Genius or madness?

[SeaBass]

Tournament hand. Made day 2, 79 players left, 94 were paid, i got 200k, blinds are 3k/6k button ante 6k, fold to me in LJ and I opened KhQs to 12k, (the table is pretty tight so I’m encouraging the blinds to defend wider with smaller sizing since they pretty much play fit or fold) bb calls, (he just got to the table, old man, looks recreational) flop QT3hdd, he bets 21k, i call, turn is Ts, he bets 21k again, (looks like a block bet to me, pretty sure he has a Q with a worst kicker but i think if I raise here he may call but fold to the river bet, so i called) river 6h, he bets 26k, and I tanked and made it 64k, he tanked and eventually made a crying call with AQo, I don’t mind losing the hand but, am I too much outside the box here? Is it too thin to go for value? Should I have shoved the river to get him off a chop possibly?

[Paul Hewson]

Is the question one of ranges? As in what range of hands does he play this way that call your bet and lose or fold to the bet but are better.

I can’t think of any of the better hands that would fold getting 5.5:1 on a call, so given that you are only getting 1:1 on a call (if you just called your getting 4:1 on your call), the question is are there as many weaker hands that call as there are value hands that beat yours in his range.

a: What better hands call?

b: What weaker hands call?

a: Given v didn’t re-raise we can take out AQ+ & 10s. So, 3s, Q10, A10+, 109s, 108s is 55 value hands that could play this way.

b: QJ,Q9,Q8 are losing hands that will probably call. So that’s 12 losing calling hands.

So given you only get even money on a call when you win, and you lose about 5:1 when called, I think you definitely bet way too thin for value with the river raise.

Always interested to hear if you agree or disagree and why.

Cheers
Paul

[SeaBass]

Well with a little bit of a tell in-game I can easily take out all 10x and 55 out of his range, he is clearly block betting the whole way, I was a bit worried on the flop since he may defend Q2dd from the bb and get a decent flop, but on the turn he was clearly trying to get to showdown for cheap and since I didn’t expect him to have AQ I was pretty sure that I was good in this spot. So with the assumption that I only lose to AQ, chop with KQ and win against any other Q, I decided to go for a very small and very thin value raise on the river against an amateur that I thought could call just for curiosity even if he is sure he is beat.

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