What was villain's full hand? Will be easier to start the analysis with that

I'd have one sizing, AI, reason being mainly that it's not too hard to build it sensibly. Maybe someone more skillful than me can have balanced ranges for two sizings, but it's not easy. Certainly checking back some of my range, AA or a straight for example.
Leaving exactly what to the AI-range? It's just going to be too bluff-heavy in practice.
Yeah, if he thinks hero has a marginal hand often and folds it often, he can bluff "too much" as an exploit. I have no info on why would he think that, so I wouldn't expect him to do that.
I'm pretty sure turning trips to a bluff is simply a mistake in this spot.
But him having a polarized AI-range is pretty bad for him imo, as he just doesn't have those nutty hands often.
I'd be pretty shocked if river was a fold vs a tough russian.

was villain shoving river.. for value? I don't get it

I'm fairly confident that villain was turning his hand into a bluff. I don't think his actual hand matters in this case but I think he showed A268. After thinking about it for a while, the river shove read as bluffy for the reasons stated above, but in game it appeared nutted as hell.

Hero tank called and was rewarded w being a fairly sizable chipleader (560k, 2nd was 300k?).

without context line seems kind of nutted but unless villain viewed you as clueless he should've been self-aware that his utg open range contains very little boats

your line looks like a bare 8 or straight and he still has some showdown value against said range. Seems like a river shove is a pretty apparent mistake against a competent player

Ok so my thoughts on villain's line:

Calling the flop seems ok/normal, and becomes more attractive with a club blocker. raising is somewhat unattractive because it probably doesn't fold out better combo draws, doesn't have protection against other boats unless the Ace is live, and villain is happy if low draws become possible on the turn.

The turn bet size is very awkward to me. I get that it sets up the river all-in, but that line represents a very nutty hand when it is not all that credible, and there are still lots of hands to protect against:

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

board: 988q

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
a26c8	69.19%	402,039	402,039	26,201	0	0
(ac, 2c): 30%6h, 8: 55%6h, 99:55%6h, jt: 50%6h, aa:30%6h, 9: 40%6h, kk: 30%6h	30.81%	171,760	171,760	26,201	0	0

Here is a sim consistent with some hands that might bet the flop and check the turn. It leaves out many other hands that would sometimes bet the flop (in middle position on this texture hero can take a shot fairly liberally) like 76xx, t7xx, qjx and some other overpair combinations, as well as less nutty flush combinations. So even though the sim says 30.8 equity, I imagine that spending some more time on the aforementioned combinations, as well as following principles like assuming opponents ranges are a little stronger than you think they really have, it would probably reach closer to 35. This leads to the conclusion that as strong as trips are vs hero range, villain is still likely to lose 1/3rd of the time, and betting such a small portion of the pot seems like a mistake/ lost opportunity. checking back in this situation has some appeal. Villain does not want to be check-raised (if raised, folding might be correct). This also pot-controls, and he may be able to blast hero off some straights if they lead the river and he jams.

Once hero calls the turn bet, I think villain should checkback his hand on the river. Even if he is not playing you for the straight (in part for taking the unusual line of checking the turn) there are not many hands left to extract value from. Betting the river would maybe fold out another A8 hand that didn't fill up, but he shouldn't expect many crying calls with AA, KK, Aq. Flush draws that missed aren't likely to call either. Also his tournament life is on the line.

betting 1/2-2/3 pot with intent to check back river sounds easily the most optimal line for villain OTT. Has the benefits of getting value from the hands he beat like bare trip/straight/AAfd while making the river play simple as you are rarely donking river without having him beat

Villains sizing OTT is fine. He's betting often and a lot of his hands can't stand any heat so smaller sizing makes sense. 6bb is the maximum pressure line for the river. He loses a little with value lines while gaining a lot with bluff lines. Increasing the sizing doesn't steal significantly more when you compare it to the cost (when you need to bail) and you still have to balance keeping a reasonable amount of hero's range in for villains value lines.

The river on the other hand is just villain leveling himself in to doing something silly. Even if he thought that hero would fold all straights and A8 it's still not likely good (only 3 possible straights and 2 of them are rare). It could be kinda close if you're correct but if you're wrong it's just setting money on fire.

The other component of the river play is that in general with run outs that are kinda like playing chicken you at times need to counter counter lines and betting your trips does prevent your opponent from calling down with mediocre value hands (high pairs and weak 8s). The problem with this line of thinking is that for the most part no one can afford to do that in tournaments. The future gains from these type of plays are fairly minimal, stacks are almost always shallow and even the counter plays themselves are much rarer. And that said i would have been perfectly fine if all this would have happened OTT with hero bet/calling because hero had the stack to do it with and villains counter shove from assumed wide bet/fold range would not have been that rare (also something that he has to do against some opponents).

Regarding the turn, high cards favor hero's range heavily while low cards favor the villain but not as much but with the position it could be argued that it's close. Because of this and the dynamic with SB on the flop both hero and villain can bet and call fairly wide while OTT this is no longer the case for both parties.

I'm still not buying the turn sizing. He needs to bet for value against flush draws, he's giving himself a horrible price without putting himself in a favorable position on the river if he doesn't improve.

Being able to go all in is on the river is being overrated because missed flush draws don't care and he can still bet a signfigant amount of chips on the river . Protecting his weaker hands is not a priority, he can't float this flop profitable 3way with a player behind him yet to act with nothing. Villain can check back this turn without it hurting his range. I strongly believe the small sizing is a mistake.

One interesting tidbit that I had left out of the original discussion because I wasn't sure about it was that OTR villain didn't seem to know that his pot bet put him all in. I'm sure he knew what the size of the pot was and at least roughly how much he had in his stack, but he seemed to need to count down his stack to be sure. I wouldn't put too much weight on this, but this was another small factor that pushed me towards the hero call. Basically, most players w a nutted hand on the turn and trying to get stacks in by the river will know exactly what size bet is needed to set up the river all in. His behavior on the river did not seem to indicate this line of thinking.

I really wish I could pick villain's brain and figure out what he was thinking on every street.

This thread seems to be dead, but I'll just post one last interesting and fun spot I had on day 3.

We are roughy 1.5hrs into the day and hero has been very, very tight so far (combination of awkward stack sizes and bad cards), especially from the blinds. Hero has vpiped 2 or 3 times out of 8 or 10 hands in the blinds. Hero is in the BB w ~400k.

6 handed at 10k/20k. (12 players overall)
Robert mizrachi opens close to min from utg+1/HJ w ~250k.
Younger player on btn w ~500k calls quickly and casually, which was a fairly strong indicator of a weaker/speculative hand since twice before in similar situations he had paused to consider his options, 3betting one of those times. Player also displayed a lockdown postflop physical tell.
SB folds.

Hero decides with his image and the unique situation to pot it regardless of what his cards are (266J fwiw) since Robert has to either fold or commit his stack, possibly against 2 players who cover, and btn has a weak range. Hero pulls the trigger and wins nearly 6BB.

Not loving it. RM opens for almost 20% of his stack and you expect him to fold a lot? It would be different if you had close to decent equity against his continuing range, like if you had AK5x or any ds hand even.

Exactly what I was gonna post. With a solid hand, not necessarily great this play can be profitable. But I dont like shoving one of the worst hands in the game there.

His actual hand matters less than you guys think. I, for one, think this was a well thought out tourney play. NH.

Yes. He himself was generally avoiding confrontation and I think he opens reasonably wide there (table was generally passive w very infrequent preflop 3bs). Despite being one of the shortest stacks from the beginning, he hadn't committed his stack once in the 5 orbits or so we had played up to that point.

this might be a somewhat positive play given your reads on btn is accurate (even so it seems like he should be calling with a lot of hands even if UTG folds) but it is certainly high-variance

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
A[2-5]:25%6h	57.52%	250,225	320,568	1,139	208,666	4,877
2h6h6j	42.48%	160,538	278,293	1,139	90,711	4,877

our hand also has a surprisingly large amount of equity vs good hands, and even very good hands

ProPokerTools Omaha Hi/Lo Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

Hand	Pot equity	Scoops	Wins Hi	Ties Hi	Wins Lo	Ties Lo
10%6h	61.08%	273,547	348,100	1,113	198,063	5,527
2h6h6j	38.92%	140,924	250,787	1,113	92,507	5,527

the biggest problem (for me) is going to be the incorrect decisions hero makes on the flop in the event we have one or two callers


trying to calculate how often we don't take the pot is difficult but i don't think we should take it down more than 50% of the time.. i actually think the true number should probably be much lower than that

to start calculating the true odds i would operate under premise such as the following : UTG is opening 35%, he will continue with all top 20% and might continue with others

the real issue is that BTN is getting a great price to call you if UTG folds even if he gives you a range like AA[2-8], A2.. even a stronger range like aa[2-8], and he is deep enough to do it without being commited



really, this play can only be positive IF we know BTN is going to make dubious folds from a theoretical standpoint, Even then its unclear how much money this will make us and if it justifies the risk - it is however easy to construct scenarios where raising is positive as long as UTG sometimes folds

if we do get action we are priced to play vs one hand and fold vs both


tldr: i think this play is negative AND high-variance, but if BTN is really folding something like 95%+ of his hands it is feasible (but still high-variance)

I didn't mind if btn called actually since my his physical tell made it very, very easy to play against him.

This thread reminds me of Gigabets plays way back when. Playing the situation >>>>>>> your hand. NH again, OP.