Let me say up front that I don’t think I played this particularly well. Nevertheless, I think there’s some interesting discussion to be had here.
This hand was from the Poker Stars $500 weekly. Villain is Roothlus, a very successful MTT pro who teaches at Poker X Factor and is sponsored by Ultimate Bet (but let’s not go there right now). He’s smart but definitely on the TAG/nitty side. He knows and respects me and probably has a good idea of how I expect him to play. MP is a random fish.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 100/200 Blinds (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Button (t11755)
SB (t7968)
BB (t9775)
UTG (t28380)
UTG+1 (t7255)
Hero (MP1) (t21954)
MP2 (t8381)
MP3 (t11250)
CO (t6950)
Hero’s M: 73.18
Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A
, K
2 folds, Hero bets t555, MP2 calls t555, MP3 raises to t2300, 4 folds, Hero calls t1745, 1 fold
Flop: (t5455) 7
, 9, Q (2 players)
Hero bets t19654 (All-In), MP3 calls t8950 (All-In)
Turn: (t23355) Q (2 players, 2 all-in)
River: (t23355) 8 (2 players, 2 all-in)
Total pot: t23355
Results:
Hero had A, K (one pair, Queens).
MP3 had 10, 9 (two pair, Queens and nines).
Outcome: MP3 won t23355
Clearly I was way off on his range, but for whatever reason I was near certain that Roothlus also had AK here. Stack sizes are all wrong for a traditional stop-and-go, plus there’s the problem of the third player in the pot. Here, though, I am not trying to fold out better hands post-flop, but rather fold out a chop. I have no problem with MP coming along, in fact anything he continues with when I call but would fold to a shove is probably to my benefit anyway.
Because it looks like I’m trying to drag MP along, my flat call has to look really strong to Roothlus. Not that AK isn’t strong, but I think it looks even stronger than that, like exactly KK/AA. Granted that’s not really consistent with open shoving the flop, but remember I’m only trying to get him off of AK here. I think it’s a tough hero call to make, and in fact he tanked for a really long time before calling with T9.
Still, I think it’s more effective to check the flop, maybe even check-raise all in. The risk there is that Roothlus bluff shoves or pot commits himself with something he would have folded. Really though, I think I just look too strong for him to bet even a pretty good hand like AQ, let alone a bluff. Checking flop and betting turn looks a lot more credible as a monster and is probably what I should have done.
More importantly, though, I should have just shoved pre-flop. If he’s showing up here with T9, I can’t afford to let him see a flop and I can’t afford to let him fold dominated hands like AJ when he whiffs the flop.
Interesting. I really like the fact that you’re taking a “standard” spot, where I would just shove without thinking too much about it and you’re trying to come up with a better line, eventhough your arguments for calling in this spot don’t really convince me. Mostly I wonder why you’d put him on exactly AK here? I don’t know how loose you’re playing in tournaments, but it’s not a terrible spot for a squeeze if you were active, eventhough positions aren’t that good to do it. But that also helps villain cause his SQZ looks stronger. So I don’t think you can rule out bluffs completely (though I don’t know villain, table dynamics, even general dynamics in a 500$ tournament) and I’d expect him to play JJ+ this way as well, which makes up for more hand combinations than AK.
And as you said, postflop KK+ doesn’t make a lot of sense imo.
Last but not least, don’t you think there’s a lot of value in taking the pot down pf, instead of it potentially being 3-way and you’ll just have to c/f on some flops? I guess if his range is really strong you won’t have any fe, but that brings me back to my first point, that you probably can’t take bluffs completely out of his range.
Yeah, that was the idea (looking at a “standard” spot in a new light). I was definitely wrong to put him on so narrow a range. My thinking was largely based on his raise size. It’s nearly 5x, larger than he needs for a pure bluff and larger than I’d expect if he had a monster. You’re right that JJ and QQ are good candidates as well, though he’s not folding those preflop anyway so I don’t think that matters much. I don’t think it’s a particularly good spot to squeeze, since Villain looks committed and I’m raising pretty early position, and I don’t think he needs to risk so much on a bluff. Evidently I was wrong on that count, though.