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VMVarga

VMVarga

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This is the hand that knocked me out of the nov.4 sunday CC freeroll. I just wanted to know what other think about it and whether or not they would have acted differently.

So, we are approaching the bubble, about 20 away, and I have about 17 blinds left. Im in the big blind, and UTG opens with a min raise. A very short stack (he had 1.3 blinds left) in mid position calls, moving all in with his tiny stack. I call with AT off.

The flop comes A78. I lead out with a half pot bet, which was also half of my stack. UTG raises all in. I called. He shows AQ, and the tiny stack shows A7. All four aces in play, and I have the worst of it. The turn and river didn't help me and I got knocked out.

My original read from the UTG raiser was that he had AK, or AJ at the least. I had a gut feeling to fold, but I don't usually operate on just gut feelings (even though I had the thought that this exact thing would happen; that an ace would flop and my kicker wouldn't be good enough and I wouldn't be able to fold even though I really really should). Circumstances led me to call because it was just a min raise and I had a hand perfect for defending with.

For those wondering why, if I had made a read that he had AK, would I go ahead and lead out and not go with a check/fold instead; I don't have a good answer for you. I am still wondering if I am strong enough to make a post flop check/fold on that hand. I didn't have the best kicker, but it was pretty strong, and the only aces that beat me were AK, AQ, or AJ, unless of course he had aces up, which I did not think he had because UTG preflop raisers don't often play such weak aces this late in the game. So I guess in hindsight, I could have saved myself by either folding preflop or check/folding based on my read. But that is hindsight, and I have never been a big fan of Captain Hindsight.

Should I have trusted my gut and my read, which was almost dead on, and just folded preflop, or did I make an acceptable play? I am honestly on the fence between the two. I feel like that is a spot where you shouldn't be folding to a min raise just because of a gut feeling, but that gut feeling and my read turned out to be right and the better play for that specific moment was to just fold it. At this point, I can't decide for myself if it was good, bad, or just one of those hands where sometimes it goes my way and sometimes it doesn't, and that this was just one of the times it didn't.

I appreciate any input and opinions.
 
puzzlefish

puzzlefish

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17 big blinds? No reason to call an all-in with questionable ATo. You have TP with a weak kicker, that's it. You also know UTG isn't going to open with a weak holding like that nor raise all in unless it is a maniac (and why would that be a necessary play for them so close to the bubble too?). Your gut feeling was based on experience. Learn to listen to it. More often than not, you will make the right decision.
 
A

AG04CAS

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Barry Greenstien once said 'My gut told me an A was gonna come.....just had to go with it'

If my gut feeling says make this play I tend to follow it.....its your read on the situation...experience if you will and its a big part of your game.

Yes the math comes into play obviously but if you know your beat .... give it up.

in your situation i would of folded pre if i put anyone on a bigger A.
 
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paapcity

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I would have folded too.
17bb is still enough to wait for better spots.
 
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collesut

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This is the hand that knocked me out of the nov.4 sunday CC freeroll. I just wanted to know what other think about it and whether or not they would have acted differently.

So, we are approaching the bubble, about 20 away, and I have about 17 blinds left. Im in the big blind, and UTG opens with a min raise. A very short stack (he had 1.3 blinds left) in mid position calls, moving all in with his tiny stack. I call with AT off.

The flop comes A78. I lead out with a half pot bet, which was also half of my stack. UTG raises all in. I called. He shows AQ, and the tiny stack shows A7. All four aces in play, and I have the worst of it. The turn and river didn't help me and I got knocked out.

My original read from the UTG raiser was that he had AK, or AJ at the least. I had a gut feeling to fold, but I don't usually operate on just gut feelings (even though I had the thought that this exact thing would happen; that an ace would flop and my kicker wouldn't be good enough and I wouldn't be able to fold even though I really really should). Circumstances led me to call because it was just a min raise and I had a hand perfect for defending with.

For those wondering why, if I had made a read that he had AK, would I go ahead and lead out and not go with a check/fold instead; I don't have a good answer for you. I am still wondering if I am strong enough to make a post flop check/fold on that hand. I didn't have the best kicker, but it was pretty strong, and the only aces that beat me were AK, AQ, or AJ, unless of course he had aces up, which I did not think he had because UTG preflop raisers don't often play such weak aces this late in the game. So I guess in hindsight, I could have saved myself by either folding preflop or check/folding based on my read. But that is hindsight, and I have never been a big fan of Captain Hindsight.

Should I have trusted my gut and my read, which was almost dead on, and just folded preflop, or did I make an acceptable play? I am honestly on the fence between the two. I feel like that is a spot where you shouldn't be folding to a min raise just because of a gut feeling, but that gut feeling and my read turned out to be right and the better play for that specific moment was to just fold it. At this point, I can't decide for myself if it was good, bad, or just one of those hands where sometimes it goes my way and sometimes it doesn't, and that this was just one of the times it didn't.

I appreciate any input and opinions.

I don't know man, how that guy played hands before or did you get Any read on him, but you shoudn't go against your gut, especially when you are near a bubble
You should have fold, you know that saying :"i have lost a battle but i am going to win the war:icon_rabb:D"
In a MTT you will always lose a battle but the war Is what counts

We all make mistakes but i dont think that this was a big one :p

GG, you were close to money;)
 
GreenDaddy1

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I think you can fold pre here. At first glance I'd say calling is not awful, but the more I think about it the more I think it is not a great play against villain's range form UTG. What sort of flop do you possibly think you are going to be ahead on? Unless you get some combination of Aces & Tens, or you flop a straight (or straight draw) then the flop does not help you and you remain behind what is likely a strong opening range. Basically you're behind on most flops.

I do like shoving all in pre when I'm short stacked, but ATo is too weak to shove over the top of UTG with 17BB left.

If you do call, whether that is a mistake or not, you have to be disciplined with how you proceed once you do - putting anything more into this pot can lead to you being pot committed with a pretty weak holding.

As played, I don't like the lead out on that flop at all. That is really poking the bear when you have top pair with a bad kicker. The range of the UTG villain has to be assumed to be pretty strong. You're not strong enough to be value betting with this donk bet, and it is probably not a good spot to bluff if UTG has you covered as you are inviting a shove. So if it is not a good spot to bet for either a)value or b)a bluff then why are you betting? Regardless of the exact flop, I'd see this usually as a flop where you should be either check/folding (you think you're behind) or check/shoving (you think you're ahead or have some showdown potential combined with some fold equity for your bluff).

Replace your 'gut feeling' with a 'feeling' of villain's range. Use a hud or your own observations to assess what sort of range that is going to be. If villain is opening about 5% from UTG, ie 99+, AJs+, KQs, AKo then your ATo is in pretty bad shape against villain's range (70% vs 30% ish pre flop). Your donk bet might see villain fold out the weaker pairs and KQs (less likely if he has a lot more chips than you) but leave him shoving over you with a range that now has you completely dominated.
 
Matt Vaughan

Matt Vaughan

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Great point from GreenDaddy about trying to replace a "I'm beat" intuition with an intuition for what types of hands you might expect to see from the villain.

Preflop seems fine to me. It's not a FUN spot vs UTG, but our hand performs a little too well and we are getting too good a price to fold.

As played, I don't think I'd lead on the flop, but also you mention you bet half pot which is half your stack. I don't think that's right. There's only gonna be ballpark 7bb in the middle, and we should have 15bb behind after the preflop.

Which means we either bet half pot, about 3-4bb, and faced a jam for 15bb total and called off, or we potted it to 7bb leaving 8bb behind to call off. Both of which I think are not such good options. The first option isn't great partially because the lead is not ideal on such a dry board in such a protected pot when nothing worse is really going to give us a lot of action, and a lot of better hands are in villain's range. But also because calling off so much over the 3-4bb flop bet would be lighting chips on fire imo - we never see a worse hand in UTG's jamming range.

The second option is also bad, but probably even more so because of the lead. If leading for 3-4bb isn't great, then potting it is just much much worse. And I KIND of understand calling it off at that point with the price but I still think calling would be sort of bad and we don't get shown worse basically ever. But I also can't see myself betting so large and then folding for the rest.

Getting past the action to what I'd do myself, I'd be checking, and whether I call a bet will depend a LOT on what I think of the opponent and his sizing, and some of it will come down to a "feeling" (which is really just an intuition about what the player pool tends to have when they do certain actions). If we face a small bet, I'm almost never folding, because this the villain could very easily have TT-KK and want to get HU with the all in player, whose range can be pretty wide here imo and doesn't have to be connected with the board.

If the villain goes large, or say, pots it instead, or even jams for 2x pot effective... I am probably making an exploitative fold. He's betting into a partially protected pot and the side pot is not large. While he MIGHT want you to fold, these are the sorts of plays I see a lot from AK when players are just terrified of the turn card, and even though it would be a sort of sick line with TT-KK, I don't think people are really doing it.
 
VMVarga

VMVarga

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Thanks for all the input. I have made some adjustments from studying this particular hand and things are working out a bit better.

I think folding preflop was probably the best decision, but I could have also check/folded rather than lead out post flop. Granted, sometimes I will be up against KK or QQ instead of AK or AQ, and check/folding would be the wrong move, but in that situation I think there are decent odds that KK or QQ will check back to see the turn, allowing me to keep the pot smaller and potentially make it to showdown without shoving all in. But I think most players who get KK or QQ utg will not min raise, and instead are likely to raise a bit bigger to try to push the weak aces away from seeing the flop. Players are always prone to min raise with AJ-AK from UTG rather than a 3x blind raise because they don't want to get three bet up to ten blinds by someone holding a big pocket pair.
 
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