Dear TPE,

this is a hand I played last night at the final table of a 5€ tournament. We were down to 4 players from originally 1005.

The villain that opens was stealing for what felt like 100%, my stats show 60% over 91 hands. The table was extremely active except for the BB who seemed solid (except for one strange shove from UTG with ~35 BB a few hands earlier, 7 handed).

From the previous play none of the players seemed pretty good in balancing their ranges or their bet-sizing – it was one of the softer FTs I've played. Nevertheless all three had OPR rankings of 95 – 98,5% over 500+ tournaments.

I wasn't sure whether to 3bet or not. KJs is surely ahead of villains opening range, but he almost never folded to 3bets. If I just flatted I would have position with a strong holding that flops well. When 3betting to ~360k, villain would shove everything that dominates us (0% 4bet over 91 hands) and call his entire range. Considering all this makes me think that a 3bet is still the best play. I guess the reason I just flatted was that I felt I had good edge postflop.

Here is how the hand played:

Poker Stars €4.50+€0.50 No Limit Hold'em Tournament – t40,000/t80,000 Blinds + t10,000 – 4 players
TournamentPokerEdge.com Hand History Converter

BB: BB = 34.0, t2,717,745
CO: BB = 14.0, t1,117,256
Hero (BTN): BB = 41.0, t3,283,210
SB: BB = 36.6, t2931789

Pre Flop: (t160,000) Hero is BTN with K J
CO raises to t160,000, Hero calls t160,000, 1 fold, BB calls t80,000

Flop: (t560,000) A J 7 (3 players)
BB bets t160,000, CO calls t160,000, Hero calls t160,000

Turn: (t1,040,000) T (3 players)
BB bets t160,000, CO raises to t480,000, Hero folds, BB folds

Final Pot: t1360,000
CO wins t1,360,000

Giving the price we get I think a flop call is mandatory with midpair and lots of backdoor draws.

On the turn my fold seems … suboptimal in retroperspective. I think I folded because I was afraid of the BB shoving, but I guess his small turnsize indicates a lot of weakness.

Now I am pretty sure that folding was a (not too small) mistake. So, should we just call and call off villains mini-rivershove if we improve to anything like twopair+ and fold if we don't improve? Or should I make a small raise to get him all-in, to increase our chance to get the BB to fold and just take our outs+odds against villain?

Any other suggestions on the play? Wow, looking back I am amazed I folded this. :-s

What range do you put the BB on, and what range villain?

I think the BB might have any weak Jx hand or maybe something like K7, KT, maybe a weak -draw? What else? Villain I put on AT, KQ, TT, AA, JJ, maybe JT, so mostly turned twopairs and straights!?

This was a very weired hand. I'd like to play it more optimal in the future, so very interested in your thoughts! Thanks.