Sorry again for the error in my original What’s Your Plan? post. It certainly wasn’t deliberate, but in a weird way it did help to highlight one of the central points of this exercise, which is the significance of Villain’s pre-flop stats and our general read on him.
Most high-volume MTT players are very predictable in the early stages of tournaments. This isn’t so much because they value their survival or because they don’t know how to play deep-stacked but simply because it is more profitable for them to play more games and more or less write off the early stages. They will accumulate a few chips if they get good cards, but if not they will wait until stacks get shorter and the antes kick in. This is where they really shine and where their decisions have a higher impact on their equity, so they choose to focus on tournaments that have already reached this stage and play more straightforwardly in the early levels of their other games.
The simple story to tell here is that Villain raised pre-flop with a solid hand, checked because he had nothing on the flop and didn’t care to fight for a small pot, and then bet once he turned a good hand. Of course if the Ace improved him then KQ is drawing slim. Essentially I agree with NimhofJoy: “It’s not necessarily a board I expect villain to cbet with showdown value (Ax, PPs, 8x, 6x) because it’s so wet he’s going to get ch/r a lot and have to fold. Unless he’s turning a lot of those PPs into bluffs on the turn, what does he have on the turn that he needs to bluff with that he doesn’t just check back again?”
There is also the chance that Villain still has nothing but saw a second check and a good scare card and decided to take a stab at. We can’t be sure, but as John put it, “Why play oop where your chances of making a mistake are higher than his”. I believe Hero is getting sufficient pot odds to call the turn, but that it’s close enough that his reverse implied odds on the river turn it into a fold. In other words, the mistakes Hero will inevitably make on the river will cost him more equity than calling the turn will gain him.
The bit about getting barely the right pot odds on the turn may surprise some people. As JD says, “my 2 checks showed significant weakness and the ace is a good bluffing card.” This is true, but it’s a good bluffing card for a reason, namely that it hits Villain’s range well. It’s not sufficient simply to demonstrate that Villain may be bluffing; we must estimate his bluffing range and compare it to his value range.
This isn’t easy, and as several commenters pointed out, it entails a lot of assumptions about which we can’t have a high degree of certainty. Then again, making decisions under conditions of uncertainty is what poker is all about, and making your rough guesses slightly less rough can improve your win rate considerably. So let’s give it a go.
We’ll start with his pre-flop opening range. What do we make of his 14% ATS? It suggests that he isn’t opening up too much from late position, but it’s a mistake to take 14% as an exact number. We’re dealing with a small sample, I started by using Poker Stove to see what the top 14% of hands looks like. Then I added a few more that I couldn’t see him open folding, mostly suited connectors and suited Aces. Here’s the rough range I came up for his pre-flop raise: {22+,A2s+,K9s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,98s,87s,76s,65s,54s,ATo+,KJo+,QJo,JTo}. This is nearly 22% of hands, so it may be a little too wide, or maybe Villain has just had a string of bad cards in steal position so far.
I expect him to bet top pair or better on the flop almost always and also to bet his flush draws more often than not. If he does check a flush draw, it’s most likely the nut draw, but I would consider that a non-straightforward play. Taking the nut flush draws out of his turn range makes a noticeable difference in Hero’s equity, so this is an important assumption about which we can’t be sure, but I’m inclined to say he bets them. I also think that he bets gutshots on the flop. Even if he doesn’t c-bet his air, draws make for very good continuation betting hands, and I would consider this the standard way to play them. Strong made hands and any draw sounds about right for a guy with a roughly 40% continuation bet.
I don’t think he’s betting pocket pairs on the turn. There’s a case to be made for it, but it’s surely a trickier and higher variance line than checking it down. Again, that’s not the kind of play I expect to see from this type of player at this stage of the tournament. This leaves his turn betting range at { Aks,AJs-A2s,KJs-K9s,98s,87s,76s,65s,AKo,AJo-ATo,KJo}, less the diamond versions of his suited hands. Some commenters questioned whether he’d bet the weak Aces on the turn, but facing two checks I believe that he would. He can expect to have the best hand, there are a number of draws on the board, and he probably doesn’t expect us to fold a Q.
Against that range, KQ has 38% equity. Hero needs 28% equity to call this bet. That makes it a call, right?
That depends how confident you are in the assumptions I made and how well you feel you can play the river. Personally, I don’t feel comfortable making nearly as many assumptions about his river play as I do about the earlier streets. I don’t have a great answer for how to respond to a bet on virtually any river, and that’s a recipe for getting outplayed. Even with 10% more equity than I think I would need to call the turn, I opted to fold here, because the cost of getting outplayed on the river, either paying off a value bet or folding to a bluff, could easily swamp a small edge in a small pot.
There are only five river cards that I feel I can play better than my opponent with this hand in this position.
On top of it all, there’s the matter of passing up small edges in tournaments, and this is a great example of how to avoid ending up in bad spots in big pots. When possible, anticipate them and get out of the way early.
A few commenters suggested check-raising the turn. I’ll say first that I love the creativity! I think this line has some merit, but I’d want a bit more of a read. I’m reluctant to try to bluff even good players off of top pair, especially when they know that that’s what their hand looks like and that I’m capable of recognizing that. Again, in a tournament, I’m trying to avoid thin/marginal/high variance plays, so I’d want to have a high degree of certainty that he’d actually fold the hands I’d need him to fold.
Takeaway lessons from this week’s hand:
1. Start your hand-reading pre-flop. Didn’t we just talk about this?
2. Think ahead. Even if you can show a small profit now, are you at risk of getting outplayed in a larger pot later?
3. It’s not enough to recognize a good bluffing card, especially not if your opponent knows that it looks like a good bluffing card. You have to put your opponent on a range and figure out what he will bluff and how thin he can value bet.
I understand your reasoning and if the hand was played a little more differently I could see possibly giving him credit for an ace easily. In this case, however, I’m confused why you would check the flop if not to control the pot and/or use the hand as a bluff catcher later. Your hand has decent strength on the flop and you check(which inevitably loses it’s value as more streets are reached). If I played the hand this way and an Ace hits the turn I would almost feel a little obligated to at least call the turn bet and maybe fold to a river bet(at a turn call you’ve declared your hand as strong enough but you could still have many holdings in Villian’s eyes) After you call the turn, what would he end up betting on the river? Would he value-bet if you checked a diamond? club? straight-card on the river after you call on the A-clubs? I’m assuming a lot of rivers would get checked unless villian gets really strong or he wants you fold your possible Ace. Do we just want to avoid decisions like this early altogether? If he knows you’re going to fold to scare cards or similar situations early, why wouldn’t he take advantage of them against you? And if you know he’s playing it safe early, why not take advantage of that? I guess I’m not sure to what extent your logic would end. If you bet the flop and he raises, would you fold there? If you stated his stats could be due to him being card-dead it could be he’s using his tight image on the ace? Or it could be he just has an Ace and played it straight-forward… is it worth it to call the 150 and get to showdown a possible lot of times(checking the river) and confirm your read? I know this is a good strategy to bleed your chips away, but in this case it might be profitable to know where your opponents heads are at this point in the tournament…?
Good questions, Fred, thanks.
Flop check is to induce flop bluffs or to induce light turn/river calls if Villain checks behind. Also this isn’t a board I would donk often, so taking the lead with KQ would be hard to balance.
I’m not disputing that the A is a good bluff card or that Villain will bet all of his air. I am saying that even if we assume he bets all hands worse than ours, his range for raising pre and checking this flop simply contains too many Aces for us to call, given that we also stand to make some mistakes on the river.
I don’t know how to answer your questions about what to do on those rivers; that’s part of my trepidation about calling the turn.
Andrew,
Do you feel there is a case for leading the flop, given that your opponent is going to be checking back this flop a lot?
Would you have been leading out on any non-Ace turn?
1) No. There are not very many bad turn cards for me, and I think that he will have a much wider range for calling down after checking behind the flop than he will if I take the lead away from him on the flop. Also even if he has a relatively narrow betting range it’s still a range I’m ahead of, so I don’t want to deter him from betting some of those hands, like gutshots, that I crust.
2) Yes, probably.
That makes sense. Cheers for the reply.