3000 entrants, $125 buy in, 140players left.

Blinds: 4k/2k, 500ante

I'm on the button with A2dd and it is folded around to me. I min raised to 8k just to pick up the blinds. The table is super tight at this point.
SB folds, BB raises to 24k.

BB is the tournament chip lead and has 4x the stack of anyone else. He had about 900k and I had 200k. He was being very aggressive and bullying the table and raising, shoving every single hand. So, I call for 16k more thinking he has a marginal hand. I'm thinking that he is thinking I don't have an over card and was just trying to pick up blinds. If I don't hit an A, it will be an easy fold.

Flop: A3J

He bets 20k into a 57k pot. He has shoved all other hands, so I believe he has something now. I'm putting him on KK or QQ; I feel confident I have him beat. I call 20k, and he acts surprised that I called.

Turn:A3dJ4

He checks, I bet 20k

He thinks for a while and then bets 60k

I'm almost certain that he has KK and is trying to push me off an A. I had played with him 12hrs the day before and had seen this a few times against him. I think for a bit, and I shove all in thinking I have him beat. I was never caught bluffing the day before and I only showed when I had the nuts.

He thinks for a long time and then calls.

He has pocket 3s. River is an A, and I'm our of the tournament.

I know a check raise shows strength, but I really thought he was trying to push me off. I'm so sick about this. My chip stack was so good and I could have ran really deep.

What should I have done? Folded pre?

I'm not sure if this is in the right place. I don't know what constitutes as high stakes or mid.

Shoving the turn is insanity, his bluffs are drawing near dead anyway

It's very weird to think he takes this line with KK

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/87...akes-mtt-1335/

As to the hand - I think calling the 3-bet pre is ok since we are in position vs. aggro player, somewhat deep and need to only realize our equity ~30% of the time. Flop call is standard as he'll almost certainly be c-betting a ton on that board.

Turn is 100% check back every time. A fair portion of the time we have the best hand here and want to allow our opponent to fire on the river with his bluffs and second pair hands he might perceive to be best. We can call a reasonably-sized river bet and if he checks again consider making a small river bet for value. And if he has a better A that he's pot controlling turn with by checking (like AQ/AK) then we lose some chips, but not a ton.

When we bet turn (and with a weird small size to boot) what hands are we trying to get value from? Maybe KK/QQ that 3-bet pre, but pretty much every other Ax hand in his range is going to call, sets are going to call or raise. And what bluffs does our opponent who 3-bet even have here besides random gutshots, unless he's decided to turn a hand like 77 into a bluff - and 3-bet it pre to boot - in order to get you off of a weak A or a better second pair hand.

As played when he check raises, I'm probably folding. I can have sets, two pair and better Ax hands that I can consider continuing with. I can see maybe arguing for calling turn because it's a small bet in relation to the pot, we have the wheel draw and I can fold A8s/A7s-type hands instead, but I think folding in a $125 tournament is likely fine.

No way I'm shoving. Worse hands aren't calling you, and I think it's optimistic to think better hands are folding - and you block him having some of the Ax hands that might consider folding.

(And by the way, 3-betting 33 from the BB by the villain and then checking turn is so weird but that's a different issue.)

Calling flop with a low suited Ax is meh here, especially against an aggro opponent. When you do hit an ace, you are going to have to call off 2 streets usually against his bluffs and value, which will probably be more tilted towards value. It would be standard to fold here preflop and call with hands that flop well like 87s or something.

Betting ott is bad but betting small is the worst. This allows him to even turn showdownable hands like KK/QQ and 10s into a bluff by raising and leading the river.

Don't disagree that folding is probably preferable, and this hand could also be a nice 4-bet bluff if we were a bit deeper stacked, but I don't think calling in position is terrible or anything.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've still got a lot to learn.

I think calling the 3 bet here is spewy. The problem you are going to face is you don't know where you stand when you hit an Ace. Under the right circumstances, I can see calling the re-raise.

On the flop: Why do you think he would bet KK or QQ here? Preflop you thought he was trying to push you around and now on the flop you think he has a decent hand?

Turn: I think a check back is preferred here. If he has a bigger Ace you are smoked. Take the free card to trying and make your straight or two pair.

Also, Lol at him tanking with a set of 3s.

We do have to be careful here vs. someone who 3-bets a ton not to overfold, though. If we're opening 50% of our hands here on the button we have to prepared to defend a decent portion of that range vs. a 3-bet or else our opponent can just print money by 3-betting us with any two cards. In that scenario, I think A2s is on the borderline of between being a call and a hand we want to 4-bet bluff/fold.

If we're opening less on the button - which we probably should vs. an aggro player in the blinds - then it's probably a clear fold.

Turn bet is terrible. Just check

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...oorly-1534056/

This hand is too strong to turn into a 4bet bluff BTN vs BB. Maybe in a deep stack $235 its OK, since nobody will ever 5-bet you light and you have a blocker, but in theory i'm pretty sure if you're both playing anywhere near correct ranges for BTN and BB it's a call pretty much 100% of the time. You wanna be more polarized and have worse hands than these in a 4-bet bluff range

Flop easy call obviously especially vs 20k sizing.

Turn bet is real bad, definitely check. You're either way ahead/way behind and you're not getting value from basically anything or just putting in money basically drawing dead or to at best 7 outs.

Once he comes over the top with a check raise it's actually weird tho. He's repping like AJ, JJ/AA, maybe a very thin AK. 33 shouldn't be a preflop 3 betting range as it plays poorly post vs both a flat-call and vs a 4bet (unless your expect to be 4-bet light very often and you can 5-bet semi-bluff shove on him with decent equity when called against like TT+ AQ+).

But yeah moving in over this c/r is terrible. Both calling down to induce bluffs or folding if you think he always has it here are far superior options