.

so my range typically vs tough good players will be something like this(tweaked in game, I don't follow it religiously)

3bet range

AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 88, 77, AK AQ Low suited connectors like 56s 34s some hands like J5s or stuff that has no value postflop in flatting, so basically plenty of options for 3betting light and again, nullifying that postflop advantage he will have.

Call range KQ KJ KT QJ QT T9 Etc, all those middling type hands that will dominate alot of his opening range, and when we hit pairs they are much more likely to be top pairs with decent kickers we can more easily play postflop...

Just my 2 cents in this hand...

As played we didn't follow our preflop plan (which honestly vs a good player i don't think is a great one since he will likely have the ability to float us wide IP) i think our options are to just accept our blunder and give it up, or it wouldn't be the worst board in the world to c/r him and rep the K on, since it hits our likely percieved calling range more than it does his opening range.

Seeing as tho u are clearly a wise player, perhaps u could read my last response and share some of the ways u would play hands like this post flop vs a player with a huge late raising range like this. I like the info posted here, just asking what comes next given certain action assuming hes not the type to just let u habe the hand cause u didn't fold pre or u 3bet and he called IP.

 

[IceRedefined111]

Ok Im sure this should be in a separate thread n has prolly been talked about to nausea in forums, but 2 part question... Close to bubble and u are BB, late pos shove with close stacks where u would either be felted or decimated, where are ur calling ranges vs...1. a player who seems to be doing it 66% of the time or 2. a player who is doing it maybe 20-25% of the time? Say 12,000 to 15,000 stacks at 500-1000 w antes or 600-1200 w antes etc. Plus obv the tables are short a player or 2 at this point as well. Im actually asking this because its fresh in my mind from the $50,000 Guar $215 Sunday I played in at Bovada yesterday where I finished on the absolute bubble at 37th playing scarred probably because I just felt handcuffed at 36th with like 42 left. I could've called with A7o against a guy who might've shoved 2 of 4 or 5 orbits on my BB n I didn't. Then of course I went out on what felt like I set up hand when I was the shortest stack at 6,500 on button w AJo. Folded around n I just called feeling that I had no fold equity anyway. SB folded and flop came K4x 2 clubs. Turn was Ac, he bet, I called, bricked river obv. Not looking for advice on the hand, but on the calling range for stacks near bubble I suppose. Clearly I was really mad at myself. I cant think of another time that I finished within 5 of the bubble in the last year, I think it was just a bigger tourney than I usually play in daily and, although that shouldn't matter, I think it crept into my decision making process. I don't need advice to know that is terrible as well. Lol. Definitely played not to lose instead of to win unfortunately due to where I was at in the tourney at the time. Sighaments.

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

Ok Im sure this should be in a separate thread n has prolly been talked about to nausea in forums, but 2 part question... Close to bubble and u are BB, late pos shove with close stacks where u would either be felted or decimated, where are ur calling ranges vs...1. a player who seems to be doing it 66% of the time or 2. a player who is doing it maybe 20-25% of the time? Say 12,000 to 15,000 stacks at 500-1000 w antes or 600-1200 w antes etc. Plus obv the tables are short a player or 2 at this point as well. Im actually asking this because its fresh in my mind from the $50,000 Guar $215 Sunday I played in at Bovada yesterday where I finished on the absolute bubble at 37th playing scarred probably because I just felt handcuffed at 36th with like 42 left. I could've called with A7o against a guy who might've shoved 2 of 4 or 5 orbits on my BB n I didn't. Then of course I went out on what felt like I set up hand when I was the shortest stack at 6,500 on button w AJo. Folded around n I just called feeling that I had no fold equity anyway. SB folded and flop came K4x 2 clubs. Turn was Ac, he bet, I called, bricked river obv. Not looking for advice on the hand, but on the calling range for stacks near bubble I suppose. Clearly I was really mad at myself. I cant think of another time that I finished within 5 of the bubble in the last year, I think it was just a bigger tourney than I usually play in daily and, although that shouldn't matter, I think it crept into my decision making process. I don't need advice to know that is terrible as well. Lol. Definitely played not to lose instead of to win unfortunately due to where I was at in the tourney at the time. Sighaments.

The best bubble advice I can give is "if you want to live you must be willing to die"

But honestly, when somebody is shoving into your BB it's a fairly easy calculation since there is no fold equity and no post flop considerations. It's just race odds. No matter how wide they're shoving you must call tighter than their shove range due to no FE and bubble/ICM concerns.

So for example if someone is shoving 66% from the button then A7o only has about 53% equity. Is that good enough? I honestly don't know but I lean towards folding it. I'd rather be the one shoving with 95o than calling with A7o. But that's just me. And if they are only shoving 25% from the button then A7o is only 38% equity so it's a fold. They basically have to be jamming like 100% of hands before I call off my tourney life with a weak ace, and even vs an any 2 card range A7o only has 57% equity. It's quite a risk on the bubble.

The Ace Jack hand though, you're first in? Just jam it all day long.

Bubble play in a nutshell: jam light call tight

 

[atlantafalcons0]

Ok, so first of all it's NOT a min raise. A min raise would suggest that it is exactly 2x the big blind. If the blinds were 4k and he raised to 9.5k that's 2.375x the big blind.

Second, just because we have a read we can't just defend with no plan. I'm thinking you had a plan but then chickened out after the flop. I think (as played) the correct play is to donk bet the flop. It's kinda drawy an your range is wide to him if he knows that you know that he raises your blind like that a lot.

Bet the flop and try to buy a turn. You can always re-evaluate the turn and get away from it, maybe with a cheaper price than calling and being in the exact same spot if your draw misses.

Me personally, I would just fold preflop and wait for a better spot with a hand that flops slightly better like two suited broadway cards...

IMO

 

[WiZZiM]

Seeing as tho u are clearly a wise player, perhaps u could read my last response and share some of the ways u would play hands like this post flop vs a player with a huge late raising range like this. I like the info posted here, just asking what comes next given certain action assuming hes not the type to just let u habe the hand cause u didn't fold pre or u 3bet and he called IP.

Really depends on the day and what i think he thinks in these spots. Against good regs or good players you have to be one step ahead of what they are thinking. Jacki has done this already by saying "im going to defend wide vs this player who will attack my blinds" so she is already one step ahead, and then it is up to that player to either do the same thing, or make adjustments to jackis play, once he has tightened up then we can revert back to being a little tighter.

So without that hisotry or knowledge it's pretty hard, but i would obviously be picking ways to attack him he doesn't like much. If i'd seen him fold to donk bets alot then i'd be planning to call more and donk bet flops. If i'd seen him snap fold to 3bet i would be 3betting more. if he calls 3bets wide but gives up on turn alot then i would plan to 3bet lots and double barrell. Like it just depends on what the player gives me as to how i would attack him postflop.

If no reads then i would be tightening up all the ranges above as i simply don't have the history to back up defending so wide.