A friend told me about this crazy hand that took place in a live $1000 tourney and I can't make sense of it.

They're on the bubble and the tourney has introduced time cards to prevent stalling. My friend has AhAs in the CO and raises 2.5x, both blinds call.

Flop: 965hh. Blinds check, friend bets 5.5bb, SB calls (has about twice friend's stack).

Turn: 3c. SB checks, friend bets 11bb, SB calls.

River: 2s. SB checks, friend thinks about what to do. Pot is 4 mil, friend has about 3.3m left. Friend forgets about the 30 sec time card and 30 seconds elapses, then he remembers and throws in a time card.

SB then loses it and says friend's hand should be dead because he ran out of time. Makes a big scene, supervisors come over and rule friend is okay to continue but must decide immediately.

Friend shoves, SB loses it again. Uses up all 6 time cards, tries to get friend to talk, says he has a monster. SB eventually calls because he thinks friend is bluffing after he made a scene earlier.

The question is, WTF does SB have here?

The bubble makes the dynamic a lot trickier to assess. Is villain likely to flat the SB with 99-KK? I think we can discount 99 considering his post flop action. I also think we can discount 66, 55, 33 and 22 based on similar observations. Why would he be so for your friends hand to be called dead, and then ultimately tank call because he thinks he's up against a bluff. That doesn't make a tonne of sense.

He obviously doesn't have a monster (unless he includes 2p as a monster, then 65s might be likely), but possibly something that blocks a lot of the straights out there. I'm taking a guess at 7h7x or ThTx and he's decided to make a huge hero call.

Definitely an interesting one.

I suppose he could take a low variance line with TT-KK on the bubble but the action and his reactions make no sense to me.

If he's making a stink that hero's hand should be dead, that implies he thinks he can't win at showdown bc hero can easily check behind. In which case why would villain check the river and not attempt a bluff?

Maybe he has a hand that really doesn't want to face a big decision if hero bets the river, so when hero's 30 seconds elapse he thinks, "Thank god, now I can get his hand declared dead and not face a difficult decision." Then when hero shoves he realizes his freak out actually makes his decision tougher because it gives hero a license to bluff him. So he tanks and makes the call, which means he must have a bluff catcher.

Thoughts?

Makes sense to me. I would say maybe something like 98s would be a bluffcatcher type hand, where he has top pair and a gutty, and is now worried that he's getting bluffed off by Axhh or the equivalent.

My guess though is he had like 55 and your friend felt slowrolled.

Prolly has a pear

Forgot to mention, my friend won the hand and villain mucked.

How does him contradicting himself make sense?

1. He's rallying for our hand to be called dead.
2. He gets frustrated when we aren't called dead and shove into him.
3. He tanks for 3 minutes. Claims he has a 'monster' and then calls it off because he thinks we are bluffing.

FWIW, I don't think he ever has a set here based on his actions and post flop play. I think he either has 65s, ThTx or 7h7x.

You don't say which card on the flop is not a . If its the 9 then SB probably has 9X. Still considering it a monster even after the river didn't improve.

With 2 pair+ SB has to c/r turn all in.

Could also have TT-QQ. Can't imagine KK not getting frisky at some point.

Once SB complains that friend's hand should be dead, the jig is up. Can't have >= 2 pair anymore.

Then my guess is 98, with hh if the 9 wasn't a heart.

I meant Darth Maul's post made sense, not villain's line. I agree that a set would be absurd, but have seen villains be egregiously paranoid about hands that are very unlikely to be beaten.

I also think sets/2p are highly unlikely both because he would have gotten busy earlier and because those hands are stronger than his freak-outs and tank call would suggest.

I've had this discussion with some other friends he told about the hand. So far the front-runner are 98hh/K9hh (assuming the 9 on the flop isn't the heart) or TT-QQ. Some are discounting QQ based on the lack of preflop 3b, but I think it's possible as a low variance way to play it on the bubble.

Yeah, everything here screams "bottom of calling range", and in that spot a good 9x or maybe TT makes the most sense.

OP, I find it super tilting when people switch between number of BB to whole numbers. BB is 100,000?

Sorry, just had limited details from the text exchange. He was texting from the tourney so I guess it was quicker to type the BB amounts instead of chip amounts.