ITM in the $55/40K grnt. Bubble busted 3-4 orbits ago. I had been pretty active overall, villain had been alil more quite. wth is this? comments on any streets are welcome.


Poker Stars $50+$5 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t600/t1200 Blinds + t125 - 7 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

SB: t23164 M = 8.66
BB: t14963 M = 5.59
UTG: t38008 M = 14.21
Hero (UTG+1): t53205 M = 19.89
MP: t47239 M = 17.66
CO: t47296 M = 17.68
BTN: t21576 M = 8.07

Pre Flop: (t2675) Hero is UTG+1 with K K
1 fold, Hero raises to t2850, 1 fold, CO raises to t5455, 3 folds, Hero raises to t15400, CO calls t9945

Flop: (t33475) A Q 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: (t33475) 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets t31771 all in, Hero?

Weird board for Villain to cbeh flop with <2 pair and 33k in pot already. Probably an easy fold with a blank on turn as he was most likely hoping you fire turn.

Meh, I guess that's a fold if he seems half decent. Not that decent players should be flatting 4bets but you know, it's still more likely that this is AA/QQ than that this is a random spazz if he seems to have an idea. Trying to put him on a range is just a guessing game and kinda pointless imo.

Oh and, if he had a random spazz hand he'd rather shove flop than turn I think = that looks like he wanted you to fire turn. My best guess is AA that for some stupid reason wanted to slowplay preflop, flopped nuts and checked back to induce a turn bet and then panicked on the turn because ZOMG there are lots of draws out there.

not folding...line makes no sense I think he is just as likely to merge JJ/QQ as have the nuts (which I am not sure he shoves on turn)

ok so we're scared of the nuts i get it. but as far as I can tell we're only 40BB deep, we 4bet this guy pre, he called, and we flopped an ace. soooo aren't we checking in large part because that's the best way to maximize the value of our hand? because we figure given his range he's probably not calling with a lot worse so the best thing to do is give him a chance to get it in?

I guess my issue is with 4betting AK then basically giving up on this board. like this seems to make 4betting pretty bad. it's tough to figure out what he might have, and sure the nuts could play this way, but we're getting like 2:1 here, AK is def a big part of his range, I mean are we really just going to drop TPTK here?

mmmh might want to check my hand again..

hint: i had KK

lol well that clears up my confusion. sorry bout that.

standard fold I think.

very weird spot obviously. i actually think it's super close between call and fold. i mean when we check twice he could definitely turn some hands like 22-JJ into a bluff. and i mean, isn't the whole point of checking twice to try and keep his range for putting money in the pot as wide as possible? being able to fold and still have >30bb in this tournament is pretty enticing, but i think calling is probably not a mistake.

fold bc of what chuck bass said

some of the responses are above my level of ability. However IMO not sure how you can call?

you guys have him on AA?

we have a blocker to AK...AQ maybe but I imagine AQ bets the flop

just not sure why we are so quick to fold here...if he has a set is he taking this line?

pre is way too big imo, you give him no FE on a 5bet jam and show him you're committed pre. 12k is enough.

as played i'm never sure what to do in these spots, they seem to have it more often than not IME though.

The problem for me is what A is he flatting pre? AK shoves. AQ should fold but if not should shove as well. Im guessing he has JJ and knows what u have and is trying to get u off it. No reason for for QQ or AA to be afraid of draws in a 4 bet pot.

you forget people suck at poker

i fold. makes no sense but people are awful.

Yeah I think you guys are forgetting that people don't play as you would, as you think they "should". I can definitely see AK and AQ getting into this situation post-flop, especially from a not-loose player.

Of the hands we're worried about, AA QQ AK and AQ are all still very possible here for different reasons. I think AK is most likely. He probably reraised AK/AQ, then saw the 4-bet and said "****, he's obviously strong and not folding preflop, so either I risk my whole tournament on this now or instead see if I can hit the flop and fold if I miss." Yes, it costs him a lot to flat call preflop and try to hit, but people do this crap all the time, hoping they'll hit and by default win a big pot. He might have been thinking about the "pot odds" too - that it was 10K to win 33K with the AK.

QQ is in a tough spot facing your 4-bet so flat calling preflop is a reasonable play for him with that hand. We can't eliminate it from his postflop range.

On the flop he didn't want to scare you off because he had the A, he wanted you to take a stab at it. When you didn't, he just didn't want more cards coming out, plus AI looks much more like a buff than a 10-15k bet by him on the turn.

I think his range is AQ, AK, AA, QQ, JJ, TT (maybe TT). What else is gonna commit a third of a stack preflop by calling that 10k reraise? What I want to understand is what the people who are saying "call" think he's gonna have here? MAYBE it would be different if he was the aggressor that put in the final raise, but I still would doubt it even then.

I think people's ranges can get a bit out of whack in this particular spot, just after the bubble burst. It might be a bluff, but he could also show up with random As in my opinion + nfd.

Call. You're getting >2:1 and there's 2 flush draws, and as played I expect him to do some weird ish cuz you checked to him 2 streets. Also you still have have 2 Ks left to hit when he has Ax or QQ. Obv you're behind more than you're ahead but it's gotta be close with pot odds. Pokerstove may prove me wrong here, though.

Also your 4-bet sizing is really bad with effective stacks and is the primary reason you got into this mess. It should be closer to a click it back than anything, you wanna give him the perception of fold equity (are you ever making it this size then folding?), if you're not gonna give him the perception of FE, just jam it, this sizing is close to the nut worst option since it accomplishes basically nothing you want it to most of the time.

Vekked, I see what your saying but if we CiB we are giving him odds to set mine us or ace mine us and we basically turn our hand face up, like hero has 1 PSB left behind and gotten flatted so I'm not sure how bad it can be.

I think this is an EZ call, and what happened is exactly why we checked twice after 4-betting. If we didn't want to call this, then a flop b/f (I know our odds are redic but there is like no chance of him bluffing if we c-bet flop) is better than c c/f.

I don't mean literally click it back but make it like 11 or 12k, about double his 3-bet. He doesn't get odds to setmine us at that price although that shouldn't reeeally be a concern. You have to remember that even though we're holding KK, we're still dealing with ranges. Even if we give him 7:1 or w/e to setmine, can he really profitably setmine?

Think of his range of hands that he 3bets, then think of the pairs he holds. Does he 3bet 22-88? Probably not. Out of pairs 99-QQ, how many of them does he play 100% correctly post flop if he calls? Probably very few. He's not laying down QQ on J high boards, and he's not calling 99 everytime he flops a flush draw with it and we dont. He still makes plenty of mistakes that make it so he doesn't play perfectly vs. ourexact holding since we still hold a range of hands.

Likewise do we really give him odds to ace-mine if we give him odds to flopan ace? You think every time he flops an ace he fist pumps and gets it in cuz he knows we have KK? If we turn the nut flush draw and jam after c-betting an A high flops does he call every time? If he holds AJ does he muck every J high board to 1 bet?

We are well aware of how reverse implied odds and overestimating implied odds affect our own decisions when deciding to see a flop, but its easy to forget that they don't just exist for us .

Also, the fact that our 4bet got called with these stacks is prooobably being results oriented unless we have some sick read.Just because 1 fish flats a huge portion of his stack doesn't mean our play is good. This hand kinda shows why having a super low SPR can suck really bad even with the 2nd best hand in hold em.

That's a really good post thanks. I was worrying if it was a literal click it back because we'd be giving him too good a price with the stacks behind but that is definitely eliminated with going to 12k or so.

Concerning the perception of FE (in regards to my 4bet sizing), I mean how often do we open/4bet UTG+1 with these stacks not planning to stack off (given no history)? This isn't CO vs BTN. Even opponents who barely get up to level 2 thinking should put me on a pretty tight range. 4betting slightly bigger should widen that range in his eyes no, because he might expect me to CiB with KK+. I agree in some spots 4betting to 11-12kish is better, though not sure about here.

What's the purpose of the sizing you chose? What range are you putting him on and how is this sizing accomplishing what you want vs. the part of his range you're looking to get value from?

I'm not folding turn and think betting flop or turn might be better, not so sure tho. Think you should just shove pre or smaller size or flat