AQ just after the monies: concepts of a plan

Do you think villain wants you to call given his raise sizing? If yes, fold. If not, call.

I wouldn’t normally put my tournament life on the line w AQ off, but what did you want to accomplish with your reraise here?

Exactly what you said. If I rr and there's a lot of action between it's an easy fold. However if it folds back to villain and he eff it shoves is he doing this light since we just broke the money bubble?

Yeah this spot sucks with those villain stats. I don't think you're going to be good here, but you've given yourself some good odds, so it might still be a call even against a tight range.

I'd 3-bet smaller if I was going to 3-bet, since at these stacks you can accomplish the same thing with 5 or 5.5 BB.

I mean, it seems like you didn't know or have a plan on how to respond to a 4-bet from the raiser, which is something you really want to have when you're 4-betting an UTG raise.

Given villain's stats, I doubt you are even flipping. I fold.

How flat the payoffs (icm) are here may affect my decision as may the small buy in but it still looks like a wise fold.

Calling is much better - the only point of 3bing here is if he thinks your 3b is light and will jam a wide range, but not only is he opening UTG to basically a full table, your 3b should be tighter given he's UTG. This plays much better for example if you're SB and he opens button - would call pre and fold as played here.

depends on villain.
if i see location brazil and villain has 40bb+ its inclined for sure against 3b.
but if villain is 20bb and location ukraine (they are usually playing tight asf my read atleast) its a pretty clear cut call.

here we have villain @29bb so we dont really wanna gii against that utg 4b gii range.
post bubble ranges barely matter, all that is relevant is stack size and read on villain

look at the stacks behind, blinds and CO have shove stacks. I like to just call pre, if someone behind shoves and he re-iso's then we can call off and have him dominated most of the time

Villain seems to be on the tight side (although 47 hands is not a great sample), at least they're not a clueless limpfish. If they pay reasonable attention to stack sizes and tournament dynamics (and who doesn't know that players loosen up quite a bit after the bubble has bursted?) they should realize both blinds are quite short and therefore not unlikely to shove. Even over a UTG-opener. Given that they possibly doesn't have that many hands in their range that they are planning to fold. Ok, they might have some hands that will call a shove fram late position and fold to an early 3-bet. But again: We shouldn't count on many folds here I believe.

AQo is a hand that benefits from folds. If we don't think they will fold to our 3-bet often we shouldn't 3-bet, especially not from this position and especially not with AQo (AQs is a bit better). I think calling is the right play here. If someone shoves behind and UTG calls we have an easy fold. If UTG folds we might consider calling, especially if the shove comes from the blinds. If everyone folds I would be inclined to play fit or fold: Plan to gii if a queen or ace comes OTF, otherwise mostly fold if UTG bets the flop unless it's not a hand like JT9 with a backdoor club flush for me.

In these EP vs. MP spots, we just don't have a lot of calls here as a rule. Maybe in this game it's ok because at these stakes against players with these stats we're not going to get squeezed often, but in theory in these formations we just want to be playing a lot of 3-bet/fold.

So 3-betting a hand like AQo (which I think is correct, btw) primarily functions as a bluff. It is designed to get the weaker part of the pair range to fold and put stuff like the UTG's AQo in a tough spot. If we do get called - which probably happens more than it should in a $4 ACR tournament - it's going to be a range of hands that we're probably dominating, like worse suited Ax and broadways, and maybe some pairs that decided not to 4-bet rip.

The jams are almost always going to be better hands, though - maybe AJs takes this line for value every once in a while at these stakes, but most villains aren't going to find the requisite bluffs.

So I don't mind the 3-bet, but we have to be prepared to fold to a jam.

Seems like a pretty easy fold to me. You only have 47 hands on villain, which is way too small a sample to make decisions based on his stats.

Given effective stack size you can even go a bit smaller on the 3b. I size down to like 5.5 in a spot like this.

Yes I did... Calling.

This

Ah, I see now. Did you?

As I said before, AQ is in a tough spot against a player like this who probably isn't 4-bet jamming worse. But I also see the arguments for the raise considering the stage of the tournament and not wanting anyone to come in behind us.

I will basically always call with AQ after UTG open unless UTG has been wide (or is likely wide) in EP. Too many times I was against AK/KK and the 4-bet is like 2.5x my 3-bet and I have to call. I will usually miss. But when I hit it can be a disaster anyway. The other problem is that when 88-JJ call and they are an overpair we are screwed anyway. And if the board has a K or J and we cbet and get called we are also doomed.

I once called on the BTN with AKs after a UTG open in the Borgata $1 Million guarantee $550 Tourney (like 10 years ago). The SB 3-bet and the UTG 4-bet and I folded. They got it all in preflop (UTG had AA and BB had KK).

In Prague where the UTG opens were wide, I would always 3-bet with AQ even in the blinds. Lots of folds.

One time early in a WSOP Main event (pre-Covid) I just called OTB with AQo after a UTG open, then the SB 3-bet and the UTG folded and I called. The flop was KJ6 so I called the small flop bet and the turn got checked and on the river when a Q came I called a very small bet again and lost to KTo.

In my opinion it matters a lot who the UTG is and if we know (or suspect) their range.