Preflop spot v. Kevin Saul with AQo deep in foxwoods

[Christian Harder]

This hand happened with 44 people left in WPT foxwoods.

We just hit the money.

Kevin had lost a huge pot on the bubble then preceded to double up 3 times and get back to over 210k. Kevin had moved to our table about 45 mins ago and done his usual act of raising a lot . Id had 3 bet once, (not against kevin) while he was at the table and generally been playing pretty TAG (tight-aggressive). Kevin and I are friends, and he knows my game pretty well (and i know his probably better). I think he views me as on the aggressive side, but not maniacal like himself . ... ok onto the hand.

Kevin Raises to 13k @ 2500/5000 in the cutoff, the button folds (who had been very tight) and i have AQo. with about 240k, kevin has about 215k iirc. In an online tourney, with our images, the standard play would be to 3 bet/call. Im not so sure whats correct in WPTs with the structure and my image being tightish. But i decided its going to be to hard to play postflop being out of position etc, So i 3 bet to 45k and Kevin shoves for 215k total and i call. Whats peoples general thought on this hand with our images at the time etc.?

[Barry Greenstein]

We have had a few discussions that fall into the same category:

"I have good chips and I pick up 88, 99, 10-10, or even JJ, or AJ suited, or AQ, and a good aggressive player opens late in a tournament. I have 40BB or more and he has me covered (or has almost the same stack). What should I do?"

Up to 25 big blinds, it's invariably right to shove over his opening. When your stack is deeper, the "very old school" way of playing these hands was preflop: raising and folding to a reraise if you thought you were beat. Then things changed several years ago to what I will call "old school" where you called and took a flop.

Now we have two camps, but the majority of the young crowd have gone back to more three-betting preflop. When the three-bet gets the other guy to fold, the strategy is successful. When we get four-bet, we want to go back and call. It's certainly a function of who we are playing and what has been going on, but either play is a calculated gamble, and the calculations involve psychological aspects and other factors including who else is left in the tournament.

I don't "know" how to play these hands with 40 BBs, and sometimes I even fold the AJ and AQ and look for a better spot, whether it's an easier person to play against or a less dangerous chip stack.

I wouldn't have folded here. I'm sure I would have raised him sometimes and called other times, and I would have criticized myself when the other play would have worked.

Barry

[Justin Bonomo]

When the three-bet gets the other guy to fold, the strategy is successful. When we get four-bet, we want to go back and call.

This isn't necessarily true against Kevin. He will be shoving worse aces here A LOT.

[Barry Greenstein]

Originally Posted by Justin Bonomo

This isn't necessarily true against Kevin. He will be shoving worse aces here A LOT.

I think I have only played live with Keven once, and he was crazy at times, but not consistently crazy which made him a difficult opponent. Based on your assessment, are you saying that we should three-bet and then call his shove or five-bet all-in against Kevin with this hand? There are definitely opponents who will break me if they can beat Ace-Queen, and maybe Kevin should be on that list.

Can we assume that there are some people who should take this line against Kevin and others who should not?

Barry

[Ryan Daut]

We can certainly show a profit by just shoving 43bb over his open, probably even by shoving AND turning our hand face up we still show a profit. When you combine all the random crap he could 4bet here cause its a really good spot for him to, i think 3bet/call shove is certainly way better than folding, 3bet folding and just jamming.

However, I am not sure if its more profitable than just calling pre though, because kevin is probably going to cbet any flop that is good for us, and possibly fire a 2nd barrel if we just check call flop. we can also just play our AQ high for value on a lot of board and c/c those, and if we do improve on the turn kevin could double barrel those. i.e. flop comes 247 we c/c one street, turn is a blank he gives up a lot when we have the best hand, but if turn is an A/Q, hes going to fire again a lot so there is a ton of value by just calling pre with a lot less variance to the play.

[Todd Terry]

In a vacuum 3-bet/calling with AQo against a CO raise from Kevin is printing money. But here you guys are deep playing for huge money. So the issues are whether Kevin is willing to 4bet as light as he otherwise would and whether he thinks you're as willing to 3bet bluff as much you otherwise would, and what you think about both things, ad infinitum. You having been at the table are going to have a much better sense of these things than we can reading about it. I think I'd be more inclined to just call pre if you haven't been 3betting him at all and/or he hasn't been 4betting at all. But I don't particularly enjoy playing OOP against a superaggro preflop raiser.

[Bryan Devonshire]

I think we gotta three-bet/call. Kevin's no slouch post flop and we are giving him position. I'd rather play the value of my hand pre-flop than play post cause while we are going to snap a lot of bluffs with our ace highs we're also going to get taken to value town by him a lot too. I don't mind flatting this spot if we're in position however.

I can't wait for Kevin's post.

[Sorel Mizzi]

I hate 3 bet calling here
I hate 3 bet folding here more

Therefore I think calling preflop is by far the best play esp against a C-bet artist like Kevin.






Barry's comment: For those who don't know: This is more interesting coming from Sorel than other Red Pros here, since he three-bets pre-flop possibly more than anyone else we have in red.

[Kevin Saul]

Just FTR I think your numbers are a little off, blinds were 2.5k-5k, I made it 13k, you made it 45k and I jammed for like 200k-215k more. You had me covered by 40k-60k, I don't remember that exactly, you would better since it was after all your stack.

I don't hate your play of raise/calling, especially being out of position. One hand you failed to mention was when you flatted me in position w/ AK and check backed an ace high flop when I checked AJ to you, and v-towned me on turn and river of a board of like A82Q2 or something when I checked all 3 streets to you. When you re-raised me I was a little sick because I knew we were getting this in pre-flop for 50+ BBs each which is not my style live and I really felt you were huge and I was in a cooler. But of course I couldn't fold my hand pre-flop obv.

While I might 4b bluff alot of hands here given the stacks, the only Ace that you dominate that might be in my range is AJ. I'm not a big fan of A-rag an d getting it in dominated but will shove a J9s or something hoping you fold and if I get called I'll just live my charmed life and flop a straight or something

Even if you flatted pre, pretty sure the flop came A-rag-rag and we would have gotten it all in anyways.

Kevin

[Christian Harder]

true, i should have brought that hand up. But think the fact that you were UTG and i was UTG+3, is a lot different then Cutoff v. SB (obv). Ya the flop was like A82 i wasn't going to fold AQ there . And regarding the stack sizes, your right, you were a little deeper then i said in OP.