Hey all

I was in a tourney with a safe stack to get ITM (10 players before bubble) and this hand occured. Are these spots that I should play aggressively or should I try to avoid them before the bubble?

partypoker - 0/0 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 31.32 BB (VPIP: 24.12, PFR: 10.37, 3Bet Preflop: 4.41, Hands: 171)
UTG+1: 24.24 BB (VPIP: 15.22, PFR: 6.59, 3Bet Preflop: 9.52, Hands: 94)
MP: 84.92 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 27.27, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 12)
MP+1: 50.95 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
CO: 24.91 BB (VPIP: 21.15, PFR: 5.84, 3Bet Preflop: 2.94, Hands: 159)
BTN: 24.48 BB (VPIP: 13.89, PFR: 5.56, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36)
Hero (SB): 38.27 BB
BB: 32.8 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 18)

8 players post ante of 0 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.53 BB) Hero has K A

fold, fold, MP raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 4.5 BB, fold, MP calls 2.5 BB

Flop: (11.03 BB, 2 players) K T 9
Hero bets 6.62 BB, MP calls 6.62 BB

Turn: (24.26 BB, 2 players) 2
Hero checks, MP bets 24.26 BB, Hero raises to 27.02 BB and is all-in, MP calls 2.76 BB

River: (78.31 BB, 2 players) A

My thoughts were to extract value from any worse Kings and draws on the flop. Somehow I missed, that the SPR comes close to 1 OTT and didn´t want to bust with TPTK before bubble and checked the turn, although the turn-card didnt improve any possible holdings from villain and would be safe to continue betting out in my opinion. Especially considering the fact, that he would raise the flop with two-pair plus on such boards. After his bet, I tanked and wasn't really convinced, so still decided to get it in.

Cheers

3bet size is unacceptably small. Pop it to 7-8bb and give him something to think about and make him pay for the right to play a hand in position against you, covering you near the bubble. You don't want as much action as you think you do in this spot (OOP more important than the bubble).

Post I bet flop, jam turn, GG.

I had in mind that I wasn't even OOP, hence the almost 2.5x raise. Else I'd definitely make it bigger. Thanks for your input.

agree with sizing, its way too small, when he folds pairs pre it is actually a good win for us as we oop for 3 streets post. I would make it 3x his raise size at a minimum, usually I go for 3.2x his raise ip and 3.5x his raise oop.

At this spr I doubt there is anything else we can do other then size flop to jam turn, with such a wet board I would go something close to pot and jam any turn