First time poster. I’m looking to hear people’s thoughts on this final hand I played in a live tournament.

18 pay 15 remain. Blinds are 4k/8k, I have 180k in my stack to start the hand.

UTG makes it 21k from a 600k stack.
Everyone folds to me in the BB with KJo (no spade) and I call.

Flop is Ks9sTh. I check and UTG bets huge with 55k, I call.

Turn is another 9. I check and UTG puts me all in. I end up tanking and getting the clock called on me and call in the last second.

UTG shows two black Aces and River bricks out and I’m eliminated in 15th.


Thoughts on the call?

I was thinking UTG never has a full house with the massive bet on the flop (already polarizing) and subsequent jam once the board pairs. If he had a boat he’d want the straight and flush draws to get there. My thinking is for value there’s 6 combos of AA, 3 combos of QJs, though unlikely UTG raises 2.5x pre with QJs and 8 combos of AK. However I’m not sure how often UTG plays AK like this.


And for bluffs there’s 6 combos of QQ, 3 combos of JJ, AT, AQ,AJ of spades.

I’m not sure about the call, UTG is solid player who is certainly capable of applying max pressure to smaller stacks.

What’re your thoughts? Is UTG just always nutted as played?

fold pre

just nothing good can happen, would much rather have 56s than KJo there as well because the odds of you getting outkicked to KQ, AK, AJ are severe - there's no flop you enjoy that isn't the nuts - hence why you flop top pair and still didn't like it

also, you went into the hand with 22 big blinds

whether or not he can have a boat there shouldn't ever enter the conversation

as should discussion of his bluffs

he has exactly 0 fold equity on the turn and he knows it

you obviously like your hand, you committed most of your stack into the pot already - the chances he is bluffing there are incredibly small

worst hand he can have there beats KJ


you were on the verge of entering push/fold territory and your analysis was based on "what if we're 200bb deep"

Yeah honestly I told myself I should just fold preflop. But I looked at my 8k already in the middle and convinced myself I’m getting decent pot odds.

I do think discussing the bluffs is relevant if he’s playing them the same postflop. However looking back I believe he would shutdown on the turn and see a free card if he had the bluffs mentioned prior a large percentage of the time since there’s no fold equity…

Yeah, played it bad and I feel bad. Should’ve just folded pre.

You said 18 paid, 15 remaining? So we're in the money?

It's a tough spot, but I'm not gonna be too harsh about it. I'm not sure I'd find a fold as played either.

It's also easy with the benefit of hindsight to say just fold pre. And even that depends on how widely this big stack has been attacking from EP. It is a large raise size, so folding isn't out of the question.

If there were 18 left, 15 paid, and the big stack hadn't been that aggressive on the bubble (or at least not from early position), the case for folding becomes a lot stronger.

Nobody has mentioned this, but if we are planning on calling villain’s turn shove anyway, why not shove over villains flop cbet? Villain has plenty of combos in his range that are behind us here. If he folds them we deny equity and pick up a pretty decent pot. If he calls and we are ahead, great - we have a good chance to double up. If he calls with a better hand, we’ll, we aren’t any worse off than if we called his turn shove (plus we have an extra card to hit our queen for the gutshot straight draw).

Honestly a good option I didn’t put much thought into in the moment. I think I like this play more than calling off on the turn.

Yeah we were already in the money, and just made a pay jump with the next pay jump at 12.

UTG was just moved to my table about 10 hands prior to this. In those hands this was his second raise. The hand he played prior he moved all in against a 3-bet with AK and was called by JJ. He hit an A and accumulated his 600k.

I’ve played with him prior and know he’s capable of bluffing in these spots. However I didn’t have a read how aggressive/passive he was playing that day. Thank you for your insight.

oh i misread that too, i assumed they were flipped and we were 3 out from the bubble - that makes the play a little more justifiable

also you should include player reads and what your perceived image is


i still think he has 0 bluffs on the turn, there's no way anyone would put in 3/4 there stack then fold on that turn, maybe if it brought a 4 card straight or flush he could try bluffing that but not pairing the board - whatever cards you decided were good enough to put in 3/4 your stack are not going to fold on that turn ever

I am making my decision on the flop bet, not the turn. I’m not calling 55k to fold so I like the flop shove better than calling. His pot size + bet on the flop makes it a much easier fold as you really only have a medium kicker with your pair and a gutter.

Where are you getting 3/4 from? He's put in 76k of 180k.

oh right indeed, remembered 55k and 180k and didn't look up and recheck and thought the 55k was the all in

I think you actually played it pretty standardly. Preflop is relatively close due to ICM effects. I ran a preflop ICM sim real quick, just guessing about other stack sizes, and KJo was a call, but it was barely above break even so it's close.

Postflop you're so short it's hard to get away after you flop top pair. I assume if I ran an ICM postflop sim a solver would not be folding top pair here.

Maybe you could make an exploitative fold due to his sizing. The sizing does seem to indicate a strong hand or draw. I would think he would Cbet smaller on the flop if he had totally missed the flop, or if he had something like a pocket pair less than a king. I don't fault you for calling down though.

This was my thought. I think folding pre is best depending on opponent because we are so often dominated, but calling isn't unreasonable, especially if villain has been raising with less than premium hands. Since he raised UTG, he most likely has a very strong hand with a large chip stack and no urgency. As played, I am mostly shoving over his flop bet. Otherwise, why am I in the hand in the first place Of course, I am about to be shown AA or AK way more often than I like. With a good read and the over-bet, I might also find a fold on the flop. I don't think I am ever calling here. There are too many draws that I want to charge if he doesn't have one of the two hands that I fear.

See this happen so often. After a pretty big UTG open and your BB call, he makes the pot-sized bet (which he can afford with 600K stack), which will win the pot most of the time. Your range doesn't include much 99, TT or KK, which you would have 3-bet pre much of the time. He's hoping you have AK or Kx. The only thing he's worried about is KT, K9, or 9T. When the 9 shows up on the turn, you are much less likely to have 99 and now he's ahead of KT, K9, and 9T, and you are pot-committed so it's an easy jam.

His range includes all the AK, AA, KK, 99, and TT, as well as KQ that all beat you. Unless he's jamming the turn with AQ as a bluff (gut shot) or JJ (the only bluffs I can see), you are toast, but you have already committed so much by paying off the flop bet that you're stuck.

On the flop, the UTG raiser could certainly have QQ or JJ or AJ/AQ, all of which you are beating if this is just a big stack being a bully and trying to buy the pot, but all of those hands have some equity against you. Maybe 88 or 77 or J8ss, but only if this big stack bully will be opening UTG that wide (possible). All of which goes back to Rickroll's point -- once you call the flop, you are committed to the pot, having put in 76K of your 180K stack (not sure if the 180 is after you paid the 8K ante). So, since you're never folding (maybe if an ace peels on the turn?), why not re-shove his c-bet. If he's bluffing, even with a gut shot, you have just enough fold equity. As played, you have no chance unless you hit your queen.

But I've seen it so many times. You're not alone. Don't sweat it too much. Hard to flop top pair good kicker and let it go vs. a big stack who seems to be trying to steal the pot.

I would call preflop. I like KJ a lot especially because it blocks AK.

The flop bet is over 33% effective stack. If we are calling we are basically committing on the turn where I believe Villain is almost always jamming. I probably fold on the flop even though we don't have a spade, though not for ICM reasons. I would sometimes c/r jam the flop and hope we are up against AQ/AJ/88/77 type hands. But I just think Villain wouldn't bet so large with those hands because he has a lot of FE with that flop smashing his range.

Sheer insanity.

Never folding preflop. Yes, your hand can be dominated, but it can be plenty live, even against a strong UTG range. He even has hands you dominate, like QJs, JTs. Someone mentioned he might not even have QJs? Nonsense. He's a big stack late in a tournament. I suspect many Villains will have QJo/JTo here as well.

The raise isn't that big. It's 2.375BBs. This is just never a fold preflop.

We flopped well enough, with an SPR of less than 3, Top pair and a gutter. We just can't fold this spot. Even into a PSB, which makes some sense, as Villain is essentially playing 2e, but front loading a bit. He can have plenty of bluffs/semi bluffs for this line, ie AQ, AJ, other pair plus draws, Axss.

Folding is just madness.

As to whether to get it in on the flop, I lean yes; these very wet boards strongly favor IP for Equity realization; if we just shove flop we realize all of our equity, and are rarely in terrible shape.

As played, the turn is a call too. It's not great that our 2P outs have been counterfeited vs Villain's hand, but it also means that all his bluffs missed; if we were ahead on the flop we are still ahead on the turn.

It also reduces a few of his Value combos, 99, T9s etc. I guess there is some 9x in his range that improved, but if he has 9x stuff like A9s, he also has Tx stuff as mentioned above.

OP, please leave results out of the post, and come back later after we've weighed in. Prevents the Monday Morning Quarterback syndrome.

You might want to brush up on preflop ICM ranges late in a tournament. KJo is a break even $EV defend against a big stack UTG open, based on a sim I ran in HRC to check.

There are likely specific chip distributions where it would be a fold, such as if there are lots of very large and very small stacks. Your equity realization plummets against an appropriately-aggressive big stack and you have incentive to fold in order to retain your chips and ladder. I realize people advocating for a fold may not understand any of this, but it really is close to a fold due to ICM. Of course if we were early in the tournament playing chip EV it would be an easy defend.

GWF, thanks for the info on ranges there.

I have some issues (to say the least) with ICM. Future Game is non existent in our current ICM calculations. This is easy to demonstrate:

3 left, Button has 1BB, SB has 80BB, BB has 19BB. Button folds. SB can raise any 2 (I haven't checked this) and BB probably only calls with KK+. Yet ICM would give SB only an 80% chance of winning, even though we know it is higher than that.

Getting back to the actual hand, it feels like there is a medium amount of risk premium here; at least that is how I'd view it in game as Hero. There is only one pay jump across the next 6 bust outs out of 15. Then the steady pay jumps start. Positioning ourself to have a bigger stack is vital in this spot. If we play too tightly, we are just likely to bust in the next 6 spots.

I am all for tight folds in this formation; ie UTG opens, BB defense. The name of the game at these low SPRs is to make one good pair. KJ does a decent job of that. No guarantees, but there are many spots where flopping a King, or top pair Jack will be very profitable to us, especially as you point out that UTG can pressure our range. We will often get a full double on K high or J high boards. We will sometime bust as we did here, but that's poker.

One last thing; you mention our EQR plummets as the covered stack. This is more true for hands like Axo, small pairs, suited connector type hands, that will often have one weak pair. With this combo, our EQR is much better.

Don't get me wrong. I also likely defend here, and get it in once we flop top pair. I was just saying it's closer than it might seem, and there's an argument for folding pre to avoid marginal confrontations and keep laddering up pay jumps. I was responding more to the tone of your post with the, "sheer insanity, " comment.

ICM isn't perfect, but I'm not aware of any more accurate models, especially for MTTs with multiple tables remaining.

Is it? The 1BB guy will bust very soon. If he somehow stays in the tournament with 1BB constantly, then sure it's higher, but what are the chances of that?

Well, the Big stack will win the next hand whenever the Button folds; he will gain 2BB and the BB will lose 2BB.

The next hand, we will have the button, once again jam any 2; the SB will fold, and we will win that hand 1/2 the time; the SB will lose another 1/2 BB. So they will lose 2.5BB with near certainty; ICM thinks it has a proper 18BB stack, reality is they are about to have a 15.5 Stack. Even worse, if the short stack wins this random flip, they will have only 2.5BB and the process will repeat itself.

Fold pre vs UTG/UTG1. Vs MP idk depends. Shove vs CO/Button.