$530 buy-in progressive bounty

There's under an hour of late reg left and starting stack is 25bb.

I have literally just moved to this table so have no info on anyone here

Blinds 500 / 1k

UTG opens to 2k (30k)
HERO A K MP1 calls 2k (47.6k) [bounty $312.50]
SB Calls 2k (47.7K) [$187.50]
BB Calls 2k

My thinking was that by flatting I might induce a squeeze from behind and, if not, I still had position on the original UTG open. I didn't want to potentially go to war pre vs UTG range with 36bb, but, unfortunately there's no squeeze and both blinds complete.

FLOP (9K) 7 5 K

Checks round to hero in position BET 3.2K
SB raises to 9K
others both fold
HERO calls 5.8K

I think I play this quite well; my hand is massively under-repped and I can get value from worse Kx, as well as some 88-QQ (although most of that is UTG range). Multi-way I'm mostly checking back top pair but when I have top top and my hand is under-repped I think I can bet and keep my range balanced.

Villain's raise is small, 5.8K to win 27k is an easy call, or at least I'm obviously never folding. But it sets up a weird SPR on turn after I call - POT is 27K, both me and villain have 36K left. I don't think raising is too clever as I doubt worse Kx raises here and then calls a 3! - plus at least some portion of his KQ / KJ squeezes pre. If he has a draw I want to let him keep firing so calling feels the best way to continue.

TURN (27K) J

Villain tanks and shoves all in 36k
HERO ????

What is this line? Does he ever play his sets like this? I doubt it, but some KQ squeezes pre, we now lose to KJ, KT/K9/K8 probably doesn't raise flop and then take this line on the turn, I guess he has all the 2 pairs; I only have KJ as a 2 pair holding here but on the J he shoves, I doubt he turns 88 - QQ into an overpot shove on turn unless he has specifically JJ and turned trips.

So beyond 75 / K7 / K5 / 55 / 77 / JJ - some of which we block - I can't see much value here that plays the turn this way when a smaller bet would set up a river shove that is hard for me to get away from.

He can have plenty of 86 / 64 / maybe some 89 / maybe some KQ / KT that just flatted pre and chose to be aggressive on the flop (but unless this guy is a maniac or drastically overvalues top pair muti-way, I think that's highly unlikely).

Any thoughts on how I played flop (my initial sizing or whether a 3! is as bad a play as I think?) And obviously your thoughts on the turn would be greatly appreciated

Not much you can do now but call it off. I do like flatting pre - I think SB is easily wide enough to make up for the times we run into sets.

^ +1. Excatly my thinking, he's way too wide to fold -- yeah we might run into a set/2-pair, but I don't think we can get away from this hand. He also might play Kxdd or something like 68dd this way too.

I ran through the hands I thought he could have through Equilab and I was a 53% favourite on pure cEV. I feel that he isn't randomly 3-betting any 2 here OTF with 2 players (inc. the initial UTG raiser) behind him.

However his turn bet didn't look like value here at all. I'm not overly upset that I folded here, but I think was a call as you guys say.

I'm wondering whether the flop would have been a good spot to check behind, again further under-repping my hand and comfortably being able to bluff-catch/get 2 streets of value if they all check round to me again?

This is a call, plenty of semi bluffs on the turn that he could have. Too bad u dont cover him by only 1k, that bounty would’ve made it much sweeter to call.

Raise pre. As played, ranges are wide(r), fold.

V is in SB and has all the two pair combos in his range. When he x/r flop and jams turn there is a pretty good chance you are already behind on flop. Unfortunately he can also take the exact same line with all his semi-bluffs which makes it a bit harder to fold. Raise pre is definitely the better line, I don’t understand the logic of not wanting to go to war vs UTG and trying to induce a squeeze from blinds at the same time. So you flat and then someone tries to squeeze, and then what? You hope UTG just folds to the squeeze and you get to swoop in and blow the other guy off the hand? Not 3 betting in that spot just seems really bad.

Thanks for posting.

'I don’t understand the logic of not wanting to go to war vs UTG and trying to induce a squeeze from blinds at the same time. So you flat and then someone tries to squeeze, and then what? You hope UTG just folds to the squeeze and you get to swoop in and blow the other guy off the hand? Not 3 betting in that spot just seems really bad.'

I really appreciate this. I hadn't even realised that my thought process here was so contradicted, so thank you for pointing it out. I guess this highlights a couple of leaks in strategy that then leads to errors/mistakes/awkward spots.

I guess I was hoping for a squeeze, if not keep the pot small against a strong range pre - which is obviously kind of dumb with a hand as strong as AK.

Many thanks