As someone who has always been somewhat results oriented in life, I tend to run into some difficulty analyzing hands from time to time. Here is a hand that knocked me out of a tournament:


NL Holdem $0+$0 (200.00BB)
CO ($5394) [VPIP: 60% | PFR: 33.3% | AGG: 13.3% | Flop Agg: 33.3% | Turn Agg: 0% | River Agg: 0% | 3Bet: 0% | 4Bet: 50% | Hands: 16]
BTN ($205) [VPIP: 0% | PFR: 0% | AGG: 0% | Hands: 16]
HERO ($3415) [VPIP: 40% | PFR: 28.6% | AGG: 50% | Flop Agg: 57.9% | Turn Agg: 57.7% | River Agg: 75% | 3Bet: 19% | Fold to 3Bet: 37.5% | 4Bet: 16.7% | Hands: 141]
BB ($4776) [VPIP: 75% | PFR: 25% | AGG: 18.8% | Flop Agg: 0% | Turn Agg: 33.3% | River Agg: 66.7% | 3Bet: 0% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 50% | Hands: 8]
UTG ($3526) [VPIP: 25% | PFR: 6.3% | AGG: 33.3% | Hands: 16]
HJ ($6044) [VPIP: 12.5% | PFR: 0% | AGG: 16.7% | Hands: 16]

Dealt to Hero: A Q

UTG Folds, HJ Folds, CO Raises To $420, BTN Folds, HERO Raises To $1020, BB Calls $800, CO Calls $600

Hero SPR on Flop: [0.77 effective]
Flop ($3120): 3 T A
HERO Bets $2028 (Rem. Stack: $367), BB Folds, CO Calls $2028 (Rem. Stack: $2346)

Turn ($7176): 3 T A Q
HERO Bets $367 (allin), CO Calls $367 (Rem. Stack: $1979)

River ($7910): 3 T A Q 2



What could I have done better here? Am I crazy for thinking this guy is nuts for calling on the flop? I really appreciate the feedback.

Postflop there isn't much you can do, but your preflop reraise is much too small for being out of position. With only 17BB I would just 3-bet jam.

Hey Nath, thanks for the feedback. I'll make a note that I should have jammed pre.

Also, since my tournament game is awful and I could use the help, lets pretend the roles are reversed and I'm the CO. I call 1k 3bet and flop a gutshot with KJ. PFA bets half my stack and I call with my hands pressed together, hitting my straight on the turn.

Would that be considered the right call in a tournament setting?

For you cbet size and given there is very little left to play for, IP should fold.

As an addon to other comments, just cbet shove, there's no need to leave 367 chips back.

What makes you think you did anything significantly wrong? As others have said shoving pre would have been fine and certainly shoving the flop rather than leaving a useless stack behind both make sense, but in all likelihood neither of these would have changed the outcome all that much. Villain is likely calling a PF shove and if he called your flop bet, he certainly is still doing so had you shoved.

It sounds like you wanted villain to fold, but again this is results oriented. Yes, villain made a bad call otf, but you WANT villains to make bad calls when you bet. It didn’t work out this time, but too bad. That’s just poker; luck is part of the game. This hand played out pretty much exactly the way you wanted it to, except for the turn card.

Bad beat. CO should fold flop and should probably fold to 3! preflop. Shoving preflop is standard and a little bit better.

I am always 3 bet shoving pre-flop with <20 blinds. I will often 3 bet shove with <25 blinds especially if opener hasn't min raised. In this case KJo guy would likely fold preflop (this is actyually important so that it reduces variance)

On the flop shoving is important so that it costs gutters the max to call. If the guy called your flop bet then shoving would make no difference in this case. He is an idiot or he thought there was some kind of tell that you were bluffing.

Instead of being results oriented understand that in order to go deep in tournaments you have to win the all ins where you are favored (like here where you are like 85% favored after the flop and had you shoved and he called preflop you would be close to 60% favorite). There will always be tournaments where you take a bad beat or two. Nothing you can do about it but remember that the more you get it in good the more you will go deep.

Thanks for the input Mick, not sure what I was thinking really leaving ~300chips behind. I made a note for next time.

Honestly it felt wrong because it was the hand that knocked me out of the tournament. My gut instinct as a player trying to improve is to look at the results and try to adjust my play for better ones next time. The hardest situations for me to analyze are the ones where I actually made the right decisions (or close, at least in this case; others have commented the things I could have done better) but still come up short. I appreciate your thoughts Stremba.

Thanks Deuceblocker. I'm always reluctant to use the terminology "bad beat" because really nobody likes to hear it, but this really felt like one. I still could have played it a little better though and I certainly will next time.

This is good to know Mr. Rick, and probably going to be the hardest thing to get used to for me. I have yet to make any kind of impressive tournament run, and sometimes they feel so frustrating I want to give up trying and just go back to playing only cash games. Obviously I'm never going to improve if I never play them though.

Some great responses in this thread, I am grateful for everyone who has taken the time to provide their input.

Yes, your bet sizing is a mess

Sizing on the flop is nonstandard, but it doesn't really matter.

You shouldn't be looking at bustout hands for what you did wrong. Mostly, those are just bad luck.

Which ones should I be looking at? I will usually tag a hand for review later if I feel like I misplayed or if I make a big call/fold.

Edit: I will also automatically tag any hand that busts me from a tournament, or cleans me at a cash table.

I would have someone else flag hands. If you don't want to pay a coach, maybe a study group where you go over each other's hands. You can also use software to flag hands.

I could probably google this, but are there any good ones you personally know of and reccomend? Are those note taking, leak buster, x-ray addons that come with HUDS like DriveHud for extra money worth it?

Sadly I don't know any coaches even if I wanted to hire one.