$200 buying $500k guarantee PKO tourney on ACR -- 8-handed max. We are about 50 players from $ with around 300 left. I have 28 bbs and the entire table is clustered between 20-35 bbs. I have a pretty healthy bounty on my head of $175. Table has been pretty conservative -- no reads on V who is on BB with $75 bounty and 23 bbs.

I am UTG and have AcAs and raise to 2 bbs. V defends.

Flop: (5.7 bbs): 4c7h9s. V x/c my 2.8 bb c-bet on this ultra dry flop.

Turn (12.3 bbs): Jc. V checks again and I bet 7 bbs. V x/r all in. I gotta call here, right?

Anything I could have done differently? Sizing on flop or turn? Check turn (doesn't seem right to me).

No, lol.

What I thought. Any thoughts to play the hand differently?

I think the math is wrong. 5.7 bb's plus 5.6 bb's is 11.3 bb's not 12.3 bb's.

But even at 11.3 bb's I would just shove the turn.

Your 7 bb turn bet is about 40% of the remaining effective stack - which to me is pot committing. Even betting 6 bb's would be 33% effective stack which is still pot committing...

I mean I guess you lose anyway, but at least you don't get called by hands like 87 unless Villain makes a mistake.

The other alternative is to bet about 2 bb's on the flop. This puts the pot at 9.7 bb's so you can make a 5 bb bet on the turn and fold if you read it correctly.

But I prefer the 2.8 bb bet on the flop because it leads to a shove on the turn. Not a lot of people 3 barrel bluff and mostly people don't call 3 bets (the final being all in) with just a pair.

I wouldn't check the turn in general because the board seems somewhat draw heavy with a lot of gutters out there. But on occasion I do check here to induce on the river where I have to call because AA has been under-repped.

Thanks, and yes you are right on the math. I guess I didn't shove because I wanted his 1 pair hands to call turn, but at the stacks and SPR, I think you're right to shove.

BB, I don’t think this is an ultra dry flop, especially for a big stack bb. Any middling card 3-j completes a straight or pairs the board.

(These kind of boards get me in trouble in plo when I flop top set...)

I think the flop is dry for hold em with 20 something bb effective stacks. PLO is definitely another story as virtually every flush or straight has a reasonable chance of being there.

Think you just sigh call here. SPR IS 3.68. Folding here would be comically bad. Villian never can have odd 10-10+ here or 9x? Line as stated seems like it’s going to be bad when you call but I feel we can never fold here.

Agreed JK, don't think we can ever fold here as played. And it also looks like nobody so far is advocating smaller sizing/turn check to minimze variance/lose the minimum -- that line is also certainly negative cEV and probably negative $EV.

Why post hands like this? This is just a cooler. You can just x/c down for pot control, but that loses too much value and is unbalanced with your bluffs.

For one, I want to confirm it's a cooler. Second, I know that I've been guilty of overplaying big pairs (especially AA) and just wanted a sanity check that I wasn't doing so.

But serious question: how much do we need to worry about balancing our bluffs at this point in the tournament when no one is deep stacked (at least at my table) and tables are breaking at a good clip?

It's a flop that favors the BB over UTG, so I guess you could check back the flop and just call down. That is the only way to keep from getting stacks in if he wants them in. You could take that line with some hands, but AA is too strong to play pot control with this shallow.

I think that's right.

I don't think you can prevent stacks from going in.

Lets say we check back the flop. Villain bets 4.5 bb's on the turn and we call.

There will be 14.7 bb's in the pot and villain will have 16.5 bb's more or less.

This is close to a pot size shove on the river. Which is somewhat polarizing. Villain could also bet 8 to 9 bb's (about 60% pot) but that looks a lot more like a solid value bet. So Villain might be thinking he will get more calls with his shove than with a smaller "value" like bet. And we would know that Villain was willing to get it in anyway almost all of the time.

If you cbet half pot as OP did, and checked back the turn, BB would have to bet 1.5xpot to get allin on the river.

It is certainly possible to take a passive line on the mid card board, and you might have lost less that way. You might also induce bluffs, and you could bet the river if it is checked through twice, so it is a possible line. However, you can't fold.

As I indicated at the beginning, there is not much you can do about this sort of thing, and it isn't the most interesting hand to look at.

Why not flop check for balancing?Lots of guy start to barreling, if you check flop and you catch lots of bluffs..
Only problem is, if you get jammed in the turn you are 99% beat, probably 2 pairs or smth
I dont like generally**** i have aa i cant fold there...
Still you have some outs to redraw him...but we need to get some spots to fold AA turn and keep playing with 10bb

Checking back the flop seems fine. However, you can't fold AA on this board with this stack depth no matter what. That would be really bad.