I've had a good table draw all day. Been trying to avoid playing big pots for the most part. Caught a punt early and have like 90k. Whole table with the exception of a couple of crazy aggro young guys (who now have very few chips) has been playing relatively snug.

The hand:

Villain opens HJ at 200/400 to 1100. Villain won a WPT a couple years ago, have friends who have played with him that say he gets overambitious on bluff attempts and has a tendency to do some weird stuff sometimes. Villain started the hand with like 68k.

I 3-bet CO with JhTh to 3200. Everyone else folds. Villain calls pretty quickly.

Flop is Ac9h8h. Villain leads for 6k. Are we calling or raising here?

Calling

Wwy ever raise?
His value range is 2p+, you block some combodraws, others have you in a bad shape.

Generally like calling. Wonder how many raise combos we even have in our range on this board.

Do we have a value raising range here? If so, this seems like a slam dunk raise. J high and heaps of equity

That's the problem. Are we really 3-betting 88/99/89/A8/A9 here very often? That leaves AA, and I guess if we're raising some AA and some A8/A9 hands we bluffed preflop we could balance with a hand like JhTh.

But in general I still like calling because I think we're going to have few value raises in our 3-bet preflop range.

Yeah I think the flop is a call. Just not much value in raising anything.

Turn Kx. He bets 8500 into ~18k. What's our line?

If we're calling flop then I think we have to call turn. At least that's what I'm doing with AA.

Not raising flop ever don't need a raising range here
Flaring turn and playing some rivs

Are we 3-betting AThh+ A9s 89s 88 or 99? Do we just flat flops with these hands?

If we raise flop we
1. Can get a free river card.
2. We can comfortably GII if he 3-bets,

Don't mind a call pre either.

ME at a good table - call flop.

While some of your x outs may be dirty, any Q or 7 is gold plus A8/A9 is def in V's range as is AK. Call turn.

In the ME, where ending day 1 with 120k or 180k is of almost zero significance:

Raising CO seems unnecessary, no matter who the villain, given that you want to see a flop and if you get raised by any of the specific three players behind you (or if the guy in the 1 seat flatted), it would be an unhappy moment. This particular villain was not folding to a three bet and it seems not beneficial to play a big pot where you may want to see all streets to get max value.

In an (unfortunately) bloated pot, I think calling both streets is the best option. Respectfully, I think you chose the worst option by seeing turn and then blasting off with only one card to come. If you're blasting, IMO doing it on the flop is better when you're a favorite against much of his range and you have far more fold equity. Once you bricked the turn (with a card that hits some of his range), the shove was far less credible and was more susceptible to a value call.

The additional problems with this hand were:

Your table image, which was in part not your fault given the station on your right; and
You have a very readable physical tell that seemed reliable and not a reverse tell ever.

Please don't take the last comment the wrong way. If i didn't respect you and your game, I'd keep it to myself.

Thanks for the response. As I said (maybe to you if you talked to me about the tell after the hand) I don't necessarily think my tell(s) are that noticeable but just that I pretty much never had it the last 6 hours of the day, but I think I keep relatively the same posture during a hand no matter what.

With that said, I think this deep even in Day 1 of the ME, 3 betting JTs has merit. One, as a balancer in that I need to be 3b something other than premium hands here. I'd be more likely to 3b hands like JTs or low pairs here and if they get 4b then it's an easy fold and I just move on.

I think as played, I made a mistake on the turn after looking back on it for a few days. I think I raised mostly because I thought I'm folding out almost anything that isn't sets or AKhh, but that was also borne out of "It feels so gross to 3b JThh, get a flop that includes 98hh, and not put in a raise". Realistically there just aren't many hands where he's folding the turn after leading both flop and turn. I just need to call both and fold UI, leaving myself with 70k.

Think 3-betting pre is totally fine. A mixed strat type of hand. I think denying equity of those behind you left to act + having position/initiative over opener in this tournament is a big advantage of those who 3-bet aggressively (perhaps slightly exploitatively so). Those who did this did well from what I saw.

The donk lead is interesting. With a super strong draw such as yours, the truth is either line works well and will fit in a balanced strat. I know Janda has pushed this type of theory lately, that balanced betting, raising, and checking ranges will all have solid draws in them. So it's almost like -- bet or raise, you're doing fine.

Exploitatively against villian, not sure. I read all Day 1 updates from 2016 before I played this year and noticed A LOT of checking back medium to semistrong hands from pf raisers/3-bettors, so villian could be enticed to have strong hands in his range here like sets as even if you have AK he's not getting you to bet 3 streets or being able to c/r you and get a lot of value, whereas he may get 3 street of donking. I think often donking ranges are not that well nutted, but here I could see them having some top parts of range. Therefore, I suppose I'd just call flop and turn. Turn raise just looks suspicious and should only fold out his pure bluffs.

if your friend told that he thinks villain is overbluffing, that is just your friend opinion, and there are at least 2 things that are different now: table dynamic and people do change their games over time (learn new things, improve)

so when he lead full pot into flop that kinda hit your range more then his I think his range is polarized to AXhh, sets,A8s/A9s and maybe 65hh that he is probably bet/jaming and Ax hands that he is probably bet folding (btw i dont think his range is balanced and i think he has more bet/jaming combos then bet folding) so i think on flop calling is best and evaluate

having bad image, can make more arguments for calling then 3beting pre but please please dont do this

3beting JTs and folding to 4bet in position with 150bb+ deep is just super bad imo (also depends on sizing on 4bet and villain tendencies u also get odds sometimes to call pp too)

as played on flop

easy call and evaluate rivers

I assume the guy from Texas spoke to you after, not I. If so, you got the physical tell info, which to me seemed reliable given that you did have some strong hands earlier, but that's something you will evaluate yourself and work on if you deem it appropriate.

Three betting JTs definitely has merit but, IMHO, not against this villain given the table, and your position. Having a 3-bet/fold range is obviously important, but I think, for the most part, it's very -ev in the ME on day 1, especially at the table you had in front of you. And I'm much more likely to be more polarized than JTs when 3-betting under these circumstances.

This hand, is some respects, is part of the overall conversation about how on day 1 of the ME, some of your standard plays in a grinder heavy event are not the best lines in the deepest, best structured tournament we play all year.

Polarized ranges is for situations where peoples response is primarily raise or fold. Doesn't apply in situations like this where the most common reaction is to call.

Can't really go wrong pre imo...most (if not all) of the arguments against 3betting are cliche and lol...'it's the ME...great structure...bad plys abound...don't wanna 3bet/f, etc'...so the optimal strat is to lay low and bum hunt when this structure actually allows you to play and make plays (which can occasionally result in putting chips in the middle?) And why would we have to fold this in position (to a reasonably sized 4ball?)

As played probably call/call...with ~100bbs u could consider raising flop but vs a weird lead (where villains range is harder to define) can't be bad to just call at a high freq. Vill can easily have tp+nfd combos as well.

Wtf r u talking about

I'm saying, if we have a value raising range, then we should have a bluff raising range. Not sure how that's confusing.

Irrelevant

People do x/f capped ranges

That's the point you don't need or want a raising range as the 3bettor on a98 rainbow