Tricky Hand from Live Game

[theMachine]

Played an interesting hand at the weekend during a live tournament and I'm not sure I played it correctly. 

It was a £40 tournament, 20,000 starting stacks and we're on level 2, blinds are 100/200. I start the hand with 18,500 in chips, my opponents have slightly more. 

I open for 500 with AQ, the button calls, as does the big blind. The flop comes AA2.

The big blind checks and I cbet for 1000. The button folds but the big blind check raises to 3000. He's an older gent, so forgive me for sterotyping a little but I don't he's check raise bluffing, so I think he must also have an ace, possibly 22? I just call the 3000, I figure if I'm ahead, I can let him bet at it with his weaker ace, if I'm behind, I can control the pot size a little.   

The turn is a king, and the big blind checks. Given that he check raised the flop, it's odd that he's checked here again. I check behind. Discussing it with a friend after, I checked because again I wasn't sure if I was miles ahead or miles behind, and decided to play cautiously.

The river is a 9 (no flushes on board), and the big blind now bets 5000 into a 7500 pot. What do we do? Not a whole lot has chnaged since the flop really, I really do think he either has a better ace or a worse ace, and despite getting to the river, I have kinda just delayed making any kind of decison on it. I thought about calling, but what would my reason for calling be? If I think he has worse, I should raise, if I think he has better I should fold, there's not really any reason to call. So fold or raise?   

[VikingsAF]

I would actually only opt for the call (maybe a fold) ... Exactly for the reason you mention. You don't know if you are miles ahead or behind. If you'd fold you lost against hands which were behind, if you'd raise you'd still lose if he is in front. 

There is no value to be made from weaker hands which tried to bluff you, and there is no way that you can make stronger hands fold. Raising would only be helpful if he had AT or AJ . (A9 you'd lose, and A8 or lower he would probably fold) 

[Livertool]

I would have just called too. Fold never, if he has better hand, so be it. I dont believe he has AK or KK as he would have reraised preflop. So pair of nines, deuces or A9 is the cards i see you losing to. But i see no point of raising, if he has nothing he wouldn´t call and with better hand he would propably go all in if you wouldn´t be already.

[MathrimC]

I find it hard to make sense of his hand. I can't see which hands, besides weak pocket pairs (which he wouldn't bet on the river), would benefit by raising the flop, because this is basically a way ahead - way behind situation in which value hands are very unlikely to be outdrawn.

Anyway, on the river you have to call 5k into a 12,5k pot, which means you only have to win 5k/(12,5k + 5k) = 28,5% of the time to make a profitable call. That means for every 2 hands you beat, he can have up to 7 hands that beat you and your call will still be profitable.

There are 3 combos of 22, 3 combos of A2, 3 combos of A9 and 3 combos of 99 against which you lose (although I think if he had 99 it would be better for him to squeeze pre). I don't put AK or KK in his range, because those hands he would probably raise pre. So that's 12 combos in total against which you lose. So there only need to be 12 x 28,5% = 4 combos in his range that you beat to make the call profitable. There are 4 combos of each of the other Ax hands against which you win. Even if he only bets AJ and AT, that's still 8 combos, much more than needed, making this a profitable call. Raising doesn't make much sense to me, because I think you should only get called by better hands.

[theMachine]

I initially thought about calling but after taking for a while I ruled it out because that felt like it was the "easy" option, I would win a nice pot if I was ahead and would still have a decent amount of chips if I was behind. But as I mentioned, it felt like calling was not really commiting to making a decision one way or the other, surely the correct way to play it (regardless of my read being right or wrong) is to decide where I stand in the hand and act on that.

Although maybe calling is the "easy" option because otherwise I'm just making my life difficult!     

[Livertool]

@MathrimC

Can you do those calculations when playing? Not with my mathhead :(

I just go with gut feeling and flow :D

[MoreTBC]

I would put him on air.

 

Preflop you would expect a 3-bet with AK/KK so I think that rules them out. He's getting a good price to see a flop with any two cards really so I think he can be wide here.

 

On the flop would you check-raise that board if you had an ace as the villain? You have to feel comfortable at that point with Ax so you would just let the Hero keep betting. The check raise almost seems like a test to see if the hero has an A or is just c-bet. I think the only hand that would make sense to check-raise here would be 22.

 

On the turn the K is going to slow down 22 as he might be worried you have AK and filled up. You did open the betting preflop. If he has Ax then it'll be the same thing. If he has air then he's going to feel like with you calling on the flop that you have an ace and there is no point bluffing at the pot anymore. You might have got him to fold here with a small bet and if he calls you are more likely to be behind and it'll make the river fold easier.

 

If the villain has air then your turn check might look weak because he would expect a bet on the turn from you if you did have an ace. The only way villain can win the pot here is with a decent sized bet on the river if he has nothing. Maybe he got lucky with 99 or A9 but it seems like there are so many hands he could have that you're beating (Any Ax, any pair that didn't hit.. he might even have 34) that I think calling makes sense.

 

I'm a station though so all of the above could be complete nonsense.

[Livertool]

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@theMachine wrote:

I initially thought about calling but after taking for a while I ruled it out because that felt like it was the "easy" option, I would win a nice pot if I was ahead and would still have a decent amount of chips if I was behind. But as I mentioned, it felt like calling was not really commiting to making a decision one way or the other, surely the correct way to play it (regardless of my read being right or wrong) is to decide where I stand in the hand and act on that.

Although maybe calling is the "easy" option because otherwise I'm just making my life difficult!     

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I think it was too late to take a stand, way or another after the river and bet. Not much options anymore, should have make moves earlier.

[MathrimC]

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@theMachine wrote:

I initially thought about calling but after taking for a while I ruled it out because that felt like it was the "easy" option, I would win a nice pot if I was ahead and would still have a decent amount of chips if I was behind. But as I mentioned, it felt like calling was not really commiting to making a decision one way or the other, surely the correct way to play it (regardless of my read being right or wrong) is to decide where I stand in the hand and act on that.

Although maybe calling is the "easy" option because otherwise I'm just making my life difficult!     

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Poker is a game of incomplete information, and one of the important skills to master is being able to deal with that, and think about your opponent's hand as not just one hand but a range of hands. Deciding where you stand in a hand is more complex than just deciding wether you're ahead or behind. Most of the time, you're ahead of some part of his range, and behind of another part, and you have no rational way of knowing which hand of his range he has exactly. In that case, it makes no sense to try to force it and decide that you're certainly ahead or certainly behind. Knowing that you're ahead of enough of his range to make profitable call but that he doesn't have enough hands to call a raise with that you beat to make a profitable raise, is just as much deciding where you stand in the hand.

[MathrimC]

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@Livertool wrote:

@MathrimC

Can you do those calculations when playing? Not with my mathhead :(

I just go with gut feeling and flow :D

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Math is love, math is life.

[cris1285]

And what did you do @theMachine? What he had?

[theMachine]

I talked myself out of the call.

I figured I was against an ace and with my opponent being in the big blind he could really have any ace. I didn't think he could really get away from it either, so I took the line he had a worse ace more often than he has a better ace/22, so I reraised all in.

He had AK.   

A guy at the tabled said "it was always AK when he checks the turn" but I'm not so sure that's the case. I don't think he's ever bluffing but I think there are a number of Ax hands, particularly AJ/AT that could play that way. AK makes sense too but I had partially discounted that our because he just flat called preflop. 

I had thought calling was a weak play in a way because it wasn't making a decision, but I it's interesting to look at it from the angle of being right vs range over time, is that us going all GTO?

[Livertool]

Good play by old man, proved pretty much all of us wrong :D

Or was it???

[ChapInAChair]

.

[VikingsAF]

You were right ruling his AK out, because he should have reraised  preflop to get the most value.... In a normal case. 

He is lucky that it turned all out in his favor. Here I'd just call it bad luck ;) 

[theMachine]

yeah, well... I think if I'd gotten into a raising war on the flop, then yes, it would have been unlucky, I mean how often do you flop trip aces and are behind?

But I played it cautiously right until the end, then went for it, but I think I should have either maintained that caution all the way through and possibly saved some chips or alternatively hammered it all the way through, would surely have gotten all in on the flop vs a worse ace.