Poker Stars $25.00+$2.50 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t1250/t2500 Blinds + t250 - 9 players -
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CO: t130225 M = 21.70
BTN: t10911 M = 1.82
SB: t179408 M = 29.90
BB: t28238 M = 4.71
UTG: t24837 M = 4.14
UTG+1: t139531 M = 23.26
UTG+2: t149551 M = 24.93
MP1: t41900 M = 6.98
Hero (MP2): t196617 M = 32.77

Pre Flop: (t6000) Hero is MP2 with A J
4 folds, Hero raises to t5875, 2 folds, SB raises to t14625, 1 fold, Hero calls t8750

Flop: (t34000) 3 6 5 (2 players)
SB bets t19560, Hero calls t19560

Turn: (t73120) T (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t23375, SB calls t23375

River: (t119870) 4 (2 players)
SB checks,

we both played std poker (20/15/9), some weird hands went to showdown on both sides but nothing crazy. no dynamics between us. both mostly chipping up vs the weaker players. ~100 hand sample. way ITM and FT is far away so no real ICM complications.

thoughts on each street welcome.

Nice river, once you take this line.

I dont see how calling on Flop leads to jamming River. I think i often have the Best hand + position

And why are we betting ott ?

Because we cant raise.

its legit comment I think.
I don`t think you should worry about protection and if you bet trying to fold out better ott or jamming good river cards like this one then you`re overbluffing.

fold flop?

given lack of dynamic/weak players at the table flop float seems kind of unnecessary/spewy, especially vs. that sizing...also J bdfd will be dominated by V's bdfd's that bet/barrel so it's not like super helpful to our equity

riv is a jam as played...outplayu is correct, we can't be floating this flop if we're just going to check down later streets that help our range...and riv is obv good for us and not good for V

the whole line doesn't really make sense, if we're often ahead on the flop hence our float, why are we betting turn? also why such a tiny sizing? think 30k would be better...this sizing is just small enough that he might peel with AQ/AK since you don't rep much on this board and turn is a blank that brings the double f draw making your stabbing range just that much wider

what 3! range do you give him?

my initial thoughts are fold the ****ty AJo to the 3!, or if you sense bs just 4! 2.2x and fold to 5!

can't see any need or reason for a levelling war here when you're both accumulating easily. just keep doing that and stack him with AA>AK on the FT.

Maybe i should not have posted my actual hand or posted the hand from villains pov.
This is imo pretty interesting. He does not have many valuehands in his range on 6high when I have a blocker and him cbetting means nothing with these positions and his sizing us std we can't read anything into it.
Folding flop seems awful to me.

his sizing is not that standard imo. on this board Hero's range is a bunch of broadways and pocket pairs, and most of the broadways (K high and Q high especially) will fold to a c-bet no matter the size, whereas our pocket pairs are peeling no matter the size. so I think it's more appropriate from his pov to go like 13-15k vs. that range. I would expect this >1/2psb sizing he used here to be more weighted toward overpairs as opposed to just the standard sizing he uses with his whole range (though maybe you have reads to the contrary).

i'm confused what range you put him on (you say you have no dynamic with him) that would make folding flop "awful". for one thing, we have no reason to think he's light preflop, for two, he's using the aforementioned large-ish bet sizing, and for three, a decent portion of his range should be AK/AQ and though it might make sense to c/c those otf some ppl just c-bet their entire range OOP. peeling flop and checking down vs. AQ here is obv. a bit of a disaster.

you only responded to one part of my post, i'm curious about the whole line, the extent to which I like or dislike floating flop depends partly on how we play later streets

don't understand this at all, AJ seems standard peel even w/o dynamic IP vs. a competent V, and if we sense bs why re-polarize by 4b when we have position?

Ok here are my thoughts on the hand.

Preflop: we both were semi-active (mixing up flatting/3betting. Std openening ranges. Defending blinds) and did not play big pots. I knew he can 3b me light here since my opening range is at least 20-25% here. As said we both had hands at showdown that are not in the top25% or close.
With position the only valid preflop action is calling the 3b.

Flop: 6 high and mostly misses both players. I have a FD blocker/backdoor equity to peel and see what he does on later streets. Since he can be light I don't have a capped range postflop. I don't need to 4b the top of my range. I don't need to 4b/f A8o or w/e here. So when I just call on flop I can still be reasonable wide. He might supect me to fold maybe half of the time. Broadways with no diamond and most Ax have to fold.
So my range for peeling consists of all pairs all draws and some floats as from above type of hands (which is the minority). So I was tempted to raise on flop but my hand seemed strong enough to call with position. I don't get folding and didn't see an argument in this thread yet. This floptexture is easy to play in position on a hu pot and I think I will won this hand at least 1/3 times since he did not show the tendecy to run big bluffs yet.

Turn: I was going to fold on this card since it did not improve my hand and can easily have hit it with AT/etc or have the obv big pair that bets again. Furthermore in his eyes this is not a scarecard for my range of pairs/draws. The fds with two overs often improved and pairs are not scared of a T in a 3b pot. So I was going to fold vs any betsize and look for softer spots since I expected him to play straightforward here without much/any history between us.
Why did I bet turn? Because I think he is weak here more often than not and I can win a pot with A high. Also the hands that are perceived to call otf are not scared to bet here for value/as a semibluff. So its an obv bet if you think in ranges and not in actual handstrenght. My range is stronger so I bet.
Why did I bet so little? Why do I need to bet 7k more?!?! He is not going to c/f hands like AKdd or 99. And if he has A8o/whatever light 3bets will he really continue here? So I save some chips and my bet has to work less often. If he was going to c/r I can't call obv so I lose less chips there as well

I will post river action later. But its obv that I don't give him many strong hands after he checked turn and just called vs this betsize.

so you're saying you have no 4b range here? that seems a bit dubious, we want to be 4b/gii with QQ+ AKs, missing value if we don't.

this doesn't make much sense to me, particularly bolded part...except for AK/AQ we're only folding out worse when we bet here so what's the point of stabbing when we have OCs to the board and don't really need protection if we expect to be able to check down and win at SD a good amount vs. his range?

yeah equity denial seems such a minor consideration here, not folding out better, value too thin etc

AJ r/c pre is fine given reads but a little further background in OP would be good.

I haven't had 4b yet and why would I 4b AA if I think he can be light here.

If I check turn I rep less hands otr In case he calls. On blanks I might valuebet my good pairs/set. On cards that complete the draws I might bet those. He just does not know. That's why its an obv valuebet with my range vs his and therefore I have to bluff with the best hand here sometimes. Which is a great result imo.
Checking behind tells him alot about our handstrenght and he might decide to bluff with A8/whatever. But I think that's a minor concern here.

Given how deep we're playing effectively the flop hits our range better than it hits villains range, and the wetness of it favors us more as the IP player.

Why do we have to think we're ahead to call otf?

The most interesting decision for me is what we should be doing ott after villain checks. Given Furo's description of the gameplay up to this hand I have doubts villain is going out of his way pre to mess with us in this spot and his 3b range should comprise mainly of value 3b's. Because of this there shouldn't be too many hands in his range that we're beating with AJ-high. When we float on the flop it can't just be because we think we're ahead sometimes. After villain checks turn then we should attack it. Otherwise I feel our flop call is speculative at best. A turn bet can fold out villains broadway Aces a decent amount of the time, but we need to still be prepared to barrel good scare cards for when he calls (The 4d qualifies as a good barrel card, obv). The fact that we might win at showdown some small percent of the time should be of little consideration (we win when we check and we should win when we bet), and we should be focusing on the fact that we have a prime opportunity to bluff villain off a chunk of hands that we're losing to at showdown.

This actually makes a lot of sense Ralph. It's likely that AJo is behind V's 3B range unless we have a reason to believe otherwise. But if he's playing std it's unlikely that wide OOP 3bets are a big part of his range. A 4B or fold here is almost always better than a flat, even having position. The fact is that there are not a lot of flops we are super happy with and we are going to miss a lot and not be very sure where we are at in the hand and make a lot of mistakes. 4B here allows us to fold out lots of pairs like 10s and under (which are a big part of his range) as he won't want to play these hands out of position for such a big pot. Also, we block some better Ax combos and he may fold AQ here. We are putting him in a position to stack off or fold here which I like at this depth.

we don't...but we do need to be cognizant of how many/which combos we're floating otf and how we are going to play the whole game tree. it's not that I don't understand the flop call it's the combination of flop call and turn bet that I don't get...

I don't get why we have to "bluff" the turn w/A high when our hand has a ton of SDV vs. V's range. Even if V's 3b pre range is value-ish/not out-of-line, once he checks this turn his range is quite weak. Probably the strongest hand that takes this line as V is a weak Tx like JTs, and even Tx probably continues turn for value + protection. He probably doesn't 3b 77-99 pre so we can exclude those, and while he might have 76s that's a tiny part of his range.

"We win when we check and we should win when we bet" well sure, but it doesn't seem logical to just stab turn with our whole flop call range...I mean it's not terrible in this particular spot just bc V is c/f this turn at a very high frequency but in general it's not great from a theory standpoint. If we're going to float flop with all OCs + backdoor/bet turn with all unpaired hands/bluff riv scare cards we're going to make it super profitable for Villain to bet flop/c/c turn/c/c riv with JJ-AA bc our range is just wide open.

that's literally the reason...you 4b AA bc he thinks you think he can be light here. assuming you want to have some sort of bluff 4b range here you can't flat AA to the 3b and not lose a ton of credibility with your 4bets. ofc it's not mandatory to have a 4b range but generally vs. someone who can be 3b light it's going to be higher EV for your whole opening range to have a 4b range.

He does not know that I know tho... Beeing two levels ahead is -EV.
Anyway.

Good river to valuebet with my range. So I "valuebet" 45k and he snapfolded. Not sure why everyone wants to overjam river

fold pre the first time. bad open

thx

OK, but you're kind of making an assumption about what he thinks (if he's aware enough to 3b you light why is he not aware you can 4b light?), and either way there's still a lot of pure value in 4betting strong hands...I just don't get why you would flat AA here, like almost regardless of the opponent, unless you have very good reason to believe it's going to be higher EV bc he folds to 4bets a huge amount and/or spews off postflop in 3b pots OOP or whatnot. But that scenario is pretty rare I think.

You're right, the smaller sizing is very appropriate with your overall range. NH

This is what I was thinking. AJ is not that strong vs a straight forward tag 3! range when you are opening from the position you did. If you think he is 3! wide enough that AJ is a flat then it should also be profitable 4!, Also we have seized initiative and has decent raw equity if called with position. Anyways if you feel you have to only flat AA for value it probably means we can be 4b more so this isn't the case. perceived as loose enough that you can set up to 4b your aa,kk and get action from it and stacks in lighter.

Also not in love with the flop flat, it's basically a pure float and we can hit a lot of hands that make us 2nd best vs his 3b! range. What reason do we have to assume he is cbetting wide and will chk fold turns? Maybe you feel obligated to float a certain amount b/c you called the 3b but you don't have to win everypot and this doesn't seem like the best spot to take. Also you mention he seems fairly solid and you are both chipping up from easy spots at the table so this seems unnessary. It probably also makes it less likely he is light in the first place. What would you do with most of your made hands here? I think we can just raise his cbet on the flop and barrel a tonne of wet runouts if we are trying to outplay him post. I think this is what we are doing with our strong hands and combo draws anyways no?