No Limit Hold'em Tournament T1.200/T2.400

Last 15 of 450 in a normal tournament. Currently in 8th place.

Stacks:
UTG - UTG (T72.291)
UTG+1 - UTG+1 (T130.937)
MP - Hero (T69.878)
MP2 - MP2 (T44.814)
CO - CO (T50.882)
BTN - BTN (T85.416)
SB - SB (T137.954)
BB - BB (T68.732)

Preflop: (T6.000, 8 players) Hero is MP with Ah As
2 folds, Hero raises to T4.800, 2 folds, BTN raises to T14.400, 2 folds, Hero calls T9.600

Flop: 5c 5d 3c (T34.800, 2 players - BTN: T70.716, Hero: T55.178)
Hero checks, BTN bets T70.716 (all-in), Hero calls T55.178 (all-in), Uncalled bet of T15.538 returned to BTN

Turn: Kc (T145.156, 2 players, 1 all-in - BTN: T15.538, Hero: T0)

River: 2d (T145.156, 2 players, 1 all-in - BTN: T15.538, Hero: T0)

Total Pot: T145.156
Hero shows Ah As (two pair, Aces and Fives)
BTN shows Qc Tc (a flush, King high)

BTN wins T145.156

Arguments for calling the 3bet:
- I call with some AQ 88-TT, maybe JJ. Good for protecting my range a bit.
- I keep his bluffs like this one in, which have 20% or less equity vs my hand.

Arguments against:
- If I shove he may call with AK and I'm a huge favorite. Also, he calls QQ which he might get away from on some flops.
- We are deep and in 8th place, we have still 30bb to play with and if we shove and he folds we pick up 25k, which is like 10bbs. We have no change to bust, only if he calls but then we are aswell a huge favorite.

chance*

Just go all-in.

Get called sometimes and win a big pot a good percentage of the time.
Get some folds and win a nice sized pot.
Get called sometimes and lose a big pot a small percentage of the time.

It's fine.

Not fine. Shove pre

both plays, are obvious fine.

if villain, is a maniac i think slow playing would obviously be better.

but vs average villian, its tough to say.

AA as a trap is fine. Our 3-bet call range benefits more from having AA in it than our 4-bet jam range benefits from having AA in it, since our jam range should have all of our other strong pocket pairs and plenty of big Ax. At this SPR there are going to be lots of runouts where villain will be willing to stack off and we should generally dominate his range.

I don't know, it's kinda borderline. For 30 bigs, I don't think V can fold TT-KK or AK to a 4b shove, but he might fold 77-99 and AQ because you could really decimate his stack here, and surely folds KQ and any smaller pairs. Since your stack is fairly close to his, he's probably not calling very wide postflop either. You may have a hard time getting more value without a very good flop (which you actually got here considering you're still a 70/30 favorite when all the monies went in).

You have a good stack size with 15 players left, I don't think it's a terrible thing if he folds to your 4b pre. Sure, we want to play for stacks with AA, but you might end up doing that regardless in a dominating position with a 4b shove since he probably has a lot more of those hands that call than 3b semi-bluffs like this one that will fold. 6 spots away from the FT payjumps and you'd have almost 40 bigs even if he folds. That's a pretty substantial stack at this junction of a tournament.

+1

Waiting for the day somebody posts this hand when they win.

call pre camp

we really limit his continue range when we 4b we want to keep all that worse stuff in

There is nothing wrong with slow-playing a big hand occasionally. But you only have 30 BB's to start the hand and you are out of position to the raiser, maybe now is not the best time to be tricky. There is over T20k in the pot after he raises and before you call. That is plenty big enough to take it down now and not be making fancy plays. And if he decides to call it off against your AA's, then good, you outplayed him, and the rest is just variance.

If I want to get fancy with AA's I'd be more inclined to flat an UTG raise or come in behind a limper hoping somebody squeezes behind me and if nobody does then I am still taking a flop with some position and a much bigger hand than anyone expects, so it's an advantage either way. Betting and then flatting a three-bet oop seems a little sketchy, since what you are doing is letting someone that has position and probably at least some kind of decent hand see a cheap flop, while holding only 22 BB's in your stack. I think you were asking for trouble.

I think there are few options here. This is not a case of must 4 bet or must slowplay. You should do both some % of the time. Also, for me there are 3 choices.

1) Slowplay and flat call preflop
2) Shove preflop
3) 4 bet to a smaller amount to induce a shove from villain/price them in. (Eg. you would 4 bet to 30K here or 35K). Villain has a chance to spazz and maybe the call you will a weak holding.

Getting to the flop with SPR of 1.5 with AA is fine, as long as you never fold. Well, maybe you can fold to QJT monotone when you don't have the Ace, but I am just going with this hand...

We don't need to raise to be able to get stacks in, we can easily get them in ourselves even if villain checks back flop.

Agree with this. I love flatting AA when stacks are shallow and it’s hard to get called when you 4 bet unless it’s a cooler situation jj+ aq or ak+. I lean toward 4 betting if the 3 bet is small and you allow others to join the action pre by cold calling after you act.

It sucks when you lose but your hand is so disguised and so many flops make your hand super easy to play I feel. You open yourself up to sick beats flatting AA but that happens in tournaments. I would rather give myself a great chance to stack someone vs 4 betting them and letting them play correctly against you. Early stages of an mtt, I’m more on the side of 4 bet and build the pot but late on flatting is a great line in my opinion. You will lose sometimes but I feel flatting is generally a more profitable play to getting an opponents stack in. Finally if someone has jj-kk or aq-ak they can still spew post flop and you allow them to play incorrectly.

^^

And we block the 3bet-call hands that may get away post, AK & AQ. Everything else is ready to go on brick flops.