Should hero call this river jam?

Not folding.
But not flatting preflop either.
3 bet to 8 and call it off, or just jam pre.

Yeah, this is of course a 3bet most of the time, but a flat sometimes too.

The question on the river really is: what am I beating? I think the answer is only a bluff, right?

Given the way you played the hand (calling preflop and checking every street) there is a chance Villain is bluffing or has A high and is trying to get you to fold an A or a small PP.

Chances are though that Villain has AA/KK/Jx type hands. Because there is a spade flush draw on the turn Villain can have some flush draws that missed.

I probably call and get knocked out but Villain is aggressive.

Preflop I would likely raise to 7 bb's and call a jam. If there is no jam it makes it a little easier to play moving forward because we will be betting the flop and if called could check the turn (where I would likely call the jam).

Its hard with just 27 blinds to not get it in with QQ at some point where there is no A or K on the board.

If you're considering folding QQ on a pretty great runout, doesn't that indicate he should be bluffing a ton? If you're going to fold everything but the few combos of AA, KK, and FHs to this line, he should do it with ATC. I personally have seen a lot of air in spots like this (way more so online), considering the tournament dynamic and that he's already been described as aggro.

I agree villain is value heavy here. It's debatable whether he jams QQ+ for value on the river, but maybe. Yes 3betting pre is obviously fine and I'm doing so perhaps 90% of the time.

Also agree that it's very hard to get away from this hand once no overcard comes - if I folded, it would be an exploitable fold.

Sure, I mostly agree. But there is something to be said for having hands this strong in one's otherwise capped BB defending range vs EP.

I honestly don't think he can value jam 66-TT on the river here. Surely he should default to checking those hands back?

Yes, that's true - I believe if I fold QQ I am overfolding here and could be theoretically exploited as a result. Villain can certainly be airballing here and trying to throw his weight around with the bubble approaching.

I like the call pre - 3bing with your stack in this spot out of the BB would look extremely strong - on a side note you could use that exploit by 3betting weak hands in this spot, as villain should be fairly wide. This is not a board villain should need to bluff much on but here he is firing away. I don't think I can find a fold as we have QQ and are severely underrepped - maybe villain is a button clicker which is possible but yeh I'm not folding.

What do you make of Villlains 1BB bet into 5.5BB pot on Flop?

I'm less concerned about that given the situation:

Not 3-betting keeps weaker hands in, but you're also setting yourself up to face a lot of guesswork. The bubble isn't everything, but it is the biggest pay jump we'll face for a long while, so it does matter. And who knows, you might induce a 4-bet bluff-shove from villain.

Not much, a small c-bet is pretty standard on a paired board like this, and with the ICM of the impending bubble, villain can size down even further because even a minbet will fold out all the trash BB has.

I expect him to bet small with pretty much his whole range on this board as he's likely to get a lot of folds. So I don't think we can read too much into it. If anything, it's suspiciously small...

***REVEAL***

Isn't that spot overbluffed, with the bubble near (by that type of player)? we also beat (potential) value. I call all day.

if it wasn't for his 1bb cbet on that flop ...

in general, we cant read thaaat much into 1bb cbets.

but here's it's really telling. Im curious if we can make that strong of a read. I think we can. and fold .. on river.

Id call probably anyway though xD and I looked up pre in some ICM scenarios, QQ can be a fine call.

yeah after thinking about it, maybe that 1bb (and the following bets) is just villain button clicking or he's just sizing like that on the bubble or on that texture or whatever. looks like a call.

I don't think we beat any value here on the river.

I'm sure it's a plus chip EV call, but perhaps hero can find folds here sometimes - there are not that many bluffs available for villain, and I'm blocking some combos of those with the Q♠ (but of course, blockers aren't everything).

I don't think we beat any value here on the river.

I'm sure it's a plus chip EV call, but perhaps hero can find folds here sometimes - there are not that many bluffs available for villain, and I'm blocking some combos of those with the Q♠ (but of course, blockers aren't everything).

a) why not? I dont know how thin one can go for value here without ICM considerations in baseline (if you do, let me know please),

but in practice someone might overvalue some pocket, or at least do so in that ICM situation, thinking

"he'll think Im bluffing, so I can valuejam lightly", if there's a general dynamic in such ICM situations between certain players who will bluff harder (how much can one bluff here, in baseline?) respectively call lighter.

b) happened to me thrice today: one villain went for a small 1.1bb (okay, not 1, but 1.1 😃) cbet on the bubble, and folded to a small checkraise by me on a different texture.

and then, I misclick cbet 1bb twice ..

Good question - I ran it through Pio and at GTO baseline villain is jamming at thin as about 50% of the combos of 88 for value on the river:

But of course that assumes that the opponent is going to call at GTO frequency, which is very unlikely. In practice many "human" recreational players are going to be scared of Jx on this river and will even check back with some combos of overpairs. So in turn hero of course has to adjust with how wide he calls facing the jam. But at equilibrium, QQ is of course a plus chip ev call:

Preflop is terrible.

no, it's probably the most accurate way to play our hand preflop in this ICM situation with these stack sizes.

what's won with 3betting and bloating the pot OOP, where chips are much more likely to go in by the river vs the covering stack, than if we keep the pot small?

we increase bust% massively we a 3bet, if we then go postflop or get it in preflop.

if we were shorter, we'd be less incentivised to keep the pot small, as stack to pot ratio would be too small anyway.

the bubble will burst smoothly in this large field event, and we'll likely sneak comfortably into payouts even if we don't win this hand.

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now it would be interesting to see how those ranges change in our (soft) ICM environment.

what would villain's value and bluffing range and our bluffcatching range look like?

are there any heuristics?