Do you Fold or Call ?

[Zozzy]

Please feel free to comment on the rights and wrongs of the initial decisions,  but my main question is should you call or fold to the all in.
Overview:
You have just been moved to a new table only 15 minutes ago, so aren"t sure how everyone is playing.
You have some previous history of the two villains (player on Button is a winning player in tournaments and high stakes cash, can be creative  and is aggressive in late stages of tournaments - the player in Small blind  you respect his game and speak to him away from the table, solid and not seen him step out of line too often.
It is GUKPT Main Event b&m Comp £500 buy-in. It is day 1 of  3days.
It is near the end of level 4 (60mins blind levels) blinds 100 /200
starting stack 20k
you are utg with 22k , Button 17k , sb 21k

You raise 4X to 800 with AQ suited spades
Button and SB call ,three players see the flop

Flop: Ace hearts Queen clubs 3 hearts

SB leads out 900 into a pot of 2600 ,you decide to flat call, Button raises to 3100, SB doesn"t think for too long and pushes all in.

Back to you

[Zozzy]

It is a re-enry tournament. The Button you know for sure will re-enter if he busts out because no bankroll problems. The SB player you don"t know how he is placed to re-enter or not.
You have no intention of re-entering.

This could influence your decision ?

[s4ooter]

Pretty sigh spot really.

Altho i hate the 4x pre it actually helps shape the hand here, as i can imagine only the sb set mining with

You have top 2 on a safe board with blockers and no info that suggests AA/QQ.

Its not a draw heavy board at all, and sounds like players involved can get tricky.

Question is, for me, how tough is your table??  If my table is tough, and im struggling to pick up pots i would probably call, but if super soft table i can be happy with a fold here.....calling off 100bbs with top 2 is pretty vile.

The lead of from sb is small, and the raise from btn is a pretty obv attempt to help him define his hand vs 2 villians in position.  I would assume i have him crushed alot of the time, and am not worried about him too much....

I think i would raise the flop myself to try and eliminate the button, as we then play subsequent streets in position.

Hmmm, ive mulled over this one the whole time in writing the reply and think i call......its not a great call, but at this stage we lose to 1 hand (33) as AA/QQ wont be playing it this way.....ahhhh f**k, im not too sure.

No, No, No - Hero fold ftw!!!

Horrible spot

[AMRN]

Wrote a response, then deleted and wrote a different response, then deleted that too.

Final answer - no idea whether I call or not, and it probably comes down to situational circumstance, ie any live reads, how much edge we believe we have at the table, etc.

In a vacuum, I can"t argue a case either way.

[mousebob]

Hero (weak?) fold for me.
Not 100% by any means. If I"ve had 1/2 shandy the chips are probably in already.
Smaller raise pre.(2 1/2x).
I also would have raised flop.
Being new to table makes it much harder.
There may be some history between the other two & you"re stuck in the middle.

[deanp27]

I"m calling.
Prob should sigh fold though but would convince myself the only hand we can ever be losing to is and would SB pile with a set here? Expect to see hearts a lot, possibly KQhh, KJhh. It"s pretty close though, especially with button still to act

Wouldn"t 4x pre either, opening to 500 is plenty

[Zozzy]

Great answers, and very helpful to me thanks.
You all confirm what a difficult decision it was to call for effectively your tournament life in the early stages of a tournament with a slow blind structure.
deanp27 you have more or less nailed it, as far as how the hand played out.

utg made the call with top two .
Button got out of the way (later said he had an Ace) as scooter says, defining his hand.

The all in squeeze was holding Nut Flush draw. This was me, I was the aggressor in this hand but wanted to know if my opponent utg was right to make the call. He didn"t seem to consider folding.

What I didn"t make clear in my OP was that my assessment of the Button player was from my personal experience with him. The utg player making the decision may not have had this information which makes his decision more difficult. And makes my play correct imo.
The Button player has shown massive strength by raising to 3100 after a limp.

My personal choice at the time would have been the same as mousebobs to reluctantly fold top two (even if I knew the Button player well).
My reasoning for this is that we all seem to agree that the two most likely hands we are facing are trip threes and Nut Flush draw. One has us crushed and one has  32% - 39% chance (against one opponent) of winning the hand anyway, dependant on the kicker. It would be too early in the tournament for me to take these odds.


I am constantly very critical of my play, and would welcome any comments about my own decisions in this hand now that you know I was the player in the SB. It was my exit hand and so I don"t want to be results orientated in my self assessment.
As much as I would like to say that I had KJ, I in fact had K5 suited hearts.

I am interested to know:
Would it have been correct for me to fold pre-flop ? (my decision to call was influenced by what I knew about the Button player)
Was there a better way to play post flop ?

Should the utg player have folded pre ? If I was the utg player with AQ OFFSUIT I would have folded here, but with it being suited does that make a significant difference ?

[deanp27]

Calling 4x with K5s from the small blind is a million times worse than opening AQo from UTG

[cincicrappykid]

Can I ask , if you are raising with AQ, hit 2 pair then consider folding after hitting,  why are you raising with it in the first place ?

[AMRN]

Calling 4x with K5s from the small blind is a million times worse than opening AQo from UTG

^^This!  The rest of the hand remains open for discussion, but to be honest, if you hadn"t make the huge mistake in the first place, the rest of the discussion would be irrelevant.    Sorry to be so blunt - but the call preflop from the SB is pretty dire and just asking for trouble.

[dwh103]

If Villain has seen you call OOP or play substandard holdings to a 4x raise (this hand is v spewy) - he"s far more likely to call with top 2 in the original spot.

[Swinebag]

Opening AQo and s from anywhere but not 4xing. I like 4 fiddy here.

The peel with K5s is terrible. You are OOP and are more likely to lose a decent pot and generally only win small ones. You can easily justify a 3bet or peel if you are in position but this is just classic chip leakage.

As played, you did well post flop. The small donk lead then reraise is a line that sets have played as well as FDs. Though by shipping you are tending more towards the bluff.

I fold just about everything to that line, but probably call off top 2 here. You were just unlucky that you ran into this hand.

In addition Craig, you are too decent a player to be getting this creative this early in the comp. There are so many spots and easy chips that you can afford a less risky aggressive approach and still chip up nicely.

[Zozzy]

Thanks Rob for the compliment, and thanks to you and everyone else who have offered constructive criticism. (basically of my pre-flop call OOP which on the face of it in isolation has rightly been identified as poor).
I have tried to justify my pre-flop call with the knowledge I have of the Button player, who is a situational player that doesn"t necessarily play his own holdings, senses weakness & folds to aggression.
It was very interesting for me to read comments initially from the point of view of the utg player which confirmed to me that I had put him in a difficult spot.

I have taken on board all your helpful comments and advice about my less than optimal play, and will use them to improve my thinking in future, in my progress up the MTT ladder.

[Drewski]

I agree that your SB call was pretty spewy but let"s try and be a little more constructive. I see that you justified this as the villain seems to be picking situations and so you were looking to out play him which is fine, but i hate this spot. He has shown strength raising from UTG and doesn"t look like a situational play, just basic ABC. I guess you are also assuming that the Button is calling because he is a good player playing position often?

If I"m going after the UTG player I certainly want to isolate when I will have position. I"d also much rather have a hand that is likely to flop well like suited conectors. Unfortunately you are not going to have position very often against him and I think that may have frustrated you here? Especially as you then seem to read the button as a squeeze and jam.

If you really wanted to make a play here then perhaps the squeeze play is the best option pre flop? Do you have any reads about him folding to three bets?

[noble1]

some of my views on donk betting that might get you thinking on when to do it etc.

donk leading has a lot to do with your range construction OOP and how you think your opponent views certain board textures for cbetting, knowing whether or not your opponent views KT9ssh , 765ssh AQ3hhs or 79Tcch as good or bad boards for his cbetting range is really important.
i view leading in the main as an adjustment dependent on the board texture to a opponents range and  whether or not i think he has a depolarized or a polarized cbetting range or i can use donk betting to anticipate as a counter measure to any turn or river card where i expect my opponent/s to check behind because it"s a good card for my perceived range.
i think its better in general as a line to take on low, connected and suited boards when you can represent a range of sets, 2 pairs and draws to prevent the opponent from raising you ruthlessly and where you can bluff with equity versus the opponents calling range.
for donk betting to work well 2 vital ingredients are needed imho,  if you are OOP its handy if you have an extremely strong perceived range, you have good image and that the opponent/s can hand read reasonably well.

good players cbet as a strategy either 2 below or mix it up.
polarized cbetting range - villain is cbetting strong hands for value and draws/air as a bluff
depolarized cbetting range - villain is cbetting a range of strong to medium weak hands and draws

bad players cbet either just for value and on odd occasions will make weird small bet sizes as blockers or they are aggro cbettors who over do it no matter what the board texture/opponents etc etc

the first step is to figure out how your opponents cbet and then you can think of ways to counter it [donk betting for example] then throw in post flop reads...


there is a old thread somewhere where we discussed donk betting plus there is a link to a old blonde thread/2+2 thread where a player called the camel got donk bet into when he held AA on a tricky board texture. [high buy in but still gives a good perspective of the type of player donk betting works well against]