Flatting AJs in Position to Dominate Range - Facing Aggression Post Flop w/Top 2

[VBlue]

IPoker, $5 Buy-in (20/40 blinds) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 9 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

BB: 1,400 (35 bb)
UTG+1: 3,075 (76.9 bb)
UTG+2: 2,885 (72.1 bb)
MP1: 1,950 (48.8 bb)
MP2: 1,285 (32.1 bb)
MP3: 2,280 (57 bb)
CO: 4,610 (115.3 bb)
Hero (BTN): 3,910 (97.8 bb)
SB: 1,460 (36.5 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with
UTG+1 calls 40, UTG+2 calls 40, 3 folds, CO raises to 220, Hero calls 220, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls 180, UTG+2 folds

Flop: (760) (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, CO bets 570, Hero calls 570, UTG+1 calls 570

Turn: (2,470) (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, CO bets 320, Hero calls 320, UTG+1 calls 320

River: (3,430) (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, CO bets 680
UTG+1 is 39/16/0 over 62 hands. CO is 39/11/4 over 83 hands.

I call the CO raise as I don't think all the limpers will call and I want to keep his range wide in the hope I dominate it. He has got all-in pre-flop with a standard open and then reshoved over a small stack all-in and flat call behind with AK. He then lost a huge pot to treble me up with KQ when he limped behind and then called my raise and called off on a K high board. I figure he is capable of aggression and looking to take down a pot vs limpers here without having to have a monster hand.

UTG+1 one a crazy pot when he should have shoved pre but called off against 3 or 4 all-ins for varying stacks with TT on a 7 high board. He also helped treble me up in the pot already mentioned with a gutshot and middle pair on Kx9T board with JT the nad prior to this one.

What do you think of the way I play up to the river and what is your move on the river?

[chelseaboy]

I personally would be raising the flop, try and isolate it.

Flat calling your allowing them to hit an over pair, or the flush draw.

[JK]

Flatting pre is fine. Its a good example of your other thread, about flatting hands that crush his range/flop well/play well post. We also open up the possibility of him 4b bluffing and 3b folding this hand is not fun.

Flop flat is fine, we want to keep the aggressive PFR in the pot, along with letting the fish behind make moves. We should also get control on most turns.

Turn flat is fine again. Our hand strength has decreased but we can still have the best hand alot of the time (Mainly due to betsize). However, if he bet normally here, I may be inclined to fold. That card looks like a decent card for him (probably is being 39/11), but when he bets 320 into 2470 we cant really fold what is the best hand more than 1 in 9 times. We also have the think about the fish behind who may have Kx or 9x, but folding on the basis of that is pretty difficult.

River as play is most probably a fold. PFR has bet 3 streets into 2 people, which means he pretty much always beats our hand. We also have UTG+1 behind who has flatted 2 OOP.

Im really bad at explaining thought processes btw, but this is the best I could do with 2 hours sleep lol

[Doobs]

I'd just fold this pre.  AQ I call vs a fish.  The raise just seems a little too big pre and the hand is just a little too weak.  I guess you can call if you have mad post flop tekkers.

Given you have called everything else, then I think you have to call here.  He has QQ.

[VBlue]

Thanks for these thoughts.  Some interesting and differing stances from a few boards I have posted this on now.  Will come back to it again later/tomorrow and reveal final action.

JK - what hand would you put CO on or what weight would you give to a range?

[Ant040689]

Fold pre, raise flop as played and fold turn and river as played.

[muckthenuts]

Prefer to fold pre, calling is pretty thin at best but mostly it's just unnecessary to get involved in such marginal spots at this stage really.

Getting a ridic price on the river so have to flick it in i guess, fish can potentially have played a hand weird enough to make it ok i reckon

[VBlue]

Thanks all.  The consenus seems to be fold pre.

I folded river as did UTG+1.

[Pugwashed]

Pre seems fine, hand plays well multiway, we have the button and the fish are usually coming along and we're deep enough

[JK]

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

 205,476,480  games     0.001 secs   205,476,480,000  games/sec

Board:
Dead: 

   equity    win    tie          pots won    pots tied   
Hand 0:    51.520%     47.04%    04.48%          96655183      9206909.00   { 77+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, ATo+, KQo }
Hand 1:    48.480%     44.00%    04.48%          90407479      9206909.00   { AdJd }


---

Is it really that fine a line when we have the button and assuming a decent skill advantage? Thats an 11% range btw, but theres not much chance him opening that tight imo

[Doobs]

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

 205,476,480  games     0.001 secs   205,476,480,000  games/sec

Board:
Dead: 

   equity    win    tie          pots won    pots tied   
Hand 0:    51.520%     47.04%    04.48%          96655183      9206909.00   { 77+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, ATo+, KQo }
Hand 1:    48.480%     44.00%    04.48%          90407479      9206909.00   { AdJd }


---

Is it really that fine a line when we have the button and assuming a decent skill advantage? Thats an 11% range btw, but theres not much chance him opening that tight imo

He isn't opening, which is where this argument falls over.

The opponent is a small stakes fish, so barring the odd random spew, we can assume he calls with the bottom part of that range and just squeezes his monsters?  I don't expect to see too many small stakes fish with a higher squeeze percentage than their PFR.

I don't think we can assume OP has the same skill advantage as you.   

I don't think calling is terrible, just that it is likely to put the OP in nasty spots. 

[VBlue]

"calling pre looks marginal but completely fine; we operate within a probability matrix, we don't need to know we're ahead at any point. Calling down a hit to keep his range wide would be the standard plan, but on this specific flop texture I'd probably change plans and jam flop. Jamming removes the nutted hands from our perceived range and our actual hand is at the very top of a reasonable jamming range (meaning we should get called by worse often), so getting it in here looks best. Our actual hand is also extremely vulnerable to a large portion of the deck.

River is pretty meh either way. I don't think an abort is bad. Sticking with the standard call down line on that flop is gonna get you in this situation a lot."

What do you think of this view from a player who's opinion I respect.

[muckthenuts]

"calling pre looks marginal but completely fine; we operate within a probability matrix, we don't need to know we're ahead at any point. Calling down a hit to keep his range wide would be the standard plan, but on this specific flop texture I'd probably change plans and jam flop. Jamming removes the nutted hands from our perceived range and our actual hand is at the very top of a reasonable jamming range (meaning we should get called by worse often), so getting it in here looks best. Our actual hand is also extremely vulnerable to a large portion of the deck.

River is pretty meh either way. I don't think an abort is bad. Sticking with the standard call down line on that flop is gonna get you in this situation a lot."

What do you think of this view from a player who's opinion I respect.

He's not wrong theoretically, jams do get looked up a lot lighter by fish and we'll have a stronger hand than he'll expect. However part of that calling range will still include hands that crush us, or at least have a ton of equity. Depends on your inclination to take thin edges for 100bb's on the first level in soft tournament or preserve that stack for later.

Reckon jamming flop is the best play if you call pre, but prefer folding pre cos of huge reverse implied in spots like these. iPoker structures are long and full of fish iirc, if you take spots where you'll just have it it's easy.

[muckthenuts]

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

 205,476,480  games     0.001 secs   205,476,480,000  games/sec

Board:
Dead: 

   equity    win    tie          pots won    pots tied   
Hand 0:    51.520%     47.04%    04.48%          96655183      9206909.00   { 77+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, ATo+, KQo }
Hand 1:    48.480%     44.00%    04.48%          90407479      9206909.00   { AdJd }


---

Is it really that fine a line when we have the button and assuming a decent skill advantage? Thats an 11% range btw, but theres not much chance him opening that tight imo

This range isn't good cos you've given all his hands the same weight. If he's limping 39% over 83 he's often limping behind a decent chunk of the above.

[Deadman]

Fold pre...2 limpers and a 5.5x in early stages...Your range should be super tight here.