$400 Live - Key Hand
$400 live FL tournament. Normally a soft field, but people are busting out of the $3500 WPT Main and coming to my table. Villain in this hand is a young player who appears serious. (No info on whether he was one of the Main busters.) In BBs this was the biggest hand of the tournament for me, as he started with 100 BBs and I had 200. I did not particularly want to get into a huge hand with him, as he seemed like a good player, and even with little ICM pressure (nowhere near the bubble) it seemed unwise to tangle with another big stack.
He opens cutoff 2.2x, I look at TT in the SB and 3b to ~7.5x (don't remember exactly, but something standard). I considered calling to minimize variance but decided to 3 bet with a vulnerable hand OOP, and to attack his light open range. He calls.
Flop KT5, 2 spades. I remember thinking "now it's too late not to tangle with another big stack!" I bet 40% targeting draws. He thinks and calls.
Turn offsuit A. QJ is what it is, and he could have an A, so I bet 2/3 pot since there are so many bad rivers. I considered jamming for 150% of pot, but felt it forces him to play perfectly. Again he thinks for ~20 seconds and calls.
River Js, the worst in the deck. I block (20%) to get value from 2 pair. He jams pretty much instantly for 3x my block and I call hoping against hope to see a well executed bluff.
Advice on all streets welcome. Particularly, should the hand be played differently specifically due to ICM?
9 Replies
It’s a little hard to follow the betting because you switch between bbs and percentages of pot but with your river blocking bet decision, I probably call his pot shove as it was about 35k? I don’t think blocking bet ever works on the river and the river is just an awful card. As crazy as it sounds, I may have checked blind on the river, not watching the card, only villian, Seems like you had decided you were calling river no matter what when you flopped your set anyways.
I think you need to give more info about the icm considerations.
At least if you lose you still have 100bbs.
It’s a little hard to follow the betting because you switch between bbs and percentages of pot but with your river blocking bet decision, I probably call his pot shove as it was about 35k? I don’t think blocking bet ever works on the river and the river is just an awful card. As crazy as it sounds, I may have checked blind on the river, not watching the card, only villian, S
Yeah, after the turn he had about a half pot size bet left. Against most $400 players I find the fold here, but this guy seemed crafty, and I didn't want to give him the chance to push me off my hand.
Fair point, there may be very little ICM here. I don't know it that well, so I'm not sure. Just seems like we already have a big stack, and the incremental value of getting to 300 BBs is not really worth it, since we will already be able to cruise into the money and bully shorter stacks around the bubble. But I may be wrong.
How many left, starting stacks and levels completed are needed for icm but if registration was still open, I don’t think icm matters much.
From a bird’s eye view, you are only beating two pairs and one of the possible sets and losing to every other possible hand, but how you got to river, I don’t think I fold.
If you didn't want to get into a big pot with Villain then just call from the SB preflop with TT and go set mining. Once you hit the set though I would c/r about 3.5x to 4x to Villains cbet.
As played I would lead out about 60% pot on the flop because it smashes our 3bet range and Villain opened late.
Given that the effective stack size is 100 bb's the original preflop sizing puts 17 bb's in the pot and cuts effective stack to 92.5 bb's. The flop bet at 40% pot is 6.8 bb's which makes the pot 30.6 bb's and effective stack 85.7 bb's. 2/3 pot on the turn is 20.4 bb's which makes the pot 71.4 bb's and effective stack 65.3 bb's. The 20% pot bet on the river is 14.3 bb's so given Villain's jam of 65.3 bb's it would take 51 bb's to call and potentially win 151 bb's. So we are getting ~3:1 pot odds and we need to win ~25% of the time to make it worth calling.
On the river if you jam it is not 150% pot because of the effective stack sizing. It is essentially 90% pot which would still be polarizing. So it could be a flush or a straight or a bluff. But I think you did the right thing not to do that with a set. The blocking bet of 20% was basically 14.3 bb's so Villain's jam was more like 4.5x not 3x. Not that it makes much difference but I think that I might fold because it is very unlikely Villain is doing this with 2 pair (he would more likely call) and why would Villain get to this point by calling flop and turn without some kind of draw that got there if he is jamming the river?
I typically bet/fold or check/call in this spot on the river. I do lose out on the small gains when I have a better hand when Villain checks back a hand that might call like AJ/KJ. The problem is that I think this is an underbluffing spot because we are likely calling given Villain only needs to be bluffing 25% of the time to break even. But we save 50 bb's if Villain jams with a better hand assuming he isn't bluffing much. I do think it is hard to fold a set here. And I sometimes don't.
Bad run out, maybe check call the river.
3-bet bigger pre to minimize the disadvantage of being OOP. I'd probably go 10BB minimum, and over 100BB if you watch the high stakes pros you'll occasionally see massive size-ups from the blinds when they 3-bet.
I don't see calling the river - think you have to fold. These boards just don't get bluffed that often as people usually have 2pr+ so there's not a need to turn it into a bluff. To call this he'd have to turn all his 2 pr hands into a bluff and I just don't see that happening.
I'm also having a little trouble following the pot size in relation to effective stacks. In the future you might try putting the pot size and possibly remaining effective stack in parentheses after each street.
You said there was only 1/2 pot bet remaining going to the river though, so I would likely jam and hope to get hero-called by 2 pair. Before anyone goes crazy hear me out.
It seems like a spot where you can't really fold when you're beat, so you might as well put the money in yourself and try to get value when you're ahead.
If you check or block bet with an intention of calling his jam you always double him up when you're behind, but never get that value when you're ahead.
Pokerfan could have a point though about this being an underbluffed spot so a check fold could also be reasonable? What is he really bluffing with?
So all things considered I would basically consider whether I would call if he jams. If I plan to call anyway I would just jam myself to try to get value from all his hands that would check back.
Thanks to everyone who responded. Sorry for the unclear betting action, here's a redo:
300/600 600 BBA. V starts the hand with 60k. He opens to 1400 in CO I 3b to 5500 from SB. (12,200, he has 54.5k behind)
Flop KT5ssx, I bet 6k, he calls. (24,200, he has 48.5k behind)
Turn Ax, I bet 18k, he calls. (60,200, he has 30.5k behind)
River Js, I bet 12k, he jams for 30.5k, I tilt-call.
Rick, you're right I goofed, turn jam would be 200% pot not 150%, just not a reasonable play especially with QJ coming in.
At the time, I did not want to fold because the player was giving off a "young pro" impression, but as y'all have said, it's very hard to think of a hand that would reasonably bluff here.
