I’m still in the US, which means no online poker, which means I’m still mining the PCA for WYP hands. This is one of those ones where I’m actually the Villain in the hand and we’ll look at it from my opponent’s perspective. So Hero is a middle-aged recreational player, presumably aware that he sticks out like a sore thumb among all the disheveled twenty-something internet wizards. Villain is me: late twenties, sunglasses, unkempt beard, Team Online patch, no-nonsense demeanor. He has about 70K, and Hero has a little over 100K.
It’s the first level of Day 2 of the PCA main event. Blinds are 500/1000/100. Villain raises to 2400 UTG, a good young player in early position calls, and Hero calls in the CO with Kh Js. Everyone else folds.
Flop is Qs Ts 6c. Villain bets 5600, the second player folds, and Hero calls.
Turn is the 4s. Villain waits 20-30 seconds before checking. Hero bets 12,000. Villain takes another 20 seconds or so to call.
River Qd. Villain checks relatively quickly. There’s 45K in the pot and 50K in Villain’s stack. Do you bluff? If so, how much do you bet?
Please post your thoughts, comments, and questions here. I’ll respond to comments throughout the week and post my own thoughts about the hand on Friday.
Wow – you were watching my last game, weren’t you? This here had K10 with a QJ flop (rainbows all around). Turn was trash, and river was K. There were two of us in the hand, and I had the other guy covered by approx 1,000 (I had approx 6k, he had 5k – average stack was just over 3k). After flop he bet 1k, and I called. At turn he bet another 1k, I raised to 2,500, he called. River did give me top pair, so when he went all-in with his remaining 1,300 I followed. I would have tried to chase him away with a push had he not bet first (his comment as he bet was “you’re going to push me all-in anyways”).
I called thinking he had a pair of queens with a good kicker. I was wrong – QJ in his hand gave him two pair, a majority of my chips, and for a while the chip lead. It gave me a short stack (3x BB), and a relatively early exit two hands later.
Would I play the same way again? I hope that hand becomes one of my periodical “learning moments” to not overplay a damn fine draw, so the answer is to back off.
(The one good thing about that hand is that I used to have the reputation for overplaying hands – a rep I had worked to correct over a couple of years at this monthly game. The guy who got me and a few others at the table were relatively new, so maybe I can use the betting and results of that hand against them in the coming months. Maybe, just maybe, the new folks will think I overplay often and the one’s who have been around will think I am picking up bad habits again.)
I bet 37k on river….
I’m assuming he has some hand reading skills. But ur calling range on flop is various draws or Qx hands….most of the draws got there on the turn and the Q helped ur range in the river. His range is heavily weighted towards kk aa or AsKs.
I also think live mtt players value survival too much and he cant call for most of his stack with a 2pr hand on this board.
Hmmm….although a Q prob checks back the turn. So u can only rep the flush….and as long aa he doesnt have AsKs…then we r good.
I think I say this every time, but: fold preflop.
Villain probably doesn’t see us as capable of making big bluffs, so from that point of view shipping the river sounds like a good idea. I think the turn bet should be a bit bigger to set up an easier river ship.
OTOH, given the specific turn and river, AQ with one spade or something similar seems like it makes a lot of sense for villain – he decides that with that turn, you aren’t going to stack off with worse than TPTK, so decides to c/c the turn and maybe c/f the river. However, this river seems like it’s not good for us. If we have a flush, then we’re still ahead of AQ, but (especially if villain holds the nut flush blocker) villain probably thinks our value betting range is not super thin, and we are semi likely get a bit mubsy.
So perhaps, rather than ship the river, look all anguished at the river card, then bet like 1/3 pot.
Hero should bet 25K – its about 1/2 pot and half the villain’s stack, enough to get the job done. Hero called the flop so it looks like a marginal hand or a draw – he doesn’t have an overpair, would likely not have called with a pair below TT, and doesn’t likely have a set as a recreational player probably raises there to “protect his hand.” The most obvious draw is spades, which came in on the turn and any Qx hand is now trips or better, and the most likely marginal hand is Qx. We got a seemingly reluctant call on the turn which could be a hand like AsAx or KsKx or perhaps even a hand like AsJx. The Q probably didn’t help the villain unless it was a hand like AsQx who now has trips. I think we get enough folds and 25K is plenty. Bet it.
I think when Villain check-calls turn his range is Asx and ‘pair or better’ hands. I think Villain thinks that if he bets turn he gets action only from flushes and Qx (he doesn’t put Hero on set since hero didn’t raise the flop) so Villain could have checked any monster. Given that i think Hero should give himself good pot odds to try to push Villain from his Asx hands with which Villain never calls. I think he should bet 15-20k.
Villain’s range to bet into two players on the flop and then check call the turn looks to me like
TT+, AQ+, and maybe KQ, 66, or a spade suited connector (if they are raised to begin with),
with most of the non-set hands having at least one spade. The check call on the turn announces to hero that villain does not belief hero has a flush. Now the question is whether that call was made because villain has one spade himself, two spades and is slow playing (AsKs, Js9s, 9s8s, and 8s7s), or is testing hero to see if he’ll fire again on the river when he misses (if villain reads hero as weak he could be calling thinking he has the right odds for a cheap showdown when a blank comes because hero won’t bluff).
The turn call makes it look like villain will continue his non-flush read and call any small value bet on the river. So to me it looks like the choice is between the all-in bluff and checking back.
Hero will still has a M of 20 with a 50K stack after this hand, so I favor the gauranteed survival and check it back. It just feels to me that villain is going to call any bet too often to make the bet worth it. Plus villain would still have 30K and M of 12 if called and lost, so I think the all-in bluff is not as good compared to if villain had a similar sized starting stack.
Also, I think hero’s plan at the time with the 12K turn bet is a semi-bluff repping the flush (which is more credible holding one spade) and hoping to get a fold, but if called then on the river, a) if it’s a spade I have position and get to see what villain does first; b) if I hit my straight I will ship it; c) other cards check/fold. If that was the plan with the 12K bet then stick with it and check it back.
Thanks for the comment, Dana. To be clear, Hero covers Villain in this hands, so an all-in bluff would jeopardize Villain’s (ie my) survival but not Hero’s.
Thanks I mis-read that. So all-in bluff I think has some more merit. Basically the reason for it would be to play off hero’s image as not capable of bluffing the river. Is that image enough to make the bluff enough +EV to outweight tournament survival? (side-question is there a guideline for how much +EV it needs to be?, as the bluff being only slight +EV for this one hand would in my mind make checking the obvious answer given the stack size)
I think if you’re villain in this hand and you are going to bluff at it then you need to move all in.
My personal experience is that when Hero see’s the 3rd flush card comes and checks. Then calls he most likely doesn’t have the flush but might have the AsXx.
When the villain insta checks river I’d put him on a AA, KK, JJ, AsKx, AsQx type of hands.
Villain can’t count on hero to bluff the river if villain has either a boat or the nut flush. I’d think if villain had any of those types of hands that he’d bet on the river some sort of an amount to get more value.
If hero shoves river I think villain folds a fair amount of time given the descriptions. If hero shoves it’s going to look a lot like the nuts in some fashion because I think that rec players are less likely to bluff shove the river.
How often will a river check-to-induce work (twice) with a 30s rec player in a tourney that rates to be a significant buy-in for him probably? I think villain would think that hero as described is unlikely to fire two barrels with air. Hero’s hand smells more AsXx than anything. A bet of 28K smells less bluffy than a shove.
Going to try to apply the concepts of balance here.
Hero’s value range includes:
3 combos of 1010, 3 combos of 66, 1 combo of QQ, 1 combo of AJss and 1 combo of AKss.
Going to consider {AsQh,AsQd,AsQc} as 1.5 combos since Hero will not always play AsQx this way (perhaps half the time?)
Going to consider A2s-A9s as 1.5 combos since flatting with these hands here is less likely.
–Counting all suited aces could add up to a total of 5 more value combos.
It is possible that {AKs, QQ, 1010} would 3bet pre, but flatting with that range may be reasonable versus an UTG raise (especially for this player type). We will disregard that Hero will often raise the flop with the described value range (this may be the biggest weakness of looking at the hand this way).
A river jam would give Villain 1.9:1 odds on a call, or nearly 2:1.
We have a total of 12 value hands to shove with. Thus, we should have 6 hands in our bluffing range. We should select our 6 combos based on relative equity. The first 3 combos should be {KsJc, KsJh, KsJd}. The next 3 combos should be {KhJs,KdJs,KcJs}, which have slightly more equity against Villain’s c-betting range than the next 3 combos- which would be {AsKc,AsKh,AsKd}.
So jam. (Hopefully i didn’t mess this all up)
Nicely said. I’m with you up to the point where you say “We should select our 6 combos based on relative equity”. I would assume that all the hands you mention have 0 equity if you shove the river and Villain calls. In other words, you are never going to win at showdown once you shove the river. What do you mean when you talk about some of these hands having more equity than others?
Sorry about that. Meant our equity after it checks to us on the turn, when we essentially start our plan to bluff.
Hello,
This WYP is interesting for me because I am a middle-aged recreational player so I will try to do my best.
First of all I think that pre flop it is a fold, because utg raises and a good player flat calls, so it will be
very difficult to play this hand (even when in position) with a lot of reverse implied odds.
I think that the utg’s range looks like this : [66+, AT+, KQs] (am I wrong Andrew ?).
FOr the villain2’s range : [99-44,AJ-A2s,KTs+,76s+,86s+] a lot of suited connectors, broadways suited and hands
with aces and pairs that don’t 3bet.
Flop is Qs Ts 6c.
On the flop, villain1 bets 5600 in a pot of 9600 in front off 2 players, so I think he’s got a hand that hits the
board because this board can hit a lot of hands in villain2 and hero’s ranges (2 pairs, and a lot of draws).
We narrow the villain1’s range to : [66-TT-QQ+, KQs, AQ, AsT,AsKs].
Turn completes the flush draw but doesn’t improve any other hand.
When villain checks/calls 12000 for 21600 what kind of hands does it represent ?
Does he pot control out of position ? Does he trap with the max flush ? What does villain think about my hand ?
Villain can think that hero has a drawing hand on the flop, because he would certainly put a raise with 2 pairs ou
trips on this board.
Because of the Js in the hero’s hand there is only AsKs in the hand of villain that can be the nuts, so I think
that the villain’s check/call represent a hand with showdown equity and the nut flush draw (like AsT or AsA). I
think he has the nut flush draw because whith the ace of spade in his hand he can think that hero will not barrell
turn and river without the nuts. I don’t have a plan for villain’s trips, I can’t find a good way to play trips
here, I don’t know what to do here perhaps chek/call is good, because if villain bets he certainly doesn’t want to
see a raise and a check/raise will be called only by hands that beat sets. So Andrew if you can tell me how play
sets here, it will be very nice.
River misses all draws, sets make full house or quads. I think river improves villain’s hand.
Now there is 45k in the pot (approximatively the villain’s stack size).
If hero bets here he reprensents the nuts or air, so hands like ace high, a pair, 2 pairs and sets have the same
value, they beat a bluff and they are beaten by the flush max.
Now if hero checks he lets villain takes the pot, so if he wants to win the pot he needs to do something. I think
that there is a lot of bluff catcher in villain’s range so it will be difficult not to bet all in if hero wants
villain to fold. The question for hero here is : do villain can fold AA with the ace of spade ?
Villain is Andrew, so I am sure he can call here with AA, so I will give up and check the river.
I think there are a lot of things working in favour of a bluff. KJo is one of the worst hands we (hero) show up with on the river here. After our flop call, our healthy turn bet should suggest that we have top pair that is value betting/protecting or better (e.g., a flush). The majority of straight draws (no spades) might be discounted on the turn somewhat because they lack clean outs and we might not be viewed as capable of making low equity bluffs. We might also not be expected to call pre-flop with some straight draws (like J9o, one spade) or for that matter bet turn with others (like our actual hand). Especially given our image, which I assume is good, following through on the river really looks like we have Qx or better, with KJo being quite rare.
The cool thing about this spot seems to be that even if villain believes we are bluffing, there aren’t so many hands we can be bluffing with.* Arguably, this should mean villain should fold somewhat often. Parts of villain’s range are not doing so well: overpairs now all lose; and trips lose to flushes and better, and villain is less likely to have trips with two Q’s on board. Plus, we might expect villain to continue betting flushes on the turn, especially the low ones.
Given the overlay, that I think we can get a fold from enough of villain’s range and a little lack of imagination, I would bet a ‘normal’ amount — e.g., 2/3 pot (30k). This doesn’t seem to be a bad amount at all, given that villain can turn up with trickily played strong hands some of the time and that losing 30k (leaving villain a 20bb stack to work with) should provide sufficient disincentive for his curiousity. Also, we rep a wider value range (Qx and flushes) a bit more credibly compared to a bigger bet, e.g., the Qx might be somewhat worried about flushes.
Andrew, I would be interested to know your thoughts over the timing of your turn decisions. The fact that you took equally long to check and to call was pretty interesting, as presumably you made a plan ahead of checking so deciding what to do when facing a bet was a trivial decision, unless you changed your mind… But, maybe save that till Friday.
*Another point is that from villain’s perspective, our perception of his range should be quite strong — along the lines others have described (e.g., overpairs) — yet, we are still betting.
I think it’s a good spot to bluff-shove for several reasons:
a) Hero’s line is consistent with trips+
b) Hero’s stack size is perfect for it
c) Villain’s range is limited somewhat due to the turn action
d) If Villain holds a strong hand AA/KK and even AQ, it’s a difficult call
e) Hero holds one of the worst hands in his range
f) Given the read (older dude, probably solid/straightforward?), Villain doesn’t expect Hero to be turning JsJc/AdTd type hands into bluffs. Therefore Hero’s perceived range on a river shove is trips+ or wiffed draws, and there aren’t many wiffed draws
g) Villain might get to the river with hands that have no value (AdKs, AhKs, AsKd, AsKc, AcKs, AsJd, AsJh, AsJc) that all beat Hero if he checks but will fold if Hero bets
You might argue with my first point because Hero might have raised the flop with his strongest made hands (QQ/QT/TT/66) and his strongest draws (AsJs/8s7s/KsJs, etc.), but in general when Hero bets or shoves river he will have a strong hand a lot of the time.
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on betting half-pot (or some other amount) instead of moving all-in.
I would give up. I think hero bet because he thought villain showed some weakness with the delayed check on the turn, but that turned out not to be the case when he check/called. The river card didn’t change anything, and the quick river check doesn’t mean anything. Basically villain would have folded the turn if he was going to fold.
I’d be awfully easy to play against if I never folded blank rivers once I’d check-called the turn…
It is so hard to put an amateur on air(aa,kk,aq doesnt beat much else) when the board pairs/flush that if I was Hero I would bet 20k and fold to a shove. Villain might be checking turn, river to induce a spazz. Hero can easily have a set of 66’s so I doubt Villain would reshove light.
First Hero must count the weak part of your range… Hands you can fold to a bluff.
So these are AA,KK,JJ,99,88,AsK,AsJ,AsT,KsJ,KsT and TX hands. From them with 99,88 and TX you didn’t call the turn. With AsX and KsX hands I don’t expect a passive check-calling game from a pro after so strength preflop and flop.. So there is only big pairs AA, KK and may be JJ (i think because hero had Js its less likely to call the turn) and these are perfect bluff catchers that check the turn to induce a bluff.
Against an uknown player or someone like Hero may be all-in bet, which would jeopardize Villain’s survival, was succesfull but not against pro.