So I have a 25 BB stack in the mid stages of a 50+5 mtt

I have no information on the players other than stack sizes.

I´m on the button with JQ

I face a 2x open from the high jack, a fairly big stack with 55bb and I elect to three-bet to 6bb, leaving me 19 bb behind

Small blind (27 bb) elects to call the three-bet

High Jack (first agressor) folds

Flop comes K 9 5

Small blind checks, I decide to check back.

Reasons to C-bet

• I can easily represent a king here as a three-better preflop
• I have equity when called with gutter to nuts and backdoor flush draw

Reasons to check back

• Small blinds range should be strong here
• Denied equity when check raised
• On a check from villain on turn I would have more information for a delayed C-bet

Turn is the J, one of my outs for 2nd pair

Villain bets half pot

I decide to call, leaving us both with a little under a half pot sized bet on the river

River is Ah, villain goes all in

I decide to fold

What do you guys think of my line here? Aprreciate your thoughts.

Prob just shove pre so long as HJ doesn't particularly look like a tighter player.
All options are on the table though and only way you can make a mistake pre is if you fold.

Flop is very close and can go either way, I tend to like delayed cbet lines myself in that type of spot, once V checks twice his range is much better defined.
Downside to xb flop is you can probably fold out AQ/AJ with a flop cbet.

Rest is std.

Thanks for your well thought out reply.

You confirm my thoughts on my reasoning for a delayed C-bet, even if I will get folds for hands like AJ and AQ and I think AJ is definitely a good candidate for what villains actual hand could be here as played.

I don´t know the style of HJ, but that also means I have no reasons for believing he is nitty. His stack size and position should suggest a fairly wide range.

I would push a 20bb stack here but with a 25 bb stack I would usually lean towards a bet/fold as I imagine his 4bet push range would be very defined. I would imagine a good portion of his opening range is folding or calling and I don´t mind taking a flop in position when called.

I would probably flat pre and play the pot in position. A 3bet like any other bet has it's purposes: 1) 3 bet for value; 2) 3 bet as a bluff; or 3) protect the best hand.

First to start, we need to understand where QJs falls in relation to all of the hands available. QJs is a hand that falls about the top 8% of hands.

Next, we have to make assumptions about the range of the hijack player. When there are no reads, the assumption should be that he is the average player for that level. The standard LJ/HJ opening PFR is about 15%, give or take 1 or two points either way.

QJs falls right smack in the middle of the HJ range. Knowing this, now let's process this through the 3 reasons to 3bet here. It is not strong enough to 3bet for value and it is only about 50% likely to be the best hand, so we cannot bet this for value nor for protection.

That leaves turning this hand into a bluff. Being right in the middle of the range, I think this hand is too strong at the moment to be a good bluffing candidate.

Therefore, for all of the reasons listed above, I think this is a better calling hand preflop than a 3bet hand.

Postflop: I think I might c-bet this. However, having the gutshot, I have heard arguments before that you should check here so to see a free turn card. The idea of checking is that you want to see a free turn so as not to get check/raise and having to fold a hand with some equity.

I think the call turn/fold river line would be standard for this action, however, my doubt comes when the river shove is only a 1/2 pot shove. I agree, I probably don't like calling off there on the river, but then maybe that means to go back one step and question the call on the turn being "standard."

Lean flat pre as we can make the best hand on the flop a decent amount and comfortably get stacks in at likely SPR. Shove can also be ok based on fact we are only 25BB deep and we may want to play most of our range as a shove/fold here.

As played I like a c-bet flop/mostly jam turn line here. Our SPR is small. If we're 3-betting QJ, we probably have KJ and KQ as well, so we should have lots of Kx we can bet plus AA and 99 as well. We're going to need bluffs here and QJ with the backdoor flush draw makes a lot of sense, especially since it has some removal to TP hands that should snap us off like KQ and KJ. Checking back flop gives villain incentive to double barrel a decent amount and unless we hit our T we're going to be in really awkward spots, even if we hit a pair on the turn.

As played, ugh, I guess I call turn/fold river, but it feels weird and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be doing something else with this hand here. (like turn it into a bluff on the turn, as strange as that sounds) I just think we're going to have a hard time calling if our opponent jams river and if they check river and we don't improve, there's a small chance we're beat anyway.

Easy flat

I don't think a fear of being recklessly barrelled should factor into decision-making here. Vills range if near competent simply doesn't contain enough air by the flop that would feel the need to. Could be just AQ and AJs or less.

I think the check-back is good, not only does vill get to have the traditional cc 3bet range of 99-JJ(QQ), AQ+, hes also likely to flat AA and KK at an abnormally high rate, for fear that anything else looks "too strong".

But the flat looks too strong, so I think we exploit that by not putting more money in unless we progressively improve, which OP did.

Are antes in play yet?

If I'm reading the action right the pot is a little more than 15bb and effective stacks are 19bb.

I like just jamming flop as a semibluff. Prob hard to balance but IDK, nor do I know if that really matters here anyway. It's up to villain to decide whether or not you can play AA or a king this way.

By jamming you put a ton of pressure on SB who shouldn't have too many Kings especially AK (no 4bet) or KQ or KJ (you block these), most likely he has one of the unblocked pocket pairs that are now 3rd pair to this board. And I'm aware you block AQ and AJ but he's gotta have at least 12/24 possible combos of these in his range IMO.

If I had to guess, you take this pot down OTF with a jam upwards of 65% of the time, add in your draw to the nut straight and your BDFD equity (and it's especially nice to have Kd on the board bc he can't call with a KdXd hand that has you smoked) I do believe a jam works nicely.

And even if he only folds 40% of the time to your jam it's still profitable because the SPR is only 1.25 and you're never drawing dead (maybe 20% equity vs a calling range?)

The EV of flatting is higher so yeah.
Flop cbet small and go from there he’s prob not a good player, but jamming flop and take our equity fine also.


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fold pre u r probably dominated, this hand is pretty but dangerous

curious to see your arguments/calculations to strengthen that claim.

I think jamming 25BB here is spewy. It's too big a jam unless HJ is opening super duper wide. I am not in love with 3 betting here either (it's ok depending on your image and HJ). Flat is also meh. You are going to get yourself into tough spots and you can easily be dominated. I can honestly see just pitching it.

I really think this is a range construction and strategy question. How are we playing these 25BB spots when facing an open? Are we always just 3bet shoving/folding? Do we have a strategy that contains some flats and/or some non-shove 3-bets? I think those factors really dictate where QJs would fit into your overall strategy here.

I use the 25% - 30% rule for my own play.

1) If my typical 3 bet sizing is less then 25% of the effective stack, I use the smaller sizing.

2) If my typical 3 bet sizing falls between 25% and 30%, I can either choose the smaller sizing or shove based on a hand to hand analysis.

3) If my typical 3 bet sizing is 30% or more of the effective stack, I shove.

Granted, there is always exceptions to these, but this covers I think about 95% of the situations.

Here to a min-raise, my typical 3 bet sizing would be to about 4.5BBs, which is 18% of the effective stack, so I would choose the smaller 3 bet with my range.

The OP 3 bet to 6BBs which represents about 24% of the effective stack, so he is reaching the point of small bet or shove choice. But it is still outside, so I would use the 6BBs instead of shoving.

I would lean towards flatting most v's but if I felt he was opening too much this can quickly become a good shove.

As played, sb cold calling a 3b like this with 27bb is pretty strong and depending on reads hes usually something like JJ+,AK maybe some TT and AQs/o on occasion. Thats generally a good board for that range and hes often at least calling once. With that in mind checking and seeing what he does ott is good.

Arguments and calculations will be all different depending if this spot is in a vacumn or not, OP hasn't specificed reads but there literally can be dozens of 'correct' ways to play the hand depending on this and stack/position dynamics.

Even tho a computer can't take these dynamics into account, I imagine hes saying that pio could be stating its slightly better.

Monker Solver.


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yeah mathematically and logically.
Even vs wide 4bet shove ranges we can`t 3bet/c wider than KJs/KTs+.
(I assumed HJ opened ~25%) and its waste of a cute hand to 3bet/f it.
3bet shoving would be +ev very often but barely optimal.

overbet shove otf is just dumb

Having TPTKs advantage and generally nut advantage you can bet really small quite freq-ly.
And Q-high w/ gs+bd seems a decent semi-bluff.
(maybe strong BD at this SPR makes it more of a check)

Not sure but I guess your real mix strategy hands are AQ,AJ.
I guess it depends on how we`ll construct SB cold-call range.

Is this not the perfect hand to bet/fold with ? Ten is only clean outs because opponents can easily have AJ or AQ . Don't think checking back is great at this spr . Would be better deeper where you could win a lot more if you hit the straight plus its more profitable to call a turn bet if you pick up a fd . At this stack depth you want to bet/fold the flop I think since you're supposedly the player with the AK AA KK in his range and I doubt you want to be bluffing here with AQ AJ or any A5s stuff ? You have that equity if someone calls your cbet you can potentially check back turn or continue the bluff by shoving turn.