Hey all, I don’t know which exact tourny this hand happened in and couldn’t find the HH to post in my massive log of hands.

Ok so it’s a Sunday and we are at end of long day. I’m prolly 5-10/ 150 left in let’s say a $11-22 big gtn event. I wanna say 130-140 were paid and we pick up AKdd in cutoff. I start hand with 380k at 2/4k. Villian is chipleader at table with 580k and opens utg+1 to 10k. I 3B to 23333 and he flats. Flop is AQ9 hhx. Villian checks and I lead 35-40% pot. Villian almost insta jams heaps. I don’t think quickly and don’t think he ever has me beat so I call right away and we run all 5

What was the average stack, how many small stacks were there at the table and left in the tourney?

If you guys were like #1 and #3 of 150, it's not that you played the hand horribly, it's horrible that you played the hand with this player.

I would guess I was 15/150 maybe. Not sure exact #s but Villian was chipleader by heaps after the hand. Maybe it’s a pass spot? Idk.

What was your logic for calling a 4x pot shove at this point of the tournament?

I doubt the min cash matters much here but are you playing to win money or just want to get your gamble on?

If Villian isn’t shoving two pair and sets from my vantage point, how are we gambling? I feel Villian can jam flush draws, straight draws, combos. I guess it is gambling but what if Villian has Aj with one heart or even one/two of these combos in his range with the one heart. Seems like we can make a case. Maybe it is just gambling but I feel this is an ok spot for heaps. Not sure it’s a good call but I also think we aren’t crushed ever here.

1. Its possible that Your view is not 100% accurate. No standard deviation on your vantage point?
2. You were 50/50 on this flop with V but you put your tournament life at risk, not him.
3. He is never crushed here, you could be. He is always live with a pair and a flush draw with this board.
4. You seem to be looking at the hand in a vacuum, without any consideration for being near the bubble, stack sizes, etc. let's assume, you had 6x average stack and he had 10x average stack, there are 15 stacks with half of average and this hand happened on the true bubble, do you see any issues then?
5. How many times out of a hundred do you think top pair top kicker is good against a competent player for 4x pot?

All very good points. Yea when I was about to press call, it felt odd. Hmm is there any other line we take in this spot? Ever flat initial raise or check back flop. I feel flop is almost always mandatory Cbet when we 3B kinda. I mean I would check back against a Villian with a smaller stack and Spr but this I felt we could go for more value.

With how you phrased last point, I agree this is most likely a fold.

Your 3-bet sizing is too small. Sure, you want him to call, but you also want to charge worse hands to draw (which you did not).

I’ve been messing around with going 2.3x in position in deeper stages of mtts. I don’t see point of going bigger. If I’m going to 3bet value / trashier hands .... we should probably stick to a uniform sizing and keep it small to allow for post flop maneuverability. Sure I will increase my sizing out of position or if say someone raises and is flatter in say 1-3 spots.

If we go bigger, we have to go bigger with all of our hands and bloat pots I feel. What type of sizing would you consider proper here? I just like to 3bet smaller. I’m going to be 3betting A2-5 suited/ and maybe some K5-2 suited combos in this spot as well. And do we really want Villian to fold pre? We kinda crush Villians range he is calling with.

If he’s calling Q8hh, he’s calling way too many poor combos. Q8hh alone is a bad open from ep.... let alone flatting a 3B pre oop.

I doubt .7-1.3bbs is the deciding factor of the chip leader in an $11 tournament.

The point of going bigger is to have more fold equity pre. Sure, 2.3x is enough to have fold equity when the initial raiser is say 15-25bb deep. But when you 2.3x a decent stack, they are going to continue 80+% of the time in my experience. That's why I like 2.8-3.2x, so that I can pick up more pots uncontested.

Again this is a great point. I tend to go based on what average stack is. I should look at what Villians stack size is. I wish I could find the hh so I could post it for exact #s. The amount the Villian piled on the flop was bonkers.

Yeah, raising bigger pre solves it- then you are only calling off a 3.7x pot size bet on the flop.

It’s basically how would you play if the cards were face up and what is your goal?

If you knew with 100% certainty (you knew his hole cards) his jam was a draw and your main concern was building a stack to run deep then it is a good call because you are getting your stack in as the favorite.

If your main goal is to cash because you are a tourney grinder and cashing is important to your long run strategy then you can pick a spot with more equity and fold here as opposed to risking your tournament life.

So call or fold can be correct. It is about what your goal is. I play for the top 3 when I play MTTs because I am a cash player. Min crashes annoy me. Feels like a waste of time because I can double up in a cash game a lot quicker than grinding out a tourney for 3-6 hours to reach the bubble. So in spots I think I am ahead I don’t care if it is the bubble or not I’m getting it in as the favorite.

Preflop sizing seems bad, particularly against chip leader raising light on the bubble. Almost no one raises that sizing even ip at high stakes now. You see a lot of raises of 3.5x or more. The 3-bet gives information, making it more likely you have both an ace and king and reopens the action, so I don't like doing it to make a small raise.

I would probably just flat call pre. It could be tricky playing a big pot if AK misses. Then you can often just call down postflop. A short stack might squeeze thinking the 2 big stacks are light. In that case, I would usually push, even if the opener flats or 4-bets.

You have to call the push on the flop. You actually were in about an even flip and you were getting significant pot odds. In this tournament situation, he is almost never pushing with anything that is a significant favorite. You shouldn't be playing for the mincash. The double up would have been huge.

There is no such thing as "you have to call the push on the flop" for your tournament life against the chip leader. For 4x the pot. With the 18th nut.

Actually, you have the 7th nuts. When he shoves like that on the bubble, does he want you to call? He must expect you will fold a lot. It is unlikely that he has 2-pair or a set. You are at worst flipping against a combo draw. ICM considerations are not that great at this point. If you can handle the emotional and financial swings regarding your tournament life, it is an easy call.

Against the sets with and without a bdfd. You are 2-7% to win
Against 2 pair combos (with and w/o bdfd) you are 17-30% to win
Against q-2 - q-j hearts, you are generally flipping if no bdfd

- so 7th nut is not accurate.

Your return is about 1.25 -1 depending on the actual flop bet lead amount.

I think we are probably both influenced by the posting of the early results but to call off here with a top 15, 95bb stack seems reckless.

7th nuts, AA, QQ, 99, AQ, A9, Q9, AK.

It doesn't matter that he posted the results. It is really unlikely the big stack is making a shove like that with a set or 2-pair.

And poof - to the rail...

And poof .. tournament leader.

Think with this specific dynamic I can get behind a flat pre, if we are going to raise we do want to go bigger as noted as we are very happy to get folds and/or narrow our opponent's range considerably.

As played it's gross, on one hand this is literally top of our range behind AA/QQ and we might even flat QQ sometimes. On the other it's hard to imagine villain blasting with too many draws especially when the Ah is on the board, and to the small 3-bet villain can easily have all the random 2p hands that would check/jam to try to stack our exact hand.

I'm ok with an exploitative fold if we think villain is underbluffing this spot. But if we believe villain has a reasonable understanding of tournament dynamics and think they might be leveraging their stack to put pressure on middle stacks, we probably just have to call even with ICM considerations simply because AK is too high in our range.

I notice you said you 2.33x as a 3bet size. Back then, did anyone else remember that was the new thing? I always wondered why i saw a 3bet size of like 2.3x to 2.5x back then and thought... that is way too small... its like giving the other player pot odds.


But then it changed back to around 3x as the default 3bet size now? I mean if stacks are say 10k and its 150/300... if a player raises to like 600 or 660 or 750, what is the default 3bet size if a player raises to say 660? Should it be 2.5x at least minimum in position? But really minimum should be 3x? Out of position, assuming like 30bb or more, it should be 3.5x minimum right?

I can def get behind flat pre here. I thought about it in game but decided against it due to how deep stacks were. Looking back, I may just flat. I like flat also, bc it allows a player behind to attempt a squeeze potentially bc my flat looks pretty damn weak.


And regarding the raise sizing pre. I tend to use same sizing with my whole range when I 3bet. I tend to 3bet bluff with hands such as A2-A5ss / and a few Kx suited hands. After doing this, I've found it to be insanely successful in mid to late stages especially in position. The A blocker is amazing and I can always Cbet fairly small on a flop if headsup and get a fold (like 33-40% cbet- depending on board texture). Its also nice to 3bet a hand where I can find a fold easily to a 4bet. Its not like a big hand where Im questioning whether to call or fold to a 4b.

When you are 5-10 in a big MTT near the bubble, min cashing should not be your goal. If you had won this pot, you'd have likely been chip leader with all the advantages that brings, especially near the bubble.

The time to nit up for the min cash is when you have a below average stack and doubling up does not add much to your equity.

Agree with the general philosophy of smaller 3 bets as we get later, but try to key your bet sizes off the effective stack, not the 'time' of the tournament. Here, you needed to go much bigger, imo.