Hi, all.

I’m looking for the advice on the interesting hand I played in the 100K guarantee MTT on ACR, $20 buy-in. Also, please let me know in the comments what hand did the villain have in your opinion, and would you play it differently.

This hand came up early in the tournament during the Level 3, Blinds were 800/1600, no ante. Starting stack 100K in chips. I had about 81K in chips, the villain about 73K effective stack. Villain raised UTG+1 to 4K, I was in the cutoff with AsKh.

I re-raised to 10K, he calls. Other players fold. Flop AJ9 rainbow, one heart. instead of standard play of checking to me out of position, he bets half pot, 12K. I decided to just call. Turn is the 10 of hearts. he bets another 12K into 48K pot. I called again. River 7d. The board reads AJ9T7. No flush possibility. He bets really small, 18K into 72K pot,and I looked him up.

I had no read on the guy, since it was early in the tournament. I played this hand cautiously, other strategy would be to jam the flop or the turn to protect the hand against draws or get value from the hand like AQ. The rebuy period was still on even if I’m wrong I could still re-enter and have 50+ BB starting stack.

What hand do you think the villain most likely had and how would you play it? If his range is too wide , please let me know so I can create a poll with hand choices.

Thank you

He played it so strangely/unconventionally it’s tough to range him, but for the fun of it I’ll guess JQhh

45BB deep in third level no ante?? I don't play ACR but can I chk that first up? makes a big difference.

if 45BB is correct, then it's just a weird hand. UTG shouldn't have any donks. but given the low SPR i'd just shove AKo over his flop donk (equity denial more than value v AQ etc).

his open/call range UTGvCO is so wide and his donk so non-standard that putting him on any specific hand is a waste of time.

I completely agree with oldsilver’s assessment that his range is so wide here because the preflop 3 bet was so small based on the stack sizes and pot size that he was had pot odds to call with any 2 cards, his holdings do not have to be premium hands like AQ in the beginning of the MTT, although it is still possible . I’ll narrow it down to 5 choices. Each choice had either AQ, drawing hands (choices 2-3) or the hands that had aces up or better by the river, (choices 4-5) . Back door heart draw is irrelevant .

1 AQ.
2 98 suited. (No hearts).
3. QJ suited( not hearts), QT,suited.
4. JT, T9, AT, , A7, A8, suited. ( no flush draw) or TT( villain got there on the turn or river).
5. AJ, JJ, or 99, ( villain has improved on the flop)

Sorry, I updated the list of hands to 4 choices. Because the possible hand range is so wide, please pick the number from 1-4 if you were playing the hand . The way I played it would be justified if my opponent had the hands listed in the choice 4. I was going to fold to an all-in bet on the river. There is just not enough bluffs in his range in choice 2 to call it off with AK. Also, He will not be shoving the river with AQ with 4 card str8 on the board.

I’ll stick with option 3. It’d be a weird way for him to play Q10 but I can see a weirdo taking that line.

But, once you identify a player as unconventional or donkish (hesitant to use that word, just because maybe he’s in a whole other level lol) then it’s hard to get into his thought process and really any of the hands you mention could be possible.

Also, I don’t use a converter either with my ACR hands, but you can make the hand easier to read and that would help posters in their analysis. It’s hard to go back and parse through the paragraphs. Just a headsup.

PT4's hand viewer/replayer has an option to give you forum-friendly hand history output--whether you're using that database or another, it shouldn't be hard to get it converted and make it clear / readable.

Also 3-bet larger preflop.

I appreciate the input, guys. Sorry, I’m new to this forum. Will make sure to import the hands from the PT4 tracker hand database in my next post.

I have reviewed the HH again, actually, all tourneys at ACRs have ante, It was $200 from each player, 8 handed, $1600 total in antes + $2400 in blinds combined = $4000 in the pot before the preflop action started. I apologize for misreporting the hand, next time will import it directly from the HH database .

Yea I agree with Nath here. The hand seems kinda standard post I feel? 3betting 2.5x just seems kinda meh if you ask me. Make it 3-4x here. Think it’s a big mistake to not get min 3x here in position with AK.

Post I like calling. If you jam, you let villian fold when he’s behind and call when he has sets, 2pairs. We wanna keep bluffs in.

Villian can easily have AJ suited and maybe J9suited (a fold pre but probably close enough to a call when suited). If villian has AQ, you can just let him blast his stack to you or big draws such as q-10, etc.