Irish open exit

72s can be a fold PF sometimes, but I'd have to check some solvers (it's basically the only suited hand you'd fold pre at this depth, though, I think).

Front-door flush draws are usually poor bluffing candidates, because the flush draw is the kind of hand you're trying to get to fold on the river. On top of that, you don't have cards that block any of villain's value hands. Straight draws tend to make better bluffs because you're going to have cards that would be in villain's top-pair hands. I wouldn't check-raise a draw as strong as JT, but at least with that, you block QJ and QT.

(Also, a flush draw is the wrong amount of equity to check-raise here, generally speaking-- you want a more polar range. Two pair and set hands for value, even AQ, and then for bluffs, weak gutshots or double-backdoor hands, where you can turn enough equity to keep firing but it's no big loss if you fold the flop to a 3-bet. Something like Th8h, or even T8o or Kx of hearts, is a better check-raise candidate here.)

There are some straight draws like JT and KJ that might continue twice and then fold river. But that said, this is why I'd probably just call the flop. In part because I'm gonna get continues against drawing hands that still beat me and I haven't cleared up much if I check-raise and villain calls; in part because I have to fold my equity if I get 3-bet. The board is just connected enough that the raiser is likely to have a lot of continues in his betting range, including stuff like gutshots with one overcard. Something like a K83 flop would be a better check-raise candidate.)

I assume the flop and river did not actually both contain the 3h, because that's a whole other issue.

That makes sense, but after that it's not really a hand with good properties to barrel / barrel, I don't think. You do unblock most of the draws that continue (there aren't many club draws he has with 7c or 2c).

Now, having said all that, your line is pretty close to the solver's preferred line (I ran it at 50BB effective; maybe 40BB would produce different results). Mostly it does check-raise the flush draws with the worst equity and then keeps barreling them. It prefers B75 to B50 on the turn, although it mixes both, and then jams a brick river when called on the turn.

Now, having said that, HJ is supposed to mostly jam AQo to your turn bet. There are some calls, but only with the Ac-- 23% with AcQh, 11-12% with AcQx. Without the Ac, HJ raises 27-28% of the time and jams the rest, but never calls. So I imagine the solver's river jam is working under the assumption that HJ does not have much AQ in their range when they just flat the turn.

€1150 buyin, first day flight, below average stack but still plenty of orbits left, OOP preflop headup with garbage against a decent playing aggressive big stack?

Is the risk-reward ratio of jamming preflop better or worse than smoothcalling?

What’s wrong with just playing this passively?
Calling pre is no doubt ok (ATC at this sizing?) but I wouldn’t mind a fold.
Check call flop, check turn and hope to get to river cheaply and check fold river when we miss.
Anything else is just lighting money.

Honestly I think this is a fold pre unless you feel you have a major edge postflop and can exploit heavily. I like the flop raise/turn bet - on thriver the question is what is his range. He has a heavy amount of Qx at this point - I would think hands like TT/JJ might fold to the turn bet maybe half the time, certainly a hand like 88 folds to the turn bet. There's a lot of Qx combos by the river - remember his range gets stronger after calling the flop and the turn. The good thing is you don't block big clubs - this is close and just depends how wide he calls the turn bet.

Flatting pre is fine, Cr flop is fine. People almost certainly over cbet and underdefend v crs and you should have some fds. I imagine what an actual cr range might be is A lot of tp, ~QT+ at some freq, some sets, 33/99, some 93s, and then your bluffs which should have some fds, probably some JT, and probably some gutters with BDFDs. Depending on how people play you could argue maybe you want even more equity with your FD's you CRs so some type of combo draw or additional backdoor straight outs like 45cc. I think turn is fine to bet again, but I think XF,XC are also good options especially in mtts. I have no clue but I think you probably would want to be pretty polar so possibly a bigger size. River I mean sure you can jam but again its a mtt and the board paired and you really are gonna rep q3,93,63,33,99. I think most TP's are gonna see this as a good river for them and its really easy for people of all skill level to say ,"well JT missed, fds missed, he cant have overpairs." You can justify most "reasonable" lines with some kind of solver or reads but again its day 1 MTT so there's gotta be better ways to win chips in a live mtt.

I will sometimes call and sometimes fold preflop. HJ opens are wide but it would really depend on the player (like if they have been tight I would likely fold).

On the flop I just would never c/r here. We don't have an overcard to the flop and the Q makes it possible that Villain has top pair. On a board like 953 or 863 I don't mind the raise because we will get Villain to fold a lot. The other problem is Villain will realize that there are a lot of draws we can have including JT/KT/J8/T8 and will call with a lot of pairs and AK type hands. The last issue is that Villain made it such a small sizing calling with a flush draw is getting a great price and it means you can have any gutter and/or some backdoor draws as well.

As played on the turn I would check or bet smaller. The almost half pot sized bet is always going to be called by a pair especially top pair or better.

As played on the river I will never jam. Because the board pairs it is a spot where you likely didn't improve. The prior raises and bets would not be done by a 3x hand except for Q3s which have only 1 or 2 remaining combos. yes you could have 99 (and not QQ). If you had Q9 though it is a spot where you might not jam because you could lose to AA/KK.

It is close whether to call with this hand preflop, even with ante and a small raise.

This is a weak draw, so usually is better played passively. Once you x/r flop, you don't have to always fire on the turn and river. Could also call and x/r turn. Don't need to get 4 bets in and stack off.

The line you took does represent a set trying to gii and would get a lot of weaker hands than TPTK to fold.

The funny thing is that when I c/r the flop and check the turn often Villain will not bet the turn because they are afraid I will c/r again. I often won't bet the turn in those situations (where I have been c/r'd) with just a single pair for that exact reason...

Yeah, just checkraising the flop should get some folds when he is cbetting air. Not sure you need to stack off. Obviously, you posted results, which might bias it.

If you call the flop, he may check the turn, then you could bet the river. There are a lot of ways to play this without stacking off.

Thanks for all the feedback to date folks and sorry for late response.

A lot of useful information. The bias human in me wants to cling to “your line is pretty close to the solvers preferred line”! I know there is more to it tough :-)

I’m happy enough with the call pre against this player. After that I suppose it is fair to say there is not just one right way to play it.

When I cr flop and bet turn and he called, his range is well narrowed down and the paired board on river doesn’t hugely help my range. Whilst I unblocked his flush draws, I’m concerned in the heat of battle I jammed river for some of the wrong reasons. There were plenty more chances if I had held off.

Additionally, I don’t like the line of cr flop and then check check or check call turn usually as it feels very weak but this may well have saved me some chips.

On a brighter note it has me doing a bit of reading again!

The river counterfeits Q9, so AA/KK now beats it. It looks like you shoved for about 1.1x pot. I would go smaller if betting the river. You have 7-high and don't want higher draws to beat you. If you get raised it is an easy fold. Plus it might represent a wider range than just boats and look more like you want a call.

no need to always jam river, he'll fold:

• 9x
  
• TT
  
• JJ
  
• Missed FDs
  
• JT
  

And its clear we have weaker queens in between value for jam and value as a catcher

this is definitely one of your better whiffs to bluff with the...erm...deuce blocker

if you ever get him off a queen you are printing a lot

That being said--I would not assume any exploitability on the river