Hi all,

just busted on the first hand of an MTT (109$ buy-in) and was wondering to what degree I should have played differently.

9 handed, folds to HJ who min opens to 2BB, we are all 100BB deep.

I am on the Button with QJss. I just call thinking i am in position and my hand goes well MW. We get heads up after blinds fold.

FLOP

Qh2s4d

He bets around 2bb, I raise to 5, he reclicks to 8. I just call, putting him on AQ, KQ.

TURN

4s

Now with a FD and some chance he is bluffing or betting worse, i am almost decided to get it in.

He bets half pot, I jam, he calls and shows 22. FD was obviously dead, had like 4 outs, so massive fail.

Where did this hand go wrong or should one just take such chances to go deeper in tournaments?

Many thanks!

You put him on a better hand on the flop and call?

Arguably every single street should have been played differently.

Preflop is fine but this should be in your 3-bet range some percentage of the time.

I don't understand the point of your flop raise. You're only folding out worse hands and building a pot against better hands. And the flop 3-bet should give you severe concern.

The turn pairing the board is really bad for you even if it gives you a flush draw. You have fewer outs against AA/KK and your flush draw is dead if he flopped a set. It's a really bad card to jam-- you are getting in 100BB with TP3K against a guy who 3-bet the flop? And you rationalize it as "he could be bluffing"? The chances of the flop click-back out of position being a bluff are effectively zero. And why wouldn't you want to let him keep bluffing if you thought that was the case? You instead jammed in a spot where all his calling hands have you drawing pretty slim, and where his entire line indicates he's very strong.

I don't really get your postflop process and it seems like you just ignored the information your opponent was giving you about the strength of his hand.

Preflop is fine. If there are antes its mostly a call, but if there weren't antes yet I would start 3betting more often.

You jammed ~90bb on the turn vs a 11bb bet into a 22bb pot. Thats not a thing.

I actually dont hate a small flop raise. You are going to get called by worse pairs and put a lot of Ahis in a tough spot. Then you gotta peel the 3bet even if you are sure you need to improve. The turn is where things just go off the rails.


Why do you put him on AQ, KQ on the flop but now on the turn you put him on a fd (which you block) or a worse value hand ( QT?). Sounds like you are hoping instead of analyzing. You are plenty deep enough to just the turn and see if you improve on the river.

I am not a MTT player and I feel bad being this unpleasant guy after previous ppsters took the time to give detailed analysis but : I would say your understanding of the game is very insufficient for playing $109 tournaments. You should learn some basics and apply them to much lower buy-ins first.

I should add that, yes, QJs plays pretty well multiway, but it also plays well as a 3-bet in position heads up - you can still flop a lot of possibilities, and with the lower SPR and heads up, you can be more confident about playing a bigger pot with top pair.

I can see it, but the raiser c-betting even from OOP, I'd be more concerned that his range is tighter and stronger than would be for an IP c-bet. And this is a pretty dry board so there's not much to protect from (just an A or K). And I would definitely proceed with extreme caution after the 3-bet.

I mean, you're not wrong. Specifically, "putting him on a hand" with a very small combination of hands instead of considering the total range he might play this way (in particular imo, leaving out overpairs and sets), and overplaying a hand this deep even when you're sure you're behind and you will not have good equity when called-- unless you really think AQ / KQ would play this way and you can fold them out, you have 12 outs at best when called and often just two outs-- are pretty foundational leaks.

This is a bit of a punt, IMO. It's ok OP, we all do it sometimes. Flop should usually be a call. You are going to fold out worse hands and get called by better hands. After the player re-raise the flop, you should be worried. On the turn, after the player bets 1/2 pot, do you really think that the player will fold KQ or AQ (if that is the hand that they have)? You could have raised smaller to get the player to fold or you could call and try and hit your flush. You are trying to represent a 4? I think it's a bit wishful thinking.

Everyone has done something like this when they started playing tournaments at some point.

I think the fact that you didn't put in the math here is pretty telling that it never was considered by you, even after the hand.

As I read it, you shoved 78bb over an 11bb bet. Shoving almost 3x pot here was a pretty bad move with your hand and a paired board. (It would be a bad bet w qq for the opposite reason- you fold out too many hands (flushes, bare 4s) betting that big and not knowing villain has one of the few calling hands)

Were you shocked your flush draw was dead when he called and you realized he was 90% favorite?

Pre is whatever, probably want to mix call and 3-bet at some frequency.

On the flop, while I think we mostly want to call here (since villain probably should be betting fairly infrequently out of position) I do think there's merit to raising QJ because it's theoretically one of our best value hands other than sets (we likely 3-bet QQ and AQ pre and we never have 2 pair). Getting A-high or K-high even some small pairs to overfold is pretty nice. If we are going to raise hands like QJ though, we're going to want to find bluffs with some gutshots and backdoors.

Obviously as played need to call the clickback with top pair and backdoor flush draws, could maybe argue folding some QJ without backdoors here to the 3-bet but my hunch is that we're always peeling.

Turn is interesting. Again, we won't have very many raises against half pot here, but if we do have raises the pair+flush draw hands are excellent candidates. So I like your choice of hand. The sizing is bad, though - we're still pretty deep, so we can just click. Now if we click and get jammed on, we're probably just unhappily calling off - our opponent should have some bluffs here and even hands we have decent equity against like overpairs. But when we jam, our opponent gets to play perfectly and calls only when we're beat.

I don't like the turn jam either, but it does target your initial range of AQ/KQ and AA/KK, which it does put in a tough spot, though I suspect that they will call anyway.

The bigger point is that we are turning a hand with decent equity into a bluff, and even worse, when we have position and lots of chips behind. Instead of letting your opponent play well against your raise, you get to play on the river when you see both the card and the Villain's action. Then you get to make profitable decisions. If the river is a flush completer for you, you can just flat call versus Villain's bet here. If they check, you can value bet your hand.

All this goes out the window for a very expensive semi bluff.

Preflop is ok. You could 3bet too, but QJs is pretty low frequency 3b.
Flop is usually a call but small raise could be fine. You obviously have to call against reraise. Even against normal sizing, let alone that minclick.
Turn is clear mistake. You have bluffcatcher so no reason to jam. Just call.

Preflop is fine. Your hand flop really well.

On the flop we just cant raise because the preflop raiser hase the nut advantage.
He will has AQ KK and AA in his range and we would have 3bet them preflop.
In position, just never raise if somebody bet. Control the size of the pot. You can bet later on.

After we made the mistake we just get to good odds to call and crack hands like AQ and KQ like you said.

Turn
Again, we do we want to raise. We just get the right price to call and see a river.

River
If we dont hit the river and see a big bet we would always fold this hand.
With him 3betting on the flop he will be very strong. I never seen somebody 3betting flop with hands weaker then yours

I would 3 bet pre here and fold to a 4!. Idk JQss is easier to win against 1 villain when in position vs letting sb and bb call a super small raise. As hand played, we win easily with a cbet on boards like K83 or A96 etc against specific hand.

Hmm flop why raise flop? Stupid. Turn- what is villian calling with that doesn’t have us beat? Very stupid. You are only called by great hands when you jam turn. If villian is going to fold Q-10 suited and worse here- what is point of jamming. Only hands calling us are sets, A4, maybe odd play 45suited, etc. like your turn action doesn’t accomplish much good.


How to play hand- don’t be passive. 3 bet pre. Cbet flop. And decide when villian either raises flop cbet or turn. I would even consider checking flop with QJ here as QJ on Q24. Only hands that call might be some worse Qx maybe and then kq and aq. Btw QJs on this flop- I don’t think you want to get chips in with this hand w/ 15spr. It’s really bad

I like your pre-flop call OTB with QJs.

Raising the flop is OK (he can have a gutter, AK, Ax that paired the board, etc.) if you are willing to fold to the 3-bet. Otherwise just call original bet. So now we are playing a bigger pot with a BDFD and top pair 3rd best kicker... Which is not quite a disaster but absolutely not worth doing.

On the turn after thinking you are behind on the flop, you shove. This is the disaster. Your reasoning is that he might be behind (like QT). Nobody would 3-bet the flop with QT. Similarly, why would he 3-bet OOP on the flop with a BDFD? Your sizing (the shove) is fine if you have the nuts (or close) and there are a lot of draws out there that can beat you. It is also fine if we are bluffing without blocking any of the draws and assuming there were a bunch of draws. But that isn't the case here.

Once he bets 11 bb raising to 33 bb's is virtually pot committing with like 89 bb's effective stack. So don't raise and don't shove.

On the river once we miss we can fold to a largish bet.

One thing to learn from this is that online when somebody minraises their 3 bet it is inducing a call. This is similar in live games. When a player 3-bets much lower than 3x it is almost always an inducement to call. To continue on later streets you have to improve in a way that they can't. So if the turn had been a Q just understand that you may still be behind when he bets the turn.