This is a hand from the Big $11, which 2CardsCollege student “Jumanja777” binked recently.

https://www.weaktight.com/h/560c2c9fd390433a478b48d4

The villain is unknown, playing with 23/18 over 62 hands. There were three to five tables left in the tournament.

The hand turned out to be quite interesting. Let us try to analyze it from various angles to find the optimal line of play.

This is villain’s preflop calling range: 66-JJ, ATs-AQs, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, 98s, AJo-AQo, KQo

I think the villain would call tightly enough for the following reasons:

1. There is an aggressive player on the BTN, so it’s pointless to call wide
2. There are no QQ+ hands in the range since our Hero defends a lot of hands after opening from early and middle positions and with the stacks this deep, the hands would be often taken post-flop. However, I kept TT-JJ with a 50/50 probability.
3. The villain has a small gap between his VPIP and PFR, which tells us that this kind of opponent would call widely on the blinds and approximately just this range in the late positions.

Now let us determine the range of defending against our possible flop c-bet.

After a c-bet, the villain would continue in 66.5% of the cases. Some Ace-high hands, OESDs, and gutshots contribute to the portion of folds. The villain has a lot of medium strength hands that pay us on the flop and most likely would not do so afterwards. I’m talking, of course, about all of the weak pairs and medium pairs between Q and 8 with a flush draw.

Let us try to imagine what, on average, a player would bet into a missed c-bet.

The villain would bet into a missed c-bet in about 77% of cases. At that, all hands that are not included into a 100% range are the medium and weak pairs taken with a 50% probability (I decided it would be more fair since some opponents would pot-control and some of them would protect the equity of their second pairs against undesirable cards by betting) and Ace-high bluffs with no equity. The villain would sometimes also slowplay Kx flushes.

Now let us try to find out which line is preferable. I’ll start from the drawbacks of checking:

1. We have a blocker for the nut flush
2. We don’t know the villain’s post-flop tendencies
3. The villain would continue bluffing the turn and the river on a dangerous board much less than 100% of the time
4. The villain would almost never bet his medium hands on all three streets and often not even on two, so by betting, we allow him to realize his equity for two streets.
5. Due to the four points above, we would not get paid often. If we check/call the flop and donk-bet the turn, it would look very strong, so we would have to check the turn hoping the villain would continue betting.
6. Pretty strong hands like top pairs would often check behind either on the turn or river, which makes it impossible for us to get value on all three streets, especially because the triple-barrel line looks more like a bluff.

The drawbacks of c-betting:

I could not think of any drawbacks except that we miss value against the bluff portion of the villain’s range.

Although the villain is more likely to bet one street rather than call, I prefer c-betting because of the drawbacks of checking discussed above. It is hard to maximize value against many of the villain’s hands if we check.

Then something unexpected happened in this hand. The villain hits this board quite often, but suddenly we see a check back. I would include the following hands into the check-back range: medium and low pocket pairs, 98s, slowplayed and Kx flushes, all of these with a 50% probability. However, let us take a closer look.

This turn card has strengthened the villain considerably, so I think Hero should have bet slightly more on the turn. In the worst case, we’d get some additional folds only from KJs. The villain’s calling range is as follows.

On the river again, I think Hero made a mistake with the bet-sizing. We could get a call from 87.5% hands. Sometimes Hero would have bluffs, so I think the bluff catchers would rarely fold considering the river card has strengthened some of them. Then we got an unexpected raise.

In this spot, the villain rarely has bluffs. He will have very few of them since there are generally very few hands that he was calling the turn with that did not get there on the river and I don’t think the villain would turn anything into a bluff.

Due to check behind on the flop, the villain can only have a single full house with a less than 100% probability because 66 and 88 would never check the flop behind on this texture.

For the same reason, Hero can only have a TT full house and he has a very few flushes in his range. Thus, I think the villain would always raise KhJh and KhTh (I would attribute to the slowplay of each on the flop a 50% probability) and sometimes would raise trips.

I’m also sure the villain would always call the river with a flush because he blocks some nut flushes in Hero’s range with his own ones. The trips would also raise river sometimes, but call a shove less often.

We have enough equity for a value push and we have 57% equity for calling a push, but I don’t consider pushing to be optimal in this spot because there are always some approximations in the analysis and there is always a chance of a misread even though it’s an insignificant one.

In case of calling and losing, we have 20 BB left. If we push and win, we obtain a comfortable stack for the last two tables and this stack can be used for pressing
the opponents at our table.

There is also a chance that the villain would overplay trips (98s) in this spot; then we have 72% equity. Thus, I prefer a bit riskier play.

There is only one confusing detail: TT may check the flop more often than a flush even though I believe the villain should protect his equity by betting with this hand. There is also a chance that a full house would raise the river bet with a bigger sizing.

Conclusion: After weighing all of the pros and cons, I prefer a bit riskier way of playing this hand by shoving the river. However, I think it would be better to bet/bet/bet from the very beginning. The villain showed KhJh.