see the hand replay and please give me your thoughts.
https://www.pokerstarsreplayer.com/hands/d9c983ae64

we are deep in the money, UTG+1 is a brazilian scoop winner, thats been very active with a 80bb big stack, i have been fairly nitty and cruising with a 60bb stack for a while, so there shouldnt be no incetives for me being too bluffy or super aggro.

reason for flatting button this wide is purely the big bounty that i cover on the big blind and the blinds havent been squeezing much, so we get to see the flop ip cheaply.

flop a gutshot and called a small c-bet, not only in hopes of hitting it, but also to bluff some favorable turns and rivers.
the turn gives our a hand a nut blocker, while of course we only have 4 combos of those straights, i still stabbed at the weakness and followed up on my flop plan.
on the river i thought that my opponent wouldnt play his nutty hands high frequency this way, so i just clicked a bet not really giving it a second tought.
did i just run into a trappy line with effective nuts KK, TT or could my opponent have pulled out a bluff here or maybe just jamming something like AK here?
left me thinking, maybe he thought i was weak because of the betsizes i used, potting turn and shoving river would probably be better, but who knows.

yes in this spot im reaally wide, not by anymeans a standard flat in my strategy, this only happened because of the big blinds bounty and that bounty was significant compared to the next 100 payouts.

opponent definitely has nut advantage here, but given how the hand went it left me thinking this hand for a while.

appreciate all output!

This is atrocious. No reason to think that the BB will squeeze. If he does, the ep raiser may call, and anyway you are at best 35% against a squeezing range.

You do have the button, but obviously garbage hand. Generally fold > 3! > call, but calling doesn't lose that much with this hand and button. Flop is pretty wet, you miss it, and, as you mentioned, it favors the raiser. I don't like floating with a gutshot on this board. You floated and he bets 2/3 pot OTT, so clear fold. Once you double float, river may be OK.

I don't hate preflop or flop with the bounty considerations, but once the bounty you can win folds, I'd probably just shut it down unless I hit. The raiser c-betting into two people on a fairly connected board is probably not light. River is a bad card to bluff because it doesn't really change anything.

I did bet the turn when he checked, but thanks for your input.

I don't mind the button call (though I will admit it bothers me that at the Aria in like a $500 tournament I called on the BTN with J7s it went 3 ways when the BB called, I flopped a straight and lost to a bigger straight - QJ).

I would fold to the flop bet because QJ will be hitting the same straight as us so we have a lot at risk. Similarly if a Q hits the turn giving us an open ender, AJ will have already gotten there.

As played on the turn I would check back though in theory we can have a straight. The bluff could win the hand.

As played on the river I would let it go. The paired board has several impacts. The first is that Villain can have an 8 (like A8 or 8Xs). If you had a single pair hand you would likely check it back or bet/fold. The second is that I will typically call river bets when the board pairs because it polarizes things. In this case you can have QJ.

I think the call pre is bad. You invite sb and bb to continue and you have a meh hand. 3 bet or fold. Think this is a fold pre though. I like taking a more aggro approach and 3! Pre if you wanna play hand and maybe consider original raiser as opening too wide maybe? Still a fold in my opinion but I would rather you make it 6-7k and then play in position. Inviting the bb or bb and sb in at a great price is bad for hand equity plus it’s harder to win with bluffs against 2-3 villians.


I hate passive play. I like heads-up in position. Easier game Vs guessing what the bb has. I hate 3! Also bc you have to fold to fold 4! Or original open 4! So just way too wide if you are throwing J7cc into the mix. I like hands like Q-10suited A3-A5suited as 3! Folds bc they are easy to fold to a 4! And can play fairly cautious if type flop an A with A5 for example. J7cc is a tad too wide to 3! Unless it’s the one funky 3! Fold combo you throw in as an almost always 3! Fold. Gotta have a funky hand or two to keep your range not all value I guess when 3!

It's a PKO; he wants the big blind to continue.

I'm giving up on that flop. You called pre mainly for the BB's bounty but the flop hits UTG+1's range, not BB's, so BB is unlikely to continue here if you call, and you don't really want to get deep into a big pot against an aggressive player that has you covered here.

Think you missed a lot of the action and point here, dont think op wants the bb to squeeze, he wants to play pots with him.

As for the hand I think we should give up this river, river isn't great blast card for us and I think most his draws that bet flop continue turn so think the folding range has gotten narrow.

I’d save your floats for hands that

1. Have a little more equity, like a back door flush draw.
2. Don’t hit the raiser’s range so well
3. Are closing the action.
4. We cover the Villain
5. Make stronger hands when they hit.

A 4 gapper Jx suited connector does a poor job for most of the above as well. We can’t make a nut straight unless it is broadway. Our flushes will be medium flushes.

This hand performs too poorly both pre and post to be putting a lot of chips in.

I think this is perfect advice.

Thanks for all the input!

What about villains range? What is he bluffing here? I think its probably very value heavy, but probably a tough player could and should have some occasional bluffs, but im still a bit baffled about this.

Do you mean on flop or river?

In a 3 way pot, most bluffs tend to have good equity when called, as they don't get through often enough. The obvious bluffs are QJs, J9s, which, of course we block. They might also use something like AQ/AJ with a backdoor as well.

What do their river bluffs look like? Well, a check raise river bluff is often a hand that had showdown value, doesn't beat your value bets, and has some blocking element to a very strong hand. The first hand that pops to my mind is something like T9s. The ten might be good; it blocks your 98s and TT. Whether Villain bets that hand on the flop; I don't know. I don't think they'd turn a hand like K9s into a bluff, even though that 9 does block 98s.

BTW, I looked more carefully at the bounties; I didn't realize just how massive that BB bounty was. That makes me dislike the preflop call a little less. Once the flop comes, you just aren't going to stack him with your hand. It also becomes crucial to make sure you cover him. That should be your main focus in these bounty tournaments. Bleeding off chips trying to outplay a stack that covers you in this spot is the biggest problem.

Pretty much agreed with the above analysis.

If I had to pick a single most likely hand it's probably TT. It makes sense to bet that even multiway on the flop since it unblocks top pair and all the straight draws, and after checking the turn it makes sense to go for the river check-raise, especially since the river eliminates any slim concern you might have 97s.