Dont like pre would just go ahead and not hve a wide 3ettibg range. Opener seems splashy ad we need more connect on his fold to 3bet stats so far to go Muchdeeper into this. Player 5 is almost definitely too loose to make this a profitable 3bet though. Call and it's probably not close. Folding may be better than squeezing.

I dot understand how much we have made it pre flop but assuming its 400/800 and 1850, 1850, my normal 3bet sizing here would be 5200ish but with this splashy peeler I'd go bigger, somewhere around 5800ish

As played flop is an extremely clear check fold IMO but happy to be told different.

This.

Getting such a good price I wouldn't 3bet v often here and when I do I'm probably not gonna use these kind of suited broadway hands that we can peel profitably. And sizing definitely seems too small, they're getting such a good price that they can just correctly peel almost everything, especially if we're 3betting pretty wide here. And I guess just I'm check/folding the flop, just hoping it checks through and we somehow find a way to get to showdown / improve if they let us see the turn

Just plugged that into an ICM calculator and assuming he is playing a pure push/fold strategy and playing perfectly then we're supposed to call QQ+. That probably isn't that relevant as he isn't playing pure push/fold strategy. If my maths is right then we need 75% equity to call (our stack is worth 472.89 before the hand and 559 if we call and win so we risk 258.89 to win 87.01). Playing around with some sensible ranges that exclude ~top 5% then KK is a call, JJ is a fold, QQ is pretty meh and can easily become good / bad depending on how you tweak that range. If folding is a mistake then its probably a small one at worst and you could probably easily justify a small "mistake" there if you think that you're gonna play push/fold that much better than the short stacks

Once the flop checks through I'd just always lead the turn. Protection is a little bit relevant but its a hand I'm gonna be pretty comfortable value betting both turn and river with on most rivers and we can have so many semibluffs that we can be leading turn with.

If the action doesn't change, i.e. the bet is still £3 when action gets to player 3, then he has to leave the £3 in as a call. If action changes, i.e. if somebody raises before it gets to him, then he can take the £3 back and has all options open. So in this scenario he has all options open, he can call, fold or raise.

I'd be worried about offending loads of people! Maybe he doesn't know many of them, but it seems like he does, and he's basically saying that they're offering bad investments. Either saying he believes they aren't as good as they think they are, OR that they are knowingly overpricing themselves.

But I'm sure he's fine with it if its in the name of making the market place fairer and making himself some money in the process. I'm sure the vast majority of mtt players regularly selling packages just overrate themselves or have unrealistic expectations of what's achievable in terms of ROI rather than deliberately overpricing themselves. Either way I'm sure plenty of people oversell for both reasons but when people are prepared to pay that much then you can see why and things don't seem like changing, markups aren't getting smaller and games aren't getting softer

I would say just about every poker player bar a few thinks they are better than they are, that's human nature and poker rolled into one.

True. I think it's easier for cash game players though as you can look at a reasonable sample of hands and have a much better idea of how they've performed. With mtt players its so easy for variance to make anyone look way better than they are, even over several thousand mtts online, making it much harder to be quantitative about it and fair about it rather than just, 'I've been winning lately, it might be a heater, it might be cos I'm playing good, who knows'

I personally tend to only buy based on what I know about someone's game (not that I buy often.) I'll try to make a judgement based on how good I think they (or other people I respect telling me how good they are.) For example, I'd happily pay bigger markups on Tom Langley's action than plenty of people who I know have better results online because I've either played or talked poker with them or seen them post and I think that's given me a much better idea of how good they are

I'd be worried about offending loads of people! Maybe he doesn't know many of them, but it seems like he does, and he's basically saying that they're offering bad investments. Either saying he believes they aren't as good as they think they are, OR that they are knowingly overpricing themselves.

But I'm sure he's fine with it if its in the name of making the market place fairer and making himself some money in the process. I'm sure the vast majority of mtt players regularly selling packages just overrate themselves or have unrealistic expectations of what's achievable in terms of ROI rather than deliberately overpricing themselves. Either way I'm sure plenty of people oversell for both reasons but when people are prepared to pay that much then you can see why and things don't seem like changing, markups aren't getting smaller and games aren't getting softer

Am I the only person that thinks betting the river is a mistake here?

It seems like his flop check/raising range is 2pair or better and some semibluffs (some of which we block with  ). Basically it seems like his range that gets to the river is, 2 pairs, sets, flushes and Q high / J high / T high. Vs that range then value betting 1 pair seems like quite a big mistake. Even if he does get to the river with AK like this, he isn't always gonna call with it and its still not a big part of his range when we have two of the aces (even if you discount flushes)

Basically I'd need some read that he was getting to the river with enough Kx with this line to make me wanna value bet and vs someone who's bad enough to take that line with KQ/KJ etc and call the river then 3betting the flop and getting it in is probably gonna be optimal

He sure is reasonably strong on the flop but we're obviously not folding. When he checks the turn he's taking some of his flop semibluff c/rs out of his range and moving it to made hands, which range from sets, two pairs and one pair hands; when we check the turn, our strongest hand is a set, but we often 3bet sets so we can't be that strong at all, really. I guess we can have the occasional flush as well but we'd usually bet that on the turn. So when we're marked as not having a particularly strong hand - but one that seemingly wants to get to showdown - and he checks the river again, he shouldn't have a particularly strong hand. We've played our position and seen him check twice after check-raising, so we believe we have enough information now to know that our hand is best.

Obviously that's all gone out the window with results, but villain played the hand weirdly by refusing to bet either the turn or river.

I get that we're both pretty capped in the sense that he almost never checks turn and river with a flush and we almost always bet the turn with flushes. I don't think he has as many 1 pair hands as you give him credit for and I still think the relevant parts of my first post apply. The other important thing is that we so infrequently have bluffs here. The only bluffs we rep credibly are the 3 combos of T9s that aren't a flush and given that we are or are at least perceived to be bluffing the turn with these some times we just have almost no bluffs. Because of this trying to value bet thin (which this is given the board and the action) when we are capped (more so than the villain, as he more credibly has sets and 2 pairs and a lot less 1 pair combos) and have very few bluffs is gonna create problems. I'd still be surprised if we're winning >50% of the time on the river when bet and villain continues (which we need to be to value bet)

Am I the only person that thinks betting the river is a mistake here?

It seems like his flop check/raising range is 2pair or better and some semibluffs (some of which we block with  ). Basically it seems like his range that gets to the river is, 2 pairs, sets, flushes and Q high / J high / T high. Vs that range then value betting 1 pair seems like quite a big mistake. Even if he does get to the river with AK like this, he isn't always gonna call with it and its still not a big part of his range when we have two of the aces (even if you discount flushes)

Basically I'd need some read that he was getting to the river with enough Kx with this line to make me wanna value bet and vs someone who's bad enough to take that line with KQ/KJ etc and call the river then 3betting the flop and getting it in is probably gonna be optimal

I think at these stakes folding is good as it feels to marginal to call when there a much more +EV spots available

This kind of thinking is incorrect. In cash games you can always buy more chips so busting a buy in shouldn't force you to leave the game so you'll be able to carry on playing even if you lose and take the better spots as well as this one. All +ev spots are good. The only time this thinking might be correct is if you're taking a shot in a really soft game that you're not rolled for (or maybe there is an argument for it in some mtt spots but mtts are stupid anyway)

Pre is ok. Calling flop is good, we shouldn't be raising anything. Should definitely bet the turn when checked to, its 25nl, trying to be tricky by checking behind nutted hands in these spots is almost always gonna be a mistake just value bet and let people pay you off.

River fold is probably fine, I'd sort of expect UTG to barrel the turn fairly frequently with spades but that definitely doesn't mean he won't have spades here and he is just never bluffing and AK almost always bets the turn. SB can still easily have flushes

Having said this, I might not fold in game

Would be much more tempted to flat if we were the BB as we're getting a better price to call and we close the action so can be peeling much wider and we can just peel a lot of the hands that make good 3b bluffs so can make not 3betting very often work pretty well. Because peeling with a lot of marginal stuff is much less attractive from the SB (worse price, not closing the action) then flatting pre is gonna be much worse with more of the broadway hands or whatever that make good hands to 3b bluff with so we can have more of a reasonable / wider 3b bluff range so would always just go for it with AK here

Raising the turn would be bad

Everything about this hand seems fine if you call now

His bet sizing pre doesn't look like aces and suggests he may not be that great.

If there was any 3b sizing I could see in this spot and not be able to read anything into then it's 180. Seems pretty standard.

Might fold the river but given that this is the absolute top of our range we probably shouldn't. Kinda sucks that his sizing makes it less likely he is going for thinner value. I probably call given that some of the time he can be value betting QQ (maybe less likely with the larger sizing) and could be bluffing (maybe very infrequently but certainly more than never) and if I'm folding KK here I'm just folding 100% of the time to the river bet but still expect to see AA or 9x a reasonable amount.

Folding TT pretty quickly and reasonably happy about it. AK/AQ seems like a tougher spot. He has close to 0 bluffs unless he's turning some worse pairs into bluffs but that just isn't happening with the random behind who is peeling the flop with so many Ax. Sizing is super weird tho and makes no sense with anything which probably just means he just flopped it with 33/55 and is doing something random just in the hopes one of you will be confused enough to pay him off and he doesn't want somebody checking either turn or river with Ax when you may call both