£100 buy in live tournament. 18 left and top 9 get paid.

Blinds 3k/6k, 1k ante.

Hero (160k) UTG +1 33 raises to 13k
Villian (170k) MP Calls
BB (700k) Calls

Flop AAJ
Hero bets 20k
MP calls
BB folds

Turn T
MP checks out of turn, hero checks too

River 4
Hero bets 35k
Villian Shoves
Hero Folds

The first question is whether I should open 33 in EP or just open fold?

I think the C-bet is okay? The flop should hit my range a lot more than my oppenents, the big blind range was very wide and I figured villian would fold pocket pairs bigger than mine and suited connectors etc.

After the turn I think I played it really bad. I should either keep barrelling on the turn and rep the ace or check and give up. Betting the river doesn't really achieve anything, at the time I thought he might fold a Jack or a hand like KT/QT that called the flop with a gutshot and hit a pair on the turn and that's why he wanted to check the turn because he had showdown value. But looking back I don't think he would fold them to this size anyway.

(P.S. Villain showed KQ for the turned straight)

Thanks for any help

Fold pre (unless the table is extremely nitty, and you think you stand a decent chance of getting all folds pre). Your hand does not flop well, you are in early position. When you get called or raised/shoved on - you will be in a bad spot.

As played, on the flop, you can bet smaller, I like 16k. You opened from EP, so there are plenty of Aces in your range and it is hard for them to call you without an A. Once you are called on the flop, you should be done with the hand and not put another chip in unless you hit your 3.

/endthread

Can't really disagree with anything said above. You could even size the flop down slightly lower than he said, to like 13-14k. Pretty loose float on the flop by V with KQo considering his stack size and vs. an UTG+1 range, but you can't play the results. Your flop bet should have taken it down, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was correct (sizing was too high for sure, IMO).

As far as pre, opening 33 in EP is way more LAG than TAG, and some LAGs I know don't even raise it there unless they're pretty deep. 25BBs definitely isn't deep enough. I like it a lot better when you're one of the chip leaders, not when you're chasing a stack.

This. I'm guessing with 18 people this means 2 full tables? You're effectivley setmining with 33...I don't think you're getting the SPR to do that here.

Lots of J or T combos as well as pocket pairs TT-44 are all in villain's range and he is probably not folding any of that (maybe the smallest pairs) to your river bet.

That neither of you has an ace should be obvious to everyone at the table.
Ask yourself: Would you really c-bet this flop with an ace in your hand? No way. Chances that people fold and you just wasted your monster is way too high. You want to get paid with three aces (at least I would want to...so check like someone who holds TT or 99 and is scared of the board and let people catch up)
If villain had an ace he would have bet the turn.

+1

So, the next time I play against you and I have an ace in my hand on this board texture, I'll just cbet then yeah?

Your comment is absurd.

That works against pros (and I use that line occasionally myself)...but generally no one is going to give you credit for having an ace with a c-bet from EP on that flop.

Sure. It's a good way to get one street (but only one street ) of value.
But if you check and let someone else take a stab at it (which is almost guaranteed), then check turn, then check-raise their river-stab you get 2 streets a lot of the time (and sometimes their entire stack).

I find it much more effective to let people hang themselves by playing on 'scare cards' that aren't.

Hence the reason we could cbet our entire UTG range on this board. If I open UTG and BTN flats, and the board comes AAJ, and we start with a check, I'd be very surprised if a competent player took 'a stab' at it without an ace in their hand.

The flop wallops our range over the head, and we should bet our range accordingly, irrespective of whether we have AK here or 99, I'd cbet, and probably fire a second barrell on the turn before re-evaluating.

If you bet this out I might just click it back from the button...just to see if you really have the ace (and I might do this whether I have an ace or not...because if you don't have anything to pay me off with you're not going to continue and if you do I now know almost certainly that I can fold any non-ace holdings).

Exactly. So why scare everyone away when we have an ace? What's your aim here? To get everyone out of the hand when we have top trips? What kind of sense does that make?
What hand do you imagine paying you off multiple streets with an EP range and an AAJ board when you show that kind of strength by betting into two people which effectively says "AAJ doesn't scare me even though I know that every grandma and their dog likes to play aces"
You're just getting the preflop chips.

When I have top trips I'd rather play for stacks.

Your point was, that in this situation, you'd NEVER cbet the flop if you held an ace, and if you did cbet the flop, NOBODY would give you credit for it. My point was, that if we cbet our entire UTG range on this flop, and opponents have the same thought process as you, then what's the point in simply checking? That might trigger further alarm bells, and chances are, if we check turn, they check behind, and if we lead turn, they fold, so why not continue telling the 'story' of our range and put our opponents on their heels.

Once OP opens UTG here with 33, for me, he has to cbet the flop, and then I'd barrell the turn, before giving it up. That's just my thoughts on it - you're of course entitled to your own, and that's absolutely fine.

In this spot against two people this close to the money? No, I wouldn't.
Against one player and if I thought he was a stone cold pro who doesn't think I would do such a 'stupid' move (pegging me as an ABC player) I would bet it most of the time.

If I c-bet here (holding an ace): If no one has an ace I likely get nothing but the few measly preflop chips.

By contrast:

If I check: I can get people to make a costly mistake on multiple streets underrepping my hand. They might even think their QJ or JT is good on the river and call a raise. If I have a really strong hand I want one (preferrably both) other players to remain in the hand as long as possible. They might even discount me as having given up and tangle amongst themselves with a steal and a resteal (yum!).

Difference is: if this happens on the turn that way (or even if we check turn and make it look really weak for the river) we have given our opponents two (river: four) chances to either catch up to a second best hand worth betting or to bluff at it. That's a huge amount of opportunity to make chips.
If we bet flop we give them (and us) none of that.

I don't hold with throwing good chips after bad. Whenever I have a brainfart and open up with a ****ty hand that I realize I shouldn't have played I just let it go. Hero has still 24-ish BB left after the flop is dealt. Those can wait for a better spot.

antialias, you're neglecting a whole other side to this argument.

Assuming an UTG range of {88+KQs+AJo+} you're going to have a lot of aces in your range, sure, but even more hands that do not include an ace. On a flop of AAJ, you only have 27 combos of nutted hands (AA/JJ/AK/AQ/AJ) while you have 46 other combos of hands that would have also raised pre. To always cbet here is to protect your 3b range.

You may be able to fold out better hands when you cbet 34 combos (the vast majority of your holdings here) of 88-TT and KQ to deny equity. You may get thin value with 12 combos KK and QQ. You may get massive value with your 27 combos of nutted hands because you're more likely to not have it here.

In either case, you leave open the option to fold to aggression with your non-value combos while still maximizing your fold equity and attacking the dead money with a very strong range. It's going to be very difficult for a player to call more than one street on this board out of position with a lot of the hands that are floating this flop when you cbet it. Lots of their hands are also getting folded on the flop to any bet.

I think it's just a great way to waste the chips you could be making from your nutted hands. Yes a C-bet is +EV, but if I have a chance to get up to 320k+blinds and antes off of two opponents that's better than 31k every time (if you don't run into an ace that is).

If villain is a non-believer and calls your c-bet you're pretty much doomed to double barrel with this approach and you're still unsure if he has an ace and is just letting you hang yourself.

Protecting your range is also a lot less important in a tournament. You're not sitting long enough with these people to profile you that deeply.

With a c-bet I don't think so. At least one player will fold. With a nutted hand I definitely don't want that to happen.

You're working in unfair absolutes here. Just a few weeks ago I had a hand in which I raised UTG+1 with KQs and was flatted behind by the HJ or CO (I don't remember exactly). Flop was KKT rainbow and I bet 3 streets of value at 2/3 pot after 2 bricks followed and never saw what my opponent had.

You're assuming you're wasting chips by cbetting your nutted hands, but that's only the case if you're unbalanced.

You were playing against one good player...and as noted above: I do the exact same you just described against a good player. I completely agree with you on that.

But not against two players, one of which has enough chips to freely take a stab and not mind if it fails. The bigstack should absolutely be bullying here if two people check. The villain should absolutely be trying to steal before the bigblind starts to bully if hero checks. I don't ever see this flop go check, check, check. Not in a tournament where people are out to accumulate chips any way they can.

I like putting people into bad spots they create themselves a lot more than bad spots I create, because it's a lot harder (psychologically) for them to admit a mistake they initiated than backing off of a mistake as a reaction to my aggression.

antialias, how would you approach this? How would you triple up here?

You mean in a case where I flop top trips?

Now, for the following some stuff has to come together (opponents must have a little something in their hand and they must be the types who are willing to take stabs on perceived weakness)
Let's say distribution after blinds and antes is roughly as above with
Hero 25BB (EP) let's say we hold AQs
V1 30BB (MP)
V2 130BB (BB) has something like 99, TT, QJ, JT, JK, ...something to see a flop with but not 3bet pre which might induce a shove from the other two stacks

Pot after blinds and antes:3BB

Preflop action: we raise 3BB and get two callers. Pot:12BB

We flop top trips on an AAJ board
V2 Checks to the raiser, we check, V1 takes a stab for 7BB, V2 calls, we call
Pot: 33BB

Stacks.
Hero 15BB (pot committed)
V1 20BB (borderline pot committed)
V2 120BB

turn
check, check, check (we massively underrep our hand)

river
check, tiny bet by us (trying to induce) or (if we know that V1 just can't help himself after everyone has shown so much weakness) we check yet again.
V1 bets, V2 sees the likely bluff by V1 and calls, we shove and everyone gets an awesome price to call.

Now, I totally agree that a lot has to work right for this to pan out. But I feel in a tournament with maybe 30 or 20 minutes per level trips don't come around often enough that we can c-bet this on the flop against 2 opponents and risk a fold/fold for a total gain of merely 9bb.
Betting into two opponents who have aces and jacks in their range while we also pot commit ourselves shows an awful lot of strength to the point where at least V2 would definitely think about risking almost his entire stack with just a jack - especially if it has a weak kicker.

Now that's some real poker.

So we flop top trips with an ace on a dry board, someone else bets and everyone calls. Then on the river, someone bets without an ace, another person calls without an ace (and without KQ presumably for the straight?), and we raise, and both of them call because they have great odds.

You don't see anything wrong with this scenario?

Your scenario sounds a lot more likely to be a river check through and you just basically got nothing with your fancy play syndrome. This does not sound like a good line at all.

You also have a contradiction, because you said originally you don't want to bet our your trip ace because these are weak players and we're in a 20-30 minute blind level tourney, yet you think they're going to call off their middle pairs because they're getting such good odds to call. It sounds like you're picking and choosing when they're good players and when they're not to suit your argument.

Much easier way to gain chips even against bad players: cbet the flop (and get called by at least one of them since you have an aggressive postflop image from playing good poker already), check the turn, and then bet the river. You're pretty much guaranteed at least two streets of value, and often you'll get someone else to bet the turn for you. This is a much different situation than flopping A95r when you hold AA. That's when even GTO would tell you to check to let people catch up a bit.

He's also acting like we have the immortal nuts, and presuming we always have opponents who are going to go bananas when we check like they have never seen someone with trips+ check an AAJ flop as a preflop raiser. When someone raises pre, checks AAJ, then puts in a raise or shove later in the hand, LOLOL at calling off against that without a monster.

We are OK betting and the guy with 44 or 99 folding if they are a player who isn't going to put in another chip unless they bink their 2 out boat, and then we get stacked off.

+1 to betting entire UTG range on this flop.

Lol, antiatlas, you’re all over the place with your arguments here. You make a lot of assumptions about how both lines would play out and contradict yourself while doing it.

Are you advocating betting no good hands here or not cbetting at all?

+2

Yes you might very occasionley open UTG with weak pairs such as 33 IF you are happy to fold if you miss the flop and/or there is resistance and a bad flop texture such as the one in your case.

There is no 'never' in poker.
But against two opponents I would c-bet a lot less in this spot than usual, because the cumulative attempted bluff/steal percentage of the opponents rises.
As noted elsewhere against a good opponent who pegs me as an ABC player and heads-up I'd c-bet top trips.

C-betting isn't an automatic "if I have hand X and flop shows Y I c-bet". C-betting should be done for a reason. And that reason includes other people's stacks and how many people are still in the hand and what type of players they are.
(e.g. with the above stacks the bully chance on a check-check by the bigstack is very high. )