150k gtd live tournament in tampa hardrock. 250$ buyin. SUPER soft fields in this tournament I've noticed.

Hero has just sat down within 45 minutes and has been pretty active. Have won without going to showdown, and also folded to some aggression. Nothing crazy. Probably seen as LAG.

No real reads on villains except that Villain 1 is middle age / maybe 50 older decently dressed man. He has been VPIP maybe 40% of the time by limping, and haven't seen him open raise yet.

On to the hand...

Stacks are all decently deep. blinds are 200/200 with a 100 bb ante. I believe effective stacks are all around 75-100 BBs.

UTG and UTG + 1 limps, MP (Villain 1) bets 1000, CO calls, Button calls, Hero looks down in SB with AQdd and raises to 4500. UTG and UTG+1 fold, Villain 1 calls, CO folds, Button calls.

**At this point in the hand my thoughts were this: I want to fold this hand. I can't fold this hand. Do I just call and go possibly 5 way? I don't like that. This hand plays well multi way though....Nah..Let's just take it down preflop and maybe get 1 caller and see a flop. I'm okay taking this down preflop at this point. A lot of dead money and a big open with 2 callers = a good preflop take down!**

FLOP K T 4 (POT 14,000)

Hero ?????

AT this point I have roughly 14,000 behind or so. I believe it's only SHOVE or CHECK at this point in the hand.

I put the Villain 1 on KK though unlikely because he would , if I had to guess, 4! this a good % of the time. V1 also can have AK that we block, QQ, JJ, TT, AQ though unlikely, MAYBE 99 but probably not calling 99 if I had to guess with button still to act. He can also have aces.

Button (V2) can have all of his pocket pairs 66+ probably, suited connectors, suited broadways, etc.


Sorry for formatting..live tournament so tough to format.

PREFLOP

I think calling preflop is fine, especially because villain 1 raises early limpers which indicates mostly strength. Moreover, you haven't seen him opening before.
AQs plays fine multiway.

That said, 3 betting is perfectly fine, but I'd size up a little bit. I like a pot sized reraise in this spot (3x last call of initial raise + rest of money in pot) to around 5400. We want to let the opponents pay a steep prize to play a huge put in position and either take it down or play heads up.

FLOP

This is an awful spot. The two players behind should both have a very strong hand. Too often at least one of them will connect well on this flop imo. Hence, I think this is a crying check fold. A groce line, especially with the backdoor nut FD. That's why we should do anything to avoid this spot, but **** happens of course

With only one opponent I think this would be an easy shove.

Wain, thank you for your response. I agree with everything you said honestly. The 3! I was 50/50 on just would rather have taken this down preflop though it seems unlikely given V1's strength as noted by you.

I checked flop and folded to V1 3/4 pot shove all in. V2 also folded.

I spoke with him later and he told me he had AK and had me dominated. I've had mixed results from my poker buddies I talk with on a daily basis. 2 of them said to shove this flop almost every time and just rebuy. Even if called, equity is still there. Was told "If im not shoving this flop as a bluff, which flops am I shoving?"....and honestly this has to be the nut 1 flop to bluff shove. :\

I think villain wasn't lying about his hand, because what else would he shove with?
Do we really think he is turning pocket nines into a bluff
A. on this flop
B. against two opponents of one still to act
and C. after you showing massive strength preflop.
Not in a hundred years.
Same reasoning for hands like AJs.
He will check down JJ and QQ.
So the only hand he could do this with as a bluff is JQs. That's only three combo's. And given villain opens rarely, he may considers JQs not even strong enough to attack early limpers.

I don't agree that we have too few bluffs here. Against two opponents with a very strong range we simply don't need a lot of bluffs. If we're beaten we're beaten.
Imo, our strategy in this specific spot is quiet simple: we're betting on ace and queen high flops and bluffing on flush draws and that's it.

I dont understand your belief that this is a great flop to bluff shove...any caller is getting 2/1.

I’d think flush draws, and some combo draws make better bluffing candidates. You likely have only 5* outs if called (counting BDF as one out). A board like JTx where you have some potential overcard outs would be better as well.

Can you name a better flop to bluff shove other than 2 diamond boards? We have the gut straight, an over, a back door flush. Even if called we still have decent equity. I am not 100% sure but I can't think of many better boards.

Do you prefer to bluff shove like 49T or something like that since the KT4 crushes their calling range?

Ya I agree 100% with this. Thanks for the enlightment.

I think k, 10, 4 all hearts or 10107, 1010j are better bluff boards and 3/3s posted hands/comments.

Just cold call the 1st time...super easy check (with the intention of giving up) now...

Based on your read the cold 3bet should be a pretty low freq play. I would use the offsuit combos at some reasonable freq and I wouldn't 3bet after a cold call. After 2 cold calls this becomes really dicey imo, especially when you consider that a cold call basically closes the action and your hand plays really well multi-way.

Calling the 1st time looks OK.

I mean it's a ****ty spot regardless when when a serial limper suddenly decides to make it 5x when he could otherwise limp behind. Let's not trivialize the action--this guy is undoubtedly super strong.

There's no indication someone who's already played 40% of hands without a single PFR is even as wide as JJ or TT here. He might only be raising like 5% of hands preflop. That's certainly debatable, though.

Sticking in 22.5bb preflop against such a villain without like {JJ+, AK} isn't attractive.

Very difficult to take the pot preflop with a villian who never raise and make a 5BB bet... and more difficult with such small bet preflop.

After the flop, just fold. I suppose you were pretty sure Villian1 had QQ (which you block) or JJ and was folding to your jam... I think that kind of guy as you describe him sometimes will pay you. You are describing him as a calling station... DONT BLUFF CALLING STATIONS!!!! ... (What about Villian2? .. what is his range? ) Besides, AK and TT are hands that either two villians possibly had... Pretty clear fold in my opinion...

Happy to call pre and play fit or fold poker