Villain appears fishy but has recent success in HSMTTS running 40/19 17% 3bet over 100 hands. The only hand I have seen him showdown in a 3 bet pot was AQs 3b/c ~30bbs.
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He doubled me up the orbit before like so:

Full Tilt Poker Friday Night Fight No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t80/t160 Blinds - 8 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

MP1: t7880 M = 32.83
MP2: t10655 M = 44.40
CO: t17796 M = 74.15
BTN: t10832 M = 45.13
SB: t5886 M = 24.52
BB: t7760 M = 32.33
UTG: t13147 M = 54.78
Hero (UTG+1): t4335 M = 18.06

Pre Flop: (t240) Hero is UTG+1 with K Q
1 fold, Hero raises to t390, 2 folds, CO calls t390, BTN calls t390, 2 folds

Flop: (t1410) K J 8 (3 players)
Hero bets t840, CO calls t840, BTN folds

Turn: (t3090) K (2 players)
Hero bets t1860, CO calls t1860

River: (t6810) T (2 players)
Hero bets t1245 all in, CO calls t1245

Final Pot: t9300
CO mucks 9 K
Hero shows K Q (three of a kind, Kings)
Hero wins t9300




Couldnt tell you why I didn't just shove the turn...



...So now we are 56bbs deep.

Full Tilt Poker Friday Night Fight No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t80/t160 Blinds - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

CO: t6921 M = 28.84
BTN: t10975 M = 45.73
SB: t10260 M = 42.75
BB: t15322 M = 63.84
UTG: t5806 M = 24.19
UTG+1: t7520 M = 31.33
UTG+2: t12907 M = 53.78
MP1: t6168 M = 25.70
Hero (MP2): t8580 M = 35.75

Pre Flop: (t240) Hero is MP2 with Q A
4 folds, Hero raises to t390, 2 folds, SB raises to t960, 1 fold, Hero calls t570

Flop: (t2080) 2 2 Q (2 players)
SB bets t1440, Hero calls t1440

Turn: (t4960) K (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: (t4960) K (2 players)
SB bets t7860 all in, Hero folds

Final Pot: t4960
SB wins t4960


4 bet pre? Raise flop? Call riv? Thoughts on all streets appreciated.

I see it being AK here. He cbet the flop, then tried to be tricky on the turn w/ the A of clubs as backup, and then had no choice when he fell into boat on riv. I dont think u can call this here.

call cuz folding leads to posts such as these

Call because you're at the top of your perceived range and he expects you to fold. I prefer your line to a flop raise.

Also, I don't know who he is, but your read on him being fishy is spot on.

Call river

Point is very well taken... as you can obviously tell I immediately regretted my decision.

NSB confirmation seals it. What you said, combined with the fact that he still has his complete 3 betting range on the river that is huge and includes so many worse pairs and aces he will likely turn into a bluff adds up to making a pretty huge mistake here.

And yea, I def am aware he is a fish... was just trying to be gentle. Ty for the responses.

I'm not sure why calling the flop here is better than shoving. The pot is getting big enough that protecting our hand has plenty of value, and on a board like this there are still plenty of hands we can get value from, and only a few that are beating us right now. Why is letting him bluff later streets so much more valuable?

1) this is the type of villain who WILL bluff later streets, and more often than not he doesn't have a hand so that's how we get value
2) we have no need to protect our hand. this is a board we are either way ahead or way behind on (in this case we are way ahead).

The only hand we've seen him play he played it passively, calling down with trips, so I'm not sure where we have the information that this is the type of player that will definitely bluff later streets.

As for being WA/WB that's not completely true, as there is a flush draw out there, but I agree this flop is relatively dry. I still don't think it matters much though since this guy is probably not folding 99 to a shove.

I do see your point though that villain is unlikely to improve (only flush draws) so just calling doesn't really hurt us.

Right, FD is only hand that isn't wa/wb. As far the other hand, you can't really say he played it passively because of the 3 diamonds on the flop. Perhaps we can say he calls lighter though.

I'm not sure if he folds something like 99 or not to a shove, but if he's 3betting 17%, and possibly tilted from when we stacked him an orbit ago, I think he has air here most of the time on the flop.

i think its more of a fold than a call, his line doesn't make much sense as a bluff, the kc is like the nut barrel card vs. what your flop peeling range looks like. I feel that if he has air in this spot, he should be jamming turn here to give you a really tough decision when the top of your range is probably Qx, and you are shipping almost every flushdraw on the flop. Also i think there is a 0% chance he turns a pair like jj/tt into a bluff on a board pairing river to fold out exactly qx.

on the other side, i don't really know what he can have for value. It seems pretty suicidal not to just get it in on the turn w/ kx unless he has exactly AK w/ the nut flush redraw. I honestly don't think he is light that often preflop even though he seems to be 3betting quite a bit, you are opening from fairly early position and he is 3betting from the small blind, which narrows his range a ton for 3betting as opposed to btn vs. co spots or bvb. The only thing that makes sense is AK w/ a flush redraw or a flush that thinks a turn barrel would fold out way too much of your range, that decides to panic and overbet shove river in hopes to recover value missed on the turn instead of c/shoving river like a good boy when his turn check backfires.

obv there are going to be exploitablity arguements for folding AQ here, but i just don't see it as being that important.

raise the flop muck the river

asian jason's post is really really solid from a hand reading perspective- unfortunately the villain isn't him- which means while his preflop assessment very well may be accurate- the hand really just doesnt make any sense for any hand that we lose to (although i could see AxAx w/o the Ac or like jason said AcKx) and there's always the random clown factor that allows the villains worse hand range to be {more hands}

Ty for the additional responses Jason and Geoff. Jason, I think its time I go through some of your SSNL strat posts, and plz to be posting more in HSMTT.

I do agree with Geoff, tho, that your analysis is spot on for a thinking lag, but prob not for a clowny new tourney reg, who thinks his **** dont stink cuz he luckboxed a couple big scores... other more relevant info I should've taken account for is he has a 4% ITM rate and busts a redic high% of the time before the tourney is halfway over... unfortunately, I did not notice that till after this hand completed.

Given the situation (villain being a lag, history between the two players, position at the table etc) am I the only one that want to 4bet pf ?

4 betting pre vs a lot of ppl would be bad (and by bad i mean not optimal)

4 betting pre vs this villain would be worse

i like this alot

just curious, geoff why do you say 4 betting pre is so bad against this villain?

Dont wanna put words in geoff's mouth, but I will give you my reasoning...

When we flat we get to play a pot in position with an equity edge against a villain who is likely to put in a whole lot more chips totally dominated.

If we 4 bet Jam, we are likely folding out all the hands we dominate/unlikely to fold out any hands we are behind. The possibility may exist that he is 3 betting wide enough where we make enough from the folds to compensate for the EQ disadvantage when we get AI, but I doubt it is superior to flatting, even so.

If we make a small 4 bet, he is jamming a similar range to what he would call a jam with. (not like we are 4b inducing with AQ). We might get flatted by a few hands we dominate, but when we see a flop we have an incredibly awkward SPR with a hand we still have to flop some equity with, when we could have just played a deeper pot, where position will be more effective, and him having a wider range.

Really thought out and well worded post halowax.

Wanted to mention in regard to the part quoted above, that IMO Geoffras and yourself (if Geoffras reasoning is the same) overestimate the edge you have when you have less than 3 pot sized bets left (i.e. a cbet of 1/2 to 2/3 pot and call will equal 1 psb) and you will miss most flops. So on missed flops you are jamming over a cbet? or just calling flop cbet and then calling turn shove with ace high?

I really believe flatting is a mistake IMO. I'm sure the math will support a 4bet in this spot being profitable, meanwhile the hope to get lucky mentaility of flatting in a 3bet pot seems pretty bad (IDK, maybe its optimal, just cant wrap my head around it).

Buuuuurrrrrrrrrrnnn.

You are correct in asserting that is not the best worded sentence, and, I suppose, the rationale was not worked out to the necessary extent. Perhaps, nonetheless, it is reflective of my full capacity for thought? Doubt I claimed to be a genius, or even that I was correct. I was simply expressing the limited thought that gets processed in this damaged brain of mine.

If I was 100% certain that I made the correct choice, pre, I would not have asked for feedback on the matter. So, while I appreciate your feedback, I don't see why it is necessary to humiliate me.



Anyways, I gotta run to the store now, but, I'm gonna at least do the ev calcs for a 4b (unless you want to?) starting with a 3b/c range of 99+/AQ+, and total 3b freq of 15%, and go from there. Any thoughts on what better assumptions may be?

Have a good one!

k i don't play mtts that much so maybe im way off base, nor do i read hsmtt (just noticed that niko posted a hand so i opened it), but i feel that a lot of the analysis in this thread is flat wrong, so feel free to berate me.

the initial reads on this guy were that he was 3betting 17% over a 100 hand sample, that only means that when faced with an open, so its not really a 100 hand sample. stats like VPIP and PFR are going to converge over much smaller sample sizes then stats such as 3betting where you are only given oppertunities to 3bet maybe a quarter of the time or less. This means over this 100 hand sample, he probably has only 3bet 2-4 times, and one of those times he showed down a very strong hand. I don't think that these stats even indicate that he is 3betting light with high confidence, much less 3betting 17% from the SB vs. an early position open instead of say BvB spots.

In addition, assuming that vipp/pfr converge much faster than 3betting, and judging by his play in the KQ vs. K9 hand where he doesn't shove turn and his turn check in hand 2, he is more of a loose/passive type player than an aggressive spewtard (generally thats what large gaps between vpip and pfr indicate). I'm not saying that the hand was super standard, but not folding trips to 3barrels does not have any relation to him potentially taking a bet/check/overbet jam line as a bluff. Its really silly to make blanket statements like "well he is fishy" or "he can spaz here" that give no real insight into the type of game he plays, but potentially justifies any call down you make. Its possible that he has air on the river some non 0 percent of the time, but i don't see how any previous info or reads can justify a call where we need to be good a very high % of the time.

In addition, a fishy player is much more likely to play a strong hand like this than a non fishy player. A good player understands the value of building pots to get stacks in, a fishy player often attempts to trap by slow playing, then panics because he hasn't gotten any value by checking so attempts to make up for this by over betting when the best line is obviously bet turn shove river. I think he has a ton of hands like QQ/KK/flushes that he plays like this, and based on the fact that we can't assume he is 3betting that wide of a range to begin with, big pairs should be a pretty big part of his range.

in addition statements like these:

i really don't think this makes any sense (not to single neverscaredb out, i just noticed a lot of people agreed with this logic).

first, are we really at the top of our range? i don't think so, if we go into the hand assuming he is spazy hands like AA/KK/QQ become much better to call because we don't have room to 4bet/call and jamming sucks because we don't give him room to spaz. Even if there is a difference between our actual range and what he thinks our range is, this is still assuming that he is thinking about our range in this spot and excluding/including hands, something that a player you label fishy generally does not do.

regardless, why does it matter if we are at the top of our range? If in this spot we do fold 100% of our range, why does it matter? Obviously you can claim that its game theory optimal to have a calling range here and folding 100% will be exploitable, but if our initial assumption is this guy is a fish, he isn't going to exploit us anyways, so we don't need a calling range just to have a calling range. Therefore, the statement really means nothing, are we going to call with the top of our range (you claim to be AQ) and fold hands like QJ or even TT in this spot? At the point where they all have pretty close to the same relative hand value and we aren't trying to balance this spot because thats pointless, then they all either become a fold or a call.

Also i have no idea why he expects you to call when he bluffs on the turn but fold when he bluffs on the river (assuming he is checking turn with the intention of c/f his airballs). Again, if he is a weaker player, hes not really thinking too hard about what your range here in this spot, nor is he a good enough player to know to always check the river in this spot if your turn slow play checking fails. In fact, if he does have a hand like KK here, i doubt his thought process is "i expect him to fold, looks like he never has better than qx here i won't shove here", its "fk i have the nuts, arrrrr in!".