Had an interesting one and was interested in other perspectives.

Playing Day 1C of the Wynn $10k ME on my first bullet.

Very first hand of the tournament level 1 300/500 500 100k starting stack. We're four handed.

Villain is a very young white kid with over the ear head phones on. No reads.

PF: Fold, Villain on button opens to 1200, We're in the sb with KhKs and make it 4300, fold, villain takes about a 45 second pause looking at my bet and then makes it 10500, I call.

Flop(22k): Tc 3h 6c
Check, 6100,call

Turn(34,100): 3s
I lead 500, he takes another long pause and makes it 22k, I call

River(78,100): 7d
Check, he puts his head down and pauses for maybe about a minute and half, then goes all in for 67,600.

Wtf

Hard to imagine this is anything other than TT. The only hand you beat that makes sense would be if he's turning Tx into a bluff which I don't think he's gonna do after your turn donk bet. Don't think he'd choose that sizing either.

So frickin sick. Honestly, IDK. If you can only put him on TT, then he can exploit the hell out of you, as he can get you off everything except TT (or 33/66) with that line.

Even though I don't think it's solver recommended, I would have popped him again big pre in this situation because I just don't want to have to make huge post flop decisions this deep OOP in such a big buyin event.

We cannot exclude AA.

I wouldnt even expect TT to 4bet here. This is mostly going to be AA for value, sometimes TT, and super rarely 54s or 89s. And then potential bluffs.

Really young hoodie kid sat down for the 1st hand of a $10k makes me think satty entry, which would lean me to fold. Maybe thats a bad read and its a good pro who isnt afraid to blast off hand 1 and has the funds to reenter, but I'd lean toward smaller stakes grinder who is playing waaay above his bankroll and he actually couldn't decide if he wanted to jam AA on the river or not.

No hoodie. From appearance I didn't get the feeling he satellited but yeah we can't know at the time.

If I were to guess his hand I thought it would be AA quite a bit more often than TT.

You really led $500 into a $34k pot on the turn?

Tough spot on river. I would like to say if I call the turn raise I call the shove but I doubt that would be true in a 10k.

Very tough spot.

I think a lot of it depends on your image. Are you a young guy? What is your race, etc. If you are like me (old white guy) then I think this is a relatively easy fold on the river and maybe even the turn. My image is that I wouldn't be 3-betting wide (which turns out not to be true).

If you are young guy (whatever race) you could be 3-betting wide and villain could in theory have QQ/JJ because you didn't re-raise pre-flop.

Also because villain is a young white kid he can be looking to make you fold because you clearly don't have AA and TT. But you have somewhat under represented your KK so Villain does have more incentive to bluff or value shove with QQ (and even JJ). It seems like you could have JJ here.

For this to be worth it to call Villain has to be bluffing about 30% of the time. There are basically 9 combos that beat you and Villain can have more than 4 combos of hands that are worse than yours (there are at least 4 combos of AX and you could include some combos of QQ as well).

But in the end I probably would fold unless the $10,000 didn't matter to me (you seem to imply that you have more bullets and we are very early in the tournament)

Preflop this deep I'd size a little bigger, flop call is good. Turn - I don't mind donking here but I would size up - the good thing about donking the turn is you get his QQ/JJ to call a bet that might check back. As played we call his turn bet and get to the river - I don't think he is value betting JJ and I don't think he would necessarily take this line with QQ. I also don't think TT 4 bets pre so his 4b looks more like QQ+,AK. Let's assume he doesn't have AK given the play postflop - if his range is only KK+ on the river you have to fold. I would fold the river as sick as it is - the AA combos are dominant vs the 1 KK combo, and this is the first hand of a live 10k. Can't imagine he's got AK or something and just playing like a maniac.

What is the purpose of leading 1/68th pot?

I would think AA is much more likely than TT. There are twice as many combinations of AA than TT and he probably doesn't 4! TT preflop. TT seems like a bad choice to 4!. You want really big hands and maybe a few bluffs.

Not sure I agree with this. V raised on the button and SB is supposed to 3-bet very wide here, meaning TT should still be well ahead of SB's 3-bet range. Also TT is fine taking it down without a flop so seems like a fine 4-bet candidate to me.

Is there something wrong with 5-betting pre OOP?

Yea I don’t mind 5 betting pre but I’m prolly flatting bc anyone competent is folding really tight to a 5 bet.

Did you bet 500 on turn? Huh? I think I just x sigh call this hand as played. I think pre I would make it 4800- I like sizing up early with nuttty hands. I like sizing up out of position here and think we get a lot of folds if we go 4-4.5x his open. We are so deep so feel people call a tad too much in these spots early.

Also think jj or qq might do this especially when we only flat 4 bet. Idk though super tough spot. I prolly sigh call river

It's such a silly and weird and unexpected bet especially the first hand of a tourney like this I expect to maybe get some type of reaction that will usually be pretty honest.

Also there could be hints based on the raise sizing they choose. And if they are bad enough to just call the bet then there's that as well.

But in any case it kind of forces them to react as opposed to letting them play in flow.

The only thing I can think of is that 5 bet ranges are so tight it can make it tough to play some spots.

But maybe this deep you can have one.

I think with 200 BBs it's equivalent to a cash game so you can, maybe go really small to try to keep his QQ/JJ in. The problem is once you call the 4-bet to trap (which I also really prefer to do IP), you kinda have to pay him off on this board. And he's going to have it a ton. So IMO 5-betting makes your life a bit easier. Unless he jams in which case you will be sick but probably have to call.

Then again I don't play $10Ks so what do I know.

As he never slowed down, I think I put him on AA or full house by the river.

If you think he plays this way preflop with jj, qq, he could also do the same with 1010, 99 and got lucky on the flop.

I like your logic of the 1bb bet on the turn rather than just checking to him.

I hope we get results on this one.

Idk what to say about the small turn bet. Idk it looks like a block but idk I feel it really doesn’t accomplish much (so it isn’t good or bad), villian is going to bet same amount he was as before probably.

I don’t like the bet bc if villian has a draw type hand, you let him see river extremely cheap. However as hand played pre, I doubt you have to worry about a drawy hand.


Btw as stated- the way the opponent acted based on timing. I feel he has AA or 10-10. Maybe he’s a fish with jj or qq but idk I lean more so toward AA.

Looking back at hand- I kinda like 5! To 22-28k. Idk maybe call 4 is ok but we are so deep. Even getting kk in on good runouts sucks bc spr is super high. It’s not like a spot we can just easily get it in with an overpair and say oh bad luck if we run into AA.

I would size up on 3! Also. I think 5k is perfectly fine here instead of 4300. Idk we are hella deep and people don’t fold. We should go 5k with our 3! Folds and top of range hands as we are out of position post. 3.58x seems too small to me oop and so damn deep.

The turn bet did not actually accomplish anything but I like the idea of throwing a monkey wrench at V to try to get a read.

I think you have to give V credit because he played the hand and we can't tell if he had AA, QQ or JJ or a full house. Hell, at this point, I am hoping you called and he had the other KK or you folded and he had quads,

I think it's a tough spot because the question is what is this player going to 4-bet preflop early on in a tournament? Most players are only 4 betting KK and AA and AK. Given that you have KK, it makes AK much less likely. But also, how many players are going to 3 barrel AK in a 4 bet pot early on? The board is pretty dry and you have call large bets already.

Whether I am calling in this spot is very player dependent. Because there aren't that many players that will bluff it off early in a 10K. I think there is very little chance that this player has JJ/QQ. I think you are looking at AA and maybe TT and less likely A3s and some other random hands in there.

I would honestly lean heavily towards a fold. The one thing that makes me think this is much closer to a call is that you are 4 handed. So this player is probably 4 betting wider than if you were 9 handed.

Appreciate the feedback from everyone.

Results:

I tanked for a very long time and eventually decided on a fold as it just felt like AA.

After talking with him more these are the things I found out.

22yr old plays tournaments online for a living on GG. He recently placed 9 th in one of the big.ones for $250k.

He flew in the night before traveling 14hrs from Ireland.

He played pretty reasonably the rest of the time we didn't get into any other hands.

He ended up stacking another player shortly after our hand when he got KK on K J xr vs JJ.

I feel the fact villian is a 22 year old makes it more a call honestly. These young kids sometimes are derpy and think JJ/ QQ is the nuts here (maybe even A10 lol). It might be a good fold though. Feel its AA/ 10-10 a lot of the time. Against an omc or standard mawg/ I think this is an easy fold but against a foreign 22 year old: not so much.

The timing to me seems like super nutty hand. From random experience at the aria, had some weenie x raise a flop in like a CU Vs sb spot with a set and he bets turn and river. He took literally 60-120 seconds on the turn and river decision which to me was so annoying. First levels of day in a tourny without an insane structure, don’t take 90 seconds to do something you know you are doing. 10-15 seconds is fine.

I know what you're saying about a young aggrotard kid and some are certainly like that, but after playing about 4hrs w/ the guy afterwards he wasn't like that.
He folded a bunch to my other 3bets and I never saw him show down something unreasonable and he wasn't even particularly aggressive.

So his age I don't think really goes much into the read at all after the fact.

Of course I'll never know for sure, but just based on all the play I saw afterwards and the fact that he's a very competent player I don't think he does that w/ QQ.

…..And you went on to take down the tournament?