Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $20(BB) Replayer
SB ($4,730)
BB ($5,000)
Hero ($5,300)
UTG+1 ($5,040)
UTG+2 ($4,970)
MP1 ($4,820)
CO ($5,000)
BTN ($5,050)

Dealt to Hero K K

Background: It's the beginning of the tournament, but in the previous 3 hands I had a rush of cards: AQs, AA, AKs. I've raised with them preflop, with the AA I've also pushed a lot of chips in the pot after the flop so people were seeing me as a LAG I think.

Hero raises to $80, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN calls $80, SB calls $70, BB calls $60

BTN seems like a decent player, SB seems he is a weak player, on the BB absolutely no info, he just got moved to the table.

FLOP ($320) 4 Q J

SB bets $80, BB raises to $240, Hero raises to $1,290, BTN folds, SB raises to $2,740, BB folds, Hero raises to $5,220 (AI), SB calls $1,910 (AI)

TURN ($9,860) 4 Q J 7

RIVER ($9,860) 4 Q J 7 T

whats the buyin?
getting it in on this flop is just horrible

The buyin? 10$. So you're saying calling the re-raise on the flop was better?

The villan is basically commited (he has more than his stack in) turn is a blank 7, if I don't shove he will on the turn and I have to call.

So, any opinions?

Let's look at the raise to $1,290. What is your goal--are you trying to get value from worse hands, are you trying to make people fold, what? How well do you think that bet size is going to accomplish that goal? Importantly, look at the board texture and think about what kinds of hands are going to continue to that big of a raise.

Also, what does that raise do to your perceived hand range? If your opponents are thinking players, what kind of hands will they think you have? Because that's a really strong raise.

You have an over pair to the board, but think about what kinds of hands are going to stack off for 200BB, and how well you do against those hands.

I think I'm putting too much credit on my reads. My read here is that SB either has a weak Q, air, or a straight draw. He's been a really loose player, I was expecting him to call out of position with suited connectors and any big cards like KJ, KT, QT, etc.)

The big blind probably called the raise because of pot odds, and now figuring as I did that the small blind has probably a weak hand he's thinking he might bet him out of it, or at least remain heads up with him in position.

My re-raise is to 1) protect my hand against draws, end it right here (the button is still to act, he might decide to hang in with his KTs for a chance at the broadway, both him and the BB might have pocket pairs and might be trying out for a set if they didn't hit yet) 2) get more money in case someone has played AQ, AJ or KQ here. Remember the button is still in the hand, and he probably just called because 80 out of 5000 is nothing and he had position on all of us.

As it turns out the SB had a backdoor flush draw with a weak J5 so he cracked me :|

Obviously losing my stack here to J5 is not a happy thing, but I'm wondering if I really have done something wrong or it was pure bad luck. Even if I just call the 240, the SB wasn't going to go away on the turn, god knows what the BB had ... now that he also had a flush draw, I was stacking on the river anyway.

One mistake I think I have done was raising to 80 only. I should have made it a lot more. Given the fact that I had been raising (legitimately) for the past 3 hands, I could have forced someone into believing I'm just a maniac and reraise me, and stack it off preflop. But in general you don't get the KK after getting AA, AQ, AK consecutively so I'm going to overlook that mistake.

I think given your image and your read on the sb, it's played fine. What more can you ask for then to get it all in agains j5.

Eh, Im starting to second guess all my decisions after reading another Harrington volume And I've been getting out in the first few hands 3 days in a row in the 10$ superstacks with AA, KK ... so

He made a new book? Does he even play online?

Agreed.

When you 3-bet this flop, especially with this size, the hands that stick around are generally crushing you.

Forget about the actual results, they couldn't matter less. I'd call BB's flop raise and see what happens. Getting in 240BB seems incredibly bad.

But.... no.

KK is a one-pair hand.

You have > 200BB effective stacks.

You would have had the best position in the hand if you got to the river.

If you think you're "stacking on the river anyway," then that's pretty bad. Yeah, you're losing some chips in this hand no matter what, but planning to always stack off if you got to the river is not good. You're basically saying that every time you play this hand, you're going to lose the maximum when you have the worst hand.

Yea I understand. But in this case, the fish has a pair he will push all the way with it. Fish sees my check/small bet on the turn as weakness and he just gets it in. I can't understand how I can avoid stacking? Fold to the fish on the river?

Believe it or not, Cigaro's post was pretty information dense. Appearances can be deceiving:

-- Getting it in on the flop is terrible.

The more money you put in on a single street, the narrower your opponent's hand range becomes. Yes, you would like to stack off with your hand, but you want to do it against a wide range of worse hands. When you 5-bet the flop you're giving any decent opponent tons of opportunities to fold worse hands and stay in with better ones.

You're making your hand completely obvious: you're obviously not bluffing. Clearly he's doing this with some sort of made hand as well. So in the spectrum of made hands from bottom pair to top set, where does your hand lie?

-- Getting it in on this flop is terrible.

This is not a drawy flop. There aren't many hands either of you could be semi-bluffing with. When a flop presents many possible straight and flush draws it's entirely possible for one or both players to be pushing their draws hard, so it makes sense to play fast. But on a relatively dry flop QJx you just don't see people overplaying KT or AK as much, nor do you see them defending with middle pair or TPWK because the chance that you are pushing a draw is similarly lower.

If you're going to stack off you need to do it on multiple streets, and maybe you shouldn't be looking to play for stacks anyways with just one pair. Perhaps half his stack is a more reasonable goal.

I may be a huge nit but I just fold the flop when it gets to me....well ok maybe I call and pray no one re-raises.

no you are not.
flop is a fold, if you cant fold just call and fold OTT and then rethink your flop action

To the 240 raise???

yea me too without reads. As they say "AA/KK will win small & lose big pots", this is very true especially multiway that deep.

edit: meh, its a 10$ tourney, not really sure about folding then.

I think op made good play and got ul vs fish.

Should you fold KK on this board? I think personally it's out of the question. If board was like AQx or Axy and fish bets, gets reraised I will fold.

But when fish might be betting with a J, someone might have QT or something (BB he only had 60 to put in to play) so he reraises the fish, I can't just CALL. I'm giving pot odds for the fish to call (although he probably doesn't know that) and QT can still lay around hoping for a lucky turn / river.

I like the input from jkugelman, makes it more clear what Cigaro wanted to say. You both have good points.

Question: should we follow a particular read that we got on opponents (ie if I knew the first guy wasn't a fish I wouldn't have reraised) or play the math/standard play in the beginning of the tournament?

And another one: Would the hand be different if this were deeper in the tournament (say antes involved)?