Hey all, played a few tournaments past few days and have some hands I would like to ask about. A few blunders and then some that I feel are standard and straightforward just wanna check on.

H1- this is a 40k starting stack tourny with turbo like structure at 25min levels. I open AKo utg 8handed. Stacks are all around 40k. Button and sb call. Bb makes it 2.9k. Looks like a mawg. I consider 4betting but not sure itÂ’s great so I just call and other two call. We ever 4bet here or nah? I feel it might be ok sometimes but felt bb would have very tight range like jj+ so I elect to call. Other two call and we see flop of AQ5 (rainbow). I lead 2600 after goes xx, sb and button call. Turn is 7 of hearts (2heart now on board) and I bet 6500. Only button calls. River is 2 of diamonds. I check with intention to call- donÂ’t see villian calling worse. He checks back and shows JQhh. Is this ok or should we ever bet river?

H2- same tourny- I have 60k and others aorund 40k for most part. I open KQo from mp to 1200 (at 400level) and sb calls and bb. Sb is a kinda splashy fishy older woman (doesnÂ’t seem super nitty but sheÂ’s calling a lot so vpiping a ton early and playing a lot of hands). Flop QK7 rainbow. I cbet 1500 into 4k and only sb calls. Turn is a 5h so now two hearts on board. She checks and I bet 7k into 11k pot. She calls. River is a 10 with no flush on board. She jams her stack like maybe 42k into 25k pot. I just didnÂ’t see how she got to river with a straight type hand and didnÂ’t see sets. I think for a few seconds and just sigh call. She flips over AJ. Is this just a simple fold on the river? I know looking back it is. IÂ’ll admit this is a massive blunder punt (embarrassing). Is this just a simple cake fold? She wasnÂ’t super tight and I felt she could
Be doing this with anything. I felt if she was an old man or woman that had tight image- I would make fold but this lady seemed super laggy and splashy where should would call and play pots at a super high freq so felt she could make a weird bluff move (probably not in reality ever lol).

H3- I bought another buyin to tourny and was tilted. This line reflects that. Is this bluff attempt just a massive blunder? Ok at 500 level I have 32k ish at new table. Ep opens, i call in bb with 33 and sb calls. Flop 579- goes xx and opener cbets 2k. Sb folds, I make it 6k and he calls. Turn is a 2. I lead 8.2k and he calls. River is an A. I jam 16.3k after thinking for 30seconds and he calls with K9dd lol. Is this bluff ok? I felt the sizing of mine was bad. I felt I need to bet less on turn to set up more of a pot sized bet on river. I felt the sizing was a little off bc my river bet was less than pot and villian is just going to call more often than not (he was prolly calling regardless). I felt river- why not just go for the bluff- if IÂ’m going to take an insane line like x raise flop I need to go for it here. I felt 579 is much better for my bb defend range and I can turn hand into bluff. I do feel 33 is a terrible candidate for a x raise as played but I feel it was good I went for it by hammering turn and river bc it would be huge mistake if I didnÂ’t. I feel certain folks would fold river bc I can have A8 of A6. Btw their were two spades on flop so I felt I could be x raising two spades also. This is not a Normal play I make in tournaments bc itÂ’s spewy + I was severely tilted after punting my first bullet. Normally I play straightforward and donÂ’t try to get creative with stupid spots like posted above.

H4- this is in a $400 multi flight tourny where small % of field makes day 2. We are pre money and I have a nice stack of 100k after starting with 20k. At 3k bb level I open ep to 6k with JJ. Bb defends. Flop 227 with two spades. He checks, I cbet 4.5k into 16.5k pot. He check raises to 12.5k. I call. Turn is a red 8. He leads 27.5k and I call. River is a Qc. He bets 35k. I tank. He seemed like a straightforward mawg that did nothing of crazy note. I sigh fold. I felt he isn’t turning 2 spades in a river bluff like he’s def shutting down I felt. We fine with this fold? I thought looking back it’s a good fold as he didn’t show his hand but maybe he had a bluff ( I felt very unlikely). I assume he defended some 2x hand. I just can’t see a standard rec going x raise, bet turn, bet river as a bluff honesty. I feel most mawg type guys don’t have the stones to take that line so I felt my fold was really good.


H5- late in tournament last night. Turbo tourny and I have a solid stack. Don’t remember numbers but let’s say I have 50k at 1.5k level. I open JQo from 2 right to button. Sb and bb call. Flop 77j. I cbet like 1/4th pot. Sb fold and bb is a young aggro hoodie kid raises to like 3x my bet. I call. Turn is a J. I x he bets small and I call. River maybe a small card. I x hoping he bets. He x back. You ok with this line? He just mucked so I assume he had nothing. I felt he would bet river if he had 7x maybe. Am I supposed to x raise turn? Or even donk lead river? Idk I felt if he had a bluff- just let him hang himself on the river and he seemed like the type that would go for it on the river.

It would really help if you formatted these to make them more readable and to highlight the relevant information. It would also help a lot if you included all relevant information. You don't include pot size at any point and you don't include blind levels in hand 1.

Hand 1-- your river play, what bluffs does he realistically have that get to this point? Just go for some small value and hope worse Ax calls.

Hand 2-- I guess you call river because nothing about the hand makes sense, but I'd probably bet bigger on the flop and then maybe on the turn as well.

Hand 3-- I wouldn't bother with it after raiser bets into two people. Very different than a standard heads-up c-bet.

Hand 5-- how did you go from IP on villain on flop and turn to OOP on river?

Sorry if these hands are kinda poorly written- I typed this on my phone in the morning with semi limited info bc I don’t take super detailed notes.

H2- do we really want to bet bigger if we block hands that are calling? I assume sure yes from draw type hands but I don’t mind letting J-10 etc see free cards bc we can always check call on sketchy cards and try to induce bluffs /not bet to limit damage?


Side note- I ended up feeling really bummed after day 1 of tournament festival. I fired 2 bullets into a $400 and really blundered super standard spots. As shown in h2 and h3.

I ended up playing more tournaments on Saturday and busting. Then played Sunday a $600 bounty. I ended up busting early in first bullet after calling a nit 3 bet with AK and folding flop to no improvment and then later calling another semi nit 3bet early with AQcc and flop is Qxx where he cbets and jams blank small card turn with AA. Gg me. I wasn’t tilted so tried another bullet. Somehow ended up running oddly well in only a few hands on day 1 and acquire 10 starting stacks. Go into day 2 with 8bbs with 23 left and somehow win the tourny for 60buyins + 9 $100 bounties. When I was going into day 2 with 8bbs- I was like wow I have no chance to win due to past live mtt experiences. Only note I can say- 8bbs actually can win a tourny if stacks are shallow and you somehow run ok. On day 2, I didn’t run that hot but won a few crucial standard flips and somehow turn that into a 66-67 buyin bink. Was pretty sweet plus won my 2nd wsop circuit ring (no brag here. I ran well obviously to win a live mtt).


Run good example of bad play- I somehow got a guy to call J9o after I opened min with QQ on a 10-15bb stack. Somehow see a flop of 972 against cutoff (j9o) and one blind. He somehow find a way to raise my cbet and call my all in- it’s like ugh am
I doing that with Ak or aq? Ugh no hate here but live players can be so dopey- j9o is a trash hand to call with 10-25bb deep effective.

Another blunder- I open K9ss to min later in event close to bubble and button elects to flat call K-10hh which to me is a super easy 3bet/ fold spot. Flop is 10-8-3 with two spades. I check, he bets, I jam maybe 10-13 bbs (not sure on exact number). He calls with K-10 and loses on turn. It’s like ugh if you just 3bet with plan to fold to a 4!, you pick up blinds + my open but the guy plays like a wuss and just flat calls k-10hh in like the most standard 3! Fold spot.

As always- I think like 90-95% of live players are way way too passive with 3 betting especially at crucial times where you can easily devolve a hand strength when you 3bet and read the reaction of villian/ villians. Maybe I’m just a prick but I find the passive play of the live game so comical. I feel it’s better off going for it and taking thin 3 bet spots Vs just calling and letting folks realize their equity with trashier hands. Idk just feel folks play so damn straight forward that these 3! Fold spots are necessary. At final table of my $600 tourny, I ended up 3 bet folding 5-6 suited to a n aggro cutoff (I had no history with player but could tell he was a nj reg that was good). I know he’s opening a standard fairly wide range. I 3! Fold and even snow it bc idc (I know I’m better than probably 95% of the field). He doesn’t show but I feel my 3! Fold shows I have moxie to make a move. One of the problems I see in live game- folks play so straight forward that making these types of moves is so ev+. Why go to the streets against tough hands to read where you might have to call 1-2 streets to see if they continue when you can just 3! Pre and really break down their hand range bc folks are thinking at such a low elementary level where they play their hands super face up. Sorry if this wall of text doesn’t make sense- I win. A live tourny earlier today and did some celebrating. What

H1: I think it matters what the sizing is for BB based on your pre-flop opening bet size (which we don't know). If your opening bet size is 500 then the 2.9k bet is a very solid sizing by the BB. If it was 600+ then the 3-bet is small and I would insta call. If it was 300 then this is a massive bet and this is where I would think of an all-in raise though I do think BB has hands like JJ/TT a lot. Here in the Czech republic this is a shove for me depending on who made the 3-bet. There are so many wild aggro players here that are 3-betting to take it down pre-flop. However having said that in most places unless you have been raising a lot in EP this is a call because you opened UTG and the BB didn't seem to care.

As for the river bet if you check/call you are mostly going to be calling a better hand (because there is an A on the board and a bluff probably won't be made). It might be worth it to make like a 25% to 30% pot bet for value (which would suck hands like QXs in to call). If villain has 2 pair (but not AQ) they would likely just call based on the way they have been playing. But not betting allows them to decide the sizing.

H2: Flop bet sizing is too little. I would bet about 2700. The KQ7r flop smashes your range. Not sure it would matter but assuming your sizing on the turn was also 70% SB might not have called. Even if she does you end up making more most of the time. As for calling the river bet I would likely fold assuming she had 77. But it would depend on my mood. I often go down the drain with top two.

H3: I actually don't hate this. I am only doing it if I have the 3 though. Because if we manage to hit a 3 we want it to be in our favor. Also we want to block some flush draws so it increases the chances of a fold. When the A hits on the river I don't think its a good card necessarily for us to triple barrel. I typically don't win when I fire on the river after an A hits or if the board pairs again and we get counterfeited.

H4: Tough hand. Sometimes I fold the turn. My opening pre-flop bet is going to be like 6200 not 6000. Just that little extra gets some folds. Given the river sizing I think it is rarely a bluff.

H5: If we c/r the turn I don't think BB calls even with a 7. If we lead out the river any bluffs will fold. We might get a 7x hand to call but our sizing would have to be like 25% to 33% pot.

edit: Congrats on winning the ring!

See, I do this sometimes, checking back to induce bluffs, see a safe river card, limit the damage, etc. and I think it's a pretty big leak of mine. You're going to have a hard time folding even if the most obvious draw gets there, so you want to really charge those hands, and your hand is so strong you want to give yourself a chance to stack top pair or a worse two pair as well. Your equity is so good that you want to get a lot of money in the pot. And you don't want to make villain's flop call correct by actually giving them two free cards to hit it. But mostly it comes down to trying to get a bunch of money in the pot when our equity is this strong.

Mr Rick is also correct about the flop smashing your range and not theirs, which makes it a great spot to put a lot of pressure on the blinds with big bets even when your hand isn't this good. So in general, I think this is mostly a big-bet-or-check situation, with big bets with our strongest hands, strongest bluffs, and low-equity hands (especially if they unblock draws that might call/call/fold), and a check with our medium strength hands like bad kings, solid queens, probably JJ-88 (checking more often the bigger the pair is). I think.

I think villain's KTs flat is fine. It's too strong to want to 3-bet/fold IMO. Which hands to flat vs. 3-bet/fold depends somewhat on where you opened from and what your stack size is (and to a lesser extent what his is), but having the button and a hand that flops a lot of possibilities is a good situation and his flat puts you in a spot where you have to hit to continue unless you plan to just blast off postflop when you're still blind to villain's range. And he even ends up getting it in good against you.

Hand #1:

Preflop - I'm going to assume that we're playing somewhere between 100-150BB deep. At this point we can probably do a little of everything with AKo facing the squeeze other than fold. Readless against a middle-aged white guy I'm ok with call, 4-betting intending to fold to a 5-bet isn't awful either.

Flop - I can go either way here between check or bet, a competent BB who's 3-betting should be smart enough to check a lot out of position so their check doesn't indicate they're devoid of strong hands. The big thing about AK in this spot, even multiway, is that isn't necessary a three street hand. When we get bet and get called in two spots we need to be pretty cautious if the board connects in a meaningful way.

Turn - Once we bet flop I guess I'm ok with continuing turn on what's really a blank, as we wouldn't expect BTN/SB to float that often with backdoor hearts and the 7 doesn't really connect a lot. Continuing to bet small to try to get value from worse Ax or Qx or the occasional turned flush draw seems reasonable.

River - On a super-brick river I think we need to go for some thin 25-33% value. Stronger hands (like 2 pair+) would likely raise the turn. We want to prevent his weaker Ax hands, like AT, from just checking back. Would QJ have called a thin bet there? Not sure, but it's possible. It's also unlikely that villain has many busted hands that want to bluff now, other than a few random heart draws that somehow got here.

Hand #2:

Preflop - standard, nothing to comment on

Flop - I think 1500 is fine multi-way, I can be convinced 2000-2500 is ok too because there's a splashy SB and a lot of connectivity with your opponents' calling ranges. But this is a board that we wouldn't necessarily be betting big in with our whole range. I think the bigger we go, the more we start to fold out hands like gutshots or pairs that are drawing thin.

Turn - I think we polarize turn here, especially against a single BB caller. I like an overbet a lot.

River - Yeah, we have top two, but we should also have AJ/J9 ourselves plus all the sets which may be better hands to call with. We are blocking the worse hands that could *maybe* do this for value (like KT or QT) so is it better to not have those cards here? Splashy villain does have AJ, they have TT, they have J9 and those hands would likely never be raising at any point.

I can't really blame you for calling, I'd probably call here, but there is an argument for a fold because we do have better hands to call with.

Hand #3:

Preflop is standard.

Flop - this is probably just a fold, mostly because so many 6x and 8x in our BB defend range that make better bluffs, and a bunch of 9x/7x/5x that can call. We really don't need to call this hand and it makes a really bad bluff candidate because we're out of position and can't improve on later streets without spiking a 3. I'd better smaller if I was going to raise, maybe something more like 5k, because we're really just targeting overcard combos like AJo with no spade or diamond to fold.

Turn - I'd probably just check once we get called on the flop, but if we're going to bet your sizing seems reasonable.

River - I guess we just pile at this point, but we really should've never been in this spot. We have to feel like this line folds a fair amount of 9x in order to for it to work.

Hand 1: Preflop is fine. I think I lean more towards a 4 bet, but it's fine to flat here (in a smaller event, I am more likely to 4 bet). Flop, I would probably go a little bigger. Same with turn, you are betting less than 1/3 pot on the turn. River: I would probably continue to bet small, but I think checking is also fine.

Hand 2: I am probably calling this spot. I would expect to see some worse two pairs. You have close to the top of your range in this spot. Would you also fold QQ or KK here? I think if you know more about this player you can fold, but I think with your hand it's close, IMO. If you fold this, then you are basically folding almost everything. The problem is, what does this player bluff with in this spot? Can they be betting worse than what you have? I would say yes

Hand 3: I think the river is a must shove if you play it this way. I would normally give up on this turn. This flop does favor your range, so I don't mind a c/r here occasionally. Good call by the other player. I think I would normally just call one bet and see what the player does on the turn.

Hand 4: I really don't like calling the 27K turn and folding to the river 35K. I am thinking maybe you have to shove the turn here. How much does the other player have behind? How many 2s does a player like this have in there range? A2, K2?

Hand 5: you played it fine. I think your small bet induced him to raise. I like the way you played it.

So it’s not like super super bad? I felt so foolish after the hand honestly. I feel certain players almost never have bluffs and I would say women generally skew more toward the will not bluff side (sure this is not 100% but I tend to go off appearance to baseline people into aggro category levels/ with certain players- you have to show me you do things crazy before I think you will bluff- this goes mainly for older folks that seem to err on tight side). After hand, I also thought I block a lot of the goofy hands like worse two pairs villian could have and doubt she would rip 2p. Villian also should almost never have sets- I might be wrong here but I tend to not see x call lines where a person will do it 2x without throwing in a x-raise.


Also the K9 Vs 33 hand. Idk I felt villian is calling way too often if he calls that river. Maybe I looked super nervous + me taking 20-30 seconds on river clued him into something about my hand strength but idk I find calling off with k-9 in that spot so sketch. I have some sort of A6 or A8, he’s beat. If I have a set, two pair, maybe even 34 (I know prolly not a standard bluff candidate but can work against folks). I felt my sizing on was a huge mistake somewhat + maybe even should go smaller on flop raise. I think I ripped 16.8k into a pot of 32k (just guessing on the math). I think it’s better to aim for at least a 70-100% pot bet on river and not half pot bc villian can be stickier in spot. I hate the call by villian bc I just feel you are playing a guessing game of hey does JK have a set, two pair, straight, and maybe a few bluffs (me personally- I rarily will fire that 3rd chamber here when villian calls the flop raise and turn). Maybe it’s a good call but I feel one is playing bingo if they get into these type of guess work spots. Get into to many spots you are expecting a bluff…. You get stacked when you are wrong. Don’t think it’s good. Even my random Ax bluff hands best k9.

H1: fine

H2: old and passive suddenly becomes super aggresssive? You can exploit fold here if live reads are ‘calm and confident’

H3: pre fine, post horrid, A river irrelevant brick

H4: I hate these spots. If you call he has 2x. If you fold he has busted spades. Say hi to schrodinger's cat as you bet fold flop and protect your tourney life. Wp BB.

H5: same cat, different turn.


These vulnerable low-mid paired flops are worth studying, both rainbow and ssx textures.

I don’t mind splitting my range between the standard 1/4 pot bet with high card air and trips+ then checking back a mix of mid strength pairs, gutters and AK type hands.

When the pair is higher 9+ and hits the PFR range harder, it makes sense to change above strat.

I'm still confused about hand 5. You say PF you open from HJ and SB and BB call. Then you c-bet when checked to on flop and the BB check-raises you. But on turn and river you check first to let villain bet. What's going on?

I may have goofed. I think button caller and bb. Button was the one in the hand he I x to on turn and river as he raised my cbet.

So villian raises my cbet and the bb folds on flop. Sorry if these posts are a little meh. I might start bringing a notebook to play to write down hands I want to discuss/ ask about on this forum. As always thanks for the feedback here. Always good stuff.

I think with hand #2 - when players take really bizarre lines like these, they're not very good. And because this is such an odd line, you have to at least consider the possibility that this is just someone spazzing out with AK or AA, wildly overvaluing a worse two-pair, or even running a wacky bluff and then you can at least consider calling.

Is it possible this player is only doing this for value and with better hands? Sure, and that's why we should also consider folding.

I tend to err towards calling when a line makes no sense. But in a lower stakes tournament you can also overfold a lot. So at the end of the day, I don't think it's an enormous error one way or the other.

I was the villain in the KT hand. Yea I got his chips and bounty in as a 65-35 dog. He got lucky. There’s a few reasons why I flatted. All the ones you stated but one much bigger reason. Villain only had 85k chips. The BB and I were 400k deep. The tournament was a dink fest at this point with the average stack size 20bbs and them all shoving allin every other hand I wanted the BB in the hand. The payout structure was super flat with only a 1200 dollar pay jump from 23 to 12 and 40 k up top. Could care less about the 1200
The BB called half their stack off with a gutter earlier and had no fold button. They’d have stacked off with a weaker K or T and would’ve risked all her chips on a draw. Heck they’d have put in half their chips with 3rd pair. So I really didn’t care about villains 85k chips. with everyone shoving I wanted to finally play a decent hand in position vs a bad BB.

And like you said I’m making ops life hell on any flop 10 and lower and any king. I 3-bet and he jams I lose tons of ev.

Ha yea sorry that was a pretty brutal spot for you to lose. I think I would 3! Fold that spot with K-10suited bc you are hella ahead of my cu range and can easily fold to a 4! Rip by my. I’m folding to a 3! There even if sizing is small bc my hand does poorly against a 3!. I think you gotta take that 3! Spot bc you pick up what 4.5bbs at a crucial stage of tourny when I fold my trashier hands.