N
neilv93
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Last night I played a £27+3 tournament down my local casino. With 187 total runners we were very deep 9-handed going into level 5 of 150/300 (25).
I had 26,750 at this point and decided to raise UTG with Ah Jh. Now, before anyone says anything, I took it upon myself to try becoming a much more aggressive player last night, a strategy which seemed to work well as I came fourth for £475. I know AJs is probably not in most players UTG opening range but what the hell, I wanted to dominate and be the table captain so I bumped it up to 750.
I received a call from the button. He had 34,400 behind at this point and is typically a bit of an unpredictable, wild player, not in the good way. The reason he had such a big stack is because he called a preflop all in for his 15,000 starting stack and cracked aces with QJo. The big blind came along as well.
The flop was glorious for me - Js Th 3h. Top pair and the nut flush draw. Awesome! 2,625 in the pot, so I bet a healthy 2,000 to try and extract a good amount of value as I figured he'd call with virtually any piece of the board and it was all over his range. He called very quickly and the BB folded.
When he called so quickly it threw me a tad. There's a variety of hands in his range that I'm crushing (KJ, J9, 67h, etc.) but also some hands that would cause some issues down later streets - KQ, 98, even floating hands like AQ.
The turn was a interesting card - Qc. I bet 4,200 into 6,625 and he raised it to 9,025. He's the type of player that slow-plays AK, so I thought that might be an outside possibility but, equally, he has been seen to overvalue top-pair, so I figured hands like KQ or Q9 are likely. 98 also got there but he's also the type of player to make weird plays with hands like AT, T9, 99 or KJ. His quick call on the flop felt like sets and two pairs weren't really in his range so I put him on either a straight or some weird kind of 'pair-and-up-and-down' hand. So with the nut flush draw and potential outs against a big part of his range if I was behind, I decided to call with the intention of donk-jamming if the river was a heart.
Interestingly, though, it was the Ad. Great. What a frustrating card. Obviously I checked but instead of shoving he put together a bet of only 6,200 into 24,625. To most people this screams out as a blatant value bet but something didn't feel right. The player in question was sitting really uncomfortably and when I asked how much he had behind his voice was trembling when he answered. If I fold I have 50BB behind still and if I call and lose then I'd still have 29BB and room to manoeuvre in my mind.
I made a probably stupid, gutsy hero call and raked in a big pot when he showed Jd Td for the worse two pair. This feels like one of those frustrating spots where I'm beat by so much and as played, got lucky to river the best hand.
However, my underlying questions with this hand are this;
- does my bet sizing make me vulnerable to being raised on the turn?
- should I shove the turn instead of calling his raise?
- should I have bet more/less on the flop to avoid having an uncomfortable SPR throughout the hand?
- how could I have generally played this differently from the flop onwards and what is the best play in the long run?
I had 26,750 at this point and decided to raise UTG with Ah Jh. Now, before anyone says anything, I took it upon myself to try becoming a much more aggressive player last night, a strategy which seemed to work well as I came fourth for £475. I know AJs is probably not in most players UTG opening range but what the hell, I wanted to dominate and be the table captain so I bumped it up to 750.
I received a call from the button. He had 34,400 behind at this point and is typically a bit of an unpredictable, wild player, not in the good way. The reason he had such a big stack is because he called a preflop all in for his 15,000 starting stack and cracked aces with QJo. The big blind came along as well.
The flop was glorious for me - Js Th 3h. Top pair and the nut flush draw. Awesome! 2,625 in the pot, so I bet a healthy 2,000 to try and extract a good amount of value as I figured he'd call with virtually any piece of the board and it was all over his range. He called very quickly and the BB folded.
When he called so quickly it threw me a tad. There's a variety of hands in his range that I'm crushing (KJ, J9, 67h, etc.) but also some hands that would cause some issues down later streets - KQ, 98, even floating hands like AQ.
The turn was a interesting card - Qc. I bet 4,200 into 6,625 and he raised it to 9,025. He's the type of player that slow-plays AK, so I thought that might be an outside possibility but, equally, he has been seen to overvalue top-pair, so I figured hands like KQ or Q9 are likely. 98 also got there but he's also the type of player to make weird plays with hands like AT, T9, 99 or KJ. His quick call on the flop felt like sets and two pairs weren't really in his range so I put him on either a straight or some weird kind of 'pair-and-up-and-down' hand. So with the nut flush draw and potential outs against a big part of his range if I was behind, I decided to call with the intention of donk-jamming if the river was a heart.
Interestingly, though, it was the Ad. Great. What a frustrating card. Obviously I checked but instead of shoving he put together a bet of only 6,200 into 24,625. To most people this screams out as a blatant value bet but something didn't feel right. The player in question was sitting really uncomfortably and when I asked how much he had behind his voice was trembling when he answered. If I fold I have 50BB behind still and if I call and lose then I'd still have 29BB and room to manoeuvre in my mind.
I made a probably stupid, gutsy hero call and raked in a big pot when he showed Jd Td for the worse two pair. This feels like one of those frustrating spots where I'm beat by so much and as played, got lucky to river the best hand.
However, my underlying questions with this hand are this;
- does my bet sizing make me vulnerable to being raised on the turn?
- should I shove the turn instead of calling his raise?
- should I have bet more/less on the flop to avoid having an uncomfortable SPR throughout the hand?
- how could I have generally played this differently from the flop onwards and what is the best play in the long run?