I was reviewing notes from a long time ago and found this pot that I played. This was from a $2,000+80 tournament in 2006. It was a preliminary tournament during a WPT series.

I believe there were about 150 entrants. This pot came up with 17 players left. The top 18 were paid, so we are in the $$$. The Grinder and I have the two biggest stacks at the table and we are at opposite ends of the table. 800-1600 with an ante of 200. We each have 70k-80k and he has me slightly covered.

He's been raising quite a bit (sort of trying to run over the table) and he opens to 4800 in MP. I call in the big blind w/ 75.

Flop is Q42 . I check and call for 7k.

Turn is a 7 to give me a pair. I check and he bets 14k. I tank for about 20 seconds and raise all-in.

Thoughts on every street would be appreciated.

Must have been a huge bummer for Mizrachi around 2012 when his nickname went from synonymous with "hard working poker player" to synonymous with "app you use to get a BJ from a dude in a bar bathroom"

Raising all-in there seems like a typical 2006 poker play. It should be a call.

In general, it's a bad play because we are risking all our tournament equity with a large all-in and we're only get called by better. He's not folding a queen, and would probably only fold hands like 88-JJ, which he probably wouldn't bet and might even hero. Calling keeps all his bluffs in. Sure, we let him realize a little bit of equity, and he can bluff us off our showdown value on some bad rivers or with some big sizings. Calling also lets us preserve a small stack, even if we hero a river bet and lose.

are you bluffing? value betting? ( ott)

love it...well played

Neither. It's the, I have a few things going so I'll blast and hope he folds or I can suck out if called, bet.

I think you meant to write "cool hand".

Also known as a semibluff

you know i actually dont mind this play tbh...if he has a hand like this for bluff, and then 777/444/222/ 74o/72s/42s/q4s/q7o grinder needs to do a bunch of folding here

I've played a $1500 day 1 with Mizrachi a couple of years back and he spewed pretty hard as I'm sure he does at most low (for him) buy in events. Super active pre and then three barrelled several times when villain ranges were weak and just looked to get a big stack or bust as quickly as he could

you're ITM so he may be less out of line, but I'd be more inclined to call here, realise your equity and probably strap myself down and call most rivers even if we don't improve. Hitting your two pair is likely more profitable for you than getting your flush, which may make him check back more, but even unimproved I would consider calling most rivers in this spot

True

I only see he opened 3x, that's pretty much it.
It's not the best turn card to do it on but it may be completely irrelevant and yes it will work well (esp in 2006) vs std pros/regs on snug/tight side.

You aren't repping a lot for value after calling 3x on this texture but still people will fold Qx (which is quite disastrous if you range is as wide as pairs+FDs).

Yet lolposting defends 42s, 74o, Q7o... Idk

Missed that he opened to 3x so would tighten my calling range a bit. Pretty sure the suited versions of all these hands still make it in to a bb defend range tho

The whole "we only get called by better" thing kind of ignores the 35k or so we win if he folds as well as all the equity we have against almost everything that is "better". I think it's a lot closer than you seem to think.

Check raise the flop (Take the pot there)

check call the turn, no point of shoving, youll prob end up shoving into a hand if he has it and risking to much to potentially scoop the pot there. high risk, low reward

Though check shoving the turn is a good play to scoop the pot with a backed up middle pair and flush draw, I do like it but its a high risk play. IF he did happen to wake up with a hand, you'd be at risk to be eliminated.

I'd check raise the flop- the hand would've played out differently.

what ended up happening?

I like it, but I'm not sure if it's best. I think the problem is what can you get him to fold on the turn if you are behind. Assuming he has weaker than Q9, what other hands are you folding out that are actually ahead? Would he bet JJ-88 on the turn (as another poster asked)? I think he is going to call with a good QT or better a lot of the time.

The more I think about it, the better off you are probably just calling the turn. Although you might have to make a tough decision on the river.

Sounds result oriented given wpt 2k 2ft spot.
Go broke w QT srsly vs semi-random who can generally have 22+ VR and questionable amount of semibluffs?

It's not a semi-bluff, because he's not folding a better hand, ever. I have to assume even mizrachi isn't bad enough to bet/fold anything better than a 7 in 2017. 65dd would be a semi-bluff, as whatever he folds was a better hand. I don't see, once you pair the 7, what a shove has going for it over call/call any river. Other than folding out 2-4 outs. Unless he's routinely bet/folding 88+/Qx of course.

if he calls off all of his one pair hands better than 7x and we xrai ott with only our 2p and set combos/as well as hands like this as a bluff, he will get crushed by calling very often. so i disagree w the part of your post where you say he isnt bad enough to bet fold, because he certainly needs to have a b.f range vs this line

Of course not, but he checks QT on the flop or turn most likely.

I assume he bluffs plenty, he can fold those, can't he? I don't see why he'd have to b/f valuecombo's, in fact that seems super exploitable by c/shoving turns with some equity if you're gonna fold all your bluffs, a chunk of your valuerange and only call the nuts. When you 3x pre, bet flop and bet turn all reasonably sized, you should typically be bluffing or have something quite strong already. But hey, it could easily be true that mizrachi is just betting 88 or Q9 here for some reason and folds them to a shove, I don't know. Under the right assumptions this play can be great, but typically when I have second pair I don't try to turn it into a bluff when I can have so many worse hands. A3, A5, 65, 63, 4xdd, all these hands are better bluffs than the hand we have, and we only flop so many sets/2 pairs to balance this (assuming we want to shove our sets here, we should also slowplay some stuff).

i myself would just use this hand for a cc ott, but just was saying that this play might not suck as much as i first thought

?? OP said the hand was played in 2006.

Say I call the turn and the river is an offsuit Jack or an offsuit Ten. I check and Mizrachi bets 30k or shoves. How much do you like it? Sure, a call on the turn may get me into a +EV situation on the river, but it also sets me up to get outplayed on the end. Keep in mind that the Grinder was playing like an animal/sicko--sick enough to value bet a 9 on the river.

Ah ok, well, I learned the rules of texas hold'em in 2007 so I'm not much help there. Still, calling 100% of rivers is the same investment as shoving turn so unless he folds hands >7x often this is the play.