Venetian $1600 AA 1st hand played

I cant imagine getting in 400bb 3ways with one pair possibly being good here, even in a 3bet pot. You are against two opponents who can have all the sets. Not sure if UTG should be peeling such a large 3bet with small pairs but most people will this deep.

Id just fold the turn, and if AA ended up being good just shrug and hope your table doesnt break soon, cause its a juicy one.

I dont hate checking flop either, but I seem to be the only poster here who likes checking strong overpairs oop multiway on low boards where villains have all the sets and we have none.

I don't mind checking flops with an overpair but not after a 3-bet. I would consider it on a pre-flop raise cbet situation vs 2 players especially if one (or both) has position on me. Sometimes I will check if the board is not a rainbow and I don't have a BDFD because there are a lot of flush and straight draws out there. Here though there are no flush draws so I think I will get raised less frequently. We do have a set disadvantage but we have an overpair advantage and I didn't want to give a free card to gutshot hands (like 77/22/87s/A2s/A7s/etc.).

I love the flop check. We don’t want to play for stacks and are fine with a hand like KQs getting a free card. Are we betting range here? I wouldn’t.

As played, I sigh fold the turn. Just too much action to think we are good enough here.

I think your discounting the strength of SB's hand is a huge mistake here. You're saying he can have exactly 44/77 but not any of 33/55/66/88 (88 probably just folds the flop, sure). And UTG knows you 3-bet big pre, led flop, and called his raise after the overall, but you think he likely has an overpair lower than yours and is going to keep blasting three ways?

It sounds to me like you just discounted them having anything that beats you to justify ripping it in.

This is exactly right. I was discounting them having anything that beats me.

I was worried that UTG had 88 specifically. Even though I had that crazy hand a few weeks ago where a UTG opened with 44 I find its not that frequent for them to be opening 33. But 55/66 definitely possible. My discounting had more to do with how aggressive I thought they were. So I got it in my head that UTG was playing a hand like TT-QQ this way in the hopes that I had AK.

As far as SB I thought it was more likely that he had some kind of draw because he hadn't raised the flop or turn. People tend to do that to increase the size of the pot and make their calls worth it on draws. But it could be that he was waiting to keep all of us in so that he could triple up.

I was thinking that UTG would likely check back the river if he didn't have a set and SB wasn't going to lead out the river unless he hit his draw or was going to bluff. My problem is that I typically fold if SB bluff jams the river because it looks like he had it all along (though I would be getting the right price to call if I thought it through). I jammed because I thought there was over a 50% chance that I was ahead but wouldn't make any more if I called. If I was behind so be it. I thought if I was ahead and jammed there was a decent chance they would both fold and I would take down a 48,000 chip pot (not including my jam) which would put me at basically 80,000 chips. If SB called with 44 I would have over 75% chance of winning 80,000 more chips. So if I was behind 50% of the time I thought it was worth it rather than drop to 32,000 chips.

66/55 are reasonable UTG openings, and you describe both players as loose and wild, so 33 is not out of the question. starting 400BB deep I'm not surprised they'd be willing to put in 15BB more to try to flop a set and win a big pot.

With the way the chips are flying around postflop in this hand, SB just calling with a set and keeping both of you in makes a ton of sense. There aren't any flush draws on this board and 4x/7x holdings from either of you two (especially you) are pretty unlikely, so he's probably not too worried about charging a draw.

I think you're rarely ahead, but having covered that already, the more important point here is that 320BB is still a lot-- hardly the end of the world if you fold the turn. It strikes me that your reasoning seems less motivated by what's the most +EV decision and more how you want this tournament to be / how you want to play it.

+1 to this, although I'd def bet the flop.

Those of you who are on team 'flop bet', are you betting range?

I think we can just run the math of combos each villain has here, and there's probably double the amount of nonpair combos that will fold. Furthermore we have equity against a hand like 88, and could potentially bluff any broadway outside of maybe T. I think HU and 3 way this is a clear bet - 4 way I would check.

If by "are you betting range" you mean are we betting based on the range of the flop (our range vs UTG range vs SB range) then its a toss up situation for me.

Typically if this was suited against 3 players and I had raised pre-flop with one player in position against me I wouldn't cbet.

But here I 3-bet pre-flop which means that I have significantly better overpairs this flop than UTG and SB but SB has a range advantage in terms of sets/two pairs/straight draws and UTG has a slight advantage with sets. Because there are no flush draws it limits the SB and UTG range advantage somewhat. So for me this flop favors the SB in terms of nut advantages and it favors me in terms of overpairs. Because I had 3-bet, I cbet this all of the time with overpairs and AKs/AQs with BDFD. I would probably cbet some of the time with AKo as well hoping to get UTG to fold.

The advantage to checking for me would be to see if UTG bet and SB raised at which point it would be a fold that would save the max. The disadvantage with checking would be that gutters (77/22/A7s/A2s/98s) get a free card and in this case with the UTG raise, SB would always be folding gutters.

Mr Rick, I mean in this spot, are we betting every hand we 3! with? If the answer is yes, then we can assume AA bets 😀

If the answer is no, it seems like AA is a good hand to keep in our checking range, for the reasons above.

I assume you are squeezing all AK/AQ, and say TT+ with some good suited broadways, Ax and connectors at a lower frequency. You can see that range just doesn't want to fire a cbet into 2 players on this kind of board, which leads me to play a split range of check and bets. Lower overpairs, and some bluffs want to bet; hands like AQo don't. If we just stick to betting all our value, our checking range gets destroyed.

I probably cbet 100% of the time here to imply we have an overpair. My 3bet range includes all AQs/AKs/JJ+ with some AQo & AKo & TT (I call sometimes in the BB with AK/AQ/TT vs EP opens).

Given my reads on the UTG player I think his range is wide and I might 3bet wide as well but given there are 2 other players I probably wouldn't.

Getting 400BB in on our second hand with one pair vs two opponents doesn’t feel very profitable.
Even if you win the hand and triple up your stack is that worth enough more than the cost of reentry?

That’s just it. We don’t gain from getting a fold from unpaired broadways. You are folding out 3 or 4 percent equity. Up to about 8-9 if they have a bdfd. We’d rather let those hands stay in and win a bet from them when they make a pair or try to bluff us.

I think it depends on the odds somebody has a set or 2 pair. I doubt anybody flopped a straight here (it would take 74 or 42 which is conceivable given the impression I have of the SB but not really.

UTG can have 44-JJ with some 33 and QQ (some QQ would have 4 bet preflop and some 33 would have folded), SB can have 22-TT with some JJ. SB can also have 65s and possibly some 65o as well as 97/87/86/75/76/64/53. All UTG 2 overcards are out the window after turn bet. So about 36 combos of pairs for UTG that aren't there yet (some are gutters and straight draws) and ~10 combos of sets. SB has 12 combos of sets and about 36 combos of PP not there yet and maybe 16 combos of 2 pairs (though I think it is much less based on a lack of raising and being mostly suited) with about 4 to 8 combos of straights. Single pairs and straight draws including gutters are a lot of combos as well (like 60 depending on non-suited calls). So I think I am ahead about half the time. And I am betting about 32,000 to win the 48,000 already in the pot.

As for re-entry I can't. I don't have the cash and I won't be able to use the ATM again. So this is it.

Edit: I left out a bunch of Ax hands for SB as well though I think for the most part SB will be calling with gutters and straight draws on the turn rather than pairs like A6/A5/A3. And UTG can have A4s and even A7s.

By the turn nobody has unpaired broadways. A UTG bluff on the flop is one thing. But continuing on the turn with no flush draw and two callers would be ridiculous. SB would never call the flop bet and raise with two broadway overcards.

They either have draws and/or pairs or they have sets. SB can have 2 pairs and just decided to just call rather than raise because he blocks sets and can effectively triple up. Personally I would jam the turn with two pair but then I jammed the turn with one pair...

I was referring to the flop bet. You sort of made my point since we don’t really gain much from those folds on the flop.

All the more reason why this doesn't make sense:

Again, this hand just kinda seems like you're discounting their hands that beat you and overcounting their hands that don't to justify your decision. Especially on a rainbow board, there aren't any flush draws and you're kind of just hoping they have exactly 44,77,99-KK. In other words, you're hoping they're overplaying a part of their range so that you can overplay your hand, rather than considering their entire range and how strong these lines are (and how much more likely the strong portion is after the turn action in particular).

This is also a good reason to check this flop-- I wouldn't necessarily bet this flop with range, and multiway that goes down even more. AA is a good hand to check to protect your range and also because unimproved you're generally not happy putting four bets in postflop. That said, I understand wanting to get value vs. worse overpairs, but I'm proceeding very cautiously after the flop action, and once UTG bets the turn again and SB calls again, I just fold.

I think this hand points out a problem many tournament players (definitely me) just don't play 400BB pots that well. The threshold for stacking off for that many chips is much higher than we are used to in 90% of the tournament, where the average stack is 40BB.

This pot was a 3 way 3 bet pot, yet SPR on the flop was still 9. In our more normal 40BB state, SPR would be 1, and we'd be stacking off here and not even thinking about it...

I often just miss the first 2 levels of most tournaments, at least partly due to this very different playing field, and add in the stamina factor, whereby the last 2 levels of the tournament are so much more important, and I want to be as sharp as I can be for them.

This also fits in well with not liking bounty tournaments...

I appreciate the comments from all of you.

I had never really been in this spot before and went with my gut. Its not that my gut was wrong, I just didn't realize that against the SB hands I was ahead of I would have virtually no fold equity because it was very likely SB had a 7 or a 4 or 2 pair or better (due to the quick call of the turn 12,000 UTG bet).

When I jammed UTG insta-folded. I really had thought he was either thinking he was ahead with a hand like 99-QQ and/or he was trying to imply he had a set.

The SB's quickish call of the 12,000 on the turn should have told me that there was no way SB was folding to another 20,000 into an 80,000 pot. So at best SB was on a draw with a 30% chance of winning (so never folding) and at worst had two pair or better. So even if I was right about being ahead of the SB about 67% of the time, I still was only going to win about half the time or slightly less. Not terrible when getting roughly 2:1 on the outcome but still very risky.

SB said "OK lets gamble" and turned over 64o. River was a 4 and that was $1,600 down the drain in less than 5 minutes...

In retrospect if I had it to do over I think I would just call the 12,000 on the turn because I likely had no Fold Equity on the SB and maybe lead out 12,000 on a river > 9 and check and see what UTG does on a river < 9. The problem is that if SB misses I'm not sure if SB would jam or not. And if SB jammed on let's say a 6, 5, or 3 not sure what I would do. I might fold. As it was we would all of have checked and I would still have had 20,000 chips.

Still I'm not really sad about it. Had the river been a good card for me I would have had about 100,000 chips and a decent shot at day 2.

That is the wrong way of thinking about it "$1600 down the tubes". You shouldn't play that level of tournament if you aren't $EV+ in them or can't handle the swings. You made the right read. You were 70% to win on the turn, plus the dead money from UTG.

Obviously, some dead money in the tournament, with SB calling 18xBB preflop with 64o.

Hey Rick, have you read Dara’s ICM book?

Legit strat these stats to max late reg and put all your study into <40bb effective.

I love playing deep early too, especially if field is soft early. But there’s a decision to be made about whether you’re in it for the fun (deepstacked) or the profit (icm advantage late reg) or some happy medium at this point of your career.

Nice read in this hand btw

I don't think I have read the book (though I think I will). I am not an ICM believer. It doesn't matter to me if a decision I need to make will earn me slightly more money. My goal is to have a lot of chips so I can play postflop with strategies I can't short stacked.

I choose to play early because it is important to me to understand each of the players at the table. What their strategies are, how often they bluff, how wide their range is, etc. I also love playing poker so I don't mind having a lower hourly rate vs starting late.

On my current trip I have run into an Australian on two occasions. He is an amazing player (he had over 1,000,000 chips at the Aria Senior event while most larger stacks were around 200,000). I asked him if his nickname was Old Silver but sadly it wasn't...

Do you actually not believe in ICM... like its a made up lie.

Or do you choose to ignore it when making decisions, for reasons you have stated above. (you want a big stack, playing for 1st, etc)

BC honestly, if you just refuse to account for ICM in your decisions, maybe deep stacked cash games are better for you where every decision is a pure chipEV decision and short stack play is basically removed.