Hi All,

Villian was the recipient of the table big stack spewing off his 350K stack on the 2nd level of the day. Chip leader opened from button to 2.5x, villain called in BB. Flop was T63 rainbow, villain c/r flop, c/c on a Q turn, and called off the triple barrel AI from the big stack on the 8h river with T5o. After witnessing this & multiple other hands over the next few levels, I thought villain was sticky when catching anything post-flop, but generally tight-passive pre-flop (since he didn't open very often & folded to every 3-bet he faced)

The hand in question occurred late in level 22, 8-handed with blinds at 2000-6000-12000.

Hero (Lojack): 230K
Villian (BB): 450K

Action folds around to hero, who opens to 2.5x with ATo. Everyone folds to the Villain in the BB, who calls after some deliberation (typical of his timing, nothing out of the ordinary).

Flop: Ac7s4s (pot 84K).

Villain checks & hero bets 45K.

Villain raises AI.

Did I butcher this hand? Can I get away from top pair with 12BB behind in a 15BB pot?

After mentally replaying this, my alternative options were to:

1) fold pre-flop: (but table wasn't 3-betting very often) and we were 7 minutes away from a blind increase that would have left me with 10-14 BB.

2) Open to smaller sizing & c-bet a smaller sizing: (I don't think would have made much of a difference, other than to preserve 1BB).

2) check back flop: (maybe this was a way-ahead/way-behind situation where I should have been looking to pot-control & re-evaluate on later streets).

1)I'm raising SUPER wide with this villain in the BB.

2)Open size is good, could even go 3 or 3.5x if he's defending T5o to 2.5x and going bananas post.

2(3?))Absolutely not. This player is clearly a station. Value town his ass.

4)Please tell me you called his shove (Sorry he beat you).

IMHO we should not see your reasoning through a vacuum but more through the effective stages of the tournament. How many left, how close to the money? etc... I mean, for sure, his range could imply 65o aswell as gs and fd but still... So what did you do?

Thanks for the insight guys.

Deep in the money. 78 left out of 3052.

I called. He rolled over AQo. Turn & river bricked out.

Lean towards folding pre, ATo wouldn't be in my RFI range from the lojack normally so I'm not sure why we'd want to open it here.

I think betting small and checking are both reasonable on the flop, ATo should be one of our worst Ax here and having some Ax that we can check-call down is fine. I also think betting is fine because the SPR here is pretty small and we should be ok with stacking off with top pair.

One of the draw backs of playing short stack (tournament) poker is spots like this are unavoidable. ATo isn't great but I don't think we can open fold it from LJ when folded to us. Open size is good. Flop bet is standard, and when he jams we don't like it but gotta go with it. Maybe we can fold to some very nitty/face up players who are under defending their blinds, but we probably out-kick a lot of the Ax hands this guy defends with.

PS: Not 3betting AQ from SB vs. a LJ open on a 20bb stack seems criminal to me. He has good equity vs your open range here and needs to jam to pick up the pot/realize said equity. Is he seriously ever folding post?

Without pulling a chart, I would imagine jamming 19BB with AT from LJ is +cEV, so fold pre shouldn't be an option, right?

If it's +cEV, it's probably just barely.

Nothing I see that could have been done differently here against the villain you described. You opened a pretty decent hand from late position, got a call from a loose player, and hit top pair with less than 20 BB's. Nothing really more to say than, GG.

Thanks. That's my takeaway too. Felt pretty standard, but wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything.

I'd would've been down to 9bb within 16 hands if I folded pre-flop & wasn't sure that I'd be able to find a better spot.

What would be your estimation for standard liveament player calling ranges here?