PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 27 Tournament, 400/800 Blinds 50 Ante (3 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t8245)
SB (t10865)
Hero (BB) (t7890)

Hero's M: 5.84

Preflop: Hero is BB with 10, 9
1 fold, SB bets t1600, Hero calls t800

Total pot: t3350

Villain seems decent, running 25/12 over 120ish hands, and has opened up a little bit since we got 4 handed. He open raised 2x and folded once in the 2 hands bvb when folded around since 4 handed. My image is pretty tight for the most part.

You know I dont play 18mans. But if you think hes on a very wide range than just push, you still have FE. Calling leads to heavy trouble if you havent a plan for the flop and if he is decent he probably will bet any flop or close to it. If that would be the case you might profitable shove over his flopbet but you cant be sure how many flops he bets, so as said calling here leads to heavy headache IMO.

ya i may call and shove over a cbet on tons of boards

Everyone's opinion is very welcome ITT.

I do not think a push is profitable here... checked wiz, and he needs to be >65% open and calling pretty tight, or something like that.

We are getting a very good price, and I think there is a good chance we will have to give up on the flop, but there is also a good chance he will do the same. We have position, and an ok speculative hand. Play some pokers? Calling here doesn't really effect our FE either way and I am worried this guy will just run us over if let him take the blinds every time (read calling here might pay for itself over the next two rotations).

Castle- I like the call, then play poker after the flop. Make him suffer for building a pot then playing out of position post flop against you.

So... this is the flop.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 27 Tournament, 400/800 Blinds 50 Ante (3 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t8245)
SB (t10865)
Hero (BB) (t7890)

Hero's M: 5.84

Preflop: Hero is BB with 10, 9
1 fold, SB bets t1600, Hero calls t800

Flop: (t3350) 10, K, 5 (2 players)
SB bets t800, Hero raises to t1600

Total pot: t4950

i don't like the minraise on the flop. imo it says that you didn't hit your K.. so he could use that information, but i don't know how he plays.

if you're not planning to get it all in on this particular flop, then at least make it 2400 or something more believable. i know it's more expensive, and that you got to fold to a push.. but pokerwise that minraise won't do you many favors imo.

If he calls the MR STPR < 1... FWIW I can def see playing a K like this, because draws are unlikely because it is a HU pot at a 3 handed table.

if he knows that you would play a K like that, fair play. but when i'm the villain here, i immediately would assume that you didn't hit it.. more likely the T, the 5 or another PP, although you would've reraised these pre, most likely.

having said that, when i'm not hitting anything, and i got you on something, a T or worse, i'm folding to your minraise though.. because i wouldn't know wether i could bluff you out so maybe it won't make a difference.. at least without a proper read.

Really tough spot if he shoves... questioning the whole hand, hence posting it.

let me guess, he ignored your minraise and got it in with a better T, or something like that

Sorry Castle, but I dont get the playing poker with 10bbs part. You cant really do a lot postflop cause you are basically commited after any further bet. Minraising is kinda wierd cause it isnt a valuebet but also not a bluff. You kinda make it sound like your raising for information and raising for information is horrible, spewy or however you want to call it with 8bbs left. So whats your plan if he calls and bets turn again, on brick turn, on spade turn, A turn? What do you do if he shoves over? If you fold now with 40% of your stack already in you would have been better of just folding pre. Also if you want to call further bets/raises your raise strengthens his range a lot compared to just calling and letting him fire turn again. I kinda changed my mind for pre I can see merrits in it, but I really only see 2 ways to continue then. Thats shoving any missed flop/draw flop, and calling down almost any flop we hit.

good one. if i call with T9o i would like to get it on this flop against most opponents.

I planned to get it in on any brick turn. Bad turn, prob call turn shove and check behind. Prob calling a 3bet shove on the flop and not being too excited about it.

I don't know villains specific tendencies, but the min bet on the flop doesn't scream strength to me, and I don't think many people will bet a hand like K8/K9/K3 like this.. they will just be trying to get the chips in the middle. I can maybe see playing AK/KQ-KT, set, or AA like this. It seemed to me at the time as a weak attempt to take down the pot or a monster.

The weird thing about the MR here to me, is that if he folds the worst hand... say 65s, or A5o, Q9dd, he is actually getting the correct price to continue, but not continuing. So, it is not really a 'value bet' as much as for protection. By protecting our equity in the pot, we are actually getting value in some sense, because we are not losing 4950 15% of the time.

I think it is very hard to villain to continue with anything but a pair/FD/OESD or better here, since him calling the MR puts less than a pot behind in effective stacks. It may also induce him to shove worst, even though that would be pretty sick. I would expect to see higher flushdraws, QJ, and AA/sets/AK most of the time there tbh... which we aren't doing great against, but would have to call.

Again, I am not trying to 'say I am right,' but just trying to explain my thought process for criticism...

Hate a call here with under 10bb and an M of under 6. If you think the min-raise is a sign of weakness and that the raise is just bullying from the big stack, I say just get it in pre-flop. You have the most fold equity at this point in the hand, and your hand likely is live against the majority of his calling range.

Why play pokerz when you can ship pre?

fold pf>jam pf>flat pf imo

i don't like the call pf. if you're justifying a call by saying that we get to play our hand in position, this is flawed logic imo. we're almost always going to face a c-bet on the flop meaning we have to hit our hand to continue and our position means nothing.

also, to that end, i think if you're going to flat this raise, then you have to commit when you catch any piece of it. we know we're going to face a c-bet and if he's aggressive enough to mr us pre (which is why we're flatting), he's prob aggressive enough to lead any missed flop. flatting and folding when we've hit a pair would be awful imo.

Txxxx! (donk ittttttt)
Drunken strat post:

I can semi understand the defend to play poker and see the flop, and middle pair is pretty decent for us.
I would fold pre (slightly awesome hand like QTs or 78s more preferable, (but also flatting is fine, i'm good with seeing these flops 3handed too)
What is your "objective" with the minraise? Obviously you should have a plan...if he shoves, you call not being too excited..hmm...in this case I like the minraise, because it induces a ton of hands which we actually beat...but we have to minraise to induce, not to minraise to "dislike" a 4bet shove!
If I had to call pre, I flat and sceptically re-eval turn. I would check an overcard and call a river bet. I would check two undercards and raise a river bet. Transparent?
I wonder if opponent thinks we raise KK/AA/Sets like this? And do we??? We seemingly should be, to balance our range
Meh@"why play pokerz when you can ship it pre"...if you're very confident in your post flop game, you can read optimally v decent push/fold guys, who are shakey post.

Calling can be okay, but I prefer shoving since I think we still have FE.

I wouldn't mind flatting pre against a player with a higher pfr% after seeing them min-raise your BB once before. But against a 25/12 I would still just fold pre with 10 BBs.

I think if you had posted this hand as 6-max you would get lot more replies along the lines of "zomg don't flat pre you are wasting your chips on ze bubble!!!", even though the payout structure is almost the same in an 18-man when get down to 3 players.

I don't really like your thought process behind the min-raise postflop. I think it just bloats the pot without achieving much. You are encouraging villain to continue by giving them good odds to call the raise and at the same time you are showing enough strength by raising that I doubt villain gets all-in without something semi-decent. Most the time villain will just end up calling your min-raise on the flop and then they will fold unimproved on the turn if you bet again. Even if you are getting more chipEV value (which is debatable), it's still not going to be favored by ICM since you will end up getting stacked more often with this line.

Against someone with loser hud stats (i.e. the type of villain I might defend pre against) I would just be happily shoving over the flop min-bet. I prob flat call and re-evaluate vs this villain... but that is sort of irrelevant since I would have just folded pre.