i was recently involved in 2 similar situations (3bet SB vs BT) in a PokerStars.fr tournament, and each time i took the wrong decision.

Here we can suppose that in both situations the opponent in the BT is a random player (not so much balanced) since it is a 5 euros tourney.

1rst hand (9 handed, middle stage of tourney)

blinds 300/600 antes 60.
I have 50K in the SB and my BT opponent covers.
CO opens 1500, BT calls and I 3bet 4x with KK to 6000, BT calls. Pot around 15K.
Flop A84 rainbow, I check call 8K. Pot 31K.
Turn 5 spade which brings a bd flush draw since the 8 is a spade.
I check, he overbets his whole stack and I fold.
My reasoning: his range of turn overbet value: 88/44/A8s/A4s/A5s/76s/55?? (i discount AK which would be a 4 bet preflop and I block K, and AQ AJ AT which would not overbet I think, just bet smaller).
his range of turn overbet bluff: air (how much ?), 75s/65s and some bd flush draws (my 2 K are red so I dont block spades) and I dont see other hands.
So his range dos not contain enough bluffs for me to call.
Well he shows 97spade ...

2nd hand (6 handed, middle stage of tourney)
blinds 400/800 antes 80.
I have 40K in SB and my BT opponent has 25K.
BT opens 2000 and I bet 3x to 6000 with QQ. Pot around 13K.
Flop AJ2 with J 2 diamonds (I dont have Qd). I check call 7K.
Turn T offsuit. I check call his all-in and I lose to A7c.
My reasoning: the flop is very draw heavy, he has tons of missed flush and straight draws, and I block the KQ nuts with my QQ.

Playing big pairs on Axx flop is always difficult, and I think even more in 3bet pots. I assume that KK and QQ are both in my check calling range against a random player, but how to play correctly the turn ?

A-high flops when you have QQ/KK are highly annoying, especially in 3-bet pots.

Hand 2 I think you're just stuck because it's a low SPR spot with 30bb effective in a 3-bet pot and he could have bluffs in his range.

Hand 2 is interesting though. Why do you think he would overshove the turn with sets or 2p? I think he would bet smaller for value there. Same reason why you think he wouldn't shove AQ/AJ. On a draw-heavy board overshoves are usually semi-bluffs. Players do this because they want their bet to look as scary as possible so they pile it in, knowing they have outs if called. So I'm not at all surprised at what he showed.

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I have some Ax in my check calling range (Axs, AT, AJ).
So I assume that for him to overbet shove for value, he has these hands beaten.

Its very unlikely for him to have AQ, as he would have 3bet preflop instead of calling the CO opener.

So his overbet range on the turn contains all hands that beat AJ, minus AK and AQ that he cannot have. This leaves exactly 88/44/A8s/A4s/A5s/76s (55 is also unlikely as he would not bet the flop). That makes 3 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 4 = 14 combos.

I have 35K left when he overbets the turn, so my odds are 31 + 35 / 35, a little bit less of 2 to 1.

That means that for me to correctly call, I need to find about 7 combos bluff in his overbet range. And you are right, he has a lot more (air + 75s + 76s + bs flush draws). So it was probably an obvious call.

I hesitated a long time before foldind as I was risking my tourney life. And even with such a long time, I find it very difficult to accurately count the combos in-game under pressure.

Some pretty big assumptions there.

1) You don't know if villain is good enough to realize you have decent Ax in your x/calling range, so you can't assume his bet means he can beat those hands.

2) Even if he does think you might x/c with decent Ax, he could still think he might be able to bluff you off with a worse hand.

Don't expect your opponents to play the way you play. Sometimes these bets are overbets for value but I find that they are far more likely to be semi-bluffs.

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Sure, I agree that such an overbet is very polarized between some very good hands and semi-bluffs.

But calling just because these overbets are "far more likely to be semi-bluffs" is not enough for me.
I dont want to be wrong as i am risking my tourney life.

So I think the key here was to count the combos of value overbet hands vs the combos of bluff overbet hands in his range and see that the ratio was a lot less than 2 combos of value vs 1 combo of bluff. Something I was not able to do properly in-game.

In fact more I think about it, more I see that the opponent range was way too much balanced toward bluffs.

"Don't expect your opponents to play the way you play": sure you are right again. But we need to make some assumptions about how he plays in order to try to estimate correctly his range.

Hi,

since this hasn't been mentioned: in both hands you don't cbet after 3betting. why? I'm pretty sure a cbet takes hand 1 down after the flop. the way you played it cost you nearly a third of your stack.

in hand 2 he has an A, but you can't know that by c/c. i really don't see any merit in a c/c range OOP - especially in hand 2 were villan is rather short. take it down on the flop or give up.

They are also easily the most common awkward spot you are going to face, you will do so several times every session you play.

Everyone should already have plans for what they are going to do with KK/QQ on all Axx flops, so no matter the texture of that flop, the type of opponent(s), the pf betting, the SPR and whether or not you have position, you pretty much already know what you are going to do without needing to worry about counting combos under pressure.

This should be a priority situation you are already prepared for, IMO, before you even decide to sit and play, along with what to open from each seat, how you will approach stealing from BTN and SB against various opponent types, when and how to setmine, and when and how to bet or chase draws. True basics. I'd suggest you don't even play €5 donkaments without having mastered these, learn it at lower tables first.


Also, on more general notes,

1) be prepared for the fact that you're going to make the wrong decision sometimes and fold the best hand. It's a game of incomplete information, that's the nature of the beast, and particularly, it's the difficulty of being OOP, because you have even less information than the other guy.

2) don't always ascribe to others the same ranges as you'd use in their position. Just because you won't flat a 3bet IP with a particular hand, don't assume others won't. In fact there's a possibility that you might want to reconsider your own ranges for flatting your opponents' 3bets.

3) don't automatically assume that you're behind on Axx flops



With the information you've given, I'd cbet both of these situations, not x/c both. Allowing ourselves to be results oriented for a moment (as you gave us the results despite this being a bad thing to do in a thread) you usually take down hand 1 OTF, and you sometimes lose less on hand 2 as well

I disagree. In hand 1 I can see the merits of the CB even though it will only fold worse hands because Hero can add 30% to his stack. But in hand 2 villain has a 1.5 SPR on the flop so a CB won't save Hero any money.

You're damned if you do, damned if you don't CB in these spots. The value of x/calling in hand 1 is to entice villain to bet a weaker hand, which is what happened. Hero just didn't make the call. If you're not prepared to make these big calls, then you might as well CB. But generally betting will just fold weaker hands and get calls from Aces. Sometimes they'll have it and sometimes they won't.

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I agree that I could include QQ in my betting range on the AJd2d flop as my opponent will need to defend with most of his Jx and all flush draws and some gutshots (KT).

But I strongly disagree on hand 1. Which best hand will fold ? Which worse hand will call ?
KK is clearly in my x/c range on the A84 rainbow flop (even in 3bet pot OOP), as I will induce my opponent to bluff. It's not about costing me 1/3 of my stack, it's about doubling my stack if I have the good read and take the good decision. Something that will not happen if I make the worst hand fold by betting.

And it's not because it's a 3bet pot OOP that I have no x/c (or x/R) range. I also need to protect my checks in 3bet pots OOP.

"don't always ascribe to others the same ranges as you'd use in their position": sure, you are right, but we can at least try to guess their range.
In the tourneys I play (6max for sure and even 9max), AQ is most of the time an automatic 3bet in the BT vs a CO opener.
And I think AJ/AT is not a turn overbet after a x/c on A8s45s as I have some A in my x/c range, but probably a smaller bet.