$1,100 live NLHE MTT. 36 players cash, there are 37 left.

Blinds 2500/5000/500 8 handed

I start the hand with 130k. Average stack is 193k.

I raise to 12,000 UTG with AK

It folds to the button who calls. He is an older gentleman who starts the hand with 110k and I don't have much of a read. I joined the table a couple orbits ago and nothing he's done since I got there particularly stands out. The blinds fold and we see the flop heads up.

Flop: 974

I bet 16k and he raises to 40k. I shove.

I've talked to a few different players about this hand and gotten some varied responses. I'm curious what this forum thinks.

Punt

Yes, it is a semibluff and you could even be ahead of a draw, but the chances villain is r/fing getting like 2.7-1 are small. Doubt older villain is just bluff raise/folding the mid card flop or is r/fing a made hand.

why did you bet otf
and yes it is a
and anyone who told you they like the shove has no idea wtf they are talking about

This is not a semi-bluff. The fact that you shove beside of reraising might tell more about your hand than anything else.

the only interesting decision here is whether to cbet flop or not.

Cbet flop is awful and accomplishes 0

cbet is nowhere near awful, get in the lab son

it is god damn awful, dude (probably on a nittier side) called you with 20bb left. Only hands that missed this board are broadway combos which we block a lot. All connectors hit that. All middle pairs are not folding. JTs are not folding (probably shoving).

When we bet we only fold hands like AT-AJ-KQ-KJ-QJ some of which he is never going to have there.

have to admit I thought we started the hand with 26bb eff, but pbb still doesn't change very much still, unless you expect your cbet to get raised very often (which shouldn't be the case)

proper range advantage on this board => we start by doing a lot of betting and go from there. songtaing it doesn't matter that your cbet is not auto-profiting/printing yet bc the beauty of poker is there are still two more cards to come after 3 mutual cards have been dealt.

The beauty of poker is that 2+2 posters with registration from 2011 post stuff like "it doesn't matter who board favours, we c-bet and go from there" because you know, two more cards

lol....great post

Pls explain why you like cbet for this sizing i can't wait to hear this

This is probably one of the nut worst combos to cbet tbh

Dude this is just a wall of meaningless drivel

He said we should be cbetting because we have a range advantage.

punt

I would say ranges are pretty close on this flop. But I have a chip advantage which is huge at this stage of the tournament, and I have initiative.

I cbet because I felt my hand was too good to check fold and preferred to control the size of the bet and keep my somewhat tight preflop range in tact rather than attempting to split it into a betting and checking range. In other words, I'm cbetting 100% of my range here.

I do agree that if I was to split my range, AK seems like a hand that would make sense to put in the checking bucket.

I wasn't initially planning to 3 bet bluff but after he raised to 40k, I decided I wanted to. I felt like he would shove AA/KK/QQ preflop given that we were on the bubble and it's nice to take down pots without a showdown. If he flopped a set, I felt like he would be likely to delay until at least the turn to pick off an extra barrel from my bluffs. So I assigned him a likely range of JJ, TT, 88, 9Ts, 89s and some heart combos.

I felt like when I shoved I would be able to fold out some of those hands, be flipping vs. a random heart draw and have 6 outs twice against his paired hands if they did call.

Putting myself in his shoes, I feel like my line looked so strong that it is actually a really tough call for your tournament life on the bubble if you have, say, TT. I have a set or over pair so much there and if I don't, I usually have some kind of draw like AQhh that he's flipping against or slightly behind anyway.

Anyway these were my thoughts. Feel free to dissect, I don't play much nlhe.

in short: bc pio says so

reasons for that pbb are

- significant range advantage vs villain
- hand is too strong to x/f and plays awkward as a x/c
- ok'ish barrel hand on several runouts
- dominate quite some of his flatting hands/floats
- bc we are so short, and pbb are not able to realize as much equity as we want to by start checking

w/e last post on this topic, shouldn't school you guys too much <3

Im 99% sure that you did not open pio solver pro and enter this scenario.
If I'm wrong pls take a screen shot and show me where pio tells you to cbet ak w no hearts on this board w no bdfd for half pot.
But ok ill bite
Range advantage on this board is there for oop sure but i wouldn't say its Significant.
Don't think it plays awkward as a cc at all.
This isn't a board where protection is a big deal and thats rly the only reason to bet.
I could get behind a 1/4 - 1/3 size cbet i guess (what I assume pio would likely reccomend in this spot) I've ran similar sims and im 100% sure that pio won't reccomend half pot at 100% frequency. This is how I know your lying about running a SIM for this spot.
Anyway this isn't a board that is so much better for your range that oop can start betting 100%
What runouts are you barreling I'm interested? I don't think theres so many
Sure you beat some of his continuing range but are you closing your eyes and bluffing ott? I think not frequently at all. If you held ah I could get behind a bet planning to bet back door draws but this combo ak lost a lot of equity on this board.
The last point makes no sense at all. Your not betting for value. Not betting for protection. So your betting half pot to realize equity? Makes not alot of sense
Wrd to your last point. Your not schooling anyone

We have a range disadvantage on this particular flop. Especially if villain is capable of not only flatting mid pairs and suited connectors but also big overpairs. Even without overpairs he has range advantage because we are going to have so much high card combos.

If your reasoning for not checking is "plays awkward as x/c" that means that you just play poker badly.

We dominate some of his hands but by betting we are excluding them from his range. How hard is it to grasp that concept, jesus.

I never said I wanted to bet 50%, I said the only interesting decision here is whether to bet flop or not. It appears this is a very high freq cbet (with range basically) and it even doesnt matter much if you bet 50% or 30% pot on flop, flop strategy basically remains the same. I ran the sims with different flop sizings, ranging from 25 to 50% and it all were high freq cbets to begin with and go from there. Anyway, here is your example for a 50% potbet on flop. I would prefer a slightly smaller size tho, something between 25 & 35% to begin with actually.



Overall range advantage is 2000 vs 1500 in a 3500 pot, which is rather significant ofcourse. It's funny how some of you guys think that you can just apply every cashgame spot to mtt spots in general.

For the rest of your questions, i'm gonna direct you to piosolver yourself and let you figure it out on your own. this is way too much strat already.

FWIW his 40k bet makes little sense but he's basically telling you he either has two big hearts or a set imo.

He's terribad if he makes it 40k then folds to your jam.

And if/when he does call, you are no better than 50% versus anything he calls with.

He can have other strong draws than two big hearts. The raise is also more likely an overpair than a set. AK is not in terrible shape against his raising range, but it is an easy fold.

The push should only fold out pure bluffs, which are possible on this flop, but unlikely, particularly given the description of the player.

If you think an old nit (as we're led to believe) is making it 40k (40% ish of his entire stack) with an offsuit/1 heart TJ, 68, 8T or 56 then you're off your lid pal