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KK facing a Raise on an A high board – New ACR Player
Hey team,
New ACR player and new MTT player (in the last year) and I am wondering how folks would approach this situation based on their knowledge of the player pool and MTTs.
The Situation: We are sitting in about 20th place of 35 left in the 6k guaranteed ACR tournament. Already in the money, we are on our way down from the chip lead (boo hoo) and have 15 bbs in UTG +1. We wake up with Pocket Kings. This seems like the big double I need to get back in final table contention 🙂
Pre-flop: I think about an open jam here, but the Poker Coaching GTO charts which I rely on have most of the premiums as a raise. I’m not sure if player pool or the spot in the tournament should change these calculations. Any thoughts here? I raise to 2.5BB and face a call from the BB with a stack of 17.5bbs. I have 28 hands on this player in the HUD, so not much. VPIP is 18, PFR 11, RFI 18. No 3-bets and only data on 3 postflop hands. The lack of data suggests this doesn’t mean much other than it doesn’t seem like they are getting way out of line on the loose side.
The Flop: The flop comes 8dAs4c (not what we wanted). BB Checks. I check back. I think this is the big mistake as it caps my range as likely not having an Ace, unless I am slow playing pocket Aces. I don’t really have many 2-pair combos on this board from UTG+1 to slow play. A small c-bet here keeps the good Aces in my range. At the time, I was thinking about pot control with this specific holding (rather than my perceived range like I should have been). Also, the call from the BB has a ton of air on this board and I thought I should try to get value on later streets if they would call down with an 8 or one of the turn/river cards (like a 10,J,Q) Thinking about it now, this was also a bit of frustration from some bad runouts and I was very annoyed to see an A on the flop. Given they didn’t jam pre-flop though, should I also think about jamming here given how bone dry the board is?
The turn: Total brick with the 2h to complete the rainbow. I decide now is the time to c-bet and throw out a bet of 1.58BB into 6.34BB. I am surprised to see a check raise to 5.84BB. This felt to me like a, “Hey it doesn’t seem like you have an Ace, but I’m going to act like I do” raise. In game, I read this as a weak Ace that didn’t want to jam preflop. The problem is (back to not C-betting the flop), I feel like I am pretty face up at this point to 99-KK and some random suited broadway stuff from an Aceless UTG+1 15bb open range and it set up a great spot to get value with a marginal A or bluff me out of my shoes.
At this point, a call leaves me with 5bbs behind so that seems bad. I consider a jam, but this would be 11bbs into a pot that is now 13.76bbs so I don’t know that I have much if any fold equity at this point. (they would have ~9bbs left if they made the fold). I can’t get the weak Aces out of my head and make the fold. Thinking about it now, I am thinking a lot about why they would do this on the turn. There are no draws on this board so if they had value, why not wait to see if I keep firing the river and totally pot commit myself? If they have a good holding, I don’t know what rivers they would be worried about? Does this make it more or less likely it was a bluff? Am I overthinking this?
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5 Replies
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Here are my thoughts. First, you’re right, most charts will tell you to open rather than shove premiums. This is likely to make us more money over time, but it is going to put us in some pickles against big blind calls. But I like that strategy overall. We can get action from hands we dominate and overall this is going to be good for us.
So with that in mind, when I’m getting short, I much prefer reverting to a min open when I get shallow (<20bb). I don’t think you garner enough extra fold equity by going to 2.5bb, but you save yourself half a big blind when you open with some of your worse holdings. That half a big blind is often more important to your stack than it is to others.
But regardless, once we get to this flop. This is a clear check to me on the flop and turn. We don’t really need much protection from future cards. We’re either behind or ahead. And we’re short enough that we can get value on the river if need be. There are no real draws on the board either.
Because we’re in position, we have a fairly easy decision on the river. If V bets, we can call a decent amount of the time and mostly be ahead. If V checks, we can comfortably bet for value.
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Ace magnets! I like the non-shove open here also and we are hoping we get the old 3-bet shove against us. Contrary to the wizards, I am likely continuation betting this flop really small (1/4 pot) as this will help us immediately range our opponent as I can fold to a check-raise and if they call, I will most likely have the option of checking back the turn. Further, that small c-bet gets us a few calls from worse hands like 98 suited, QQ, JJ, TT, 99. So we have been able to get to the river quite cheaply and can assess their action on the river. I might even consider another small turn bet if they called my flop bet so I can then check back the river; this allows me to control the size of the pot, while retaining a little fold equity, and getting a few calls from worse hands. If my opponent shows aggression in the wake of my continued aggression, I can easily fold. Once we check and hand them the hammer, we have to decide if they are capable of bluffing or not… we end up being the one in the vice.
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I agree with Five. Villain’s range is pretty wide so there’s no value in betting the flop or turn. In a spot like this I like under-repping my hand as much as possible to entice villain to try and take it from me. The board is super dry so it’s not like you have to worry about letting draws get there by the river.
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Hi everyone, thanks for the thoughts! It sounds like people like the pre-flop raise (maybe as a min-raise) rather than a jam. Also seems like no one minds the fold so I am happy about that. I ran some stuff in Equilab that I thought was interesting.
Given a 15bb utg+1 opening range and a BB calling range that is a bit tighter than the charts suggest. I took out a lot of the low non-connected stuff just because I’m not sure the field is calling that wide at this stage of the tournament. We have a big range advantage on the flop. 63-37.
If we check back and take all but AA and AK out of our range as traps, the 2 on the turn narrows our range advantage, but we are still ahead 52-48 because they are so wide.
However, if we bet small with our entire range and fold out their garbage, the 2 on the turn actually gives them a 57-43 range advantage! This was shocking to me as I perceived it as a total brick that shouldn’t change much. However, it does give them some two pair combos and a bunch of gut shots if they are calling with all the low connected stuff.
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