Early in tourny, I had doubled-up 5 hands earlier when I 3b/called a 4b shove on flop with a straight flush draw and hit, so I might be seen as a bit wild, although there have been a couple of other double-ups at my table also, so kind of wild overall here. One of the double-ups is in this hand, so I am close to covered. I'm top 10 out of 300+.

Yatahay Network - 200/400 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

razldazl (MP+1): 103.47 BB
Colster (CO): 242.17 BB
Art Is Hard (BTN): 299.9 BB
TangoHotel (SB): 138.97 BB
downunder66 (BB): 270.91 BB
WCoastGrindz (UTG): 130.64 BB
PREK (UTG+1): 122.15 BB
rafa9559 (MP): 159.66 BB

8 players post ante of 0.1 BB, TangoHotel posts SB 0.5 BB, downunder66 posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.3 BB) downunder66 has Q Q

fold, PREK raises to 2 BB, rafa9559 raises to 6.72 BB, razldazl calls 6.72 BB, Colster calls 6.72 BB, fold, fold, Yatahay Network - 200/400 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

razldazl (MP+1): 103.47 BB
Colster (CO): 242.17 BB
Art Is Hard (BTN): 299.9 BB
TangoHotel (SB): 138.97 BB
downunder66 (BB): 270.91 BB
WCoastGrindz (UTG): 130.64 BB
PREK (UTG+1): 122.15 BB
rafa9559 (MP): 159.66 BB

8 players post ante of 0.1 BB, TangoHotel posts SB 0.5 BB, downunder66 posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.3 BB) downunder66 has Q Q

fold, PREK raises to 2 BB, rafa9559 raises to 6.72 BB, razldazl calls 6.72 BB, Colster calls 6.72 BB, fold, fold, downunder66 ????

Would you 4bet here to try and thin the field, or flat to reduce variance and play multi-way (assuming utg+1 folds or flats) given my good overall position? I'll post further action after initial discussion.

Micro stakes, crazy table, deep stacks, a few super capped ranges that cold called a 3b, and on top of all that we’re out of position? This is a slam dunk 4 bet 100% of the time imo.

Pile it in. Get called in three places, lose to 8-10, "but it was sooted." Welcome to micro stakes poker.

But you should still 4-bet.

It's a $2.50. 4-betting to something like 30-35 BB is fine. If you get 5-bet stuffed (which you might, as villains at these stakes almost never find 5-bet non allin) it's probably close and maybe a spot where we call against the smaller stacks and fold against the bigger ones.

So, Hero did decide to 4b, what next???


Yatahay Network - 200/400 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

razldazl (MP+1): 103.47 BB
Colster (CO): 242.17 BB
Art Is Hard (BTN): 299.9 BB
TangoHotel (SB): 138.97 BB
downunder66 (BB): 270.91 BB
WCoastGrindz (UTG): 130.64 BB
PREK (UTG+1): 122.15 BB
rafa9559 (MP): 159.66 BB

8 players post ante of 0.1 BB, TangoHotel posts SB 0.5 BB, downunder66 posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.3 BB) downunder66 has Q Q

fold, PREK raises to 2 BB, rafa9559 raises to 6.72 BB, razldazl calls 6.72 BB, Colster calls 6.72 BB, fold, fold, downunder66 raises to 32.21 BB, PREK calls 30.21 BB, rafa9559 raises to 159.56 BB and is all-in, fold, Colster raises to 242.07 BB and is all-in, [color=red]downunder66 ???

Colster stack size makes this quite tough , beat him and still have chunks,

Think I still fold here in a deep slow , we can find crazy good spots with this many chips and this one seems dicey at best

Just have to be at peace with them both showing up with AK at a fair clip

You have three options here:

1. Call and win.
2. Call and rebuy.
3. Call and go do something else with your time.

Frankly, I prefer option 1.

I think as played we fold now, if we were up against the 160BB stack I could see calling off being an option because AK is a thing here. But once you get the overjam from Colster we should be ok to fold, and yeah, sometimes this is AK and JJ in a $2.50 tournament but it won't be that often.

I'm more worried about rafa than Colster myself. 3-bet and a cold call and he's not 4-betting with AA/KK this deep?

Obviously this is crazy action, but I think, you have to close your eyes and call here. The reason is, that even if we assign everyone a range of just QQ+, AK, you actually have 31% equity against 2 such ranges and 24% equity against 3 such ranges. So whatever PREK does, you are making a clearly profitable call in the main pot having already invested 30BB. Unless of course we think, they are so tight, they can literally only have AA or KK, and that they would fold AK. Which I think very few people do early in a $2.5 MTT.

Then there is also a big side pot against Colster, which we need to consider. But I am just not buying, that he is only cold calling the 3-bet, when the action first gets to him, after someone else had already cold called, if he has KK or AA. This smells a lot more like TT-JJ, AK or even AQs. Or he could be recreational and have total nonsense and just want to gamble for his $2.5 buyin "investment". So I think, you are in great shape against Colsters range, and if he never has KK or AA, you also have even more equity in the main pot than the numbers, I calculated.

Fair, but I also think the 5-bet here from Colster is unlikely to be balanced (i.e., it probably doesn't have a lot of bluffs which here would be your AKo) and once this goes multi-way we're kind of screwed in terms of having enough equity against these ranges to call.

I've seen this 3-bet cold call/ backraise jam sometimes be TT-JJ enough that against rafa alone we can arguably go with it, but I do agree that this is AA/KK a lot too.

Rafa was the player 3-betting and then 5-bet jamming after facing a 4-bet from Hero. So rafa is the player most likely to have KK or AA. Colster was the player initially just cold calling Rafas 3-bet and then jamming over the top of Rafas 5-bet jam, since he covered Rafa. Even calling Rafas 5-bet would commit Colster against Hero, so I would not call this a backraise but rather a dubble flat, where he just made sure, there would not be some awkward dry sidepot to play postflop between him and Hero.

Ding ding ding! This was my thought as well (rafa being the primary threat). The other two are flatting 3bets & 4bets and are just dead money. It is because of this dead money that I decided to call, although I was doubting myself as I already had a very good stack and the tournament was deep & slow. Maybe should have found the fold and looked for a better spot. In conclusion:


Yatahay Network - 200/400 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

razldazl (MP+1): 103.47 BB
Colster (CO): 242.17 BB
Art Is Hard (BTN): 299.9 BB
TangoHotel (SB): 138.97 BB
downunder66 (BB): 270.91 BB
WCoastGrindz (UTG): 130.64 BB
PREK (UTG+1): 122.15 BB
rafa9559 (MP): 159.66 BB

8 players post ante of 0.1 BB, TangoHotel posts SB 0.5 BB, downunder66 posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.3 BB) downunder66 has Q:diamond: Q:spade:

fold, PREK raises to 2 BB, rafa9559 raises to 6.72 BB, razldazl calls 6.72 BB, Colster calls 6.72 BB, fold, fold, downunder66 raises to 32.21 BB, PREK calls 30.21 BB, rafa9559 raises to 159.56 BB and is all-in, fold, Colster raises to 242.07 BB and is all-in, downunder66 raises to 270.81 BB and is all-in, PREK calls 89.84 BB and is all-in

Flop: (773.77 BB, 4 players) T:heart: 2:heart: 4:spade:

Turn: (773.77 BB, 4 players) 9:spade:

River: (773.77 BB, 4 players) K:club:

Colster shows 6:heart: K:heart: (One Pair, Kings)

Main Pot [496.22 BB]: (Pre 12%, Flop 36%, Turn 20%)
Side Pot#1 [112.54 BB]: (Pre 13%, Flop 36%, Turn 20%)
Side Pot#2 [165.01 BB]: (Pre 27%, Flop 43%, Turn 25%)

downunder66 shows Q:diamond: Q:spade: (One Pair, Queens)

Main Pot [496.22 BB]: (Pre 44%, Flop 43%, Turn 65%)
Side Pot#1 [112.54 BB]: (Pre 53%, Flop 50%, Turn 70%)
Side Pot#2 [165.01 BB]: (Pre 73%, Flop 57%, Turn 75%)

PREK shows 7:heart: 7:spade: (One Pair, Sevens)

Main Pot [496.22 BB]: (Pre 17%, Flop 8%, Turn 5%)

rafa9559 shows K:diamond: A:club: (One Pair, Kings)

Main Pot [496.22 BB]: (Pre 27%, Flop 13%, Turn 10%)
Side Pot#1 [112.54 BB]: (Pre 34%, Flop 14%, Turn 10%)

Colster wins 165.01 BB
rafa9559 wins 608.76 BB


Believe it or not, even at the micro level, I don't usually see such wild play, especially with no bounties. We've all seen the odds of QQ up against a range of AA/KK/AK (QQ approx a 40/60 underdog). I thought the dead money made the call worth it, plus there is a decent probability that the flatters would share outs (A or K) with rafa's AK. But then I thought, in a higher buy-in, I'm not sure if I would call. I guess that thinking goes back to bankroll management - play in tournaments where you can afford a rebuy while you can still get a deep starting stack, which I did.

Thanks for the thoughts.

So basically the hand is a bad beat story. You got it in really good but then lost, when a bad card came on the river. After seeing, what two of them actually showed up with, I think, any question about your preflop decision is clearly answered. No we are not folding QQ preflop to these goofballs, when they can show up with 77 and even something as bad as K6s. As I wrote before, Colster could easily be a recreational player just wanting to gamble for $2.5 with random nonsense, and this is exactly, what happened.

I actually misread the action and thought Rafa flatted a three-bet.