$22 NL HE MTT: Defending the BB with weak suited hands

[Andyreas]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Table Format

MTT

Buy-in

22

Currency

$

I am wondering if this hand is just a cooler or could have been avoided. Maybe I'm a bit too critical on my plays but I think each street could or even should have been played differently.

I'll put my thoughts for each street in the spoiler. Up to you to check them out or just comment your general thoughts on the hand.

So we're playing a $22 MTT, 19 players left, with 17 places paid. I'm sitting with 18.4 BBs and am 12th in stack size. (This tournament is played nitty around the bubble quite often.)
I don't aim to (only) min-cash but also don't want to throw away the tournament just like that.

Pre flop:
Table is usually 8 seats but due to the amount of players, we're down to 6 at the table.

Hero (18.4 BBs) is BB with 7h3h.

CO (122.3 BBs) raises to 2 BB. No special notes/read on CO this session but has been marked as decent player by Hero.

Folds to Hero. Hero?

Spoiler: My thoughts on pre flop

73s is definitely on the bottom range to defend BB but it's against CO, so I guess it's ok. Although villain is not a bad player and also big stacks can put you in bad situations since they can afford to bet/bluff large. So folding would be a valid option too, I think?

Hero calls

Flop (5.2 BBs)
Ks2h4h

Hero checks. Villian bets 3.4 BBs. Hero?

Spoiler: My thoughts

Pretty good flop for me. I have a FD and a BDSD here.
I was thinking about making a small donk bet but I don't want to get raised, so I decided to check. If his cbet is small, I can still go for a check-raise.

He bets (as expected) but the size is quite large, too large for a check-raise imo. I sense he might have top pair and bets large against the potential draws.

I cannot really profitably call the cbet for my draws but two more streets ahead, so I decided to go for it.

Hero calls.

Turn (12.1 BBs)
9h
Hero checks, Villain jams. Hero?

Spoiler: my thoughts on turn

Now my draw hits, so I should have jammed the turn to not get him a free draw with a potential other heart.

Hero calls.

Villian reveals KcQh.

River is 6h.

Spoiler: Some thoughts after the hand

As the hand specific hands and board went, I don't think I could have made him fold at any point in the hand - independent of how I'd have played it.

I know in poker we shouldn't be results oriented but I think I got myself in an awkward situation with a mediocre hand.

 

[fundiver199]

Did not read the spoilers, so just going to give you my take on the hand.

Preflop
Normally its fine to defend any suited hand to a small raise from late position. However in this specific situation, where the bubble is near, and CO is sitting on a huge stack, then I would run the clock down to slow the action and fold. And obviously this would avoid anything, that follow.

Flop
You could check-jam, but he C-bet pretty big, and I kind of interpret that as strong. So I am not sure, there is quite enough fold equity, and obviously if he has a hand like top pair, you are only drawing to a flush, so you are getting it in behind. On the other hand if you are going to check-fold a flushdraw on the flop, then why even call preflop? So as played I guess, you have to call, but I am sort of hating the situation.

Turn
You binked the flush, and your hand does need some protection, so I would not hate a donk jam here. But its also fine to check and give him the chance to bluff or value own himself, and when he jam, obviously you have to call. If you got overflushed, or if he get there on the river, it is, what it is.

 

[primrose]

Preflop: is there an ante? The ante matters a lot because it significantly lowers the equity % you need to defend profitably. If there is, I think this call is correct. GTO says you have to defend more hands if you are short stacked as well since you have less of a disadvantage from position. (Which makes sense; if you all-in preflop, position is irrelevant.)

Flop: Gross cbet size. Exploitatively this is a smaller bet, and I'm not a GTO expert but iirc if you have the range but not the nut advantage, like here, you're also supposed to bet smaller. This genuinely looks like he gave away that he has the King by how much bet.

Against a normal cbet size I think this is an easy check-jam. Against this size, I don't know. It depends on how confident we are that this bet size means he has hit the King. If we're confident, then yeah we shouldn't jam.

Turn: I like the check. Usually if someone bets this big on the Flop they'll get stubborn, and if you bet this card, you make your hand pretty obvious.

From Villain, this line screams sunken cost fallacy to me. Like, I bet big for protection, therefore I'm now entitled to not be against the Flush! I guess he has the Queen of Hearts, but he still shouldn't jam this card.

Reveal: There's being results-oriented in the sense of valuing the reveal of your opponent's hands, and then there's results-oriented in the sense of caring about RNG. These are two very different things. The first one is arguably a mistake since we're just getting one data point, but it's usually worth at least considering a little. The second is completely, trivially, and always irrelevant. You didn't even have to post anything past the turn. As far as strategy goes this hand ends at the Turn, where you got it in with a much better hand. So being results-orited (in the non-stupid sense) would suggest you played well.

Also, if I played against this guy, I'd probably label him as a fish based on how he played.

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop: is there an ante? The ante matters a lot because it significantly lowers the equity % you need to defend profitably. If there is, I think this call is correct. GTO says you have to defend more hands if you are short stacked as well since you have less of a disadvantage from position. (Which makes sense; if you all-in preflop, position is irrelevant.)

I have watched a fair amount of streamed final tables from big events on pokerstars like the SCOOP and WCOOP high rollers. And one of the main things, I have taken away, is, that the best players in the world defend their blinds way less, when they are under high ICM pressure. So while you are correct, if we were playing in chip EV mode, we are very much not playing in chip EV mode here. And for that reason I think, this preflop depend is a mistake.

We can also look at this intuitively. We have 18.4 BB, which is a really awkward stack to play, when we dont want to go broke. If we nit up and run down the clock every hand, hopefully some players will bust at the other tables, and we get closer to the bubble. Sooner or later the blinds will go up, or we lost chips from folding, and now we have a stack, that is short enough to play push or fold.

Which mean that now the bigger stacks can no longer apply pressure to us but only wait for a hand, that is strong enough to call. Which is waaaay better for us than playing a bad hand out of position, just because "LOL pot odds". Or for that matter min-raising and getting 3-bet, like there is no tomorrow, because they know, we can only call with the very top of our range.

Against a normal cbet size I think this is an easy check-jam. Against this size, I don't know. It depends on how confident we are that this bet size means he has hit the King. If we're confident, then yeah we shouldn't jam.

Very much agree. For me this sizing also scream "I hit top pair and want to make it a 2 street hand". I almost want to fold, and jamming seem suicidal.

As far as strategy goes this hand ends at the Turn, where you got it in with a much better hand. So being results-orited (in the non-stupid sense) would suggest you played well.

Absolutely agree. Postflop the hand is mostly a bad beat story, and the only real decision was preflop.

 

[primrose]

And one of the main things, I have taken away, is, that the best players in the world defend their blinds way less, when they are under high ICM pressure. So while you are correct, if we were playing in chip EV mode, we are very much not playing in chip EV mode here. And for that reason I think, this preflop defend is a mistake.

ICM is a good point, wasn't really thinking about this. (And I never watch pro games, so this is interesting to hear.) But yeah, the equity argument no longer applies if chips have strongly diminishing value, so given that, the more professional choice may well be to fold preflop.

 

[monkeytilter]

Maybe the ICM experts can look at this and point out a mistake (would be nice to see a mathematical analysis), but I think you are worrying about making a mistake because you lost the hand.

Preflop:
Defending 73s at this stack depth is super-standard (maybe ICM changes that drastically - I don't know!), it's marginal but more profitable than giving up the 1BB.

Flop:
You hit a flop you are looking for, nice to see you call and not just reshove as villain isn't going anywhere with 2/3 pot cbet, so you have no fold equity but good equity to continue at that price. My only concern is that you are unlikely to see both flop and turn, but I think the implied odds just about cover that and you have to ask why are we calling 73s in the first place if we're flopping flush draws to fold?

Turn:
I don't think worrying about a four flush coming on the river is a consideration here so again I like the check, keep the villain's range wide and let him make mistakes - he made a huge one.

River:
GG. Unlucky, more than 4 times out of 5 of the time you double up and are going the right direction to take the tourney down, not just min cash, as you can abuse the nittiness on the stone bubble with a good stack?

Edit: I read you spoilers after commenting and I'd pick up on this

I know in poker we shouldn't be results oriented but I think I got myself in an awkward situation with a mediocre hand.

Be careful not to let the fear of being in (and possibly losing in) difficult spots push you away from profitable situations!
As I said I think you played this hand well, the only question mark is around the ICM aspect, it would be nice for someone to come up with a definitive answer on that front.

 

[Andyreas]

Thanks to you all for your detailed comments. Highly appreciated. 🤗

Of course I might not have posted the hand in case I won it but I genuinely believe I got myself into this awkward situation with defending the BB here when it could have been avoided with a fold.

Also, if I played against this guy, I'd probably label him as a fish based on how he played.

I don't have the notes at hand right now but why would you consider this play as fish?

Of course GTO has us mixing bet sizes and all but I don't think his play was that much fishy. I don't have any solver at hand but I guess a decent percentage of bet sizes would be large given he flopped top pair?

 

[primrose]

Of course GTO has us mixing bet sizes and all but I don't think his play was that much fishy. I don't have any solver at hand but I guess a decent percentage of bet sizes would be large given he flopped top pair?

I doubt what he did has much to do with GTO. All I see is someone betting larger if they hit it, which is a classic fishy betsizing tell -- one which is not even defensible here because it doesn't make exploitative sense to bet this big, either. And then the Turn all-in was bad as well.