Tournament 3-Betting Dynamic

I ran deep in the $300 6-max on Full Tilt today. For much of the end-game, I had a player on my right who I recognized from the 2+2 forums but whom I’d never played for. To the best of my knowledge, he is a successful tournament pro and also a Scandinavian, so I expected him to be pretty aggressive. Early on, some fish woke up with a hand and forced me to showdown a light 3-bet:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 800/1600 Blinds 200 Ante (5 handed) – Full-Tilt Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

SB (t55728)
BB (t50634)
UTG (t114019)
MP (t77329)
Hero (Button) (t66601)

Hero’s M: 19.59

Preflop: Hero is Button with 7, 6
1 fold, MP bets t3200, Hero raises to t8888, 1 fold, BB calls t7288, 1 fold

Flop: (t22776) A, A, 3 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (t22776) 10 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: (t22776) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Total pot: t22776

Results:
Hero had 7, 6 (one pair, Aces).
BB had Q, Q (two pair, Aces and Queens).
Outcome: BB won t22776

After that, I expected this guy to start coming after me, and I was ready to call his 4-bet shoves light:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 1000/2000 Blinds 250 Ante (5 handed) – Full-Tilt Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

SB (t21223)
BB (t57447)
UTG (t145207)
MP (t57812)
Hero (Button) (t114139)

Hero’s M: 26.86

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, 10
1 fold, MP bets t4000, Hero raises to t9999, 2 folds, MP raises to t57562 (All-In), Hero calls t47563

Flop: (t119374) 7, 4, Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t119374) A (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t119374) K (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t119374

Results:
Hero had A, 10 (one pair, Aces).
MP had A, J (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: MP won t119374

This might look bad, especially seeing the results, but there’s something important to point out. I’m pretty sure that just shoving AT for effectively 58K over his CO min-raise to 4K would be unexploitably profitable. In other words, even if I showed him the AT, he wouldn’t have a better hand often enough to make the shove unprofitable. So folding is out of the question.

It might seem like we want fold equity, but actually if I shove he’s never folding better. Thus, a smaller 3-bet gives him room to shove worse hands that wouldn’t call a shove, which can only be good for us relative to shoving.

And as you can see, he is capable of 4-bet shoving light:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 1000/2000 Blinds 250 Ante (4 handed) – Full-Tilt Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

UTG (t47922)
Button (t166440)
SB (t155252)
Hero (BB) (t52548)

Hero’s M: 13.14

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, Q
2 folds, SB bets t4444, Hero raises to t9999, SB raises to t155002 (All-In), Hero calls t42299 (All-In)

Flop: (t105596) 10, 4, 10 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: (t105596) J (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t105596) 7 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t105596

Results:
SB had 5, K (one pair, tens).
Hero had K, Q (one pair, tens).
Outcome: Hero won t105596

Sadly, he busted me in 8th place on what would be a cooler against almost anyone, let alone him:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 1700/3400 Blinds 400 Ante (4 handed) – Full-Tilt Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

UTG (t137090)
Button (t48164)
SB (t276228)
Hero (BB) (t84410)

Hero’s M: 12.60

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, Q
2 folds, SB bets t7800, Hero raises to t16666, SB raises to t275828 (All-In), Hero calls t67344 (All-In)

Flop: (t169620) 10, 10, 5 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: (t169620) Q (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t169620) 7 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t169620

Results:
SB had K, K (two pair, Kings and tens).
Hero had A, Q (two pair, Queens and tens).
Outcome: SB won t169620

In other news, I also got kinda deep in the Stars $300 only to bust in 29th on some bullshit:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 600/1200 Blinds 125 Ante (8 handed) – Poker-Stars Hand Converter from HandHistoryConverter.com

Hero (BB) (t37609)
UTG (t80316)
UTG+1 (t54756)
MP1 (t31872)
MP2 (t55710)
CO (t18639)
Button (t24356)
SB (t53222)

Hero’s M: 13.43

Preflop: Hero is BB with K, 8
6 folds, SB bets t2400, Hero raises to t6189, SB calls t3789

Flop: (t13378) 7, 8, 4 (2 players)
SB bets t1200, Hero raises to t8900, SB raises to t16600, Hero raises to t31295 (All-In), SB calls t14695

Turn: (t75968) J (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t75968) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t75968

Results:
SB had 6, J (one pair, Jacks).
Hero had K, 8 (one pair, eights).
Outcome: SB won t75968

I hate tournaments.