$5.50 deep stack

final 13 players

hero perceived as TAG
villian is very good regular, who's playing very LAG

thoughts on how hero played this hand?



Poker Stars, $5 Buy-in (1,600/3,200 blinds, 320 ante) No Limit Hold'em Tournament


MP2: 274,721 (85.9 bb)
MP3: 177,942 (55.6 bb)
CO: 103,524 (32.4 bb)
BTN: 265,812 (83.1 bb)
Hero (SB): 236,504 (73.9 bb)
BB: 216,590 (67.7 bb)
MP1: 237,517 (74.2 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A T
4 folds, BTN raises to 6,848, Hero calls 5,248, BB folds

Flop: (19,136) A A 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets 6,314, Hero raises to 12,628, BTN calls 6,314

Turn: (44,392) K (2 players)
Hero bets 22,196, BTN raises to 51,494, Hero calls 29,298

River: (147,380) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets 194,522 and is all-in, Hero calls 165,214 and is all-in

im check calling the flop turn and river as much as possible. fold rivah

Against a btn range of a LAG is really tough folding, but as played when it gets in river is probably a fold because of being close of the ft, making me believe that he would not go so far with a bluff. Just one question, why play AT just calling op?

Don't like the raise otf, certainly not for that sizing. Villain probably has air 90% of the time on this flop so I'm mostly just letting him hang himself.

Turn, yeah ok.

I highly doubt he's ever bluffing river considering the line you took, and you don't beat much of his valuerange. So fold.

villian had 5s6s for complete air

Probably just calling flop... Calling turn and betting small in river on most run outs.. Or betting 1/2 pot river if checked to on turn.. The way you played it youre kind of lucky dude just decided to spew off with air bc you beat basically none of his value range.

you played it poorly, villain represented a flush pretty much perfectly, you stationed down with a bluff catcher and got extremely lucky to run into a bluff. nothing more to say.

tl;dr
lol, i guess we should always stick to the reasoning - oh, you don't beat any of his value range, so fold.



rather than get into a keyboard war, acknowledging the above, i'll go through some of my thought process.

preflop: AT, flat. flatting keeps his worse aces, and other hands we're ahead of, in his range. 3 betting also exposes us to getting 4 bet. also, at 70+BB we want to be playing post-flop. Also, 3 bet pots post flop against a super competent player are going to be difficult and high variance. i think flatting is a lower variance route too.

flop: AA7. we're super ahead of his range here, check. now, this is a good flop for V to c-bet, so he obliges. since he knows that we know this is a good flop for him to c-bet and we are actually super strong, we have two options call or raise. calling is standard, but doesn’t build pot. if we raise, he only flats with his value hands considering how deep we are; he’s never re-raising, unless he puts us on air and he has air/marginal hand. by raising we build pot, and set ourselves up to barrel turn.

turn: K. although completes flush draws, we still have to barrel. V expected us to barrel turn, so he is going to be calling with most of his value range. But with his bluffing range, which he floated flop, he will raise trying to represent a flush or a fullhouse – he would flat with an ace or two pair (with pockets).

river: 3. doesn’t affect much. a bet on the river only gets called by a better hand; so, check. checking, induces all bluffs to go for it. V is a super good reg, with $30k+ online winnings, 1st place is only $270 for tourney. we are final 13/267 entrants and we are both very deepstacked. he has a ton of fold equity because of the situation in the tourney, and including the way the hand has runout he can rep a flush pretty nicely. since he’s used to big scores, he doesn’t care about ICM (he wants 1st), of course he is going to go for it with a bluff.

since we checked river V doesn’t put us on a flush or a full-house. and there’s two aces on the board, which makes it more unlikely we have an ace. this also increases his fold equity.


i understand that we beat none of his value-range when he shuvs river. but that’s not what determines whether this is a call or a fold. it depends on whether he’s bluffing or he isn’t; in this case, i think he’s going to be bluffing way more than he isn’t.

I think his RR on the flop negates the chances of him having a FD OTF. While not a bad play if he actually had one, I wouldn't interpret it as him being on a FD because thats a very risky play to make if you are trying to FT and being that deep he doesnt need to make risky plays... what if Villain doesnt get there? Those are lost chips he could have saved for another battle. And understanding he is a reg, we know he knows we know that... the only thing I'd be worry about is my kicker.

Sent from my phone.

What you're doing is looking at the results, then using reverse logic to justify your decision. If the hand is a call, it's by no means an easy call - all you really have is a bluffcatcher. What makes it more likely to be a call than a fold in my opinion, as well as all that meta-game crap you posted, is that villain can be shoving with a worse ace which you beat. If I had A2 here, I'd probably be folding (although I wouldn't be calling with A2 from the small blind in the first place). Then again, if he's a good reg and he shoves with something like A2 or A3, I'm not sure what worse hand he thinks he will get called by (maybe he's sick enough to shove as a bluff?).

^ edit: didn't mean A3, that would be a full house.

rather than quote the whole thing cuz it really is cliffed nicely here, I'll just say that the problem with this is that he really shouldn't be bluffing here often at all, in fact it's quite terrible.

The reality is that your hand looks like AAAgk at a minimum. Trying to bluff you off of that on this board by repping such a tiny fraction of hands in his range is total spewhouse especially in a $5 tourney and especially with his image which you describe as very LAG.

Obv, we're not aware of specific dynamics or history between the two of you or any specific reads you might have had which might have made this a call, in a vacuum, vs someone described as 'very good' the call shouldn't be good very often. It was just a reaaaallly bad bluff spot. fwiw, I don't mind his turn bluff though his sizing is suspect but following through on the river is spew

sick call dude!

if you're a reg at these tourney's and aiming for 1st it's pretty weak to fold the river imo... maybe there's an argument (cause you're so close to FT) for just calling turn and not trying to stack off otr, otherwise i like it.

sure, i can see some folds being okay against reg TAGs, but if you have him as a strong LAG then it's a +EV call. just watch out in the future, he's got this note on you for sure

did you win the tourney?

- J of <3

I think a 3-bet pre-flop is mandatory here as you described villain as having been playing 'very LAG'. If facing a 4-bet I would 5-bet fold since villain is playing aggressively.

As played, on the flop I like the check raise but I think it should be around 15-18k, reason I like a c/r is that since the villain is a reg he could easily see a c/r as an attempt to steal the pot.

Leading out on the turn is good, you want to ensure if villain has a heart that he pays to get to the river, you also obviously get value against worse aces and a king. You have to call his raise as he as a reg could easily put your flop c/r then turn lead out as stealing the pot. He could easily raise with a Q or J of hearts as a semi-bluff.

I am folding this river, many other people will claim it's a call but that's likely due to them being results oriented. His shove combined with his play on earlier streets represents a flush or a house. IMO you beat nothing once he makes that shove, except air obviously, but since he had air then sick call I guess!

we need to 3b pre with a hand that is way ahead of LAG btn opening range

^ what I was going to say as well. If villain has a high 4b stat then just have a plan for what you're going to do if he 4b's.

I would have just c/c'ed otf.

Rest of the hand really depends on your actual feel for how villain plays, so i don't think anyone on this forum will have an accurate feel for villain and the situation.

You don't really want to be playing post-flop OOP against a super competant player with a capped range.