Hey guys,

I read the the forums a lot and I recently made an account to start posting more seriously in HS/MSMTT. Hopefully you can give me some thoughts on this hand because I got two different opinions from players I respect.

This hand takes place about 3 hours into day 2 of the Punta Cana poker classic main event. I've been active opening and I've won the blinds several times but was also forced to fold to some 3bets. I don't think I've shown down a single hand.

Villain is an Argentinian pro with ~300k live winnings. He's to my direct left and 3bet one of my opens given 8-10 chances. He hasn't gotten out of line and is playing pretty TAG although I assume he's plenty capable.

Blinds 1200/2400/300
SB (Hero): 120k
BB (Villain): 150k

Folds to me, I complete A4o. Villain raises 5000 more, I call.

Flop (18k): A83r. I c/c 3300.

Turn (24.6k): 3x goes check check.

River (24.6k): 6x. I bet 8000, and villain raises to 30000 after a few seconds.

How should I approach the river? At the time I thought I should bet some combination of Ax, 8x, and bluffs/weak SDV on the river, and probably call a raise with the top of that range. OTOH it's strange for villain to take this line to the river and then decide to bluff. Thoughts?

I like your line to this point including the river bet.

Given the dry runout and passive action, I think you get value from a lot of non-ace one pair hands.

The river raise is just weird. Totally polarized. The only value hand that makes any sense is 66 (and obv 33). No way he raises any one-pair hands here. So very very few combos but OTOH what bluffs could he have here?

I think I puke-fold.

This flop sizing has to be a mistake right? He bets 3300 into 18k???

Correct.

Smells a lot like a bluff but somehow it never is even though your hand is underrepped. It's not like he thinks you're folding Ax. Probably call and run into AA, 33 or 66 (AJ-AK real possible too) and steam for a while.

Think this is a fold...

This is often exactly 33/66/88. May be a narrow range, however I just can't see V doing this with any bluffs, that would be a double level where he thinks you think he's capable of playing so tricky that he will make it look super bluffy when he is actually bluffing, thinking that you think that he's too good to know not to bluff from a weird line and seem extremely bluff heavy. You know what I'm saying?
Just muck and pretend you floated to take it away later and go by your day.

Going to try and pretend like I don't know the results of this hand

His line reps really strong up to this point when you think about it, he bets beckoningly small on flop with obv 0 FE and when you c/c and c turn you almost never have a hand that can call a second value bet so villain should really be checking back value hands to try and get river value from a bluff or thin v bet etc

The problem is it's just so hard for you to have a real hand on the river here so it seems like the nuttedest spot for him to raise river with ATC and it bugs me so much to fold this part of our range bc of this. But I guess we might need to ignore this aspect and just muck and move on

^^^ this makes a lot of sense and I agree this is a great line to rep something pretty monstrous when your V is likely to have pretty much nothing here. The problem hero has is if you're going to play A4o this way then it might play way better to limp/fold because you got a relatively good runout for your hand and then this happens, and then the times you don't even flop an A you get owned. poker

V has 88?

Think Villain could also have one 3

After thinking about this. I think it's as simple as He'd have to be really spazzing out for
You to wanna call here

hero almost never has 3x and also has v little air. your hand looks like what it is, i think its a question of what he expects you do w/ it + what he does w/ some of the combos that beat us ott.

yeah all this, though i think we're high up in our perceived range

Fold is fine, punish him for his atrocious flop bet. He likely missed value in the hand the way he played it

Thanks everyone for your feedback... I guess we need to shake our head and fold.

I called and villain tabled AA.

What do you guys think about taking villain's line with KQ or 44?

Like most of us said. I can't see V ever taking this like with KQ or 44 etc... So. This is a fold.

22700 pre

villain has a such a range adv otf that i think he can size way down- esp if he's betting the flop w/ most of his range. hero is oop w/ (presumably) a bunch of low eq hands and a relatively capped range v villain's uncapped relatively strong range. i don't think hero should be x/r much at all otf, or leading many turns at all.

if villain thinks its better to develop a checking range otf and have a more polarized cbet range, then i guess he should size up.