PAHWM $125 MTT NL Tourney (1 Viewer)

Pesto628

3 of a Kind
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2nd level of a $125 buy-in MTT. The table is pretty passive. Blinds are 100/200.

V: 50s/60s woman. Some raising and some open-limping pre, has gotten aggressive via raises and check raises post.

Hero: Hasn't been involved in too many pots. Maybe has a tighter image.

Hero is the effective stack with around 8600

V in the HJ limps, folds around to Hero in the CO who looks down at :as::js:.

Pot: 500

Hero?
 
Yeah I am going to open this for 800. Anything close to that is probably good.

I would expect to be called by the limper almost 100%, which I imagine is probably good with hero's holding against the limp-call a raise range of the villian, so I like a bigger size here, but I don't want to go so big as to risk losing the limper. The upside to a smaller size is it mitigates the loss if hero is walking into a limp reraise.

But I think 800 with this hand is good.
 
Hero raises to 600. Guess I could have gone slightly bigger but 600/800 is most likely yielding the same result in this case so I'm not too worried. Villain calls 400.

Pot (1500)
Flop: :3d::7h::jc:

Villain Checks

Hero?
 
Hero raises to 600. Guess I could have gone slightly bigger but 600/800 is most likely yielding the same result in this case so I'm not too worried

True as far as which players are involved. But the more money that goes here the better it figures to be for hero. It's hard to imagine hero is an underdog here to anything in villain's range here except for the coin flips against small pairs. If villian is going to make a loose call, the bigger price tag, the better. This is why NL betting can be an art. 800 is a mistake if villian folds. It's pays to know your player.

Villain Checks

Hero?

I think hero has the green light here. Hero beats everything except the smaller sets, but hand isn't strong enough where I think hero can check. A lot of gutshot/overcard type combos are in villian's range. Hero should definitely bet to try and charge this type of hand.

That’s bone dry. Bet 400-600

My standard thought would be to go a little bigger than this, but really I think this downbetting idea has some merit. If you are betting sub-half pot here, and because the board is so dry your hand doesn't require as much protection, you are also setting up a strategy when you can use a smaller sizing on your misses. (I assume you would play AK, AQ pretty much the same.)

So whatever size you pick, make sure it's part of a consistent strategy, whether you go for half pot or a downbet. The only real downside to the downbet is hero will probably collect less from lesser jacks than the max, but I think the gutshot-overcard combo draw type hands I mentioned above make up more of villian's range than hands containing a jack.
 
Hero has similar thinking. Dry board that favors Hero's range. It is likely that Hero will be C-betting this board frequently with air so it is best to keep the sizing on the smaller end in order to protect his bluffing range.

Hero bets 700

Villain raises to 2000

Hero?
 
Hero has similar thinking. Dry board that favors Hero's range. It is likely that Hero will be C-betting this board frequently with air so it is best to keep the sizing on the smaller end in order to protect his bluffing range.

Hero bets 700

Villain raises to 2000

Hero?

Of course this happens in a strategy thread :p.

It's hard to read villain on the description, but this is a really small check raise, and villain is described as having shown some aggression. I think hero calls here though and see what happens on the turn. Hero will have about 6000 left by my quick math, with about 5500 in the pot. I would like to have the data point that villain is shoving the turn before making this laydown.
 
I such situation I would wonder why she would raise with a set?
It depends on how she played before and the hands that she have shown.
I do not know the effective stack she got so I stick to the observation "aggressive via raises and check raises post."

If she had won a lot and there was no showdown I can consider that she bluff steal a lot because her image. So I would rise
A conservative take would be just to call, but then what? if you do not hit a J it will be fold,so I would fold now

To make a decision I need more information about how she played before, but my first option here is jam, second fold.
I would not call unless I believe I'm ahead.
 
With TPTK folding is not really an option for Hero against a relative unknown. If Hero folds TPTK in position in this spot he becomes easily exploitable to check-raises in the future. Hero did not want to raise back either as a call keeps all of Villains possible bluffs still in the hand.

Hero calls

Pot 5500
Turn :qs:

Villain: Check

Hero?
 
There really are only two options here.

Check back or shove.

I don't love either play. A shove would mostly be for protection is KJ or JT really paying off here? QJ just got there.

But a check doesn't give many clues on how to play the river and hero may end up facing a shove.

I think checking is better here mostly because there is no value in the shove.
 
Pretty easy check back IMO. We are either way ahead of way behind, and this line from her is weird. I find it hard to believe she has a legit big value hand like set or 2 pair on that board unless she just turned 2 pair. Seems more likely to me it's a top pair hand that is overplaying. I see this a lot from weaker live players.

We only have 6k left and the pot is 5.5k. So if we do bet we better be willing to go with it.
 
Hero has same line of thinking. Her hand seems pretty polarized at this point because if she bluff-raised the flop with a hand like 9 10 suited, this is the perfect card for her to continue barreling on. Thought process is she is either getting fancy with a set or she overplayed top pair.

Hero checks back

River (Pot 5500)
:kd:

Villain: Bet 2500

Hero?
 
Yuck. So now 2 of likely top pair candidates now beat us. And T9 just got there too. So we only beat 89, J9, JT, 45, and 56. And the lower ones I would give less weight.

If she had something goofy like 88, 99, TT, or 7x that she just went crazy with, I doubt she (as I doubt most recs) would turn that into a bluff now. I've been rewatching past WSOP coverage, and the number of times amateurs do something silly like raise top pair or middle pair thinking their opponent missed is actual quite surprising. However, I think those are still less likely.

What other hands could we have here? Where does AJ fall in our range? If it's near the bottom, then we likely just need to fold.
 
Had to fold here, but after this hand I was put into shortstack mode which made it a pretty defining hand for me in the tourney. Oddly enough I plugged this spot into a solver and :as::js: is the only AJ hand that is supposed to call.
 
Hard to put V on a hand here... but I think QQ is a possibility.

The read and pattern is like this: loose/passive player limps a big pocket pair, then the pot gets raised. She calls and then waits for a safe flop and check raises... only to get called.

The turn Q gives her trips, so she goes for another C/R... only to have her opponent check back. She then leads the river for a healthy amount, hoping to get a call.

Back to reality: Hero can only beat a bluff, and V rarely is bluffing here. Tank for 30 secs then release the hand.
 
What other hands could we have here? Where does AJ fall in our range?

Interesting question, are we as hero calling the flop check raise with AK and AQ? If so them for I would argue for sure AJ is low in the distribution. If not it's probably at least the middle. For sure hero could also have QQ, KK, and AA in our range, (maybe JJ unless top set is a checking hand), but hero really can't have two pair unless we are raising as low as KJ pre. So while I think hero may be somewhat high in distribution, it's not the top, and the run-out is really better for villian than hero, meaning it's a bona fide range disadvantage.
 
Interesting that a solver said this AJ is a call. What is it not blocking that keeps our opponent's range bluffy enough to warrant a call? I imagine it must be super close. And in tournaments you could argue for slightly tighter folds I think.
 
Oddly enough I plugged this spot into a solver and :as::js: is the only AJ hand that is supposed to call.

I think that in this particular case you must concentrate in the analysis of the pre-flop and post flop action.
For me, this is one of those examples examples were villain can be playing "any two cards" because she was playing on image table and pushing around.
 
I think that in this particular case you must concentrate in the analysis of the pre-flop and post flop action.
For me, this is one of those examples examples were villain can be playing "any two cards" because she was playing on image table and pushing around.
I don't know about "any 2." Plus, if it is any 2 then most hands don't have us beat on this board. So flop play seems very standard.

I also don't think it's likely she is limping big from the HJ. I get that people do this (live especially), but it's still a rare play overall especially from late position. And the fact that she didn't re-raise us pre puts her range fairly solidly in some sort of suited connected, suited A, mediocre broadway, or small pair type hand.

Check raise on flop could be a lot of things if she has been as aggro as indicated. Knowing hands she has shown down in these spots would be helpful. But given how dry the board is we can essentially rule out suited As and probably sets. Not that a set of impossible, but given how dry the board is raising a set seems less likely. So I'd weight her range more toward gutshots (likely with backdoor flush draw) and top pair. Maybe an occasional weird play with 88-TT.

Her check on the turn is very odd. It usually would indicate a give up or improved hand (like QJ). If she did raise a set, I don't know why she would take her foot of the gas now when a good card for our range comes. (She might not be thinking enough to see this, but we need to make the assumption that she thinks through things if we have no other info.) Hero check back is standard as we beat her flop bluff raises but lose to most value raises. So if we want more value we want to just catch bluffs.

River is bad as I outlined before. Several hands we were beating now got there (T9, KT, KJ, a weird unlikely AK). So personally I think a fold to preserve our chips is probably a little better than trying to catch a bluff without seeing any of her showdowns.

Personally in daily tournaments that are quite turboish, I generally like to preserve my stack in marginal spots as it allows me to exert more pressure when I move in pre. Avg stacks later generally dwindle into the low 20bbs or less. So any double at 8-15bbs puts you right in it and cripples most "big" stacks. Plus picking up the blinds and the occasional limp is a big pick up. And I find most players in these don't play push/fold very well. (Most seem way too tight.). Just my experience.
 
most hands don't have us beat on this board
That's why I said " she was playing on image table and pushing around. "
Villain limped, then check raised a dry board while Hero has top-top.

Or she was in love with her A3 or she was making a point on gender equality and women's empowerment
 

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