wager9 said

I folded and he actually shoed A6 off suit. So my read was wrong from the get go or maybe now that he had some chips and knew everyone thought he was a nit he decided to open up. It was a fine line between trusting my gut or trusting brain.  

This is a good example of something I used to do a lot, too, and am trying to get better at NOT doing it (or at least, doing it with moderation). For a long time I was a “feel” player, meaning a lot of what my decisions would be would be very moment-specific. This is a good example. Maybe I “feel” that he would have it in this spot, so I’d let 99 go (if that what I was holding). Or, if I felt that he was bluffing in this ONE instance, then I would hero with ace high. And that led to not so great results all the time. And what I’m saying might sound stupid, because of  COURSE you want to do what’s correct this one time. But, the fact of the matter is, in tournament poker you will encounter these “one time” (no pun intended on the fishy phrase ONE TIME) situations so often throughout the course of a tournament, that it is near impossible to make the right decisions based on feel alone. In my mind, there are a select few pros who claim to use the feel method more who are probably good enough to do so, but for the vast majority of us we need a different approach.

And therein lies what I’ve learned a lot in recent weeks from Andrew and the Thinking Poker Podcast: hand ranges. Sure, the V happened to have quads here. But, couldn’t he conceivable also play QQ+ the same way? AJ? maybe even some bluffs, depending on the player type? And now we transition to what Almo said.

almofadinhas said
You said this V is super tight, but how tight? If he is opening utg3 22+,ATs+, AJo+, KQs, you can only beat KQs, split with anothr AQ, and lose for the rest, if this V is good seems that he is going for a thin value.

If you open his range a bit maybe is a call, not sure how much he should be opening to be profitable tow.  

I think this range is probably accurate, with the limited information I have on the V. And, if, as you said, he is playing straightforward, you could argue a 99 or 88 fold here. So AQ would have made into the muck for me. But his RANGE is what is important in this situation, not what he ACTUALLY had. Again, I know it sounds kind of contrary to what we have all been taught in poker. When we learn, we learn that we always want to try to make the right decision based on our opponents ACTUAL holdings. But it can be so hard for anyone other than Daniel Negreanu to pinpoint player’s exact holdings that I think we find more success using ranges, trying to count combinations, assign likelihoods, and go from there.

At least, I have found a little more success recently working it that way. And don’t get me wrong, on the occasions when you just know based on past experience what your read is, go with it. Always trust yourself. However, don’t get carried away and try to be reading the exact two cards every single hand. Just figure out what hands the V would play that way based on player type and board texture, see how your hand plays against that range you assigned, and make the calls when you think it’s right.

I too often fall into the habit of asking a question, then after a response or too saying something like “well, I ended up calling his shove, he had the nuts and I lost, so obv I should have folded.” But, that’s not always the case. He happened to wake up with the top of his range in that fake situation. But if you can learn what other hands the V would play in the same manner, it might help you in or out of a sticky situation where, for example, maybe we hold A 10 in the above example. Then the decision becomes much more difficult.

I’m not a great player yet, but I’m slowly trying to learn how to better construct hand ranges and play optimally against them. And I think that’s the next level of the game that we all have to adapt to if we are going to be successful at tournament poker. The game is just too tough now.

If you want more on this, I recommend Foucault’s series. All of them. Especially the ones on range construction and c-betting.