I have several questions about this hand and would be happy to hear thoughts.

- $250 buy in MTT
- Local cardroom
- 101 entries, 10 places paid

I have ~45 BB (average stack, very deep stack event), 26 remain

- Blinds 200/1000/2000

I raise in EP to 6k with AQo

1st question. Is this too small to open considering antes?

Villain who has ~150 BB calls on button. Villain hasn't been playing super aggressively considering his stack.

HU

Flop is 7/7/4 rainbow (1 spade)

I bet 13k. Villain min raises to 26k.

I read this bet as weak.

2nd question. How would you read this bet?

I tank shove for ~50k more. Villain tanks, asks me what my hand is, I say nothing, and villain sort of sigh calls.

Villain tables A4 of spades. Brick brick. I'm out.

3rd question. I feel like this is a bad call in the face of my shove where in my mind I'm clearly repping an overpair to the board. Am I right, or if I'm villain should I be calling here?

4th question. Is this just a bad shove? Should I read his min raise to induce me to shove (like I did)? Do I have enough of a chip stack left if I fold ~25 BB that I should just let it go?

Final point. This may have been a #livereads situation as I don't play live often and I may have appeared nervous although I feel like I was being pretty stoic (maybe too stiff).

Thank you for your feedback if sent.

I think something closer to 7500/8k on flop would put us in a better spot if V decides to raise here. As played bad shove bad call imo. Don't mind a delayed c-bet either. I think when he raises here he usually has a mid pair, which live he's probably not letting go.

Looks like you ran into a skilled live read . . . which can happen in a live game. But I'm not super-fond of your line as is.

Preflop is fine. You could even open with 5k. If you get action from anyone except the blinds, you're going to be playing this oop. Don't see any justification to bet more than 6k. You'd be overbetting on a blind steal then; any action that you get will leave you playing an inflated pot oop.

On the flop, your c-bet is fine. Bear in mind that he has you outstacked by a lot. He can put pressure you with impunity. So his min raise could mean anything. I'd see it as the right way for him to play TT or AJ or A4, or a whole lot more.

Your shove would be a valid way to play an overpair, but it's also recognizable as a possible bluff. After the fact, it's good of you to recognize that he's sweating you to see how you're reacting, and that your gaze, breathing patterns, etc. are all new data that helps him make a decision.

Did you miss a chance to stare him down on the min-raise? If you've actually got your own overpair, you want to make sure he doesn't have a better one. The fact that you're shoving without first taking his temperature means you've either got such a good hand that you don't care (AA, 44, x7) or that you're running a bluff.

In that case, you polarized your range inadvertently, and left him with a pretty easy call, once he decided that you did not have aces or a boat.

Think we're giving live villian in local cardroom a little too much credit. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm in Michigan and there are a ton around here. The field is super weak in those charity rooms even at $200.

RiverDood are you ok with the 3/4 bet on flop?

On the bright side, V probably played his hand worse than you. Obv live stick to the standard open sizes of the tables, but generally 2.2-2.5x is going to be much better than 3x as it's giving a great price on your bluffs pre. This does mean other players are getting a better price to call pre, so be prepared to play post, especially from BB defence. On a flop so static as 477 no FD, there is no need for such a huge bet. You can go ahead and bet range for a small size (30%ish) or even decide to split ranges, in which case AQo can sometimes check and sometimes bet flop; since we will have all 16 combos that's a lot of combos to split comfortably. Betting a small size puts a lot of hands in a tougher spot than bombing this flop, and casual V's will not even adjust properly to the sizing, seeing flops as these as fit or fold, giving a much better price on bluffing/EQ denial with a hand like you have here. When V clicks back flop (from a casual this is usually the sort of hand like he shows up with here, 66 etc), ask yourself what you do with your best overpairs here. Do you really stick it in or just call? Do you think he will ever fold these hands for not a whole lot more?

Preflop - raise size is fine. You can go smaller, but with deep stacks 3x is fine.

initial Flop bet - I think you can bet a little smaller. If you bet 8K you will probably accomplish the samething as another poster stated.

Flop shove - I think, he made a good live read. It's one of those spots, where he is probably thinking this guy is not going to shove with AA on this board after I raised him. So in his mind he probably puts you on a 7 or some draw and now the pot is big so he just says "**** it" and hopes for the best. I don't hate your shove, but I usually read a miniraise as a very strong hand or nothing.

Not sure i'd read a CIB on this board as weak. Annoying with stack sizes, very tempted to check flop dependent on villain. At the very least betting smaller otf - it's such a dry board you don't need to look you're trying to price him out.

I've been reading a fair amount on tells recently, and one tell is villains will rarely outright lie when they can get caught. I've been checking this and in general I find it to be true. The more specific it is the more likely it is to be true. He may have read you as weak, when he asks you, I would not say anything ever, or if you do something non-descript.

Your math is a little off. OP says you have ~ 45BB and BB is 2,000 so you should have ~ 90K.

Your open (6K) + cbet (13K) + shove (~ 50K) = ~ 70K, what happened to the other 20K?

In retrospect, I'd ask you to evaluate your own play and see if anything you did previously gave your opponent a read that you had a big ace vs. a pair. His/her play suggests that they didn't give you credit for a pair.

In hindsight, easy to say bad shove. Opponent has to call 37K to win about 90K and still has an average stack if he's wrong.

So it was ~50k on top of the 13k for the call of the min raise. So in total my jam was for ~63k. So, with antes/blinds/action prior to my shove the pot was ~56k (blinds and antes = 5, pre flop raise and call = 12, post flop bet + raise = 39) so my shove was for slightly less than the size of the pot.

After seeing the responses on this thread I think it's clear there was a mistake in my c-bet sizing (too big). It's sorta hard to really do justice to a feeling you have in a live game looking at someone but that min-raise on the flop screamed to me "my hand is weak" which is definitely part of why I jammed. All in all considering how many chips the V had regardless of my live read (which I don't play live that often so what the hell do I know), probably just a bad jam. Still feel like call was equally if not more bad tho.

I'm wondering why, as some commentators have mentioned, my range only consists of bluffs or my "best" overpairs when I jam vs bluffs and ANY overpair. Isn't a jam a perfectly reasonable line with 88+ considering stack sizes and the fact I'd like to protect my hand against getting outdrawn by broadway hands, or having V pick up equity on the turn with some sort of suited connector/suited 1-gapper? If I was V I don't think I've ever see this jam as trips/qq+. I would assume it was a bluff or some sort of mid-pair more weighted towards mid-pairs.

Maybe I'm thinking about the hand the wrong way.

Thanks again to everyone that posted. I really appreciate your feedback and the points about c-bet sizing on a board like this are definitely well received and will be incorporated into my game moving forward.