$3.30 NLHE MTT: A Hand for Review to Improve Play

[sundizzel]

So here's a spot that I ultimately took down, but I felt a bit unsure as to how well I was playing it because 1) I'm 20/200ish about 30 players away from the money in a 4 hour late reg tournament with $420 up top and 2) I don't have much experience in multi-way pots, especially out of position.

The hand itself played out pretty straightforwardly, but I'd appreciate any advice as to how I could have played the hand better. Assuming one of them did have hearts, they probably would have called, and perhaps I could have taken the pot down sooner with a different betting pattern to have avoided that.

As always, thanks for any time you take to review this hand and for any input you may have--cheers!

Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - 3,100/6,200 (775 ante) - 8 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

UTG: 288,100 (46 bb)
UTG+1: 182,808 (29 bb)
MP: 257,303 (42 bb)
MP+1: 155,000 (25 bb)
CO: 390,171 (63 bb)
BU: 110,567 (18 bb)
SB: 393,647 (63 bb)
BB (Hero): 387,122 (62 bb)

Pre-Flop: (15,500) Hero is BB with K♠ A♣
UTG raises to 12,400, 2 players fold, MP+1 calls 12,400, 3 players fold, Hero calls 6,200

Flop: (46,500) K♥ 8♥ 2♠ (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets 15,345, MP+1 calls 15,345, Hero calls 15,345

Turn: (92,535) 4♦ (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, MP+1 checks

River: (92,535) 5♥ (3 players)
Hero bets 46,268, 2 players fold

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
I kind of understand, why you flat called not wanting to play a massive pot against UTG. However especially with a caller in between, I think, this is to conservative. The worst case scenario is, you dubble up UTG, and then you still have 16BB left, which should be enough to min-cash and sometimes also make a comeback and still run deep. So I would squeeze this up to around 60k. You have them covered, so its way worse for them to get it in, than it is for you, and you can apply a ton of pressure. This is not, how you use a big stack to bully other players near the bubble.

Flop
You flopped top pair top kicker, and as played this is a great situation, because you now have a well disguised nut hand. Its also a great board with no logical 2 pair hands, so you are extremely likely to be ahead now. I would also check to the preflop raiser, and when he makes this small 1/3 pot C-bet, and the other guy call, I would check-raise and then jam any clean turn card. By just check-calling you are basically giving both of them two free cards to draw out on you, and as preflop this is way to passive and conservative, especially when you are not even the player at risk.

Turn
As played no point in leading out, and this is the problem with check-calling flop. Now it checks through, and you are basically not charging all their draws.

River
It sucks, that the flush came in, because it is quite likely, someone could have it, and it might also kill your action, when you are still good. Even so I am on board with betting around half pot here with intentions to fold, if someone puts in a big raise.

 

[Jon Poker]

Preflop we are making a massive mistake by not squeezing AK or any other hands at the top of our range, we are simply losing value long term by not doing such -- I would size up with the overcall and us being OOP - I would make it around 55k-62k (4.5x-5x) and play post.

We don't want to take such a strong hand multiway, it diminishes our equity and it can put us in some nasty spots. As played, such a thing happens. We go to a flop and smack top pair OOP vs two villans. This is not good, and facing a bet and call in front is certainly not ideal but we've under repped our and are way too strong to fold to the single bet.

I like the check on the turn, no sense in leading out here when the turn doesn't change much. The river rolls of another heart and since we do not block hearts this is where I have a problem with our lead out bet -- if you get raised on this river are you ever folding? Because you should be...

Again, we allowed this pot to be played multiway and there's a decent chance one of the villans could have a flush here, so what are we leading the river to extract value from? Weaker Kx that doesn't bet the turn? Underpairs like QQs or JJs? Our target range is just so small that I think we can easily just check/call here for pot control and at least allow villans to overvalue second pairs or turn some holdings into bluffs. It's just one of the worst river cards for us to lead into two opponents with top top.

I've been preaching it alot lately, multiway we are just so passive it's unreal. If you wanted to extract more value then you should have 3bet preflop.


Edit:: @Fundiver - extremely dry flop or not - we never check/raise top top multiway and even moreso with a cbet and a call in front of us. I know it's highly likely we have the best hand, but we screwed ourselves by being put into this position because of our preflop course of action. Point is when we raise - in theory villans will call strong Kx holdings, but will only pile it in with sets and AA here - which could still be the case because UTGs range is still uncapped because there was no 3bet preflop. These are the woes of playing multiway pots. Take it with a grain of salt - solver says only raise 2 pair or better and no bluffs when OOP multiway

 

[fundiver199]

Edit:: @Fundiver - extremely dry flop or not - we never check/raise top top multiway and even moreso with a cbet and a call in front of us. I know it's highly likely we have the best hand, but we screwed ourselves by being put into this position because of our preflop course of action. Point is when we raise - in theory villans will call strong Kx holdings, but will only pile it in with sets and AA here - which could still be the case because UTGs range is still uncapped because there was no 3bet preflop. These are the woes of playing multiway pots. Take it with a grain of salt - solver says only raise 2 pair or better and no bluffs when OOP multiway

I get, where you are coming from, but solvers assume, people play well, and thats almost never the case at a limit like 3,3$. In this situation MP+1 is supposed to have something really good to flat call an UTG raise. But most of the time this is just a fish trying to see a flop with two random cards and hit something.

Same story on the flop. MP+1 is supposed to be pretty strong, when he call the C-bet with a player left to act. But most of the time this is a fish calling with any pair and any draw. Given the 1/3 pot sizing its also highly likely, MP+1 would actually have raised, if he had something really good like a set, to "protect from draws". So when he just call, its often going to be fairly face up as a weak made hand or a draw.

So we have a ton more equity, than the solver assume, and we can also easily get called by worse. And for that reason I think, its completely fine to fastplay here with intentions to stack off. But sure it would be different, if this was a high stakes tournament, where people actually know, what they are doing. Yeah sure UTG could have AA or the one ramaining combo of KK. But are we planning to fold this hand for 46BB effective? I dont think so. If we had 3-bet preflop, as we should, I am also not planning to fold to a 4-bet. So if UTG has AA or KK, then good for him

 

[jaworek1405]

Yeah, I agree that we shoulde squeeze pre flop. We are about 60bb in stack, we had very good position in tournament. We don't play Ako OOP against two players, it is a little risky move. If we will play sqeuuze pre flop, opponent see that we can be dangerous on the table. It is investment in the future, in next level of blinds. If opponent see that we are dangerous then sometimes won't steal our blinds. So I play 3bet pre flop and if we won't hit top pair on the flop, we can play safe to pot control and play check on the flop. Then we have two over cards and we have about 24% to hit top pair on the turn or on the river. If we won't hit something on the turn or on the river we can fold. We still should good stack to play. Yes, it depends what size of bets will play our opponents on the next 3 streets. If bets will be too big we can give up on the turn. GL

 

[theANMATOR]

Yup also agree with preflop 3betting. A/K is a strong hand vs 1 opponent. Versus 2 opponents it is a lot weaker. We want to play this hand vs only one opponent.

 

[FernA9ndo]

I agree with preflop 3betting, but I don't agree he checked on the turn, he could be betting.