Hi Guys,
I played this tournament live yesterday and I would know your opinion on this hand.

Late reg still open, hero has 50BB as villain, just seated at table, this is the first hand he played after 2-3 folds.

Blinds 1K/2K/2K

Oppo open 6K from HJ
CO call
Hero call with TJs diamond
Blinds fold
POT 23K

FLOP 26T rainbow, no diamond

HJ bets 8K, Co fold, Hero call
POT 42K

Turn A, 2 spades on board

HJ bets 16K
Hero call
POT 74K

River K hearts.

HJ thinks 30 sec and bets 56, remaining with 20K behind.
Hero has 70 behind. Call or fold?

Thanks for your thoughts.

I think sigh fold.

For value AA (3), KK (3), QJ (12), AT (7), TT (1), 66(3) and 22 (3) are all pretty clear triples for 32 combos, with some possible AQ, AJ, A6, A2 and KT. As far as bluffs there are 78s (4), 79s (4), 89s (4), Js9s (1), Qs9s (1) for 14 obvious combos and maybe a frisky 33-55/77-99, or perhaps 34s, 35s, 45s that went for a loose open pre, or maybe some unimproved 6x like 56s/67s.

You need to be correct 43.1% of the time to call profitably. So you can only hero if you can discount a bunch of the value (perhaps AA traps turn, perhaps KK slows down turn, perhaps 22 doesn't open pre) and include some of the lower pocket pairs and suited connectors as bluffs.

Call pre looks OK but ship pre could be viable too if he folds 99 and AQs which is certainly possible; I've seen people fold JJ for a smaller wager


Folding river but at least contemplating a raise. We have AT, TT, QJ, some A2s, and some sets remaining so if he has K6 or KT he needs to find folds. That might not happen in practice though. But I'm pretty confident that anything with a Tx is out highest priority bluff candidate.

The issue is not only can he let go of 2 pair getting 6:1, but how much extra AA and TT does he have? Could potentially be a lot. If you think about what your Tx wants to do on the turn, trapping TT is quite sexy. You would call flop with a lot of AQ and AJ as well so AA have poorish blockers and need minimal protection--even on spade rivers AA can delay for small sizing and call ships since AA would be top of that range (x-x turn spade river still leaves a ton of room to value JJ-KK, Tx)

Villain should be raising bigger on this T62r flop, I think you should have raised over him to try and take the pot now since T is still vulnerable to bigger cards (as is what happened). He is supposed to call with 2 overs but imo most people won't call with just 2 overs vs a 2bet on the flop nearly often enough. If he 3bets you on the flop you can safely fold because that spot will be even more underbluffed. Unlike on static boards with an Ace and you already have an Ace and you're betting mostly for value, in tournament and with a vulnerable top pair you really don't mind him folding 2 overs and just picking up chips now while no player in the pot has a clear range advantage. If a bigger card comes like an A or K and he fires off 2 more barrels turn and river, are you really going to hang on with second pair?

As played it's a fold. V could be bluffing but the river bet is sizeable enough that it won't happen often enough live. I'd consider folding weak aces here, so no way would i call river with middle pair.

Pre-flop: 3x sizing makes it hard for us to have a non-all in 3-bet size, which I'd prefer if the open was smaller. As played I'm probably just going to flat this, especially assuming the HJ open range is tighter than we'd expect. I do think jam has some merit especially if we know HJ is overly wide or aggro, but I also think we have better candidates like KJs/QJs/KQs that better block our opponent's snap calls.

Flop and turn are pretty standard. Do think villain should size down on flop makes some sense considering it's multiway and the HJ is out of position, but the decision to bet at all indicates a pretty polar range.

As played this is probably just an exploit river fold, we're really needing villain here to find a lot of the non-intuitive triple barrels (primarily hands with 6x in them) to make this worthwhile. I don't see a lot of live players pulling the trigger on this line all that often.

I don't really hate the idea of turning Tx into a bluff here, though, because we do block straights and two pair hands. I think the reason I shy away from that is that I'm not sure villain folds as often as we want them to if they're not finding the requisite amount of triple barrel bluffs.

I don't think V will fold very often since he only has 20k left behind on the river, unless V did it with complete air which i don't think happens nearly often enough. I think if hero is going to get more chips in it's on the flop, where he likely has the best hand and doesn't mind 2 overs folding. If he gets 3bet on the flop it's an easy fold, or if called then barrel on a good turn for preflop calling range

+1 on a sigh fold. pretty standard tbh.

I'm also not an advocate of raising flop turning our TP to a bluff, because very rarely villains will fold overpairs that crushes us big time. Unpaired Ace will fold but we dont want that, we just got unlucky, have 2 big pots lost like that last night almost one after the other. but thats poker.

I don't know the buy in level. But if this is a small stakes live this is a fold on the river. Opponent's don't 3 barrel bluff enough in those games to call off with 3rd pair here.

Thank you guys to share your thoughts.
Indeed, it is a small stake event.

Preflop I decided to call only, because I did not have any info on v.
Flop and turn, I think are standard.
When he bet the 3rd time, I put him on AK, AT, KT, maybe QJ. I excluded a set because usually at this level they decide to hold a set, especially on that flop.
I felt something was wrong, but as you said, without many draws and considering is difficult to 3barrell on that spot, I fold in the end.

He showed Q8o for total air.

oh well

everything from the open to the triplr is extremely rare

It does? 50BB deep?

I wanted to address this. You do not need info on opponents to pull the trigger in a good 3b bluff spot. He doesn't know you either. JTs mostly calls, but it does mix in 3b in this spot. So if you use an RNG live and got the randomize action, you should 3b this even if you do not know the opponent.

When I play live, I use the card suits to randomize. Preflop, I use the first card dealt. For instance, if I chose hearts that day, I would 3b JhTh with this hand. On the flop, I use the first card dealt. Turn and river it is just the suit of that card.

And to say you have no info whatsoever is ridiculous. Even if I've never seen someone play a hand before, knowing whether the opponent is a 70 year old woman or a 25 year old hoodie/headphone wearing kid is kind of pertinent information