£500 500k guarantee DTD.. thoughts on hand?

[TheFruitbat]

Hi guys, for those of you who don't know me, my names Jack Allen and I play regularly at DTD. This is going to be my first thread on blonde and after taking the advice from a few players, especially Alex, to get more seriously involved in these analysis discussions as I'm sure it will bring my game on loads.

This hand is still bugging me from Sunday and would love advice on how much I butchered it and how we would take steps to play it better in general.

OK, so Villain is a guy called Cina, never played with him before but at table reads are... Been at the table for about 40 mins. We've seen him 3bet squeeze, insta-fold to a 4bet. Been very peely and loose seeing a lot of flops- in and out of position. So it kind of feels like he's playing a pretty loose-aggro game. Already played a hand in this level where I opened   , he called IP, I cbet KQ6 and he insta-folded. I have been pretty active too, opening alot, peeled a few hands. Won 4 pots without showdown and won a medium sized pot with AJ at showdown. So villains image of me should be quite loose-aggro too.

50 left, ITM Blinds 12k-24k with a 3k ante

Hero stack = ~1,050,000 mill Villain stack = Covered us - Maybe 1.5 mil

Hero opens in EP with     to 50k, villain flats IP and we go heads up to the flop...

FLOP-  

I c-bet 40k...Villain tank calls

TURN-  

I check... Villain bets 85k .... I tank c/r to 200k... he dwell dwell dwell calls.

RIVER-  

I bet 300k with 450k back... Villain tank raises all in.

Hero? I called because throughout the hand I just couldn't put a player like this on AK - Which is probably my first incredibly naive mistake. I also didn't think villain would flat pre with 33-22 when were 40 BB deep, effective. Also can't imagine villain flatting with A3ss or A2ss for the same reason. Such a seriously weird spot on the river though and I've been telling myself over and over. Why did I call - he HAS to have it. But I took quite a strange line in the hand and maybe this could induce him to do something crazy? Would love advice on the hand anyway.

Cheers.

[pleno1]

seems like really eays fold, hes never bluffing here.

[TheFruitbat]

What about my line in general? Sizings? So 100% fold river. Just thought it was hard as there were so few hands I could see him realistically having that beat me- but I guess it is just a clear cut fold.

[DMorgan]

Pretty comedy hand history given that there is no hand that he can have on the river that beats you that hasn't been butchered at some point.

I think you should be shoving river.

As played, gotta fold though. He's never ever bluffing. Make sure you thank the guy afterwards for letting you keep some.

[Honeybadger]

LOVE LOVE LOVE your bet sizing on the flop

However, I don't your turn check at all. Plus once you have checked, you should check-call not check-raise. The only point in checking is to induce bluffs from some weird floats, plus you'd expect him to value bet all his Ax hands as well of course (even though he should not necessarily do so). So checking to check-raise is illogical IMO. Bet the turn. But once you have instead chosen to check, check-call ... and check the river too. Your whole turn play is extremely FPS and unnecessary.

It seems like a clear fold on the river. Your line looks insanely strong (part of the reason it is bad BTW) which means two things. First, he is never, ever bluffing (he doesn't actually have any hands in his range to bluff with given your turn c/r). Second, he is never jamming worse. Put yourself in villain's shoes and imagine you have AJ here... are you jamming the river? Of course you're not.

However, although it is very easy to see that it is a clear fold when looking at the HH objectively, it is nowhere near as easy to see this when actually playing. I might not be good enough to always make this fold in-game, especially when under a lot of pressure deep in a tournament. And I'd definitely find it extra tough to be able to find the fold after making such a 'tricky play' on the turn (even though this should really make the fold even easier when you think it through properly).

I assume that, since you made this post, you lost the hand. Don't beat yourself up about it - like I said, these folds are really tough in-game, especially when under intense pressure during the business end of a tournament. In a sense you got unlucky to get into such a tough spot during this part of the tournament. This should not stop you setting yourself high standards, and determining to see things with more clarity next time you are in a high pressure tough spot. But at the same time you need to accept that you will make a ton more mistakes like this in your poker career.

Edited to say:

Just thought it was hard as there were so few hands I could see him realistically having that beat me- but I guess it is just a clear cut fold.

You are right... he doesn't have a wide range of hands that beat you. But he has ZERO hands that don't beat you! You have massively narrowed his range with your turn c/r followed by river bet. A bet-bet-bet line keep his range wider, as does bet-c/c-check (although I don't like this latter line). But bet-c/r-bet is INSANELY strong and narrows his range too much. In fact, it is possible that even betting the river is too thin once you have c/r the turn.

[DMorgan]

Thoughts on jamming river? Seems like as played villains range is pretty much just the Ax that calls pre. It is a pretty clear fold for villain with a hand like A9 but he's probably pretty price insensitive i.e. if he's calling then he is doing it because he has reasoned incorrectly that you can have bluffs/worse value rather than because of your river sizing.

Also , thoughts on checking vs betting the turn?

Against the type of villain that is likely to be floaty/tricky he's probably more likely to bet turn and river when checked to than he is to float flop and still take off vs a second barrel on a board that people don't often tend to barrel light.

Against a weaker player that has much more value-oriented ranges to continue on the flop when its a no brainer bet-bet-bet but I think vs a tricky aggro villain c/call c/call might be best?

[Honeybadger]

Thoughts on jamming river? Seems like as played villains range is pretty much just the Ax that calls pre. It is a pretty clear fold for villain with a hand like A9 but he's probably pretty price insensitive i.e. if he's calling then he is doing it because he has reasoned incorrectly that you can have bluffs/worse value rather than because of your river sizing.

As I intimated in my last post, it is possible that even betting the river is too thin, let alone jamming. This is a consequence of the turn check-raise obv. So I definitely don't think jamming the river is good. Obviously if we assume villain is bad (that assumption discussion again lol) then jamming is great since we'd assume he can still have all Ax hands and won't fold any of them. But against anyone remotely competent we should not expect to get a river jam called by anything that we beat. Plus, all that 'tournament life' nonsense hinders us from getting value too... even some weak players might choose to hero fold AJ here with their tournament life on the line (and this would be an example of them actually being influenced to play better due to tournament pressure).

Also, thoughts on checking vs betting the turn?

Against the type of villain that is likely to be floaty/tricky he's probably more likely to bet turn and river when checked to than he is to float flop and still take off vs a second barrel on a board that people don't often tend to barrel light.

Against a weaker player that has much more value-oriented ranges to continue on the flop when its a no brainer bet-bet-bet but I think vs a tricky aggro villain c/call c/call might be best?

Hmmm... perhaps I was a little bit strong when I said checking the turn was definitely bad. Thinking about it a little more, checking does make sense vs super tricky aggro villains who are going to float this flop a lot, just because ... well... they like to float flops. But I am not 100% sure that in practice many villains are going to be attempting this play, and especially not vs an EP raiser.

One thing I am very sure about though is that if we decide to check then we should check-call and then check the river too. Check-raising is very bad, for reasons that I have explained in my post above.

[TheFruitbat]

Thank you for your input guys.

Yeah, turns out he had AKo and rivered the nuts!

So instead of c/r the turn you think I should just betbetbet?

My thoughts on the turn were check to induce bluffs from his floats and I also expected him to value bet all the aces I crush like A9-AJ. I thought if I check call then it would be difficult for me to extract max value otr? I thought about calling the 85k and bombing the river like pot but I thought that would look more obvious that I have a big ace.  Think he would probably give up a lot of his bluffs by the river anyway? Also, didn't ever expect villain to be able to lay down any ace that I'm crushing- so I'm getting max value- and might even make a big mistke with like 77-JJ, thinking I'm making a weird turn c/r bluff. Also, he could of picked up a BD flush draw I could extract value from. That's what I thought anyway, please flame my thinking process lol.

How would you rather continue from the turn and why?

[Honeybadger]

Thank you for your input guys.

Yeah, turns out he had AKo and rivered the nuts!

So instead of c/r the turn you think I should just betbetbet?

My thoughts on the turn were check to induce bluffs from his floats and I also expected him to value bet all the aces I crush like A9-AJ. I thought if I check call then it would be difficult for me to extract max value otr? I thought about calling the 85k and bombing the river like pot but I thought that would look more obvious that I have a big ace.  Think he would probably give up a lot of his bluffs by the river anyway? Also, didn't ever expect villain to be able to lay down any ace that I'm crushing- so I'm getting max value- and might even make a big mistke with like 77-JJ, thinking I'm making a weird turn c/r bluff. Also, he could of picked up a BD flush draw I could extract value from. That's what I thought anyway, please flame my thinking process lol.

How would you rather continue from the turn and why?

Hi Jack. I think Dan and myself have pretty much covered all your questions whilst you were typing this ^^ post

Checking the turn could be fine vs aggro floaters (probably far fewer of these around than most people think though... in reality most people play fairly straightforward at this stage of a tournament). But do you understand why if you check then you should check-call and then check the river? And why check-raising is likely the worst possible line?

So either bet the turn, or check-call. Don't check-raise.

Tbh, you should be bet-bet-betting this 95% of the time IMO - you'd need an actual identifiable reason/read to check-call the turn, rather than just a vague "oh, he may be floating the turn, people do that sometimes right?".

[DMorgan]

As I intimated in my last post, it is possible that even betting the river is too thin, let alone jamming. This is a consequence of the turn check-raise obv. So I definitely don't think jamming the river is good. Obviously if we assume villain is bad (that assumption discussion again lol) then jamming is great since we'd assume he can still have all Ax hands and won't fold any of them. But against anyone remotely competent we should not expect to get a river jam called by anything that we beat. Plus, all that 'tournament life' nonsense hinders us from getting value too... even some weak players might choose to hero fold AJ here with their tournament life on the line (and this would be an example of them actually being influenced to play better due to tournament pressure).

I'm working with the assumption that we always have the best hand on this river which I think seems pretty reasonable against an opponent that we know to be competent?

[Honeybadger]

I'm working with the assumption that we always have the best hand on this river which I think seems pretty reasonable against an opponent that we know to be competent?

I don't agree with this assumption at all Dan. I could be wrong though. It has happened before lol

[DMorgan]

No better hand really make sense with the preflop action? I can see him getting to the river with KK some small %age of the time but thats about it?

[Honeybadger]

No better hand really make sense with the preflop action? I can see him getting to the river with KK some small %age of the time but thats about it?

Is AKo really a compulsory 3bet vs an EP raiser? A lot of players who play pretty well would flat this quite a bit of the time. Including myself tbh. I am not completely down with the kids on the optimal preflop ranges at different stack depth of tournaments, but I play quite well postflop. In this tournament I flatted AK IP twice vs EP raisers and I thought at the time that it was the best play, and still do. Obviously if shorter stacked it is a straightforward 3bet, but we are over 40bbs deep here right? Which means that we can play some poker postflop, and also means that we might be a serious dog vs an EP opener's continuing range if we 3bet (he will likely be insanely tight here). Of course, in an aggressive online dynamic where people are 3betting and 4betting like crazy and stacking off fairly light due to this then AKo is an easy 3bet to get the money in. But my meager experience of live tournaments is that most players play really tight and don't make all these crazy bluffs and thin value shoves.

When I read through the OP, all I kept thinking was "villain has AK almost always here".

[TheFruitbat]

Well we were 7 handed I think and I was UTG+1. I appreciate everyone has different strategies but I'm just 3 betting AKo here against me 100% of the time. Especially being aware of his own image of playing loosely and squeezing etc.. I'm going no where with AQo pre if he 3 bets in this spot too so that kind of justifies it? This is why i expected his continuing range after my check raise on the turn was basically JUST hands I beat? That he would peel with IP like A10ss or AJss, surely there much much much more likely. Plus, like Dan says I'm assuming he's not peeling with 22-33 A3ss or A2ss and 3 betting AKo here like near enough 100%.

So no, I guess don't understand why check raising is bad? Because I can't think of one hand I'm losing to and getting max value this way of all of his Ax hands and like I said earlier he might a mistake with a medium-big pair too and level himself into thinking I'm bluffing somehow?

Saying that I obv need to remember that sometimes players COULD flat with AKo here, I think that's something I will deffo consider in the future.

Sorry about that last post as well! Still a bit of a blonde fish lol.

[DMorgan]

Confirmed did not read that it was an EP raise.

What a pillock.