Help me think through this one

in my experience, when someone plays a move like you did, it's so often just something "off" and relatively weak, and not often something one would fear.

hence Id snapcall with any hand you wanted to make him fold.

Why didn't you 4-bet pre?

Anyway I'm sure you can see now the mistakes you made in the hand. On the turn you only had 1/2 pot size bet remaining so you're really not deep enough to represent a flush and get an ace to fold.

All you can do is learn from it and move on.

Edit: Once you call preflop with the SPR you're pretty much just going to want to get your chips in on almost any flop that doesn't contain an ace. Since this one does contain an ace you're likely not going to want to get your chips in. The exception would be if you think your opponent will be over bluffing you could potentially call down as a bluff catcher.

After the diamond hits though you're better off blufcatching with a pair that includes a diamond. If you were hypothetically bluffing you'd prefer to have a diamond too, but like I said you're not really deep enough to fold out an ace.

You don't think this could look like a flush?

Didn't 4b pre because I didn't want to fold out the bottom of his range.

Easy fold on the flop then? I just hate the idea of folding KK to one bet here but I think you're right that SPR dictates it.

No, I wouldn't say it's an easy fold on the flop. I would definitely call a small 1/4 pot bet. He went in between size with 1/2 pot, which makes it tougher. I would say it's pretty player dependent, but I probably fold against most players.

This exact spot highlights why you're better off jamming pre though. If you slow played AA that could have more merit because it unblocks stuff like suited Broadways that could potentially catch top pair and stack off. If you look at solvers KK is the combo that pretty much always wants to raise pre because it's strong enough against any realistic range, but is still vulnerable to stuff like Ax.

Interesting point about KK pre, thanks

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

I think the call pre is better than 4b/jamming - mp1 is super deep, probably 3betting lighter than most, so it's good to keep in worse hands. You probably make more calling then raising but you also have more variance when the flop comes Axx or their hand picks up better equity - pick your poison. As played jamming the turn is sort of pointless as he's going to call you with better hands, a single diamond,etc so you don't gain anything jamming. Might as well check/call it off.

What flush would play like this? How many diamond combos do you have to call the 3-bet? Some amount of AdXd and KdQd, I'd imagine (maybe KdTd although I feel like I like that more as a 4-bet/fold here), which don't particularly care if a fourth diamond rolls off.

I don't think you're folding any Ax hands that take this line once they b50 on the flop. Maybe you get lucky and fold some Ax preflop bluffs and get called by QdQx, but I doubt it. I think once the pot is this big any top pair hand has to call the turn shove, and definitely so if they have a big diamond. The Ad not being on the board here is a big problem for this line; I think any AdXx hand has to call the turn, and he could just have AdXd and have you drawing dead.

More generally... I would flat AA more often than KK here but some percentage of traps is fine. If villain isn't out of line with 3-betting, then that might be an argument to go ahead and stick the fourth bet in expecting to get it all in preflop.

The flop b50 is very polar, though-- I guess you can take one off because you beat the bluffs, but I think most of the flop bluffs at that size are going to be diamonds trying to fold out pairs lower than Ax-- maybe he 3-bet a medium pair and is trying to push you off a better one.

Anyway, I don't think you have enough in your stack to fold out Ax on the turn, and almost no worse hands will call you. You might get folds if he's bluffing a hand like 88 on the flop, but I think the most likely scenario is you get called drawing to 0-2 outs, and if you get folds, you were probably ahead of those hands anyway.

After running some sims this is basically always supposed to be a 4-bet preflop, I'm guessing because the positions make it more likely HJ has a hand to stack off with. However, HJ shouldn't be 3-betting this large at your stack size. You open to 2.2x and he makes it 9.1, when he should be making it more like 6.3-6.9x.

Honestly I would probably often 4-bet shove vs. that size 3-bet, because it reads "strong but vulnerable" to me and they'll often stack off with AK/QQ-TT once they've put that much money in. And if they don't, well, you still add almost 30% to your stack without showdown.

flush? it looks like a ton of things before a flush.

some Jx with a diamond, some broadway gutshot with a diamond that went creative. a pocket. a premium.

creative lines usually go hand in hand with creative hands.

it's a mystery tourney. so often a mystery hand will be revealed. it can be something or nothing.

you have a flush? well now you want him to think that and make him fold. but then you'd want him to call. a funny way to think of it.

with a shove, you'd not be winning anything from some bluffs. you've half pot left, and two streets to go. a flush doesn't want to do anything but check. he'll put more chips in one way or another with many hands.

I can think of one plus jamming something like 87 of diamonds on turn.

he would maybe call KK with a diamond, but not loose more chips if you check and he doesn't improve. or if he begins calling some broadways with a diamond but would be more passive and not bluff them himself, or if he sticks to Jx (with a diamond), or folds some (broadway) overcards with a higher diamond denying realization.

but intuitively that might not be enough for a shove to outweigh a check. many higher flushes will want to check even more.

Are we trapping with KK here? Feels like we are deep enough to go somewhere between 20-25BB and get rid of a lot of the uncertainty about his range. Might even find a fold pre facing a jam…**

**joking obviously!

there are some considerations regarding his half pot cbet that change things a bit.

on the one hand, your follow up donkshove appears stronger (or maybe not, not clear). on the other hand, he's also likely going to be less willing to let go of his rather strong holding (and that he's strong would mean, what to donk for? chips will get in anyway).

the turndonk is actually more common than it appeared (in solvertheory).

smaller flushes like donking more than larger ones. if spr drops toward your lowish half pot spr, checks seem to be preferred more and more, and donks don't disappear, but get larger (toward allins).

in baseline, he does fold some part of his range of course, but not as high as you imagined.

His bet-sizing was weird on both streets, the unusually large 3b pre followed by the 50% pot CB.

Didn't expect this hand to generate so much discussion!

Turns out villain did fold to my turn shove, so I have no idea what he had. But I had a feeling at the time I botched the hand and was trying to play devil's advocate to see if there's any way I backed into a good line.

looks like QQ

Id prob outright jam pre, given his large 3bet and these positions. he's likely getting it in. and we're likely ahead.

The pre-flop 3-bet was over 4x which makes it look a lot like JJ (or QQ or even AK sometimes)

I would be 4-bet jamming every time out of position. My normal 4-bet sizing would be about 14,500 OOP which is like 90% effective stack. So its an auto jam for me. Our jam would look a lot like AQ+/AJs/TT-KK so we won't have to play OOP so I think we will get called a lot by PP's and AK.

Part of the reason I jam KK here is that I would be jamming every strong hand that I 4-bet with. The other part of the reason is that I hate when an A hits the flop and we have to decide what to do OOP...

I usually jam AA here because we get called a lot by JJ+/AK/AQ/AJs so even though we block some of those hands they will have them a bit when 3-betting. I see calling with AA pre-flop because we will get all in at some point anyway. I just don't like spots like these where there is an A on the flop and they won't be calling all ins.