Tournament: Two day $250 Buy In with plenty of recreational players

Hand: A♣J♠ Position: CO Stack EF: 20,000 (200bbs) Blinds: 50/100 30 min

Notes: Haven’t played with these people before, no real behaviour tendencies
Pot: 150

Action Preflop: MP limps, HJ limps, Hero makes it 450, folds HJ calls
Pot: 1150

FLOP: Q♠ 8♠ 3♥

Action Flop: HJ checks, Hero bets 600, HJ calls
Pot: 2350

Turn: 8♣

Action Turn: HJ checks, Hero?

Questions
Do you fire the second barrel here?
If so, around what stack size would you not fire a second barrel or even cbet? When SPRs are lower.
Thanks

You could just check back the flop. Having the spade draw and a few straight draw combos out there puts you in a bit of danger of getting check-raised off the best hand. And you’re rarely getting pairs to fold here. But cbetting is also fine, especially against bad rec players if that’s what the field is. Just pointing out that it’s not mandatory.

Pretty easy check back on the turn. We still have showdown value with a good A high and the 8 helps Villain’s range more than ours because he’s x/calling flop with all of his 8x and we will usually not bet our 8x on the flop. You’re not going to get him to fold any strong holdings so better to just give up and hope villain checks down a busted draw.

I think the flop is a bet normally IP against an unknown.

on the turn I would usually bet here. Turn bet should be 1400 - 1700

When we're checking OTT we're pretty much giving up OTR unless an A falls. I have no issues with that given that double barrelling is pretty much a pure bluff and this early in the tournament with an edge vs rec players we don't need to be getting ourselves in bad spots this early.

I just don't see V is folding to a double barrel with this turn card. They will continue with spades, Q's and obv 8's

Yeah I would definitely check back this turn card if I bet the flop. If I checked the flop, I would often bet this turn card if checked to again.

I just think the villain is folding such a small chunk of his flop calling range on this turn. Even something like 77 will think "hey two pair!" for some players and "well if I was winning on flop I still am winning" for other players.

I don't agree with this. First of all, we have some showdown value with A high. Maybe not enough to call a bet, but if we get checked to, we'll win some pots on the river.

Second, the Js is a very good card to have and if the flush comes in, or a T or a 9, we have a potentially very good bluffing spot.

What I mean is that we're most likely folding to any aggression

Or bluff-raising when the Ts comes in

So he bets maybe half or two thirds of the pot and....
I'm not convinced that bluff-raising as much as 20% or 30% of our stack is an optimal play at 50-100.

Why do the blind levels matter? Idk I don’t play live tournaments with stakes these low so have no idea of the level of skill. But if we’re not bluffing with the Js blocker when the flush and straight comes in I’m not sure what we would ever bluff. And maybe we shouldn’t bluff ever at these stakes, but like I said, I don’t play these stakes and have no reads.

Thanks for the feedback.

At this depth I thought the DB is good because I think he's potentially folding all his ace highs, kings, sevens, sixes. About 50% of his range.

When the eight comes he's only got about 20% top pair and 5% trip 8s. So on the turn I think he will fold all his small pairs and GS which make up about 40% of his range and any flop calls with BDFDs or ace highs hence the double barrel.

And the fact he checks to me after the turn.

I think you’re underestimating how many of those small pairs fold out on the flop. And if they do call flop, I don’t know if they fold turn when the board really doesn’t change. And while folding out gutshots is still kinda good for equity denial, we’re already way ahead of those hands, so it doesn’t help us that much. On the other hand, we’re value-betting ourselves against Qx and 8x which I think make up more than half his range after the flop call.

Seriously, I really don’t get the argument for barreling turn. I can’t think of a worse card to barrel than the 8c. We should have very little 8x in our range after we Iso and cbet and an overlimping Villain who check/called flop has plenty.

For this to make any sense, you have to really believe that villain peels flop wide in which case cbetting flop probably doesn’t make sense.

just overlimp pre.

just when I thought the advice ITT couldn't get any dumber, you go ahead and say something like this.

I disagree that the villain is going to call 77 or 66 on the turn. Especially red 7s.

There are a lot of hands that you put in a tough spot by betting the turn. JJ, 99, TT. Even a Queen with no spade is in a tougher spot. If villain has Q9, QT or QJ with no spade, they are going to be thinking "What am I doing if he bets the river? How big of a bet do I intend to call? Do I have to call the river if I call the turn?"

You are putting them in a tough spot. The villain is going to continue with a much smaller portion of their range than people think. If he has an 8 a set of 3s or spades, then he is never folding. But their range is much wider on the flop.

It's less that I think villain is calling 77/66 on the turn and more that I think most villains fold those on the flop. And if he did call the flop with those, he's probably a sticky player who may call one more as well.

JJ-99 are rarely going to be limping in pre,

So basically, I think villain's continuing range on the flop is much narrower than you're making it out to be. Sure, some players might limp/call JJ-99 pre and some players are going to peel one with low pocket pairs, but those aren't standard plays and we should discount the probability of those.

And I think you're nuts if you think you're getting a Q to fold on the turn. Sure, we may be able to get a Q to fold if we are prepared to barrel river, but if we're triple-barreling AJ here, we're almost certainly overbluffing and villain can call down quite easily. There just aren't enough hands in our value range to make this work.

Idk, your advice to isolate pre and then check back an Q83 board because we might get raised off by a a flush draw seems pretty ****ing dumb.

Or putting an 8 in his range OTT, because ofc he has an 8 in his range because he is literally limp calling ATC doesn't really shout out that AJo is a great hand to pump the pot, but I'll bite, so indulge me.

Baller alert, everyone, he don't play no pisant stakes, so he don't know if y'all good enough to fold to powerful bluff-raise. Balla in da House!

Seriously though, I'm not going to explain here why blind levels and average stack sizes are important factors in tournament poker. There are threads in the Beginners Poker section that can explain that to you.

Obviously I did not consider the power of the mighty J, if you have that card then your strength is that of ten, so go ahead and bluff.

Look here though. Effective stack is the starting stack, blinds 50-100 so obviously we are just under way. Somehow I don't think it is strategically sound to bluff-raise as much as a third of our stack into unknown players without reads before the cocktail waitress has even taken our drink order.

I would classify such a move as an extremely high-variance play. If you think your skill level is equal to or higher than your opponents, then you should try to reduce variance and count on skill to overcome your foes. If you think that your opponents skill level is superior to yours, only then should you play a higher variance style. If I were playing the opening hands of a $150 buy-in, I would assume that I am probably as good or better than many of my opponents, and therefore would find no reason to adopt an extremely high variance style in the early going.

First of all, I have no idea what you're saying with your last sentence, if you can even call that rambling string of run-on words with no grammatical structure a sentence.

But yeah you're probably right, AJo plays super well multiway and it's definitely a great idea to cap our range and play an unraised pot without initiative when we're miles ahead of limpers' ranges.

Sorry I don't mean to sound arrogant. I mostly play online and just don't play many live tournaments period. When I do play live it's usually cash and if it's a tournament, it's almost always for an event like the WSOP with higher buy-ins. So just trying to say I genuinely don't know how these fields play.

As for the rest of your post, we obviously just disagree amount several fundamental concepts of tournament poker, and I have no interest in convincing you of why tournament life is an overrated concept and why blockers are important when both of those topics have been discussed ad nauseum elsewhere.

I can see both ways. All depends on how weak you think he is, ive seen guys limp and get stubborn on the flop no matter what board then fold turns regularly.
Sometimes just go on instinct in the hand and not the maths.

I think at live some people find it hard to fold, online people can just give up and move onto the next 5 tables. You said you can’t see a argument to bet the turn, how about if he looks weak is that enough.He. An easily have spades,he can have a pair then fold the turn, I think a barrel here is fine aslong as you have the plan for rivers or just going on a read.

If you have a read that people fold to turn barrels, by all means bet. But OP said we don't have reads. I just don't think there are many people that float small pairs and then fold them on the turn. I think most people either fold them on the flop or call flop and turn.

Getting spade draws that we already have 70%+ equity against us to fold is also not a good enough reason to bet when Villain has lots of hands that have us crushed like Qx and 8x.

You say you don’t play these buyins live, only play bigger events correct ? You probably haven’t seen many of the guys I’m onabout. You can spot some a mile off.
I’m not saying we have to bet but I think a barrel can be fine around this buy in. Be filled with plenty of fish that call flop and fold turn just simply over the fact you have bet twice. I see these players regularly I hear them discuss hands I see them do it. All I’m saying is that I think a bet can be fine,

You say maybe not enough to call a bet, if we check turn and he leads river I think we can call some rivers. .

Like I said I can see check or bet. But I would never rule out a double barrel.