A few days ago I played my first ever "ante-only" live NLHE MTT. I'm still working on writing live hand histories so bare with me. I immediately regretted the way I played the turn and river. I feel like I could have extracted more value out of the hand.


Ante-only Tournament - $120 Buy-In - 20K Starting Stack
Level 2 - 200 ante (9 players at table)
~24K Effective Stacks
Villain first position "brings-in" for 600
Folds around to Hero on the button with As 5s, Hero calls
3,000 Pot
Flop Ks 10s 4s
Villain Bets 600, Hero calls
4,200 Pot
Turn 3h
Villain Bets 1200, Hero calls
6,600 Pot
River 8c
Villain bets 2000, Hero Raises To 4,500, Villain calls and mucks.
Villain said "flopped two pair"

I liked my smooth call on the flop. No reason to give the strength of my hand and wait to see if he continues firing on the turn.

On the turn, this is where I feel I should of raised his 1200 bet 2.5X-3X setting up a value bet on the river.

How do you think I should have played this differently to extract the most value out of my hand? I appreciate any feedback in advance. Happy Grinding!

if you are ever raising a hand like Aj with A of clubs on the flop as a semi bluff i like a raise on the flop. especially ona very wet board like that str8 draws and flush draws are out there... if a noted s hits the turn there goes all your action and if you happen to run into AK K10 AA QJ QQ with q of s well you are going to make more money that way specially on small buy in tournaments where people do not fold very much... that being said, i do like a raise on the turn too and lead on river i mean if he fires turna nd calls a raise he is most likely not folding a river bet..

Villain's bets are really small, which leads me to want to raise flop even more!
I agree with ivanz, you want to bloat the pot as much as possible as soon as possible, especially when you have a lot of action killers.
If villain calls the flop raise and one more bet later on, you are probably already winning more because you control the size of the bets.
Raising turn when the turn doesn't change anything represents a lot of strength. Personally, as played on the flop, I would continue with this strategy by just calling the turn.

Also, as played, you are basically never bluffing with a river minraise, where if you raise large you may be more able to represent that you missed your draw and are trying to push him off of a hand.

Yes, that is a great point. I was thinking of that after logging the hand history before posting. What do you think would be a good size river raise? With 6,600 in the pot going to the river and villain bets 2000, somewhere between 3-3.5X his bet? Bigger?

I need to do a better job of keeping track of the bet sizes compared to the pot. I remember when this hand played out on the flop, I didn't realize how small the flop bet was compared to the pot until I ran the numbers on the turn when I thought about raising. If I'm raising the flop, what do you think is a good size raise with this 3 spade flop?

This also depends on villain reads, some people love to call and some people love to fold, and we have to adjust to those things. I would probably go 7500 or thereabouts without a specific read.

Thank you Black Aces, this has really helped

You also have to consider villains range here and what do you think he'd call you with if you did raise the flop. He opened UTG so besides some Kx I don't see this flop hitting them very hard. Of course 1010 and 44 are a possibility, but unlikely. So if you did raise the flop you'd be killing any potential action if they are just c betting with air and continuing with air. I like the call OTF, but definitely OTT we want to be raising it.

As played, the min raise OTR isn't the best. We now know that villain is firing 3 times and probably has a decent hand. We HAVE to be raising more.

Yes, I agree. On the flop this was exactly why I smooth called. Holding the A and flop containing K 10 That pretty much leaves Q J in villains range of hand combos. With such a small bet I thought it might be a feeler type bet and he would shut down to a raise. Unfortunately, we were only 25 minutes into the MTT, so I didn't really have a feel for this players early position range. Without knowing, I could only narrow down the hands you mentioned, with possible QJ combos or an AxQ combo. So you think it should be a raise OTT and not wait to the river?

When our opponent bets the turn small, his range should be heavily weighted towards thin value. I think he's going to have some TT and 44 here that he'll play this way, maybe some KTs, but more of his thin value range is going to be one pair Kx hands like AK/KQ, maybe some KJs. I think raising turn, especially when the turn is a blank, represents a lot of strength and might get a lot of those one pair Kx hands to fold plus a percentage of the draws. For that reason I don't mind flatting the turn.

I actually don't think a small river raise is that bad, but I'd go more like 5.5-6K. We want to get shrug calls from strong one pair hands that tried to get three streets and I think betting more than 6K probably gets hands like KQ and KJ to fold. As noted, there are going to be more one pair hands trying to get thin value than 2p+ hands in this spot.

Call
Call
Bet river like a missed draw
Sizing depends on opponent

OR

If V reads every aggression as bluff, then raise flop and size turn river to gii and pray no more spades or repeats

^^

what oldsilver points out quite well is, there is NO stock way to play this... everything is in context... what do you know about villian? how has he played previous hands with wet boards? does that fact that he bet the same amount pre-flop as post-flop mean anything? (it does for some players, it is just laziness for others)... do you suspect he will shutdown if you raise early?

for what its worth, just make sure you are putting enough chips in to get some decent value on hitting the perfect flop......

good luck

2500 flop and keep barreling
if you flat flop don't raise turn and 10k river

The more I thought about the hand this seems to be the most profitable line against all of Villains range in this particular hand against an opponent that I had literally 30 minutes of play with. If hes betting air or for thin value I take away the value gained on his bluffs on later streets by raising the flop. I would bet bigger next time on the river like a missed draw. Thanks for the input