Tournment: MICRO Big 3.3$
My position: UTG + 1
My hand: AQs
Villain position: CO

Blinds 60/120
Villain stack: 6000-7000
My stack: 4500-5000

I raised to 2,05 BB, villain just calls, and we get to the flop:

Q 2 9 rainbow

I bet 38% of the pot

Villain shoves

Call or fold? what would you do?

I called, he had 99

cant beat yourself over that call
he could easily be bluffing or have a Q with a worse kicker

I had close scenario like this with Q10s on my hand. Flop was 2-7-Q rainbow. I was preflop raiser 2.5BB from utg, sb called. On the flop I bet a bit less than half pot then he shoved allin. Thought much but I made fold and he showed me 2-7s. Well I'd do that fold with better kicker too because I did put him on exactly random two pairs. I know the guy is good player and there he has something stronger on the flop. Going allin with top pair with any kicker isn't good idea since preflop raiser (me) easily have AQ, aces or kings in ranges there and oponent knows that. By the way it was final table. I was chip leader, he was second, close to me and we were deep in stack both. So I can say, it's based on players or stacks they have. And of course the board comes first. If there's draws on board - probably call. Or if he's short stacked - snapcall.
Some fishes doesn't care and may shove with Q8 too at early stages. But it's less likely since any good player knows the ranges. My flop was a bit easier to put an oponnent on something as there were not any draws. Your board only have straight draw but I don't think he'd go allin with J-10. Anyway you don't made bad call surely, just unlucky situation. His move isn't great too as he could waste a set earlier if you didn't made a pair.

I think it was call anyway the villain had a hidden game of those that are difficult to detect.

I would definitely fold. Almost everytime I made a call here, it was a trap. The preflop raise was small, the pot is small, there is no reason for him to bluff here or go all in since he has very little to gain. If I was him I would have played it much slower and hope that you are the one doing the raising, and then I shove on the river. The way he played, it was clear he had the nuts. Ofcourse sometimes you win these hands if the guy is nuts, but most of the times it's a trap.

Originally Posted by Gusborgs22

Tournment: MICRO Big 3.3$
My position: UTG + 1
My hand: AQs
Villain position: CO

Blinds 60/120
Villain stack: 6000-7000
My stack: 4500-5000

I raised to 2,05 BB, villain just calls, and we get to the flop:

Q 2 9 rainbow

I bet 38% of the pot

Villain shoves

Call or fold? what would you do?

I called, he had 99

Good day!
I think that in such a situation I would also have pressed the "call", because the opponent can come up with a bunch of hands that are weaker than ours and it is rarely possible to assume that on such a board, having a set, he will play by pushing. On the other hand, there could be kings with aces, but I think they would have played a raise preflop.
An interesting situation!
Good luck at the tables!

Originally Posted by pcurley17

cant beat yourself over that call
he could easily be bluffing or have a Q with a worse kicker

Yes, I agree. You can make the call if the player is loose and often bets all his chips with top pair on the flop and also calls a raise with hands like QT or Qx suited. However, nothing is lost if you fold your hand - you still have 33 - 35 BB and there is surely another profitable spot.

You have not really dispersed the pot, so if the opponent puts an ollin, then he puts out the best combination at the moment.You just have an older pair with an ace kicker.So think about it.I would have chipped in if I were you and still kept my chances of participating in the tournament.

The villain played very simply. He caught the best hand and immediately pushed. When you have the top pair and the best kicker, it's hard to fold. But we must assume any options. Therefore, the hero fold is the right decision that will allow you to continue participating in the tournament.

i dont think it was a bad call, however if villain is a tight player you should have considered folding the hand after the shove because he will most likely be ahead of you in most scenarios with hands like aa,kk,99,22 or less likely q9 suited.

I would also play like this, it is very difficult to reset such a hand with such a flop, it is almost a cooler.
Although when a large bet is made much more than the pot, this should be alarming, if the opponent had pocket AA or KK, then he would most likely raise on the preflop, so AA, KK disappears, there is 99, 22 or 9Q.
Difficult hand, difficult to fold.

I’ll probably call

Facing a flop shove with tptk - its either a monster draw, a set or 2 pair, or the guy is an aggro fish - you must determine what kind of player you are against.
A fold isn't a bad option with only one pair. Sets are so hard to see vs any opponents, so it's not something that you could have known - without additional information, like hand history with the opponent.

But ya know the old saying - dont go broke with one pair is always something to think about facing such an aggressive action on the flop.

This is poker, set is a strong hand.I played this hand just like you did, $ 3 is not the same tournament and not to the stage where I would fold this hand)

Fold is very good move

sometimes the best decision and give up because it is certain that he will have a bigger pair than yours!

Without knowing the hand result, I probably would have called as well but this is a teaching lesson that always be on high alert when your opponent goes all in. If you only have top pair, it probably is not a winning hand.

This is simple math if you do not have the winning hand as in 100 per cent just fold or leave it up to chance which in most cases you will lose. Capo1014

It's hard to say without being there in the moment. I would have to factor in what kind of play I've seen from him previously. If I haven't seen enough from him, I might let him have this one and keep an eye on him. After all, if I'm doing my math right, he's jamming more than 6K into a pot that with less than $1k in it. I might let get away with it once. If he's bluffing, this might embolden him to try it again later. If he's really trying to blow his stack off to me, all I have to do is wait. He'll give it to me sooner or later.

That being said, calling with top pair/top kicker is far from being out of the question. After all, you would probably expect someone with that good a hand to make a smaller raise to try to make sure he doesn't chase you out of the pot. So it does look like a kind of fishy play, the kind I've seen from plenty of idiots eager to jam all there chips in the second they think they might be ahead, even if it's just with top pair and a weak kicker. That's actually one of my weaknesses. I've seen so many players make so many ridiculous plays that I tend to be skeptical when I see something like this.

The effective stack in this hand was around 40BB, and then I am typically not looking to fold TPTK. I am especially not looking to fold on a spread out board like this, where we can pretty much rule out two pair combos from his range. Even Q9 is a pretty loose call preflop against an EP open, so if he even has it, its probably only Q9s, and there is only 1-2 combos of that hand depending on the suit of your Q. If he can have any other two pair combos than Q9s, then he can have a lot of other hands as well, that he might overvalue or turn into a wild bluff.

But going back to the assumption, he is somewhat reasonable, then you lose to 6 combinations of sets (QQ+ 3-bet pre) and 1-2 combinations of Q9s. But then there are the hands, he overplay, and his bluffs. Like 6 combos of AQ for the chopper, 8 combos of KQ, 4 combos of JTs and so on and so forth. If we plug this range, which I just constucted for him, into Equilab, you have 51,3% equity. So I am not thrilled, he piled it in, but I am also not going to fold.

To be honest a hand like this is always kind of annoying, because we feel stupid paying off that massive overbet, when we are drawing almost dead. But the way, I look at it, had the guy just called, as probably he should, then I would usually have continued to bet for value, and he would still have gotten my stack, unless the board ran out in a particularly scary way. So he did not really win anything extra with his wild flop line, and at the same time he allowed my to get away cheaply from all my bluffs and weaker made hands than this. If for instance I am C-betting JJ or TT, then I just fold, and he only win a small pot, when he make this silly move on the flop.