Early in Tournament - Flopped Top Pair/NFD 90 BBs deep OOP (1 Viewer)

[PokerDogDoc]

Also, I am baffled that villain would essentially give up in the tournament. They still have 33bb in early/mid stage. Plenty of play left.

I agree… knows he was ahead until the river and calls off anyway? I’ve certainly been married to my fair share of hands, but not THIS married!

I personally would have played this more cautiously because it’s not a positive EV situation given expected ranges and positions. By definition, HERO was either a coin flip (on the flop) or big EV- on the turn.

It’s great that it worked out for you, and I hope you won the points standing, but you’re “expected” to lose 2/3 of the time here.

Curious what your plan for the river was if you missed the flush?

Check? And risk the villain betting for value?

If it was to shove as if you actually had suited spades as your hole cards (bluff a flopped flush), and Villain called, suddenly his play looks like an amazing read and we’d be questioning your play

Just my 2¢… everybody gets to play the way they want.

 

[upNdown]

I agree… knows he was ahead until the river and calls off anyway? I’ve certainly been married to my fair share of hands, but not THIS married!

Also, I am baffled that villain would essentially give up in the tournament. They still have 33bb in early/mid stage. Plenty of play left. Unless villain’s history with hero is that he never believes them. In which case, value bet the hell out of your made hands vs villain.

I agree that he should have folded. But his call is consistent with the way he played the hand. Every action this villain took in this hand said either “I think I’m ahead” or “I’m drawing to a flush” or both. So when he hits his flush, he’s supposed to fold?
Again, I agree that the ten-high flush doesn’t feel great there, especially with hero jamming. But that was the bed the guy made for himself, by just calling the check raise, then flatting the turn.

 

[PokerDogDoc]

I agree, Villain is consistent if nothing else
… maybe even inflexible?
… and as the Hero has demonstrated, that makes him exploitable, and finding exploitable play is what the real goal is, right?

 

[power13]

Late to the party but on the flop I would be calling as this is not a hand I'd be trying to generate fold equity with. You have a reasonable made hand with room to improve but want to keep villian's range wide - you are in bad shape with villains re-raise range of made flushes, sets and probably two-pair hands (though unlikely he has many of those in his range). He doesn't have many draws in his range (or made flushes to be fair) since you hold the As, so this raise doesn't seem like it will generate a ton of folds unless villain c-bets with air, even on such a wet board. The presence of a third player doesn't change much since you seem to have a read that he's weak - seems like they will fold whether you call or raise, but you also don't hate keeping this 3 ways with a call by V2, which may reduce the likelihood that you'll face a turn bet from V1 after 2 calls.

The villains call of the turn raise really narrows his range to overpairs and AK/AQ with a spade. With the turn brick, being OOP after raising puts you in a funny spot, another reason why a call on the flop may have been better. But I think the best play is check and evaluate the best plan based on villain bet size. He likely has an overpair and/or a high spade so he may check back and if not you should have a good sense of whether you have odds to call a bet from villain knowing you would likely need to improve. He is ahead here like 70% of the time (27 combos overpairs, 12 combos AK/AQo with a spade). I don't think you will fold out any of villain's range with a turn bet so don't see any reason to bet.

Obviously great card for you on the river, but if that was a blank I think I'd be checking expecting to see a check-back. Facing a bet, I would consider calling a small bet if I believed villain would bet small with a busted draw, but most likely folding. However, given the action and villain's range I would almost certainly expect a check-back unless he flopped a flush and played it very trappy to this point. This is also super unlikely given that you have the As and so there are only a few combos of flopped flushes he could even have had.