Hey guys and gals,

I used to post on here under a different username, but I can't find the e-mail for that account, so I made a new one on here.

The situation: 72 out of 2,200 players left. Current payouts are $7k, with small bumps to 9k, 12k, etc. for every 9 players who bust. FT payouts are:

$47k, $55k, $67k, $84k, $110k, $148k, $208k, $303k, $456k

The hand:

Blinds: 6k/12k/12k

Hero (UTG+2): 630k
Villain (Button): 750k

Hero's image:
Over the time villain has been at the table, I haven't show down a hand. I've been mixing it up in LP pre-flop with a couple 3-bets in BU vs CO and SB vs BU situations, but I haven't been aggro from EP.

Villain:
Middle-aged Asian guy with a blazer and aviator glasses. He moved to the table an hour ago and has been playing tight pre-flop.

OTTH:

Pre-flop: Hero raises UTG+2 to $26k with black nines. Villain calls. Blinds call.
Flop (Pot: ~$120k): J56r
Checked to hero.
Hero bets 45K.
Only villain calls.

Turn (Pot: ~$210k): (J56)Kr
Hero bets: $150k
Villain thinks, asks hero if he has "brown chips" (bigger denominations), then calls.

River (Pot: ~510k): (J56K)6
Hero has ~410k and ships.

Thoughts: (I hate my flop and turn sizing. I'll just get that out of the way.)

Once villain calls flop with two to act behind, his range is heavily weighted toward Js. With this runout, I think a bet-bet line is the only play available. On the river, I need him to fold 44% of the time for the play to be break-even. I didn't do this math on the fly, but if we conservatively give him all AJ, all KJ suited, all 55, all 66, he'll have 12 AJ combos, 2 KJs, combos, 3 55 combos, and 1 66 combo. He has to fold AJ 5/12 of the time for the play to be breakeven. Of course, an argument can be made that I didn't need to take this kind of risk, but once I bet the turn, it seemed criminal to check the river. I'm just a rec. donk, though. Would love others' input. Hope this stimulates some interesting discussion.

Think your logic is a little faulty. In cash game, you need him to fold 44%.

You are not worried about this one pot, but the remainder of the tournament as well.

Having no chips is a disaster, as there is no rebuy. If you check and lose, you have $330,000 left, which is around 25 bigs. You have plenty of play. If you ship and lose, you have given up a tremendous amount of equity. For me to ship here, I would want to confidently believe he folds 80% of the time.

There are a few 7-8's in his range (not many given description) and occassionaly 7's or 8's, but also seems unlikely when he calls your double barrell.

Anyway, conceding the post sucks a big one. Losing all your chips is massive disaster.

Thanks for the reply. Given that you view a river bet as too risky, it seems that you'd also argue against a turn bet, then? I think that, if we bet the turn, we have to expect most Js to call, meaning that a turn bluff only makes sense if we're going to bluff the river.

The river bet is kind of neither here nor there. The mistake is the flop and turn bet. 99 is among the worst hands to bet with, especially on the turn. You're expecting him to only call when you're drawing to 2 live cards, where usually the better hands call and the worse hands fold.

Same basically goes for your flop bet. Either bluff with straight draws or suited broadways that have BD flush draws. And then on that turn you'll have some reasonable bluffs to follow through on, where your value range is mostly KQ+.

I don't hate the turn bet. Don't love it. He could continue on the flop with any pair, and any suited a-5, a-6, many he would lay down on the turn. If I had A-5, A-6, and flopped pair with three flush, in position I would probably call most flop bets. Same with most pairs and evaluate the turn.

Given that he was snug, preflop, I think we can discount 10-J, J-9 (which you block anyway) and J-8. Unsuited Q-j and K-J could potentially be discounted as well.

So, villians range going to turn is any pair, any set, A-Q, A-K probably float flop as well, suited Q-J, suited K-J and all A-j combos, and suited a-6, a-5 combos, which busted.

Given his range, think the only thing that he might have that we don't bet again that is real disaster by checking is 10-10. Be snug to just call button with 10-10, wasn't there, so you would have to make determination if that is in his range.

BUT! If we don't bet and he is quality player, he will probably bet 75% of the above range into you on the turn. If you want to continue to the river, you probably need to lead turn. It is very hard turn call for you, when you check and he fires.

Except for pre do the opposite as you did at every decision making point in the hand

No the river bet is god awful
So is the turn bet
The flop bet is pretty bad as well as j56 plays as a pure x w almost full range

I don’t like the flop bet when we see a flop against 3 others and we actually have some sort of showdown value. Think this is a check and shut it down spot.

Turn bet is bad for the reasons others mentioned. We make hands we beat fold and hands that beat us call (other than maybe he folds exactly TT). I think a snug villain usually isn't floating 45k on the flop with AQ or AK here with both blinds still to act behind. If villain was closing action on flop, possibly. I would also say most guys who don't wanna give up AK here prob 3b it pre instead of flat.

Ck flop >> Bet flop
Ck turn >>>>>>>>>> Bet turn

River bomb just doesn't rep enough or target enough. We're trying to basically get him to fold exactly AJ, by repping KK/AA, when the board blocks KK and AJ blocks AA? Or for him to think that we bet AK into 3 players here and turned a king, with the board and his AJ blocking AK?

I think a flop bet is fine. We hope to pick up the pot a decent % of the time. I think you are betting because you likely have the best hand. There really aren't any good turn cards that we are happy to see here if it gets checked around except a 2 or 3.

After the flop gets called I think you are hoping that the villain is passive and you get to show down and he shows something like a smaller pair or A6. After you be the turn, his range is narrowed a lot. I think you can get a lot of hands to fold the turn for a smaller bet.

As other players have stated, you aren't going to get to many better hands to fold. He will probably fold AJ some decent percent of the time. But I think you need to give up on the river. I do think this play needs to be in your arsenal, but I feel like after you bet so large on the turn, you are going to be called on the river more often than not.

Clearly flop is a function of how tight IP flatcaller range and blinds aggression level.
There are merits to different strategies unless they are all tight pre and there is no way small bet w/ 99 can show a profit.

I think against 3 players we are much better off checking flop. BTN can't bluff easily because blinds checked to raiser and either can have a J.

The BTN call on the flop is a disaster for us. Tight villain likely doesn't have 87s so we are probably behind. I see the point of repping AK/AA/KK here. However in real life we don't block KJ and if villain has that hand or any set, we are about to punt. I think it is most likely that villain will fold QJ/JT on the turn but I suspect that this villain isn't calling much with those hands pre-flop. So AJ isn't folding much because really we don't have a lot of AK/AA and the only hand villain is afraid of is KQ. Not enough to make me fold as villain, and really if you are bluffing the flop then doesn't that mean you could be bluffing the turn as well?

If we bet the turn I would make it 100k and while I usually like to double barrel when the A or K hits the turn, here I think we are looking at a bigger hand than AJ a good amount of the time if he calls. Maybe not with the "how many brown chips?" question if we interpret that as a fear of how much villain is at risk for. But it can also be a question of how pot committed we are if villain has a big hand...

This is why I wouldn't bet the turn. If we are bluffing OOP with AK on the flop and an A or K hits the turn, I like to check the turn and then based on the river either check/call or bet/fold. Villain will sometimes bluff the turn because it looks like we have AJ/KJ or we missed the flop entirely. But mostly I think they are wary and will often check back the turn.

The bottom line for me with 99 vs 3 opponents pre-flop is that I am basically set mining or playing strong if we flop the overpair. Otherwise I am letting go and hoping everyone checks the flop and the blinds check the turn and the turn card feels safe and then I might put in a bet.

Flop is close. I think there's some merit to the small bet because blinds in particular should often have 5x, 6x, 43, 78, 74, 77, 88 and folding out random Ax and Kx hands isn't a bad thing. Button and blinds should rarely have better than AJ here other than random sets so I'd assume we have a bit of a range advantage. Taking a line where we check back a decent amount in a four-way flop could be better though and I can be convinced otherwise.

However, once we get called on the flop we shouldn't be betting the turn with this hand. Most of the hands I mention above are going to check back, and even Jx is going to check back a decent portion of the time. So we should be getting to showdown a ton here and if we face aggression on the turn we decide based on sizing. I also think we have worse pairs, like, say, 22-44, that we can use as bluffs if we had to.

I don`t think this word means what you think it means.

check >>>> 150k >> 100k