Too aggressive?

[Roland DeLeon]

$80 Live Freezeout Tournament.
8 handed.
Blinds 500-1000
Villain (UTG +1) raises to 3.5k (40k Stack)
Folds to:
Hero (Button). I call with Ah Jh (55K Stack)
Blinds fold.
Flop is 7s 8h 9h
Villain leads for 8k.
Hero shoves for 51.5k and is all in.
Villain calls.
Turn Js
River 3c

Villain shows 10s 10c for a straight
Hero shows Ah Jh for a pair of Jacks

Shoved the flop thinking I could get everything except a straight and sets to fold. Plus I felt I had quite a bit of equity. I also think I should’ve 3 bet pre-flop although villain called pretty quickly. Thoughts and input much appreciated!

[David Wibel]

TLDR: I think the shove is fine but calling and evaluating the turn might be better.

Playing 40BB deep and EP raises to 3.5x I’m going to make an assumption that the Villain either raises too big or has a pretty obvious bet-sizing tell (limping with marginal hands raising with big hands) preflop. If you have any other insights to the Villain that is helpful but I am going to assume he is a casual player. They may be at the room a lot but they haven’t put much study into the game.

There are a couple of factors at play as to weather you want to 3 bet. First, can we get him to fold? My guess is unlikely unless you shove. I’ve noticed a trend among people to if they raise big in a tournament they aren’t likely to fold a standard 3bet. Next how does our hand play post flop with small SPR? Pretty poorly. We lose to AK and AQ if we hit an ace and it is entirely possible the Villain has KK or QQ here so hitting a J might not be good if we shove and get called. Also, We don’t need to isolate since all others folded so we can safely play in position and evaluate the flop.

I think the call preflop is fine. There is an argument for raising but I think with assuming Villain has a tight range of 88+, KJs+, ATs+, and KQo+ A call is fine. If we give a wider range of 66+, KJo, all suited broadways, and some suited Aces then yes a raise is a good idea. But a call is fine.

On the turn we only have two options, call or raise? In thinking about this decision we have two things to consider. What is he calling with. Theoretically he could have any of the sets though I would think 88 and 99 is the most likely or over pairs. Since you have the Hearts it’s unlikely he is betting with a Draw unless it’s exactly AT suited or AJ of spades of which there are 4 combos. So this makes him extremely strong and you drawing extremely thin if he calls with maybe only any heart or ten.

THe other thing to remember is how is your chip stack going to look if we call and then fold? You will still have almost 40BB and without Antes that will last you a couple of levels. That is a very playable stack and you can find more playable situations later. Shoving the turn unimproved tells a story of a better hand, either a made straight or set.

Now I think you are getting it in on the Turn, Pair plus flush draw is too good to fold but you could easily be beat unimproved but it puts maximum pressure on KK and QQ.

[Roland DeLeon]

Thanks for the response! As far I as could tell the guy was a recreational player so it was highly unlikely he was folding to any 3 bet. The more I thought about it, the more I told myself I should’ve just called that flop leaving myself a pretty manageable stack if I didn’t improve. The turn is probably where I’m getting my money in as you said.

[Robert L]

Hi Roland,

I like calling preflop here. Villain is betting relatively large from EP so they should be quite strong and not really continuing with much that we beat or folding much worse. We also don’t want to face a 4-bet and get blown off our equity.

On the flop, our specific hand here should have a little more equity than his opening range, but our Button calling range vs his is actually a bit weaker (assuming the ranges I used are correct). Because of this I think we should be mainly calling and evaluating on the turn, but I don’t think there’s a big gap in EV between shoving and calling.

[Author]

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