cake 100+9 mtt, tptk on a draw heavy board

First level, 109$ MTT on cake.

MP with AsQho, UTG bets pot, one EP call, I flat call, one call behind.

Flop:

6c8cQs

UTG bets like 140 into a 320 pot. EP folds, I call, LP min-raises.

UTG calls.

I......?

I'd raise it to 420-500 on the flop. If the LP then makes a move, it defines your hand more. Then you know you are up against it, unless he's a lagtard/satelitte donk who minraises with a OESD/Combo draw (although 9c7c would be a disaster).

Now with the minpop on the flop into a bet AND a call, THEN a SC by the UTG raiser (AcKc?), I think it's either ship or fold after the minraise. And I lean towards folding here. I don't like SC the minpop, unless you had the AcQc (also helps to make a better case for a shove).

You may hit a "sucker card" on the turn, the Q or A, which will make it harder to fold vs a set of 6's or 8's.

word, thanks.

as it happens, i shoved, and LP called with AcQc and UTG called with KcKd, who tripled up after brick brick.

i felt stupid going broke with tptk but the money was probably going in on the brick turn anyway...

Some definite note taking required after that for each of those villians.

Although the SC of the minpop with just an overpair on a draw heavy board during the first level is very rare in the 100+ MTT events (although the fields may be different on cake), unless the villian with KK is a luck-low-limit satelitte donk.

Players tend to be a bit more straight forward with vulnerable hands like this unless you are up against a LAG.

i didnt read others responses but if you had raised the first better instead of flatting kk prolly reraises you and then you can get away from the hand depending on action.

its unlikely that kk will flat your reraise on cake, and utg will prolly push top pair nut flush draw after your reraise. if you get 2 callers i basically check call small bets or check fold to a big bet.


while cake players do suck big time, sometimes its just not worht getting involved early because its possible to have such a huge edge on players at later levels

All of these responses are extremely results based.

Raising the flop burns value you'd otherwise get from hands you're ahead of. 3-betting preflop is another possible line. I think raising the flop is bad here.

Minraises are minraises. Often the nuts from bad players. Failing a read I at least call, and sometimes shove like you did....

This is mainly a shitty spot more than anything else.

raising on the flop is not results oriented at all. tourney poker it is stupid to not find out where you are in a hand early in a tournament for value. raising tells you exactly where you are and calling tells you nothing about where you are.

had he raised on the flop, kk 80% of the time reraises and often aq with flush draw will push. its tehn a simple fold and you are still very alive in the tourney.

why get involved in a >400 bb pot with top pair top kicker no redraw on a draw heavy board with lots of action to go?

my one comment on this is that on a flop like this, i dont think raising tells me where i am in this case. KQ, JJ, and occasionally TT put me on a draw and shove, AcXc probably shoves due to odds, any set shoves too.. i think merlin kinda nailed it by saying it was simply a shitty spot. i was mostly curious how many people escape TPTK here on the flop.

The minraise is definitely a hint, but as you've seen, it's not always a monster, and that shove will stack that same guy with worse TP's. I mean, if it wasn't cake where people do goofy shit, I might call and then ch/fold or something if it seems very suspicious.

Raising for information is never a good play. It only exists in theory when people are writing about poker or in very deep stack games in conjunction with strong reads.

Again, AQ is essentially KK in this spot. The fact its behind KK and AA is pretty well irrelevant. They're nearly the same hand. Do you reraise the KK?

And I think there's more value in calling and checking the turn than raising the flop. Keep in mind, AQ looks like the BEST HAND here. We don't want to fold out everything worse.

Oh, and it's cake in the first level, effective stacks are likely LESS than 100bb.


Edit:

"tourney poker it is stupid to not find out where you are in a hand early in a tournament for value. raising tells you exactly where you are and calling tells you nothing about where you are."

What does that first sentence mean? Are you raising for value, or raising hoping everyone folds? If they fold, yes, your TPTK was good. Unfortunately you killed any chance of winning money from what you're ahead of. If they call, WTF do you do? Shove the turn? Do people actually call down with JJ after a flop raise in a multiway pot in tournaments you play? Even KQ should be able to fold to a flop raise here. KK or AA is frequently going to pull a fairly standard "call the raise and check-raise all-in on the turn". This line is powerful because it gets VALUE FROM HANDS THAT ARE BEAT. That's what the game is all about. Raising is bad. Trust me. The way you describe your line here, you may as well just fold the flop. Best case, you win a 1/2 pot bet, worst case you get stacked very easily by someone adept at extracting value from medium strength hands.

Calling tells you nothing? In the tournaments you play, people just constantly bet regardless of their hands? Well call them down with AQ to win 3 barrells of value from the vast majority of shit they're just bet-bet-betting all the time.

The way I see this hand going ideally, sonatine calls, the 3rd player folds, he checks behind the turn for pot control and snaps off a nice sized bluff or bad value bet from a worse hand. When you have someone minraising here, it's very player dependent, and, again, on cake it's a very tough spot because people just click the raise button with a lot of hands.

well if its a cake 109 you get 3000 starting chips at 10-20 levels, so its 150 big blinds, 3 ways is 450 big blinds assuming everyone is still that deep.

i really disagree that kk and aa are the same as aq right here. kk you are looking to get it in on that board against a drawing hand and with aq i am not looking to get it in this early in a tourney necessarily.

calling isnt horrible by any stretch of the means, dont get me wrong im not saying that.


ill just go through the decisisons the way i see them.

utg bets pot, standard raise on cake since all they know is the pot button. i give credit to utg raises usually on cake. here i would put his range aa-77 ak-a10s. when the early position player flats, i honestly think that you could make a case for just dumping aq here, which i didnt consider originally, but i think a call is fine. i rarely reraise here pre, although folding or raising here would save you chips over the long run.

lets say you fold, you still have 150 bb's and are still alive in the tourney (i know this is nitty, but aq is incredibly overrated).

lets say you raise, often kings will now raise because it makes no sense for them to play them slow with a 3 bet now in the pot, they are looking for value. then it gets 4 bet to you and likely you fold.


but you called, so to the flop.

you flop top pair and guy makes standard continuation bet. here is where i think you have to raise because raising helps you find out what the utg range could be narrowed to and also gives you information behind when you see what the kk hand does. honestly you cant put kk or aa in the late position cold caller unless you put some aggression in on the flop.

utg makes it 140 you reraise to 550-600ish and either you take down the pot right here( which is not a bad thing i understnad that extracting value is key in poker but there are times when it makes sense to take down a small pot so you dont potentially lose one) or get reraised and release the hand.

by calling and then getting minraised, you are forcing yourself to commit to the pot.




oh and i wrote that first sentence very poorly, i have no idea what i wanted it to say. also this is a very good discussion and i think we both have valid points.

I didn't know it was that deep. So I agree that it's unfortunate to put in so much with TPTK here. It's nice to think of a way you can fold, but I still find raising exacerbates the situation more than improving it.

The minraise is really the thing, here. The minraise makes it so difficult, because on cake, minraises are frequent. Some players wait to flop a set and never raise more than the minimum. Some players minraise almost anything remotely good in this spot. It's nice to have the notion that minraising is always a monster and fold, but people who minraise a lot and mix it up get raises called a lot more than people who raise even a little more to 2.5x.

I never minraise under any circumstance, but knowing how much I fucking hate to play against a minraise against someone who does it with a difficult to read range, I may consider making the play more.

There is a time and a place for it, but it shouldn't be a regular part of one's repetoire. It can be utilized mostly for pot building versus calling stations when you flop a cinch hand so you can make the next street's pot bet more attractive to call in relation to the pot; as an information gatherer (Lederer in his second video uses itwith TPTK versus a player who flopped a set and he was able to lay down after the minbettor three-betted all-in); or PF during satelitte tournaments near the bubble when you are big-to-huge stacked.

I love minbet donks though, especially if it's PF or when I have a drawing hang. sfmoney