I am playing a live tournament of about 100dlls entry of 3 days. It´s the final level of the first day (level 14). I have stack around 50 BB and Harrington M of around 25. (150 000 chips). Blinds are 1500/3000, 300 ante.

An aggressive player with a stack of around 100 BB or more ( table chip leader) raises from middle position to 2.5 BB (7.5K) . Everybody folds. I have AQo in SB. How should I play?

I played the hand bad I think but I am confused of what was better.

I decide to just call the raise. The BB (and short stack) folds. The board came with 4 4 7 with two clubs. I checked and he bet 10 K. I think he was making a standart C-Bet with nothing and I decided to check raise bluff him to 30 K. He reraise all in. Obviusly I folded.

What was a better play in this situation?

In a small buy-in tournament is ok to flat, not the end of the world , but the EV of 3betting is higher(and we are also OOP and we wanna have initiative), so I will come in with a 3bet of 25k. (Vs good opp in a higher bi I will 3bet to around 30k, but either way is fine)
Now if you think his just making a range cbet here and we think we have the best hand why x/r (not saying is bad ) but I will call flop and proceed from there.



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Ok, with another player I would have make the 3bet, but I have seen him make some 4bet, or even worse that he would just pay me and make me play the hand without position...I think I have almost none fold equity 3betting ( so I would have to outplay him postflop)

There are literally no hands that you would raise the flop with that you can call a shove.

The most likely scenario given you flatted pre OOP and raise flop is that you either have air and just try and bluff him off his overcards or that you are protecting a pocket pair maybe 88-99 etc), which makes sense from your point of view to not let him hit an over card, but means you can't call a shove.

If you actually had a hand like pocket 7's or 54 - which would call a shove - you'd never raise flop, so essentially you're allowing him to play perfectly against you here.

I think this is a very interesting situation, which comes up on deep tournaments so often. How to proceed oop with AQo against a chipleader's openraise.

I understand quite much your play, I've found myself in very similar situation several times. 50bb is not a deep situation but not a situation in which to play for stacks with AQ would be a good idea.

So, if you call you have to play out of position against a player who is presumably going to try to outplay you, and your hand will be ahead against his wide range in majority of boards (like this one).

3bet maybe is the best play here, but, I understand you're afraid or receive a 4bet, or a call and have to play a big pot oop...

It's difficult to decide, and I think the most important thing here is evaluate your image at table (if he's gonna respect your 3bet more often or not) and his response to another 3bets in the past. This helps you to decide if 3bet or not. If I deicde to make it, I choose a good amount, like OutPlayU27 said: something like 25k.

If you decide not to 3bet, you can't just fold on flops without A or Q. At this particular flop, I tend to call. I think your reraise doesn't seem to make much sense, because if you hold a 4 you tend to call more often.

In the eyes of villain you're probably trying to get the pot with overcards, a mid pocket (over)pair, 7x or flushdraw. So, he has a pretty situation due to your stacks to try to outplay you, especially if his hand has some kind of equity here (and there's a lot of this in his range: 65s... 7x.. pocketpair... overcards... flushdraw...)

Many times we decide not to 3bet in these situations in order to don't commit too many chips, but making only call, the later development of the hand ends up costing us many more.

With these stacks, the advantage of the opponent is very large, and at any point of the hand can make it worth. I always try to remind myself how important is to decide very well preflop exactly what I want to do against this opponent. And for that I need to mentally review all the available information, how much he bluffs... what is my image at the table... and decide preflop on which flops I will call, check/raise, or whatever.

This seems contradictory. Why shouldn’t we check raise this flop with our nut combos if our opponent will read this as a capped range?

You should be check-raising both your 4x and 77s as well as your air for balance. However, without an extensive history with V I don't think you should often be doing either, as vs. a random unknown most Vs will see a check-raise here as a very strong range.

With that said, I'd much prefer a check-raise here when you have a higher likelihood of picking up some equity on the turn, such as a BDFD. A hand like 98 doesn't pick up a lot of equity since V could have an overpair.

I think against a random I'm not check-raising this flop whether I have it or not.

Also you have to 3b pre when not closing the action.

I'd usually 3-bet pre, but if the BB is a bad player I'll just call. We're 3-bet folding.

Don't raise because "**** this guy". Gotta ask yourself what in your range flats pre and then raises this flop. With that in mind I don't think we should have a flop raising strat for this spot. If we were in the BB we could rep some 4s.

There is nothing wrong with flatting a hand like A-Q in the blinds. Sure it is strong, but it is also vulnerable, and you would probably have to fold it to a 4-bet from the chip-leader. It is also much stronger than your Villain might expect to see you holding. So flatting here and seeing a flop is not a terrible play, especially if you think the BB will come along. But when I do that I am usually playing flop or fold.

Where you made your mistake was in trying to out-play your good aggressive opponent post flop when you missed. Maybe you could float the c-bet on the flop and see what develops on the turn. But a better play might be to just let it go.

With another player still behind I'm usually leaning towards the 3b since you have extra fold equity with a 3b from the SB. If another player wasn't behind then I'm in favor of flatting all types of premium hands across your range. It also depends on how often MP is folding to 3bets and what your image is. If you've been 3b'ing a lot or showing a loose image, I'd lean more towards a flat even with the BB behind you to act.

If you think it was a standard cbet, why didn't you just call and let him keep bluffing?

So I think OP played the hand fine. I do sometimes 3 bet this preflop and sometimes call here.

Flop, I think the normal play is to call here and see what happens on the turn. But sometimes you make a small play. It's fine to c/r this flop some smal % of the time. You aren't always going to get shoved on EVERYTIME.

It sucks because thats what happened here but that won't happen all that often.

I usually will 3b AQ to aggro raisers and flat nits. Just make sure you know your plans in advance like 3b/c or f etc

It's fine to c/r flop sometimes, but there's just not really a reason to do it with the pretty much exact hand it accomplishes nothing with. You might get called by AJ or get the guy off of 22-33 but that's about it, I doubt AK or 55+ ever folds.

Once we put in 30k and he shoves I don't want to fold anymore either. He has lots of flushdraws/65 and probably slowplays the hands that have us dead.

I agree with you.

3bet or flat pre AQo are both fine, mostly 3bet aggressive MP/LP opens.

As played this is actually pretty close to a fold. We're going to have better hands here - pairs, flush/straight draws, overcards with a backdoor flush. If we're going to have some check/raise bluffs let's use our weakest flush draws and straight draws that have no showdown value.

Is folding AQo preflop in this situation ever ok?

No, folding AQo when you have a range advantage is never ok unless it's for ICM purposes (very short stacks on the table and payjumps are relevant).

If you feel uncomfortable in these spots against an aggressive player, you need to identify your weakness and work on it.

Say I’m in the same situation....but with no range advantage....is folding still no good?

Villain is never good or aggressive if AQ is behind his range, thus the situation is very different.

See this all the time online where players inexplicably choose to flat even AK preflop and then they stack off on horrible flops to compensate for their failure to play the hand aggressively

Not saying the preflop flat with AQo is bad... if you are more comfortable with that option then it's fine . But don't then be overaggressive on flops to compensate . Once you choose to play the hand passively then you should continue to do so unless you hit hard in which case you can raise and your opponent will often not put much AQ in your range which can work well to your advantage

So is the correct move to fold AQ in this situation preflop.....or reraise?

3b>call>fold