10 thoughts on “Multi Table Tournament Poker Strategy: Would You Bet the River Here?”

1. Nice Hand ! But I think the "perfect play" would be to shove river in bluff, since for me, his only hand he can have at river( after checking) is pocket KK.
   I definitely put him on that after checking flop, protecting turn by 3 beting, and checking river. Thus, turing your hand into a bluff river make sense if you got a good read his play, which you had ( he is very tight and doesnt give his chips away).
   It s hard to do since you have to trust your read, but that s what i thought doing on the river if a fourht heart came in.
   But your analysis was good ! That s why it s ashame not to go until the end of the analysis :
   – what would he 3 bet preflop ? AA / KK / QQ / JJ maybe or AK
   – What would he Cbet on flop ? AA with heart / KK / Flush draws / Flushes
   – What would he check on turn ( most important ) : QQ / KK / .. that s all IMO and check raise on turn : KK / Flushes only IMO
   – River : HE CHECKS … Only KK for me since he would shove a Ax heart or flushes done on the flop.

   Thus you could bluff river, I think.

   Anyway, good analysis, and good play.

2. yolo shove river imo. He doesn't have the ace of hearts.

3. Sole read…!! I had the same feeling that villain is going to show KK… He still can have AA with A of hearts… we did not show aggression anywhere in the hand ( turn bet was too small).. so he might think AA with A of heart is still good for value chk raise on the turn…. River is a check back only…. why would we turn strong hand like set of QQ into a bluff….?? Well played… its hard not to get busted in a set over set situation…!!

4. First off, i'm really skeptical of the commentary. Sounds like a lot of analysis rationalization but if we assume not, villain has a huge blind spot in his game. IMO he is in denial about his 'I haz beans! Corndog' mentality. The reason being all of his comments read this scenario as 3-bet or fold and never does it and the commentary is nearly dead on perfect.

   So here are a some observations street by street. 1) I started getting concerned about the size of the pot from the beginning. Some say you shouldn't use SPR in tournaments but I disagree. The preflop betting makes a pot of 7spr. Villain is bloating the pot giving us notice he has is building the foundation of a line to get stacks in. We are 100bbs deep and already 7 spr! So given the 7 spr, on future streets, we won't have a lot of maneuvering room. Given villains image, hero should have preflop 4-bet to 2500 and folded to a jam.

   2) No issues with the flop but in review it's important to note hero's flat reverse reads just like his read of villain. He comments on the river that he might have 4 bet bluffed the river but given his flat here, no sale. I think the flat here falls into my 'has beans' assumption and is more cute play. At this point the betting line is still getting stacks in. A draw with a pair should have repopped which would have made a river bluff viable.

   3) This is the 'pass the corndogs' moment in the hand. I don't know why hero bet here. Betting the hand here only commits us to the bloated pot further and if villain was misplaying a flush card or overpaying aces, all he'll do is check call down on pot odds, as hero states. When villain check raises, hero is cooked, Time to fold the hand. Villain is and has represented nothing but strength and this is a tourney. Save the chips! Flatting is also the worst play.

   Alec, if you review this hand, please comment the optimal line on 3 suit flops.

5. BB $150. CO with QQ. Pre hero raise $350. Vil in sb raises to $1050. Call – good. Flop vil opens for $1,100 and call. You have trips but 3 flush you don't have a piece of and backdoor straight draw. But you make a boat by the river 1/3. Turn check bet $1600 – OK. Vil raise to $4000. That is 40% of his stack – vil is pot committed. If he wanted you to fold he should have pushed. That was a value bet. He very well could be on a nuts flush. Vil showed trip kings – if he was going to slow down if a heart showed he should have just checked the turn or pushed. He checked raised the turn. A river check does not mean he does not have a flush. He could be on AK and hoping you bet a smaller flush. A bluff would be risky and he might even call as shove with the hand he has.

6. In general I think, this hand is played fine. I like just calling his 3-bet with position preflop. Its the early stage of a tournament, and why risk gambling away most of your stack on a single hand already. On the flop you are clearly ahead of his entire range. But you are not really ahead of the range, he might get it all in with now. Against that range, you will be playing close to a coinflip. And this is not the stage in a tournament, where you want to do that. When he check-raise you on the turn, I think that pretty much condense his range to strong made hands. These all got stronger on the turn, because the turn card was neither a heart, nor did it pair the board. Draws on the other hand got weaker, because there is only one card more to come. And he has no reason to believe, he has fold equity, because your hand looks super strong. So draws will just check-call the turn. This also mean, that when he check-raise the turn, I am no longer loving my hand. But I still continue, since at least we beat 77 and KQ, and we have a 10 outs draw against his flushes. On the river I think his entire range checks on a heart, because it is the one card, all of his range did not particularly want to see. Even the nut flush checks, because the 4. heart made his hand so obvious, that he need to disquise it a bit by checking. Since you beat some of his hands but not many, clearly you played it correct by checking behind. If you had turned your hand into a bluff, you would have needed to target not only KK but also his 2. and 3. nut flushes like JT heart, T9 heart etc. for this to be profitable. ICM suicide are words, that come to my mind. So glad you saved your chips for a better spot.

7. I had a feeling a check-raise was coming on the turn. Villain played It well. You walked right into his trap on the turn. You had the one hand (with no hearts) that he could check-raise and beat. Either Villain got an excellent read on You or he is the type of player that is unable to fold a set. I can't say You played It poorly. Just learn how to avoid traps. Last night i set a trap with quad 9's (aggressive player i had bluffed out earlier thought i was bluffing again)

8. Great setting of the scene before the hand. I think that was a good read that the guy had been really tight and never yet 3B so it set off alarm bells for you. Therefore, the way he played the hand was like he was trying to be as tricky as possible postflop = confidence in making moves = strength. I think the only way to win this hand would be to continue to rep the flush on the river by shoving, which would not be too smart because you never get called by a worse hand and it's a tourney so you're risking your life whereas if you check you at least have a showdown chance.

   If I had planned ahead to rep the flush when it came in on the turn in case another heart hit river (which it did), then to sell the story I would have bet a little more on the turn. But, if you weren't planning on repping the flush then I love the sizing on turn to control pot and the check on river with that crappy 4th heart. Nh – gl – never give up.

9. Pre-flop: I agree with the flat for all of your reasonings.
   Flop: I think this is a fine texture to raise your opponent. Put pressure on the AA, AK, and AQ part of his range. Yeah, you fold JJ and TT a huge chunk. And yeah, you run up against KK sometimes. But overall I think you can get called a fair amount because your range contains enough Ahearts + Joff type combos and your opponent is probably tired of waiting around for so long! I don't hate the flat though.
   Turn: I completely agree with all your reasonings. And I like your sizing. When opponent C/R I feel like his range is super narrow – AA or AK with the A of hearts, or a set of Kings, maybe maybe AJ of hearts. We are getting pretty marginal here. In a cash game this is a call, but in a tourney I'm not sure.
   River: I think we really have to check back. We have some show down value but it's so hard to get called by worse. Thing is, you might get looked up by KK anyway. It's hard for opponents to fold top set even when it's just a bluff catcher.

   I think you played fine and just ran into the bit of his range that caught you. Sort of a cooler. And kudos for not getting stacks in with a set over set situation.

10. I think since he is checking, you have enough equity to check back with a set. If anything you saved money esp on that flop. You could be drawing dead turning your set into a bluff on the river in that spot in my opinion

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