A hand from an offline tournament last Sunday.
7-max table, 15 players left, 4 prizes.
Blinds 400/800 + BB Ante.
I have 20k, only 2 players at the table have larger stacks.
I open A3 from UTG+1 with a minraise, only BB calls (he had 17k stack before posting Blind and Ante).
Flop (4400): А74
BB checks - I bet 2k - BB calls
Turn (8400): 2
BB checks - I check(pot control?)
River(8400) А.
BB bets 6500 leaving just 6k behind.

What are we supposed to do? Can I fold trip Aces here?
The bet sizing feels quite big. Also, there is no weaker Ax hands he can have. And I haven’t seen this guy bluffing much, I've been playing at the table with him for the second weekend in a row.

Not folding river

OK with cbet (flop) or delay cbet (turn) with the A3. OK to mix with the smaller kickers. Pre open is fine.

As played V has some cc but a wide range of other hands that see weakness ott and bluff or overvalue r.

If you decide to soulread exploit fold to an opponent who never bluffs that’s ok too, but never folding in a vacuum.

I think in theory we bet the small aces on the flop a little more often when we have a backdoor wheel like we do here (and definitely more often when we have a wheel gutshot). Probably would nearly always bet it if we also had a backdoor flush draw.

That said, we can bet smaller on the flop, especially with these stack sizes. I don't think you ever need to go over 1500 and can probably go as little as 1100.

That might also enable you to bet turn, depending on some other factors which are vague and I'm not really sure of right now.

Well, I noticed the players in our local casino don’t like to fold to a c-bet. So I try to bet more than just regular 30% on the flop. Maybe my logic is wrong here?

So you think betting the turn makes sense there? What do we charge? are there many hands with 1 club that paid the flop?

Not a soulread, just an observation. But probably 2 tournaments I played with him is not much to tell for sure.

What concerned me was the sizing. He was like committing himself.
If one wanted to bluff there, the smaller sizing would be ok considering the board, no?

yeah you can probably discount the weaker value hands like 87 97

but he has plenty of bluffs here after you check back turn and his bluffs will be forced to choose a larger sizing as you’re still getting to river with decent range of hands with sdv like some 7x 4x 88-kk and weaker ax

He’s also incentivised to bluff with a large number of Kcx Qcx combos that defend pre, float flop, and now block strong flushes

You’ll never be 100% right in a spot like this but if you called and lost I think it’s fine

I actually folded and lost
Never figured out what he had though.