Young aggressive opens to 2500 at BB 1200, from UTG3, tight player flats, one other player flats, we have A5ss, and squeeze to 12,500, from a stack of 51K. Only YAG calls.

Flop is Jh4h3s, so we have gutter and BDFD. YAG leads for 10K. I think a case can be made for all 3 actions here, but I flat.

Turn is 5c. and Villain jams for our remaining 39K. Call or fold?

Thoughts on all 3 streets welcome.

Getting such a sick price to close the action, there's no way we're supposed to squeeze more than like 5-6% here, and even if you wanna get really diffuse and start squeezing really light this is just way too far down the distribution.

Flop action makes no sense because you're OOP, no? So you checked and he bet? Checking any hand here is horrible.

Turn stack sizes makes no sense because you said you started with 51k, now we've put in 22.5k and still have 39k remaining?

Eggs we were on the button, and we have 29K, not 30K to call to win a pot of about 63K.

What hands would you squeeze light from the BB?

OK being button changes things considerably. You're gonna want to be squeezing pretty liberally in that case because you don't close the action and being IP gives you a postflop advantage.

In that case the squeeze is fine but it's definitely not a pure squeeze. Maybe 10-25% frequency. I think we want our overall frequency to be somewhere around 7.5% (just a guess) if the opener is aggro and the flatter is gonna let himself get pushed around.

IDK, maybe you squeeze something like this in this spot:



BB is another thread

Still confused about stack sizes but I'll just assume you were 50bb eff.

AP:

For villain to be donking any hand here is atrocious. If you think he's exploitably weak (only donking draws or straight air) then jam for value/protection, if he's got basically Jx and better then fold. There really is no right answer here because, thanks to V, we're in such a suboptimal node of the game tree.

In theory, because his line make so little sense for any particular hand, we can assume he's merged in which case we call flop and call turn because he should still have enough bluff OTT.

If V is going to be donking like this though, I think we want to be tightening up our squeezing range considerably, in which case I'm back to my original thoughts which is this squeeze is too light. Did you have any indication he'd have such spewy moves in his arsenal?

But there truly aren't any 100% correct answers here thanks to that LOL donk on the flop. This is GTO wilderness--we're never supposed to be in this spot.

What do you think he has?

no Eggs I wont advocate calldown, some people lead TPs here, others - mid PPs (and decide vs shove)
Since its wsop me I wont squueze light bunch of donkeys 40-50bb deep
Call pre, calling flop for price (close tho) and folding turn as played in ME.

Edit - people dont lead draws this way bc it creates awkward turn spots when they brick.

Yeah I definitely see leads in this kind of spot with marginal top pair and second pair hands. I don't think leading is great, but it may have a bit of merit if you think you get a lot of players to fold hands with equity like overcard combos or backdoor draws. (especially at these stack depths)

As played totally in the call flop/fold turn camp vs. most tournament fields.

I don't think the squeeze is bad. It is good the make this play some times. Making it from the button against a loose opener makes it look bluffy.

I would shove or maybe fold the flop, but fold the turn as played. You should have decent equity if called if you shove the flop and good FE. When he leads into the raiser, he probably doesn't have a really strong hand. I don't like flat calling the flop with less than a psb left.

I didn't really have a handle on what his lead meant. I have seen a fair bit of 'playing the raiser for AK' this series. If he is one of those, than any pair, Jx all make sense. He might have a flush draw as well.

He is certainly calling the flush draws, probably the AJ+ as well. I will get 66-TT to fold, not sure how much he has in his range.

This is read dependent, but I wouldn't give him credit for a pair or flush draw when he leads into the 3-bettor. You are slightly ahead of his preflop calling range on the flop.

You could be ahead and you have equity versus anything, so I would shove but not be crazy about it.

What range do you think he has? I was pretty sure he had something, but his sizing is so small, and he shouldn't be donking here, so it is hard to respond.

There is no way I am 3 betting pre here in position. You are printing money by flatting A5ss in position in a multiway pot.

The fact he leads into you is why I especially hate 3 betting the young aggressive guy and bloating the pot even if you are in position. I would rather like 6x/fold out the sb then ever have to 3 bet/fold here on button.

I don't think he's purely bluffing here in the main event. I would give him credit for a hand when he leads in this spot. People don't get this creative usually with bluffs. I think it is very possible he shows up with JJ-AA sometimes and then his bluffs are A5hh, 67hh, 56hh, KQhh, AQhh (maybe not the first 3 of these combos in this particular situation because you really aren't deep enough for him to flat those unless he's just one of those sticky live pro fish who can't fold to 3 bets)

I think this is a pretty ****ty spot to be in.

I would honestly just fold the flop. You don't know if your Ace is even good. So you are hoping for a non-heart 2. The basic plan here was to peel the flop and jam pretty much any turn when they check? I think this is such a marginal spot. I think best case scenario is you are looking at a low flush draw, much more likely case you are looking at a hand like AJ or set. Especially this being the main event, you can wait for a better spot.

Think of the times that you do jam the turn and you even get tank called by KJ, do you really want to put your tournament on the line for this spot?

Yes, it is a shiity spot. That's why I posted it . I wasn't expecting to go to the flop three ways, which makes the SPR too low for this type of hand.

Folding the flop seems right if you KNOW your opponent will jam the turn. Yes, we only have 3 clean outs, plus back door stuff. If we know Villain will jam turn, clearly we should fold or jam ourselves. The problem with jamming is that Villain will feel priced in with a flush draw. He might even feel priced in with a modest pair, like 88-TT, since I could have AK or a flush draw or just some random spew.

At this depth, would rather squeeze hands which play poorly multiway or make robust/dominating/board coveraging pairs which can be pot controlled with. The likes of KQo and A8s respectively.

With A5s at this SPR you risk flopping an awkward amount of equity to bet-fold, bet-call off...but if you opt for passive lines you don’t utilise the power of the hand.

Why not flat pre? You have a hand that can make a homerun ball early in the tournament with minimum risk.

Suited aces and low pairs are my bread and butter, looking for volume when I flop big.

There is a lot of money that can be won without a flop, and clearly the two flatters are unlikely to have enough to call. The opener has a very wide range. We clearly want to have hands we can raise/fold with, as well as value hands. Maybe a hand like KQo would be better, since it has better blockers.

So, regardless, of time in tourney, we should always be fighting for dead money?

I can buy that reasoning.

But, try it my way for a tourney. Obviously, lower buy in for your buy in range.

Don't look for every chip, look for homerun balls.

Hands I want to go to flop with are low pairs and suited aces.

I don't want anyone off. Hoping to just flop big while risking minimum.

I miss, I move on.

This is when call is below around 7% of stack.

To a large extent, Tournament Poker is about Fold Equity. Playing for Home Runs is great when you are 100+BB deep. I would have flatted this hand at a very large stack depth, and more especially against a tighter main Villain.

Here, we only have 42BB. That does not put us in panic mode, but it makes hands like Axs and small pairs and connectors far less profitable. However, Ax does have some good properties to squeeze with. It has a blocker (I wouldn't dream of squeezing here without one), and can flop some draws that we can go with.

To be clear, our main goal here is to win preflop. Having enough equity if we are called is a good backup, but not the main point of the hand.