$50 NL HE MTT: overplay flush or extract value?

Day 1 tournament for 50$ lvl2

Every body 80bb stack

utg raises 2,2bb, x folds, bu calls, hero sb (KsJs), calls (should I 3 bet?) bb calls

Flop 9,8bb

2x checks, UTG bets 3,2bb, bu calls, hero calls (should I raise?) BB calls

Turn 22.8bb

hero bets 14bb (should I lead, or mayby check-raise, check call line) BB calls, UTG folds, Bu calls

River 64,8bb

Hero all in 60bb, BB calls, Bu folds

What your thought, I extract full value or just I overplay my hands, what do you think?

Nice hand overall. I like the flop call and turn lead, but I think the river jam is a bit too big because worse hands will often fold. A smaller value bet probably gets called more often.

Agree with Das991992 on the river, and I think the board is the reason. It's paired and your flush isn't the nuts. The hands that call 60 into 65 there are mostly the ace high flush and full houses. The hands you beat, trips or two pair, mostly fold. Something like 20 to 25 gets those calls and loses a lot less the times he has it. On the preflop question I'd 3-bet or fold from the SB with KJs against an UTG open and a caller, flatting is probably the weakest of the three.

Preflop
For me to squeeze here I would have to believe, that UTG is going to fold a lot, because if he does not fold, then you are just creating some massive pot, when you are out of position with a medium strong hand. Without that read I am totally on board with just calling, even though you are allowing BTN and BB to realise their equity, and you are going to be out of position multiway. You could even just fold here, and with KJo that would be my prefered play.

Flop
I think, the play here is 100% to just call. You are not drawing to the nuts, and its a multiway pot, so if you raise, you are usually just getting a lot of chips in, when you are in bad shape. If it was a large bet, you could honestly consider folding, since its a bit of a reverse implied odds situation, but for 1/3 pot you have to see a turn.

Turn
You made your hand, which is of course always nice. Before deciding on your turn line, you need to plan the rest of the hand including answering the fundamental question "am I willing to stack off or not" assuming a blank river, that does not put a 1-liner to a flush or 2 pair/trips on the board. And the key to that decision is, if your opponents will be willing to put in 80BB with trips, when its a multiway pot, and there are 3 cards to a flush on the board?

I dont know the answer to this, because I dont play in this game. I will say though, that if these players are sort of reasonable, then probably not or at least not very often? If someone jam in 80BB on a board like this and especially multiway, then trips is just a bluff catcher. And if they can hand read, then what are your bluffs here?

You overcalled on the flop with a guy still left to act behind you, and you really should not be doing this with hands like a weak pair or A high. The only draw just got there, so you should hardly ever have anything weaker than trips after calling on the flop. Which also mean, that if you lead here, UTG is just going to fold his overpairs, or at least he should.

You can still get called by someone with trips, because trips has equity against a flush, but trips might also bet itself to not let someone draw to a 4-flush for free, especially if UTG or BTN has it. And if trips is not going to call a river jam, you either need to use more of a blocker sizing on the turn or plan to check all rivers if called. Or check the turn to disquise the strength of your hand a little bit and then go for some value on clean rivers.

River
Maybe one of them has trips, but what does the other guy have then? The other trips or a worse flush? Maybe. But I think, its to optimistic to jam for value with less than the A high flush. If you had a hand like A5 of spades, you could get value from KQ, KJ, KT, QJ, QT, JT of spades etc. But now instead you need to worry, someone else have A5 of spades, and you block a lot of those second best flushes, because you hold the K and J of spades yourself.

So as played I think, this is a check and evaluate spot. If it checks through, you usually have the best hand, and you got your value on the turn. If someone makes a small bet, you can call and sometimes be good against trips, that tried to go for thin value. Or if it goes jam, call or small bet, jam behind you, you can fold and still have a solid 60BB stack left.

Rajten said:

Day 1 tournament for 50$ lvl2

Every body 80bb stack

utg raises 2,2bb, x folds, bu calls, hero sb (KsJs), calls (should I 3 bet?) bb calls

Flop 9,8bb

2x checks, UTG bets 3,2bb, bu calls, hero calls (should I raise?) BB calls

Turn 22.8bb

hero bets 14bb (should I lead, or mayby check-raise, check call line) BB calls, UTG folds, Bu calls

River 64,8bb

Hero all in 60bb, BB calls, Bu folds

What your thought, I extract full value or just I overplay my hands, what do you think?

Click to expand...

A great study exercise is to build ranges and then see how those ranges effect your actions.
Simple example We have second best flush what are our value targets on the river?
We build that range by looking at earlier streets and removing hands. Preflop BB no AA KK QQ --JJ? Flop Would BB play Tx this way? Turn what hands does BB flat? River how weak was BB hand flush Tx Pair?

think about BB range and that will let you know if you over played your hand based on frequency of occurrence not just this 1 spot.

Important for you to reflect on frequency based on your hand being very weak vs the possible nut hands boats and yes you had second flush but think about combos of AXs that BB could have.
then consider how many baby flushes really do call on a paired board.

🤔🤓

Rajten said:

utg raises 2,2bb, x folds, bu calls, hero sb (KsJs), calls (should I 3 bet?) bb calls

Click to expand...

I would not 3-bet, no. I think a flat is fine. We're out of position here. Let's just see a flop, but of course we are now in a spot where we must hit. Especially with the 3-way turned 4-way pot. Most likely we will be check-folding this flop. Normally this means that we should fold, but our hand has enough equity here and the price is not outrageous. Our pot odds are actually decent (1.7 into 5.7 even before the BB joins in). What does a 3-bet accomplish? In a 4-way pot, is everyone going to fold? Very likely not. Also, there is a very high chance that we are behind hands that call (also considering that at $50 buy-in the fish factor is less than usual). This is why KJs is generally not considered in a 3-bet range.

Rajten said:

2x checks, UTG bets 3,2bb, bu calls, hero calls (should I raise?) BB calls

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Again, do not raise. What do we want with 2nd-nut flush draw? We would like the pot to be a little bigger to build before we hit (because it will be harder to get paid once there are 3 spades on the board) but we don't want the pot to bloat. If we have reason to believe that someone will raise us large, we could blocker bet here for pot control, but check-calling this very reasonable bet is working out perfectly for us, especially with the calls behind. Villain has bet the perfect amount for us and we have a lovely pot brewing. Also, look at Villain's sizing. It's 1/3rd. He's really not afraid of those spades. If he has a full house, this is the size that he would use.

Rajten said:

hero bets 14bb (should I lead, or mayby check-raise, check call line) BB calls, UTG folds, Bu calls

Click to expand...

We hit our flush. i would not donk here. We could be betting straight into a boat. We are also pricing out draws with our sizing. These are the hands that we want to call. The only draw that beats us is a nut flush. All lesser flushes we want to call. Also 98 is open-ended here (but not terribly likely after the pre-flop). Hopefully this will call. Donking for 2/3rds is reckless here. We're paying boats and folding out straights and trips by basically telling everyone that we have spades.

Rajten said:

Hero all in 60bb, BB calls, Bu folds

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Same as the turn. What calls your turn? Boats, we pay them off fully here. Nut flush, we pay that off fully here. Lesser flushes, okay that could be good for us. 98 has busted, so that's a fold. Tx for trips has not improved and is only a bluff catcher here so not likely to call a large jam unless you have a very bluffy image. This is a very reckless bet.

Is perhaps your general mindset in this hand forgetting that we are out of position in a 4-way, 3-way pot?

Thank you for your input, this time BB was trapping all hand, with t4o

Rajten said:

Thank you for your input, this time BB was trapping all hand, with t4o

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BB sure got a lucky flop. Gotta say that he called pretty wide pre-flop but not the worst play in the world considering the very attractive pot odds. This relates to the other thread regarding defending multiway with 98s. If 98s flops T76 say, it takes down a huge one just like T4o did here and 98s is a FAR better hand to play the lottery with than T4o.

Rajten said:

Thank you for your input, this time BB was trapping all hand, with t4o

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If BB is that wide preflop, there are more boats in his range but also more low flushes. So I am not sure, this change the analysis much if at all. But regardless if you get called here with T4o or A4 of spades, I think, its an overplay to put in 80BB with the second best flush on a paired board in a 3-way pot. There are just not enough worse hands, that are going to pay you off, if the opponents are decent. At the end of the day this is a classic "drawing to a flush or straight on a paired board" situation, where we need to be a little bit carefull and not just pile in a ton of chips.