We have just popped the bubble in a $300 live bird at Borgata. There are ~75 people left and we are at 10k/20k, 3k when this hand goes down. UtG is a reg who is well known to hero and he has approximately 600k in his stack to start the hand. Hero is in co with 925k and is double avg stack prob top 8 in chips. Sb had ~900k to start hand and is a fairly active younger semi-reg who can take aggressive lines and can get out of line a bit

UTG opens to 45k @ 10/20k, hero in co flats open with AJ, sb completes and we go 3 way to J74 flop. X's to hero in co and I lead for 65k into 182k pot. sb now check raises to 180k. utg folds and its on hero... our play?

Hero flats and we see a 6turn. utg now leads for 365k.

Does he only have 44 or 77 here? or can he be semi bluffing with 65s or somehow 109 or 98. Or possible getting out of line with KJs or QJs. Where as we've seen him opening wide pre and taking aggressive lines this seems to be way out of line to commit himself here with anything but a set. Other thing to consider levels are only 30m and the tourney is fairly shallow as CL for the tournament has ~1.4m and only 70bbs.

fold or shove seem like only two options?

Villain has what, 300 behind? If you shove, you're offering him 5:1 and he is not ever folding better. You have 8 clean spade outs and a bluff-catcher, so you want to keep worse hands in. His sizing is awkward for a gto-style jam for both his value hands and bluffs, but if he's capable of continuing with a three-street bluff here a call is in order. KsQs or KsTs are other semi-bluff candidates, and I imagine he might also bluff 54s or 65s. 64s might be another value possibility.

pretty ez call down with your nut bluff catcher imo

No he doesn't, sb (over)calls.

No you don't, you were last to act. I'd bet a bit bigger on wetter boards to get some value before the board gets uglier.

We can fold flop vs some, but picking up the nfd makes it almost impossible to fold turn. He might be reacting to your flopsize and have KQss here, but it does seem a lot more likely he's just got a set. Theoretically you gotta go here, but in practice a fold might be good in a live tournament with weaker players. But a fold on the flop, on the turn you have to be right so much less often you gotta go with it.

Shouldn't we check flop here and avoid the awkward problem we face against the check-raise and turn bets?

As played, calling turn against a player who is know to get out of line.

Easy call ott (anything else it´s just bad), river?

I reckon check flop

yeah
has potential for int thread but decisions up to this point seem pretty clear

prefer 80-85k otf

At least consider 3betting pre...i realize this prob isn't the optimal line but not considering/mentioning it isn't too goot imo.

Otf bet bigger ffs...i'm assuming (since u didn't consider 3betting AJs) that you have 88-TT here a lot and those hands need protection.

As played can't fold now since vill can perceive decent FE given ur flop sizing...

pretty simple flat, not scared of many cards on the river other than broadways

does not compute...

Do you look like a guy who can be moved off of a pot

I like how you go out of your way to correct his terminology when the action is clear, then you call J74r a wet board.

I like the size on the flop and don't understand why people are advocating checking. We have tptk and nut bdfd and should be looking to get value, not thinking about being afraid of not having the best hand. Opener is gonna c-bet QQ+ and SB is often going to 3b JJ based on description. Sometimes these overactive live spazzes will even decide to squeeze hands they shouldn't like 77 and 44 pre here but probably still more likely he flats those hands. That's 6 value combos we lose to right now.

I think the really active guys who win a lot live love to take advantage of boards that are dry that they perceive to miss their opponents. I would not be surprised if villain has more complete air in his range than we're giving him credit for. Lots of gutters and bdfds that seem pretty wild to us. Turn improves a lot of these hands but continues to keep us in the lead. I think we want to flat but I think shoving is fine too. If we flat there will be 1.2M in the middle and villain will have like 320K left; I don't mind folding out hands that have gutshots or whatever here if villain wants to fold getting 5:1. Flatting seems fine too though. Think we just can't be folding turn.

I played a hand Thursday at Borgata against a villain who really reminds me of description you gave James. 1K/2K he opens to 4200 in EP I defend BB with about 55K to start, he covers. Flop T32r he c-bets 4200 I c/r to 11K and he shoves 50K with K9o. He just recognizes how few value combos I should have on that board and maximally exploits every chance he gets. And I am sure it works very well live. If we're folding AJss in original hand, what are we EVER calling with? 6 combos of sets and that's it? Folding would completely be trying to exploit since this just HAS to be a combo that continues from a GTO perspective, and if villain is trying to exploit us, it's just a nightmare to be folding here imo.

^ lol that last part is some some button clicking/spew not sick exploitative wizardness

If we're not betting TPTK and backdoor flush draw on the flop, then for pete's sake what hands are we betting here? I think size is fine - we want worse hands to call and give our opponents the chance to float one street if they desire.

If we think about our opponent's c/r range here, it's going to primarily be 77 and 44 for value (don't expect much 74 or J7 here and maybe he has JJ but that's only 1 combo) and perhaps some T9s and 98s with backdoor flush draws as bluffs, maybe 65s if our opponent is calling that wide in the SB rather than 3-betting. I also think that some part of the time on a dry board the SB might even elect to flat 77 rather raise, hoping to get action from Jx and people trying to auto c-bet.

So on the turn when we pick up the flush draw, we can't fold. Even if our opponent is mostly giving up their gutshots and open-enders at this point, if they're betting even some of them we're getting the right direct price to continue. And if this player is aggressive they may be overbluffing, which makes it even more profitable.

As to whether we call or jam, I think I lean towards calling. Our opponent is almost certainly going to feel compelled to triple-barrel missed draws on the river, considering their stack size and how little their bluff has to work for it to be profitable. And unless I had an ironclad live read, I am almost always calling it off.

Well, a 3, 5, 6, 8, 9 or T puts up a possible straight, a Q or K changes the texture too, so I wouldn't call it exactly dry either. Of course we're not really worried about most of those actually being in our opponents hands, but it's very different from an A22r texture. Moist?

haha moist, fair enough. I just think if we're going to be betting to protect against the board getting wetter on J74r then we're being a bit too overly concerned about bad runouts. Only a 3 or an 8 completes the oesd and he'd have to have exactly 65s for us to really be worried about those. The board might "look" scarier on the turn but I don't think our villain is going to improve to a big made hand very often, but he will often gain some equity by picking up a straight draw of his own, which is why I don't really mind getting all the money in on the turn.

needs more love, live poker never change. would snap tag villain as a whale

Poker is so much easier when you can see the future, isn't it?

Call turn and reevaluate river. I don't think it's particularly close.

Value combos that would c/r: 77,44,JJ (not likely) AJ

Value combos that might c/r: QJ, KJ, even 10J (as you can see your blocker here is huge.

Semi bluffs/Air combos: there's a ton, 109, 89, 56 (now the turn brings a 6 so that eliminates of few of them), A7, A4 and any pure air combos

I really think you need to call this bet and probably GII on most rivers.

And given the description of villain "is a fairly active younger semi-reg who can take aggressive lines and can get out of line a bit" I really think it's a no brainer calling this bet.

As for the 3b pre, I normally would against the opener except that his utg range should be solid and the fact that he has only a 30 bb stack which he can easily 4b jam in which case AJss becomes a insta fold, so I opted to flat pre.

So my thinking was at this point he could have value combos of 44,77, and JJ and then be drawing with KQss,109ss,98ss,65s and be getting out of line with AJ,KJ,and pos QJ. Now that he has led so large ott is he really going to fold any of these hands to a jam considering the pot is offering him 5-1? If I call and the river is a non spade K,Q,10,9,8,6,5,3 and he jams I'm left wondering where I am and having to make a very tough river decision. So I opt to gii ott and he snaps with 44, and we brick river...gg

As for him getting completely out of line with A7 or A4 or complete air, I really don't see this happening with him xr into two opponents otf one of which is an utg opener. So I am not really concerned about blowing him off these hands with a raise ott.

The first part I'm on board with. If you want to shove turn in order to get value from hands that you beat now that you think might give up on river if they brick, then at least the logic is consistent. But the second part doesn't make sense to me. So what if we have a tough river decision? If he has a better hand on the turn and we go all in, we're going broke without a good river. So if we flat turn and brick river and he shoves, then we're just freerolling. Shove turn brick river? Bust. Flat turn brick river and he has better? Well either we bust or somehow find a crazy fold. I still wouldn't advocate folding river but calling turn cannot have possibly hurt us. So in essence, when he has better it doesn't matter what we do and we should only focus on scenarios where he does not have better.

So, we should focus on what is best when he has worse. If we think he's only bluffing with hands that have some equity and might find a way to give up river if they brick, then shove turn. But I don't think live players get to the river in a big pot with air and then decide they're going to give up. They always seem to want to fight to win every pot and will bet because "it's the only way I could win the pot." So I think I still like a flat on turn to allow him to bluff river on the rare occasion where his hand doesn't have enough equity to call off on turn. If you want to make a different argument for why it's better to shove turn for value I could potentially get behind it. But being afraid to make a tough river decision isn't great logic.

And like I said in my previous post, despite the style being pretty poor GTO-wise, it just crushes live. He ended up winning the tournament he played the K9 hand against me in ($560 elevator) and is now at the final table of 9 of the $2700 main event. There's something about the raw fearlessness and aggression that just crushes in live poker. I'm sure he's running very very well also but these guys who just click buttons based on the feeling they have at the time but have no fear of busting just seem to do really really well in live birds.

I edited above post to state that I was pretty sure he had equity in his bluffs and wasn't just firing off with air or A4,A7. Since I was a head of his perceived range, the SPR was so skewed at this point, and the fact I don't think he's folding any of his hands he's leading turn with I went ahead and shoved turn for value. Also, it was not one of team no mercy or a similar style player in which case I would just call down.

fair enough then. see you at parx?

yeah man, be there for all 3. firing the $300 tomorrow. When will you be there?

Also...Do you think we get paid on clean spade rivers if we just flat turn? Can he ever fold a set on such rivers? If so than even more argument for gii ott.