~43k effective at 200/400/400

utg+1 - limp 400
utg+2 - limp 400
utg+3 - raise 2,000
Hero CO - 3bet 8,000 with AsQh
fold, fold, fold, fold
utg+2 - call
utg+3 - call
Pot: 25,000

Flop: AcKd8h
check, check, Hero - 7,000
fold, call
Pot: 39,000

Turn: Tc
Board: Ac Kd 8h Tc
utg+3 - Donks all in for ~26,000

Weird SPR but I did not expect to get two calls pre-flop. I later found out that UTG +2 was just literally not going to fold anything pre-flop so I should have expected her to come along. I'll share result and my thought process if anyone cares. Usually these live events don't have too many interesting spots, but this was one imo

Seems like a pretty easy fold to me. Sooooo many nutty hands in villain's range there.

Given the action, what hands?

If I'm reading the action correctly, villain raised over a couple of limpers, called your 3b OOP, x/c flop, then donk-shoved turn for 2/3 pot.

Villain could easily have AK/AT/QJ/88.

What do you think villain plays this way that you beat?

The only hand I was really worried about was AK. The way these live fields play, he would never raise QJ or 88 pre-flop there. AT is a big maybe. Plus I block all of those hands except 88.

I was actually thinking he was either bluffing with AQ/AJ/JJ, or value betting with AK.

Anyway, I called and he had AQ also. Was a pretty sick spot for the usual stuff that happens in these events.

KcQc and KcJc come to mind - some other pair / draw hands possible as well.

Why would villain donk-shove turn with those hands when the board smacks Hero's range?

Clearly I'm not familiar with this field. That's some odd play going on there.

It's pretty good. To give you an idea of ho soft it is, I got showered in hilarious fasion shortly after at 300/600:

limp, limp, raise to 4,000, cold call, cold call, I wake up with KK in the sb with 39,000 behind and the pot already being 17,000 I decide to ship. Everyone folds except the utg+2 player in my original HH who was the first cold caller in this hand. She goes "alright let's go" and calls me with 9Tss for 60bb

It's a live $350, you're not going to see a lot of theoretically optimal play here.

LOL, this reminded me of a $1200 main event a couple of years ago here that went really badly for me. (get KK, BB defends, flop 33x, he has 3x; get AA once and someone else has the other AA; squeeze light with J9s and someone behind wakes up with KK and I'm priced in, etc.) Anyway, the hand in question involved an OMC who was limping a lot and playing a ton of hands and had gotten short. After a couple of people including him limped, I popped it with AKo, it folds to him and he decides to limp-shove with the mighty T9o. He got there, of course (see above "went really badly for me").

Fold pre. Live players aren't good enough to squeeze with weaker hands than yours.

I might also check the flop as we're unlikely to get three streets of value and there is a good possibility we have been smooth called by AK or even AA/KK (which is obviously terrible but some players will do it). If it's checked to me again I will bet, if it's bet I will likely call down unless the sizing is huge.

Turn I probably fold though donk bets from this player type can be pretty weird. Depends almost entirely on prior reads.

Interesting thoughts.
I had a very nitty image at the time. I had only played about 4 hands in a few orbits while everyone else was doing the standard 75/10 pre-flop thing that live players do. I'm actually extremely aggressive, and play a red line strategy. It works very well for me.

I thought about all options pre-flop, but I chose to essentially 3-bet bluff with AQo because I felt that I had a huge amount of fold equity to pick up the dead 10bb in the middle, and if not, I was going to get flatted by all the mid pocket pairs, as well as smaller suited aces. I've seen people fold AK face up when faced with a 3bet against multi-way action. Again, the player pool is extremely weak (the play and strategy of these players has legitimately not changed since I started playing there in 2010). I've gone through entire tournaments here with only going to showdown less than 10 times.

I mean, pretty absurd to say no player in these tourneys is raising QJ or 88 over two limps. If you know the specific player in question over multiple tourneys, OK, but otherwise, brush is too broad.

Preflop 3-bet is not a bluff with AQo. I have to say though that I find that the people who raise after several limpers are usually very strong. So I wouldn't be doing this with AJ or 99 even TT is likely a call.

I thought the pre-flop 3-bet sizing was too big. I would typically make it 6000. I get that there are limpers but I never think they are calling 3x. Here I am wrong.

On the flop I think the bet sizing is too small especially against 2 players. I will typically make it 60%+ basically double my pre-flop bet. However, betting 16,000 with 42,000 effective stack is pot committing so I will jam. The 7000 bet allows people with gutters to call because implied odds are close to OK. And its a $350 tourney. So I jam the flop. It makes no difference as AQ Villain will likely call. But you never know.

As played I like the call. Villain can have QJs but unclear if they would call the flop 7000 bet with that hand. With AK I think they jam pre-flop at least half the time and possibly more. My first thought was that TT might have hit a set but really its an easy flop fold. So I think 88 is the hand we trail and AJ is the hand we beat. There are more AJ than 88 out there though Villain might do this only half the time with AJ. Also, because of the 7000 flop bet it looks like we can have QQ/JJ so Villain may not want you to get a free ride with a gutter on the turn.

In a theoretically sound world, villains defo nutted considering action, or, assumes that you can squeeze somewhat wide-ish considering passive action prior and believes he still has fe vs bottom end of your range. Bluffs are gonna come from combo draws but obv he’s gonna have all nutted hands too - more so considering you do too.

Nice response.
I didn't want to just jam the flop because it's pretty much a pure bluff at that point. I'm never getting called by worse when I do that, but at the same time, I'm a red line player so taking down the pot right there is tempting. Looking back, I think the small flop bet is probably ok to keep in draws, but I have a Q which blocks a lot of draws here. 60% would probably get a lot of folds, but also, a lot of the players at this level have no idea what the pot size is, or even the concept of how many big blinds they're putting in. As for the pre-flop sizing, I tend to go bigger live because you end up seeing flops 3 and 4 ways a TON if you don't go a little bigger, especially when we're so deep.