This is one of the first hands of the tournament so everyone is essentially around 250 BB deep. Villain 1 is an extremely good pro that is playing for fun because he's friends with owner of the PPPoker room, and villain 2 is a complete unknown. 7 handed.


OTTH

LJ limps, villain 1 iin HJ raises 4 BB, BTN calls and hero 3 bets to 18 BB in SB with A 2 and both villains call.

Flop (56.5 BB): 8 7 5 Hero bets 28 BB.

What are your thoughts on pre and flop, and if you agree with the 3 bet and cbet what are your thoughts on the sizings?

I like your 3bet sizing, especially as the aim is to take the hand down preflop. You would also take this sizing with AA/KK so that's good.

On the flop I don't like it,, reasons being: you're playing 3ways and therefor all bets you make are extremely weighted towards value. you betting half pot here means you're range is basically: AA/KK/Ax with at least one club or flopped flush, that's about it really, not a situation where you are likely to continue with a bluff because it's soo draw heavy and it's 3way.

it's unlikely we're going to play for bounties as we are too deep stacked, so we should maximize chip wise, rather then for the entire stack necessarily.

I would check on flop, and just call if somebody bets, on the turn you can lead out(whether somebody bet or not) and then you can bet 70%, as you are then representing a lot more hands and bluffs. what do you think?

Thank you for your feedback. I bet out on the flop 3 ways because of the fact that we are 3 ways and hit a board where it's somewhat likely one of the villains hit a set in a 3 bet pot. Also, I suppose it was partly leveling.

you flopped the nuts (i don't Count 64s into their 3bet calling range) and you bet like you flopped the nuts.

check and let them bet into you

You're deep and chips need to go in. If some pro is splashing around in a tourney he doesn't care about, he's probably in go bust or win it mode so has no problem stacking off in the first orbit. Especially if there's rebuys.

So how do chips go in best? To bluff, they'd probably have at least one big club like Kcx or Qcx, but how many of those are they playing? Obviously, pocket kings or queens are coming along anyways and a lot of those hands like AxKc are calling so you don't gain anything by letting them bluff. Unless you think you have someone who's going to fire multiple barrels with air, betting seems fine. Hands like smaller flushes and sets it doesn't really matter what you do, but if you give up the lead to a hand like 99 they're gonna be checking back a whole lot on the turn. If you lead the flop, they're definitely calling and might even raise. You'll also probably get more value on future streets.

If you look at your range, you do have a lot of hands you want to check that you kinda just either give up or want to get to showdown cheap like two red jacks. So you probably want some strong hands in your checking range as well, but even if you are gonna put some nut flushes in it, I would be more likely to check AcKc or AcQc where you block the hands that are gonna call at least once.

A2s isnt a hand I like reraising with - I won't know how to play it if I hit my ace - but if it's in your comfort zone, agree with the others that it was a reasonable size.

I like the flop bet. Its not "betting like you flopped the nuts", it's c-betting after having the preflop lead and giving people a chance to fold when they miss. It suits you just fine if people suspect you of betting with AK or TT or whatever here. If they look you up it's going to cost them this time. If you don't lead this, you might get one half-pot bluff after you check two streets, or you might not. I think a lot more money goes in if you bet the flop than if you don't.