Thanks Tamba, coming soon!

It's reasonable. 130k into 405k is a great price. The stack to pot ration of about 1:1 makes my positional disadvantage less of a problem. But here's why I don't like it. I'm unsure of his range. Sure, we're never sure of our opponents ranges in poker. But this situation is much more ambiguous than most, and there is much more consequence for being wrong here. As an extreme example, it's possible the villain is only making a 4b of this size with hands he intends to call a shove with (or get in on the flop). This villain strikes me as one where that wouldn't really be true, but the broader point being I don't have any good means to estimate his range here. I don't feel comfortable calling this 4b when it's entirely possible that it's a massive mistake.

The 2nd part of that is the huge impact of being wrong. I could stack off 25bb drawing terrible vs his range and end my tournament and equity therein. This less than logical statement is folly alone, but in the context of such ambiguity in assigning my opponent a range for this 4b size, I think my worry here becomes a fair point. I also feel that I'm simply compounding a mistake by calling this 4b. That is my choice to 3b, which was questionable at best, is now a mistake that is inducing me to make further mistakes by putting more money into the pot when equity in that pot may not be justified by my pot odds. 

My pot odds are great, but it's possible they aren't enough vs his range here. For example if he's only making this 4b size with QQ+, I don't have the odds. If he's 4b calling with 99+ to this size, and 4bing a ton of bluffs, then I have a very easy 5b shove. Some range in between those extremes, where I don't have much FE preflop, is when calling this 4b becomes reasonable. Again, that may have been this situation, but I suspect his 4b range was pretty nut-heavy in this spot, and in any event, I choose to fold instead of continue into ambiguity. I prefered to fold and play my 25bb out from there rather than continue in that spot. 

I'm okay with my sizing here. I don't love it, but I think it's okay. It seems a bit haphazard as I just sort of scrolled to the closest round number on my bet slider. I do tend to bet in numbers like this for the sake of consistency. That said, it's important to pick the exact right number here. I think I'm on the low end of an ideal sizing amount. I'm okay with anything in the 100k-110k range. Anything less and I'm offering a price too good and they can take advantage with a few hands in their range; QTs, etc. Anything more and I'm risking too much, and even deterring a call too much. Remember, my range will be pretty strong here on the whole. It should balance out naturally pretty nicely for me, with a wide 3b / call range for value, and some valueable bluffs like QTo, that aren't strong enough to call initially. Because of the nature of my range here, I don't want to be discouraging action too much by making my 3b too big. Additionally, if I make my 3b too big, my opponents are likely to speculate that I don't have a premium hand. This is because they would expect me to make a smaller 3b and encourage action with a premium hand. Even if I was making a bigger 3b, say 120k, with my whole range, I doubt they would give me credit for that in-game here. 

I hope this general discussion helps. I realize my response is not definite science by any means, so let me know if you want clarification on anything. Gl.

I love this thought. I think about this very thing all the time. I think it comes down to two things: 1. Inherent social pressure and 2. Habits. 

1. I think there is social pressure involved from a few angles. If we check the river with a huge hand like this flush, a hand that we should bet, and our opponent checks behind a hand that would have called a bet, it's embarrassing for us. Not only did we make an error that cost us EV/money, but we look silly. The rail is loling, our peers caught us trying to make a sophisticated play on them, and we all around look a bit silly. Now, we're not silly. Of course there's often times merit to making plays like this, and this pot is one good example. I just think that sometimes the perceived embarrassment holds us back, as silly as that sounds to the logical poker mind. In summary, the fear of embarrassment that might come from the rail, our opponents, or even ourselves - sometimes impedes our better judgment (logic).

The other thing in play here is simply pressure. We're on the clock. We have to act quickly. And even if we act within our timebank, a lot of times we want to act well before we've dipped into that store. Not to mention the pressure of the moment, the pressure of potentially making the wrong move on this difficult decision. It all adds up and takes away from our total clarity of thought. When I'm one tabling a hand history replay a week later, have time to go over everything I know about the villain, and carefully consider every option, it becomes a lot easier to make the right decision. 

2. Habits. As poker players we're taught to bet good hands. It's one of the most basic things of the game that we all learn in the early stages of getting to understand poker. It becomes a habit. As we become advanced players, we learn that sometimes it's in our best interest to check with great hands, even the nuts! Sometimes we bet small with these strong hands. As long as I've played poker, and as long as I've been an advanced player (I'd like to think this has been quite some time!), I've still struggled to overcome these habits. I realize they're there, I realize the holes in the logic of these outdated notions of poker, yet they still influence me/(us) at times. 

Good question Bill. I'm actually glad you asked this because I can see how this looks bad from your perspective. In fact, up until recently, I would have been in the same boat as you - thinking that his play is way too loose and might not make money. 

First of all, yes it would be better to have KQo or ATo here when calling a 3b. But I think you're underestimating the value of Q8s! It is actually a pretty reasonable hand. Then you look at the villain's range. You say that the villain has a wide merge range, but I don't necessarily think this is true. Does he have a wide 3b range? Yes, definitely. Is this wide range merged? I'm not convinced of that. It may be, but during the game play I was thinking that it was not merged. The reason I thought this was because I saw him calling hands like 57s in position. So I know he is comfortable calling a lot of hands preflop (whereas some players are not). Based off of this, I assumed that he would also call KQ/AT type of hands. I felt his 3b range was polarized, but again, I am not certain of this. It's very possible he was 3bing a lot of hands like ATo that he would not have a plan for what to do if I were to 4b him. But I know this player is very aggressive, so I felt sure that he was 3bing me with tons of bluffs. Because of his wide range, and the price that I'm getting here preflop (which is usually between 3:1 or 3.5:1 in these spots), I felt I could make money by calling this hand. A lot of the time the flop will come J84 and I will have some tough decisions to make, but that's okay. Making tough decisions, and even making the wrong decision, does not make my decision preflop incorrect. 

You make a good point that I could just 4b. If his range has a lot of bluffs, I'm winning a lot right there. If his 3b range is merged, I'm making him fold (probably) a lot of good hands preflop that I would rather not have to play vs OOP in a 3b pot. Overall I decided that I would take the pot odds I had, and that my hand flopped well enough, to make peeling the 3b the better option. Thinking of a 4b... This too is a very good option, and I like this hand to do it with. This goes along with your point that having KQ would be a better hand to flat with, and this might be a better hand to 4b with. I agree with you there, but I am also arguing that we can make money by peeling the 3b with this Q8s. 

Let me know if this makes sense to you, or if you have any follow up questions. I will respond faster than two weeks because I am back from my vacation :) Cheers and GL.