Poker Stars $220+$10 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15/t30 Blinds - 2 players
2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked

Hero (BB): t1075
BTN/SB: t1925

Pre Flop: Hero is BB with K 9
BTN/SB calls t15, Hero raises to t120, BTN/SB calls t90

Flop: (t240) K 2 A (2 players)
Hero bets t160, BTN/SB calls t160

Turn: (t560) J (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

River: (t560) 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t420, Hero???

Flop bet is for value because I think Heir would raise any ace preflop. I was lost on the turn, not really anticipating a call, and not sure what a call meant. Even more lost on the river.

And don't say "check preflop" please. I'm interested in thoughts on the flop and later. I understand the arguments for both checking and raising preflop. I chose to raise this time.

if you dont he would limp an Ace pre.. then the call should be easy (semi), I mean the only hands he would limp/call (if he raises all aces) would be like KTs, I doubt he is limping KJ or QK here, but that's only if your reads are strong

I'd call here.

Kind of a weird hand, but I think a call is appropriate to his assumed limp/call range.

Also, good game selection again.

This hand confuses me. All we beat is if he floated with air on the flop, but if he did that, I don't see why he wouldn't just bet the turn. My first instinct is JT/QJ and he's turning it into a bluff (or value betting, I don't really know), but that would be such a strange thing to do. If we're really ruling out Ax entirely, then I don't see many hands that beat us, nor can I see many hands we beat.

Gah, I'm completely lost

I'd call here vs heir although im not a huge fan of preflop or flop

I agree I dislike pre-flop alot, but as played what do you do on the flop BCM, bet more/bet less or are you just check/folding here vs heir always?

The flop bet is weird because A/K smacks my range, so he's almost never calling a bet with worse, except for weird floats and maybe an odd king with lower kicker. However, I'd fire an ace here close to 100%, and not firing a king seems really transparent.

That noted, really? we call the river? His line seems to be A/x that chose to limp for some reason. That or like, maybe an oddly played 222. I don't think heir ever value bets a weaker king in this spot.

... to quote you

"Flop bet is for value because I think Heir would raise any ace preflop"

so A/x should be out of his range given your read, or a VERY small percentage, as is 222 I guess, so it should be polarized as a huge % of bluffs

One thing that struck me is that you say the flop bet is for value, then say you weren't expecting a call and aren't sure how to play against one. Is the only value you can get out of a flop bet from him bluff-raising or floating? If so, this should be an easy decision, even with the hand playing out as weird as it did. If not, I'm even more confused.

edit: primo sorta beat me to it, but w/e.

Yea, what I'm saying is... I bet the flop for value from weaker kings and maybe midpairs that are stubborn, but that given the flop texture, my bet is silly. I didn't think about everything all the way through in the moment. BCM is right that the flop bet is kind of weird unless I'm raising a lot of limps.

I thought heir would not limp an ace preflop. Once heir flats the flop, I didn't know how to proceed. Turn seemed like a check. On the river, if I bet, my hand is 99% face up and I'm never getting value from worse against heir, so I checked. Given that heir bets, I feel like I have to reevaluate my PF read, because I can't put many hands into a range that would do that other than A/x, and if I had A/x and limped preflop, this is exactly how I would play it postflop.

Ugh what I mean to say is... This is such a bad bad bad bad spot to float and bluff the river that it seems more likely my PF read was off and he limp/called A/x.

you (SHOULD) never ever ever get value from weaker Ks on the flop, as it would be awful for like a K7s to limp/call you here for 4x, so it's either gotta be to 'protect your hand' from some sort of range he could be floating with, or it's actually not a good bet and you should have checked here

(also im totally not trying to come of as a jerk/idiot here lol), but I think it's better if we just reason it out step by step what went wrong in this hand, either you mis-read his tendencies, or part of your hand was a mistake, but to say it's for value I think is 100% bad unless you he will flat with some weak pocket pairs here or like a QJ with a backdoor flush draw with the intention of taking it away to weakness on the turn or river, so you gotta decide what the real point of the flop bet was, but I can't agree that it was for value

Yea, I think the understanding is that my bet on the flop was misplaced. If I check the flop though, I'm definitely firing this turn, and if he flats the turn I'm still stumped on the river.

Heh, I even typed in the chat "I'm sooooooooooooo lost in this hand".

I'm going to kind of de-rail the thread here now... so I tanked it... hated myself, and called. Villain turned up Ah7h. So, I obviously messed up the preflop read. Not sure if that means I should check PF, but ehhhhhh. What I'm wondering is, how do we adjust mid-hand to a possible shift in reads without turning over our hand. In this case, when heir called the flop, I went "uh oh" and thought he could have a weak ace, so I tried to check down. But being one of those mega-aggressive merge-ranging players that I am, If I check the turn, my hand is K/x. Maybe QJ or a PP, sometimes. I'm certainly not checking an ace because his call is strong and I'm likely to try to get it in. I hate hate hate turning my hand face up.

So I guess I should just check the flop...

imo, the 'mistake' on your part starts with your preflop play, as this set up the confusing nature of the rest of the hand. Out of position against a good opponent I don't like raising k9s in a SnG format (cash is different). It's going to be very hard for you to play that hand out of position, bottom line. That being said, given the circumstance (two aggro players, aggro match, etc), it's totally reasonable to assume I limped a weak hand and pretty much anyone in your shoes will inherently bet the flop after raising preflop. So yeah, when you think about it, the flop bet is absent of value. Kind of interesting because I definitely sometimes play preflop/flop the same way you did without thinking twice about it.

as for the rest of the hand, I think its pretty close. I'm capable of floating flop light and taking the same line with a bluff (although I can't be sure my bet-sizing wouldn't be different on the river). It's a tough, tough spot on the river. It's difficult for me to be objective with analysis (obviously), but I do think you now realize I never value bet a worse hand on the river and practically never turn a jack into a bluff. I think this is something you may have overlooked. You should break to like: do I have air (I count like 45 as air too)? or hands that > k9.

From your perspective (given what you knew at the time) I don't think a call is horrible, just a confusing spot.

I check this flop a lot. You can say it's transparent but people overvalue the fear of polorizing their ranges in HU sngs. I'd say well over 95% of the time it doesn't really matter if you are doing so. By checking he's (probably/possibly) going to check back a lot of hands that you have crushed, and some hands that have you drawing to 5 outs. A lot of times i'll take a line where if it goes check/check on the flop and turn i'll pot the river and it looks like a bluff to people and they call with any pair. I just hate building this pot out of position where you're playing a guessing game against a solid tricky player.

i dont think this is close. your boned 90% of the time here, he has Ax almost always.