On Monday, I posted a hand from the British Columbia Poker Championship in which I flopped top two pair in a three-way pot but saw heavy action in front me. It solicited a lot of interesting thoughts and comments. I’ll start by telling you what actually happened, and then I’ll get into my thoughts.
There was one detail I changed from the actual hand, and that had to do with the profile of Villain 2. He was actually not quite as good as I made him out to be in my post, which I think makes the hand a lot closer. I ended up cold calling his flop raise. Villain 1 folded, but Villain 2 quickly shoved a 2h turn, and I folded. I’d be more comfortable making this fold against a better hand reader, but I still don’t regret it.
Only a few people suggested exactly this line, but a lot of the commenters picked up on several of the crucial facets of this hand, most importantly that continuing to put money into the pot after V2’s raise is going to look extremely strong.
Those who didn’t pick up on this generally seemed to read too much into my description of V1 as “slightly more LAG”. This is a dangerous mistake, because many players rely on small displays of loose-aggressive behavior causing opponents to assume their ranges are much wider than they actually are in large pots.
The lack of draws on this flop should actually constrain everyone’s aggressive ranges. In other words, there are no high-equity draws to fastplay or to protect against, so people have less reason to raise medium-strength hands like AK. V2 probably 3-bets this hand pre-flop more often than not, but if he did happen to flat call it, I wouldn’t expect him to raise it on the flop. Why would he? There are very few worse hands that can call, and no hand can have more than five outs against him (those five-out hands being QJ type stuff that V1 may not be betting in the first place). I figured A7 to be the bottom of his value range, and I didn’t expect him to have much of a bluffing range.
To the extent that he has a bluffing range, it probably consists of gutshots, as many of you argued. Those hands have four outs against AJ, so the need to protect against those draws is not great. The risk of letting them draw to four outs is in my opinion outweighed by the risk of getting the rest of my stack in when I am myself drawing to four or fewer outs. As Ian Ripley put it,
“As played, anything we do (bar folding) is going to look hella scary to both villains, I think. If we ship, I expect villains to be able to ditch A7, to the extent that it’s in either of their preflop ranges (note there’s only one A7s combo left). The range that crushes us is tiny, but 1) it’s squared since there are two villains in the hand and 2) the chance that either villain puts much more money in with worse seems slender. I don’t think a fold is out of the question.
We’re risking 110k in our stack to win 50k+ in the pot, so it’s possible that we are +EV shipping even expecting villains to play perfectly.
*dodgy maths alert*
We need to take it down roughly 2/3 of the time, so we need both villains to fold roughly sqrt(2)/sqrt(3) of the time, or 81%. 5 combos of hands that crush us means that each villain needs some 20+ hands that fold to get us to breakeven. Meh, I’m not liking the look of it at all.”
Whether raising or calling, Hero will look extremely strong if he puts any money into the pot with two players left to act behind him who have already shown interest in the flop. I think A7 is very foldable for either Villain, which means that if any more money goes into the pot, Hero is crushes. The goal, then, must be to put no more money into the pot.
That said, I do think both Villain’s ranges are wide enough that Hero can call the flop raise. I just don’t think he can expect any more money to go into the pot profitably. Thankfully, the lack of draws on the board makes cold calling a viable option. The risk of letting V2 draw for free is low.
The other danger that some commenters identified was the possibility of inducing a bluff. This is really something I’m not the least bit worried about. Even if cold calling turned Hero’s hand face-up as AJ, which I don’t think it does, I doubt either Villain would expect to push someone off of that hand. Also the call could easily be 77 or JJ (I would not have 3-bet JJ pre-flop and I don’t think either Villian would expect me to do so 100%).
The thing that most worried me about folding the turn is that V2 may well shove AJ. This is the part where I thought a better TAG might differ from the real life V2 and the reason I changed that detail when posting the hand. Of course with AJ I only chop the pot where I lost it almost always against 77. Against a range of {JJ,77,AJs,AJo}, I have less than 33% equity whereas I need more like 35-40% to call it off given the size of his bet and the value of my survival in the tournament. So it’s close, but I feel I’ve shown enough strength on the flop to fold the turn.
You’re never going to be exploited folding the bottom of my range, and once I cold call the flop, that’s what AJ is. Thanks to everyone who participated!
Edit: Fixed on mistake regarding number of sets possible and fixed typo that left out my equity vs. Villain’s shoving range.
I was soooo close. 🙂
Always love these exercises. I can’t being to tell you how fun they are.
I’m a little confused by “there are fewer combos of AJ than 77” at one point and with who holding what? If you have AJ and board is AJ7, the flop raiser can have 3 combos of 77 and 4 of AJ. If you assume the c-better has an A then it drops to 2, the case ace with 2 remaining J, but doesn’t seem like that statement made that assumption.
Fixed, thanks.
Agree with all the positive feedback. I also love how you reply and give provoking follow up questions to all the replies to the original.
Thanks for doing this … I’ll definitely be participating in future ones.
Thanks AD! I always worry that I’m being too harsh in picking apart people’s comments, so glad to hear you find it helpful.
Why V2 raise on flop ? I can not understand it. I think that on this flop the value of the hands doesn’t change heavily on later street. Why narrow the field with a set ?
That’s a fair point, but you could say the same thing about two-pair or AK. He has to have something, and the fact that he’s willing to shovel so much money into the pot inclines me to say he’s strong.
I love this stuff 🙂
I actually would expect it to go (v1)check,(v2) check most of the time on the turn.
What’s your play?
If you check(turn&or river):The 2h is obviously a total blank but what if one of cards is a 7 or higher, or makes a flush(2 cards).
For what it is worth: I think a good player min-raising (by V2) to basically just a pot size bet on the flop is much different then if a rec player did it.
I don’t think I can put more money into the pot unimproved. I’d definitely check back the turn. I guess if the board rolled out really dry I could go for a small value bet on the river, but even that I wouldn’t do against a great player.
Great post, tough spot but likely a correct fold!
Turn Th, and villain quickly jams – hero??
Pretty sure A or J are the only turn cards that would have changed my turn action. I guess a 7 would be an interesting one- fewer combos of 77 but now I’m losing to A7- I’d probably call a shove on that turn as well.