villain is russian reg agresive what to do?

I'm ok with not 3-betting pre because of the icm situation you're in but I still wonder if it loses value long term.

Postflop seems like a good call down. Villain can definitely apply pressure in this spot, you are towards the top of your range, and river completely misses everything. Well played.

3 bet pre check call flop

Congratulations on the deep run in a big daily

Don't you have any reads on V after playing with him at least all final table and aren't there any dynamics to be aware of? How does he view you? Have you been sticky or tight? Turn and river are both really V- and dynamic-dependent. His second and third barrels are fairly big, which makes sense because of the board texture, but without knowing anything about V, it's tough to give you any meaningful advice in this spot.

In a vacuum, I don't think he is ever betting 2/3 pot with worse than TPTK for value in this spot, so our hand is essentially the same as having second pair on this board, and it's a big bet to call with what is essentially a bluff-catcher (even if it is towards the top of our range), but a lot of stuff missed. If he is an "aggro Russian reg", he is prolly playing all of the flopped draws and turned draws like this and there are a lot of them (XXss, XXhh, AT, KT, 79, 75 etc.). The problem with calling the river is that it gives up the cushion that we have against the two shorter stacks (if we fold, we have 1,2 mil. and if we call and lose, we have 700K), and unless you guys made a deal, that cushion is potentially worth a lot of $ on a FT like this. It's annoying to have to call 2/3 pot on the turn and fold the river, but from his perspective you have to wonder what he thinks we'll fold on this brick river after x/calling 2/3 pot oop on the turn? We shouldn't have a lot of draws that play like this oop, unless it's a huge combo-draw that we decided to play slow because of ICM (something like AThh/ss or KThh/ss), but maybe he thinks that we'll play hands like JTs, QTs, J9s or pair+FD hands like this and fold to a river bomb? His line does look really strong imo and against most players, I don't think we'll be making a lot of money calling down with 1 pair hands against this kind of action on a FT like this. Most people just don't have it in them to bomb three streets at such a FT as a bluff.

Very interested to hear what some of the wizards make of this hand, but I very much doubt that anyone is going to be able to tell you what the correct play is without some history on V.

Why do you want to inflate the pot oop against the bigstack when you have more than the two other stacks combined at such a big FT? What do you do if the bigstack comes over the top? Even if he calls, unless we flop gin, we're never that comfortable with the situation and he can apply a ton of pressure because of ICM. Your advice of "check-call flop" isn't meaningful at all either. It's not as if you're just playing the flop and once you x/call the flop, the hand is over. The flop is prolly the easiest decision in this hand.

Do we never 3 bet 4handed pre due to fear of a 4bet vs a big stack? Are we always flatting pre and playing abc fit or fold??.. take some initiative. . Stand on your own two feet man... growwww a facking pair ��

Sure we do, but we should be 3betting a range that makes sense. Taking AQo and turning it into a bluff makes no sense in this situation. I would much rather 3bet something that I am either willing to go with for 50x or don't mind folding to a 4bet than a hand that I wouldn't know what to do with if I get 4bet because V can apply so much pressure. It's not about having no guts or not having a "facking pair", but about playing smart poker. You have to consider the tournament situation and the other stacksizes - especially 4-handed at such a big FT when ICM plays such a big part of decisions - and not just say "I have AQ 4-handed, I should 3bet and x/call flop". It's not very good advice.

I like to take a stand in these spots vs an aggressive player whose likely opening wide an awful lot into the smaller stack size.. we have a more then playable stack.. we are the one player who can deal considerable damage to villain and I want to take advantage of this.
I'm not necessarily turning our hand into a bluff.. but I will have a considerable wider 3 bet bluff range myself vs him. If villain 4bets we are not committed if he piles.. I can find a better spot.. we not playing for stacks.. but we're not being pushed around either.

Fwiw I havent read the spoiler

Who am I talking to here BTW? Gordon Vayo?

How is 3betting as strong a hand as AQo with the intention of folding to a 4bet not turning it into a bluff when the bigstack should be applying a ton of pressure given ICM? How is it different than 3betting any other random hand against a good aggressive opponent? We're just 3betting in the hopes that he folds essentially when we're oop against the one stack that can bust us. It does have some value in that it flops some strong top pairs, but we're never really that comfortable oop against a smart aggressive opponent and going broke before both the other guys when we have twice as many chips as both of them is a disaster.

I disagree compeletely that it's smart to inflate the pot unnecessarily oop against the one stack that can bust us when we're closing the action, and I think what you're saying is most of all based on an ego thing of "not wanting to be pushed around by the mean bigstack", which I don't think is a good approach, but we clearly see things very differently and prolly won't agree, so let's just leave it at that.

He might've played the hu portion of the FT poorly, but he at least got himself down to hu and didn't spew off a chance for a big payday on a big FT by taking unnecessarily big risks and getting into pissing contests with stacks that could bust him. Maybe there is something to be learned somewhere in there?

I agree we see things differently, I'd Opt to take a more aggressive line to your passive one. We have a monster hand here 4 way.. I'd hate to flat call then check fold flops we miss with hands like this. Im not waiting for aces. What is your 3bet range if AQ isn't in it? It's not a dick swinging ego thing.
At no point villain is mentioned as being 'good'
At no point we can assume villain knows he could.. and should apply massive ICM pressure..
But anyways it's cool u wanna leave it there.. we can agree to disagree

You make it sound as if you think aggressive poker is always better than passive poker. That's a fallacy. There should be a lot more components in your decision making than just wanting to be aggressive with our "monster" 4-handed.

Given the chip distribution on this FT, I would, like I said, only 3bet hands for value that I'm willing to go with (whatever that range is against the specific V - but given the sizes of the two other stacks, I would say the value hands should be at the top of the range) and then 3bet some stuff that I don't mind folding to a 4bet. The rest I would just take the preflop discount price and flat.

But tbh, I wouldn't be 3betting him very much when we're 4-handed. You do understand that he is on our immediate left, right? The only time we can 3bet him is when we're the BB. This is once every orbit. The other hands, we'll be opening before the action is on him (when we are CO, he is BTN; when we are BTN, he is SB; When we are SB, he is BB). The one time we can inflate the pot by more than one raise (w/out someone else 3betting us obv) against this V is when we're oop in the BB.


He is a regular according to OP, he is aggressive as the CL in a spot where any good player would apply a ton of pressure, his sizings all seem very good on this board, and he's at a FT of a big daily tournament as the CL. From all indications, he seems like good player.

It doesn't matter whether or not he knows that he could/should do. He can do it. This is what matters. If we don't know anything about V, I think it's a lot better to assume that they're not completely clueless before making big moves on a FT like this than it is to just assume that he will always call or fold to a 3bet and that he doesn't know that he can put the pressure on us with a big stack. Even an idiot understands that you prolly don't want to go broke before the two shorter stacks and that he has a big advantage because of the size of his stack. Assuming anything else would be crazy unless he's shown you that he clearly has no clue what he's doing.

I would be raising turn for value villains range is a bit wide here and I would like to build up on top pair top kicker it would of also saved you a lot of money because he would re shoved here and you could of considered a fold.


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This comment makes 0 sense.

I think the strategy of playing passively is right given the ICM - I hate a 3 bet because it makes it much more likely that we will have to play for stacks which we really don't want to do.

By the river we've really got a bluff catcher and it's a sick spot - it comes down to bluffing frequency and ICM adjusted pot odds - I would guess that he has to be bluffing nearly 50% of the time to make it a call - he's in a good spot to be bluffing and seems to be the type but he may know that we will know this....

It comes down to a read - but probably we should fold

In game I will probs call though

nice bink son wp for making a nice score!

Payouts would be nice before people start harping on about icm before even seeing numbers, i believe however this tournament might be more top heavy instead of even jumps, if this is the case then going ftw/2nd would be more +$ev then moving up the pay scale waiting for shorties to bust..

Regardless of icm I would almost always 3b pre here, you have to realise that good players seldom call oop, I see it all the times on this forum.. even with a strong hand the majority of the time it is -Cev or really small +Cev

So in saying that I would 3b pre and likely go broke on that flop, if we were results orientated we would likely say this could be wrong as this time he has a set, but I think in the long run we would make more +$ev and +Cev

as played never folding river to agg CL. if you flat pre a hand as strong as AQ 4 handed hit TPTK on a wet board and fold to 3 barrel on brick run out vs lag CL you are playing the hand in one of the worst -Cev lines available.. lagg is snap value betting river with KQ and bluffing alot of missed draws to put icm pressure on us the med stack

Personally I think WP, although this post ^ is interesting. Really don't see how folding river can be reasonable. I agree with what Dr is saying but still everything bricked, we're near the top of our range, gotta pay it off I think.

Argument was tl;dr, let's all get along guys

This is not true at all. A ton of good players just defend the BB instead of 3betting these days if they're closing the action. You're getting a reduced price to see a flop and you're keeping the pot smaller oop against other good players because people don't fold as much to 3bets as they used to. Having the lead in the hand oop isn't nearly as valuable as people make it out to be. Very common these days both on- and offline to just defend-flat your BB hu vs a standard single raise. The SB is different because the price is slightly worse and more importantly you're not closing the action (so you can be squeezed, you can end up playing the hand oop vs two players with bad relative position, and you give a lot more information away about your hand). Besides, this hand doesn't really apply to the standard tournament play because of the chip distribution. If this was a normal 9-handed game just inside the money where a LAG opens CO on a bigstack, what you're saying is obv true, but this is a 4-handed big FT where we have more chips than the other two stacks combined. There is really no reason to go crazy because it's slightly +cEV to 3bet vs his range.

I don't think this is true at all either. It obv depends on the V in question and the dynamic, but unless we've been very sticky or he has shown down big bluffs on the river a lot, I don't think most competent players play KQ like this all three streets. The fact that we're debating whether or not to call with AQ would make it a terrible valuebet that would most likely just fold out everything worse and get called by everything better. If V is just a spazz, maybe he does this with KQ, but if he is a competent LAG, there is no way he goes this big with KQ without some kind of dynamic. What would he be hoping to get called by after bombing the flop and the turn? QT or AJ? I think our hand is essentially the same as QT or AJ by the river (the only difference being that we might sometimes chop against the same hand).

Preflop can really go either way depending on villain. Flatting is certainly fine with ICM considerations, as we aren't stoked to face a 4bet, but if he is playing really wide ranges 3bet will become better. Don't mind taking the lower variance line of flatting on a soft FT such as the B11 and taking a flop vs a wide range.

Postflop is very standard. Spades, BD hearts and all the gutties missed and we are pretty far up in our range with this hand. It's also a great result if we win and gain the CL as it will give us many more very +ev spots in the future, and we have a good opportunity to run over the table. Snap it off, and ul to run into a set.

i did not 3b preflop because with 20 hands before i 3 bet him with jj and he 4b shove me 25 bb with a9 ( him getting lucky but that is another story) so i know he can 4b light and dont want to 3b fold aq in this spot and also dont want to getting in 50 bb with aq with 2 shorts.

This makes me want to 3bet more after you've shown down your not 3 betting to wide. 3bet/ folding will not alter your stack value to greatly

Nice Run - Congrats.

I think one could argue that with the dynamics in play,we ca n fold because of the action OTT. I see the turn sizing and C/C as an interesting point for discussion. I don't think it's a bad call otr, but you have to wonder what he opened, and what he continues with for value.