Sunday Special #16: Flopping Top Pair and Facing Three Barrels

A hand from first time submitter "lionhat"

My (Sam’s) thoughts are included in the footnotes. If you reading this via e-mail, it might be an easier read on Substack where the footnotes require less scrolling back and forth. Click here. On to the Sunday Special where we have a first time submitter.

Today’s submitter is lionhat. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram. He is a POTD subscriber, but he DMed me on twitter so submit this hand. A reminder, that I am always looking for submissions. Don’t be shy.

Smallish field (~310 entries) Live Main Event. 13 left. I’m likely 4th or 5th in chips. 3 players to my left are shorter and more solid than the 3 players to my right. Top 3 stacks direct to my right and two to my right.
(10k/20k/20k) (SB/BB/BBA)

HJ playing 1.6M
CO playing 1.4M
BTN (Me) 1M
HJ makes it 50k, CO calls, I am dealt K♠️T♠️ and call

Flop (195k) K♥️5♠️2♣️:
HJ c-bet 50k, CO folds, I call.
Turn(295kb) 2♦️ HJ thinks for 10 seconds and bets 125k, I call
River (540k) J♠️: HJ doesn’t think long and throws out 4x big chips and bets 400k, about 60% of my stack, I call and lose to A♦️2♥️

Preflop

At this stack depth, I think both 3-betting and over-calling are reasonable actions.¹

Both opponent’s were weaker players with CO being particularly bad (over-valuing offsuit broadways etc).² HJ properly applying pressure but probably over-doing it (combative player type). Figured 3-betting not folding out COs “supposed-to” folds and HJ might overdo it with 4-bets. ³

(It was unclear to me if my suited broadways 3-bet linearly or the reverse).⁴

Decide on call.

Flop

C-betting into 2 is quite strong, especially given the stacks.⁵
At this stage and considering my range is very narrow, I don’t want to play any raises here and my hand doesn’t have any reason to either. I think no BDFD is a pure-call so calling with this.⁶

Turn

Here, I’m letting go of all my pocket pairs. Versus a larger size, would have to begin folding these and continue with my KQs/KJs (if I have them).⁷ Versus this size, calling. Considered exploit folding.⁸

River

In game, I figured villains value range in this size would be something like AA (6), A2s (2x), KK (1x), KJ (6), 55 (3) with their AK and KQ choosing a less greedy size (worried about my own KJs, 55). 18 pure combos.⁹

In terms of offsuit, I thought that a rec could easily make the mistake of overdoing it with top pair blockers as well as rivered Jx i.e. AQ, AJ, QJs -- making my T kicker good in terms of unblocking effects. ¹⁰

I also considered there was a lot of suited and offsuit wheel Ax (given ~CL stack and shorter BTN and BB). This would increase their A2o combos but would also increase their missed A3o and A4o as well (which can play flop and turn similarly).¹¹

Seemed altogether that there were enough bluff candidates but wasn’t sure about his specific river frequencies. I took his earlier aggression into account and made the call.

He wins with A2o.

Felt like a close spot and in retrospect -- given the exact table configuration which 3 weaker players to my right --, can fold and preserve my future game.¹²

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1. Generally KTs is a very high frequency three bet here because you can get one or both players to fold KJo,KQo and ATo.

2. Granted if you think they’re gonna play weak postflop and won’t fold KQo to a three bet, I see the appeal in overcalling.

3. These two things can be linked. If the CO is flatting wide and fishy, the HJ might think you’re squeezing extra wide, so he’ll play back extra wide. Another reason why flatting might be a good play here.

4. You tend to not three bet linearly… well outside of AK and AQs. The hands you flat most often are AJs/ATs/KQs because they do fold out lower kickers and you don’t three bet the hands that do fold out higher kickers.

5. It should be, but some players still think that as the preflop raiser they get to auto c-bet here. So it doesn’t always represent strength.

6. I wouldn’t hate finding some flop raises to exploit someone who is over-cbetting, but KT is very much not the hand. I’d start with KQ, sets, maybe some 5x/2x, some wheel gutshots and maybe some QJ+backdoor type hands. Raising with top pair is already dicey and KT is too weak.

7. You should have more KQs and KJs than KTs here.

8. I think folding as an exploit would be way too tight here. I think 66 and higher should mostly continue here. If you had a live read that he was strong, that’s fine, but he still is betting less than half pot and you have an uncapped range in position, you should continue over half your range here and Kx is far too good. to fold.

9. He might mix flop or turn checks with some of these hands, but overall I think this is a good assessment of his value betting range. KQ is probably the borderline hand on a jack river. I’d also give him the one combo of quads.

10. Rivered Jx is a pretty easy check it has way too much showdown to bluff. I think the main way someone like this could be overdoing it is just betting the flop too often. If he occasionally c-bets a hand like T9 because the flop looks dry and he rarely barrels the turn and river, that can still add up to a lot of river bluffs in a spot where finding 5-6 extra combos can make all the difference.

11. Even though he had A2o, I think it’s good for your river bluff catching if he has A2o in his range, but also A3o and A4o. We’re talking about 6 combos vs 24 combos in a spot where if he’s bluffing 3 of those combos it makes KT a higher EV river call.

12. I like when people send hands like today, because to me, it’s a pretty standard hand. You flopped top pair and faced three bets, none of which were all that big. I think you have a pretty easy call down. I understand why you felt you could have gotten away from it, but you’re getting good odds and the K is a very key blocker in this hand. I think my main disagreement here is with the assessment of his c-bet strategy. The type of player who opens A2o here (which I only know because I saw the results) tends to play a strategy where they think everyone is overfolding on early streets, so they raise too wide preflop and c-bet too wide. I don’t think his c-bet as particularly strong or notable. These players also are often the type of player who shutdown on the turn and river once the meet resistance, so there’s a tricky balance to strike on the turn and the river. You are facing a player who is not bluffing enough on the turn and river, but probably arrives to the turn and river with too many hands that could bluff.

I enjoyed the window into your thought process and your reasoning was sound, but my main takeaway from this hand is you could have three bet preflop (especially vs a wide opener), but once you flatted you couldn’t do much else.