Tough spot on the flop, early stage of $500 buy-in tournament

snap call.

you go to the flop with 38k effective back and 27.1k in there and you flopped TPTK. i'm never not playing for stacks with such a low SPR.

you don't need to bet that big on the flop. but since you did, you're now asking "do I call with TPTK getting almost 3.5:1?" (you're calling 23k to play for 80.1k.)

not a tough spot at all.

sorry you lost to TT or AA.

Haha. I did call and lost to AA. JFC that was the last hand I expected. I was a bit worried about TT but put him on a range of AK/AQ/AJ/AT/KQ suited/QQ/JJ.

Yeah, it's pretty unlucky, but **** happens. Good trap by him, I guess, although I'm not even sure if you can really fold if he 5-bets. (It might be easier to fold since your cold 4-bet indicates a lot more strength than an original raiser 4-betting, but also given the positions he could stick it in with a hand you have to call off against.)

I mean, I think your preflop is totally fine. You don't really need to cold 4-bet that large with position, though. And you can definitely bet smaller on the flop-- you don't have any overcards to fear and the money's getting in anyway. Might as well bet like 5k to keep some worse hands in or maybe get him to freak out and bluff-shove on you.

Agree with nath 100% here. The spr is under 2 based on villains stack. You never should fold here. Maybe can 4! To 10k to keep pot smaller as 3x isn’t really necessary.

I would cbet much smaller. Like maybe 1/5th to 1/4 pot with my whole range- even if I have a bluff.

I think AK 5-bets all-in and 66 + the other hands you mention fold to the cold 4-bet.

Yeah I'm never expecting 66 to show up here and it's almost always folding to the 4bet. To go further, depending on the player 66 might not even be 3 betting in the first place and hoping to set mine with big blind coming along, especially early. Mostly because it's imperative to try to get doubled early if you want the best chance going deep. You have a little better chance of doing this by set mining and encouraging button, small blind, and big blind to come along.

There just aren't any hands that we are ahead of here given the way the betting went and the fact that the board is a rainbow. People don't 3-bet with QJ. I would give AQs/AJs a shot at c/r all in with double draws. But that isn't possible here. I also think hands like QQ/JJ will just check fold now.

We are tied with 8 combos of AK and trailing 10 combos of AA/KK/TT. I doubt KT 3-bets but it is possible that KTs did and that would add 2 combos (but I don't think so).

Given that, we realistically have 4 winning combos and 10 losing combos (with a possibility of 12). Which is < 30%. We need > 40% equity to break even. So this is really a fold. I just don't think I actually fold here in real life. Especially because we can buy in again if we bounce soonish.

The biggest problem is that some of the time AA/KK/AK jam pre-flop but TT usually doesn't. So our chances of being behind are worse.

Personally I would have led out for 12k on the flop (or maybe even 8k) but still I think we are in a tough spot when Villain jams. It's just a little easier to fold.

The other thing I am learning is that 4-bets should be less than 3x. More like 2.5x. Might have made it easier to fold on the flop.