Commerce Casino Sunday SSMTT
$115 entry
150 entries
Top 16 get paid
32 players left
600-1200 with 300 ante

DB - 40k in chips - Player is new to the table. He has been consistently raising in late position when folded to him trying to steal blinds. When raising he has been min raising or making less than 3 BB bets.

Hero SB - 30k in chips - Has been playing selectively aggressive. Has not been caught bluffing. Has not played too many hands in fact, probably the tightest player at the table image wise.

Villain BB - 60k in chips - Probably the chip leader at this point certainly the largest stack at the table. Player is super loose on his ranges. Recently he won a large pot tripling up holding 3 5 for two pair. Has been playing way too many hands, calling large raises with marginal holdings, seems to like any two suited cards. I said something to him about his ranges and he replied "I get bored. I like to go against the grain and play the opposite of what everyone else is playing."

Everyone folds around to the DB who makes it $3800 which again is less than a 3 BB raise. Hero in the SB looks down at A 9 and calls the $3800. BB calls immediately as well.

Flop: A 10 4

Hero checks top pair. BB checks as does DB.

Turn: 8

Hero bets out $6000 into $13500 pot. BB smooth calls. DB folds.

River: 9

Hero checks his two pair. BB thinks for a few seconds and then grabs chips. They look a little nervous getting their chips from their stack fumbling a bit and announce $12,000 cutting out 3 stacks of $4000 neatly in front of Hero. Hero tanks then calls the $12,000. BB doesn't want to turn their hand over. Hero tosses their cards up on the table and announces "Two pair." BB slow rolls their hand showing A 10 for higher two pair.

Advice please on whether you would have called the river bet. Additionally, any advice on when and when not to call big river bets in MTT's would be appreciated as well. How do you calculate the odds here that they are bluffing or overvaluing a marginal hand? Or do you feel this river bet shows too much strength for me to call? Thanks!

From my perspective I put them on a weaker two pair or overvaluing an Ace high. I didn't put them on an Ace with a solid kicker because I felt they would have reraised preflop. And the way the hand played out I couldn't put them on a flush or straight. They probably would have bet the flop if they had the flush draw or reraised me on the turn with the made flush. And calling the turn with a straight draw seemed a bit far fetched as well.

3800 is More than a 3x at 1200 blinds. Asuming he raised to 2.8k I would isolate him with a 3b to deny bb to see a flop. A9o is bad to play OOP so get at least heads up with OR or take it down. ~8k. Then cbet flop and gii on this texture cuz committed.
As played I jam river.
Calling his 12k
You played it way too scared.

Ya, sorry $2800. Good advice on the raise preflop when oop I will give that a shot next time I am in a similar situation. I feel BB would have called with his A10 regardless of the 8k bet because he was so heavily stacked and had been calling with so many mediocre cards to big raises already. We most assuredly would have gotten it all on the flop with a cbet had he called.

Sometimes playing correctly will get you eliminated earlier than if you played it passive but in the end you need some agression/bluffs/semibluffs cuz you can't wait for the perfect spot/setup everytime

what a nob. berate.

and 3!/f pre every time

A few things from my perspective. Out of position, I'm folding this hand pre flop most of the time. I would rather call with J8 suited out of position then A rag. We are dominated too often and will get sucked into a hand like this one. OK onto the hand.

I'm not sure if I would check or bet this flop. I think either is fine. Being out of position I am trying to pot control as much as possible so I would lean towards checking the flop.

Same deal on the turn, I'm still checking and most likely check calling. Why build a pot when we beat very little at this point. We lose to any strong Ace, all flush draws, wacky 2 pair combos etc. With that said as played I'm hoping to get to showdown cheap.

River: This is what we get when you play A rag out of position. Not only do we lose to a ton of flushes, two pair combo's, strong aces, now the straight draw comes in as well. All we beat is complete air. I can't call this as it leaves me too short. It seems to me that you let the maniac get under your skin a bit due to his crazy play and you had to call him down.

**Also don't talk strategy/ranges with the maniac. Let him do his thing and just try and bust his ass.

I'm completely fine with the call preflop, especially against a wide range. I think I do prefer a 3bet, but I like fold the least. I would fold it sometimes, but only in situations where I think villain has a strong edge over me postflop or if I'm just not in a good shape mentally and want to avoid difficult decisions.

If the preflop raise is 2800 indeed, I would bet smaller on the turn.
This would allow some space for a bet/fold on the river.
I'm a big advocate of thin river value bets, and I would expect to get value from quite some hands here. When you think about BB's hand range on the river, you realize that the value bet is actually thinner than might be expected, but still valuable in my opinion. A lot of players will call you with a one-pair ace here, or any worse two-pair hands that were not played more aggressively before.

As played on the river, I would definitely call.

PS: Oh yes, BB definitely took advantage of you to make you show your hand. Let him show his hand as the last aggressor (rule in most casinos) and muck yours if you're behind.

Thanks all for the great advice, greatly appreciated.

Villain was a dbag for sure refusing to show his hand and then slow rolling his reveal. I should have let him reveal first but it was dragging on for too long and I just wanted to get it over with. He was trying to get under a lot of players skin at the table and I guess it worked on me. This tournament normally attracts the same players every week but this was the first time I have seen this guy, I'll have his number next time.

Regardless of whether BB would have called you or not (as that's results orientated) a 3 bet pre is much better than flatting this hand OOP as you now probably know. With his bet OTR you have to ask yourself "is he ever bluffing here". People don't tend to bet big OTR when it's checked to them unless they feel they are way ahead as was the case here. Beware of river bets such as this one as people are really trying to get max value for their strong hands. This bet screams "I am NOT bluffing here" and there are so many hands on this board that beat you.

3-bet iso pre. A9o isn't a hand we want to be involved with multi-way and taking the pot down without a flop is ideal.

So then the question is whether you're good in this spot or not. I think their reasonable range on the turn is something like flush draws, top pair and obviously made hands like flushes, two pairs, etc. I think you should be very strong against what I'd expect a BB to be defending (not 3-betting) in this spot, as stronger Ax hands and big pairs should be 3-betting here.

I think you can bet river for thin value here, maybe 25-30% of pot. You should get called by most Ax hands, some Tx hands, maybe some weak two pair hands like T8/89/T9. In this case I wouldn't have ranged a loose villain to be flatting their BB in a 3-way pot with AT but c'est la vie.

As played, to be profitable your call has to be right about >32% of the time. Does villain have 32% worth of bluffs and/or worse hands here? I doubt villain is making this bet with just a one-pair hand, so the question is how many of his made hands that he might bet this way do you beat? When I ran this through flopzilla, it was interesting in that I figured you beat more than half of the hands he might bet this way, mostly worse two pair hands. If you think villain is capable of running some kind of a bluff here then it becomes a relatively straightforward call.