Thanks for all the comments on this week’s “What’s Your Play?”. You all asked some thought-provoking questions as well, and I’m sorry that I haven’t responded to all of them. Hopefully this post will address the ones I’ve missed.
Flop Action
This was probably a tough hand to analyze for those of you who aren’t accustomed to how wide ranges can be in a heads up match between two appropriately aggressive players. When I min-raise my button and bet half pot on the flop, I can have damn near any two cards.
Think about what that means for Liv’s check-raising range. There are reasons not to play all of these hands this way all of the time, but she could easily check-raise with any pair, any draw, and occasionally even weaker bluffing hands like two overcards with some backdoor draws. As Luis points out, her check-raise is a touch on the large side, which if anything means she might not have those thin value hands like bottom pair or the biggest airballs, but it may mean nothing at all.
Turn Action
Hence my defense with two overs, a gutshot, and position. This is perhaps the weakest hand I would call with, so it’s certainly not good enough to call the turn bet. With better draws, I might choose just to call the turn rather than risk getting 3-bet, so that makes this an ideal candidate for a bluff raise.
I was surprised to see so many people saying my turn raise doesn’t rep much. I don’t know how Liv will read it (and after seeing these comments I’m wondering if she too would expect me to be more polarized), but there are quite a few hands I’d raise here, from nutted hands (sets+) to thin value/protection/blocking raises with top pair good kicker to made hands like bottom/middle pair that I’m mostly turning into a bluff but that could occasionally be called by draws. This is a function of how wide and draw-heavy her range can be for check-raising flop and betting halfish pot on the turn.
Many of you correctly identified her call as the most important action for defining her range. While she can check-raise flop and bet turn with a wide range, to call a large raise out of position on the turn requires some kind of hand (hence why I like bluff raising: of the many hands she could have when betting the turn, relatively few are good enough to call a raise). A bare draw isn’t going to do it. FelixLeiter puts her on, “too-good-to-fold, too-weak-to-shove made hands, combo draws (pair and FD), and high-card hands,” which sounds about right to me, if by “high-card hands” we’re talking about nut flush draws. I also don’t think it’s out of the question that she slowplays a few monsters, particularly the nuts.
To Bet or Not to Bet?
As huff says, “Villain has made three strong actions. The check raise on the flop could just be a move, but shows strength a higher percentage of the time than check fold, and probably than check call. Then the turn she bets and calls a raise. Almost has to have something strong.” Sounds like a reason not to bet.
But then, she knows that she has shown strength with her turn call, so if I’m betting anyway, doesn’t that mean she should fold one-pair hands? Unless she knows that I know that she knows that she’s shown strength…
This is why we have game theory. Against weaker opponents, you may well be able to win this kind of leveling war and make statements like “He’s always calling,” or, “She’s never calling,” but I wasn’t going to try to do that against Liv Boeree. As the match progressed, I got the sense that she was underestimating me, which helped me be a bit more exploitive in spots like this, but I wasn’t ready to do that in one of our very first hands.
WPS22 nailed it: “I think you always have to strongly consider betting here because you are at the very bottom of your range and have absolutely no showdown value.” Emo Meltdown adds the important fact that, “it’s easier for you to have a 5 in your hand than it is for her.” These are two strong game theoretical arguments in favor of bluffing.
How Much?
The more debatable point is how much to bet. Because my hand is so weak, there’s value in making her fold even the very bottom of her range, hands like nut flush draws that are now just Ace-high. If for some reason she did peel the turn with weaker draws, there’s value in folding a J-, Q- or K-high flush draw as well. Presumably a smaller bet would serve for this purpose.
I agree with $trategem that, “a big bet will make us look more polarized, which means we will rep a thinner value range.” All things being equal, I’d obviously prefer to risk less with my bluff, and here I think a smaller bet also enables me to rep sets and even good two-pairs. My objective was to bet enough to make her fold worse than top pair and at least make her uncomfortable with top pair. Whereas 1/3 pot or even 1/4 pot might be enough to get her off of unpaired hands, I decided that roughly half pot would give me the best bang for my buck.
This is now starting to get into an exploitability argument, but I do also believe that in tournament poker bets that are large relative to Villain’s stack can often get a disproportionate amount of fold equity. A bet of 2222 needs to succeed less than 1/3 of the time to show a profit, yet it threatens nearly half of Liv’s stack. If she folds, she’ll still have over 100 BBs, which is a big deal especially if she believes she has a big edge in the match and wants to keep it low-variance. Calling reduces her to barely 50 BBs, not exactly short, but not nearly as much breathing room. Without the opportunity to reload, bets that are large in absolute terms can feel very threatening.
I bet 2222, and she folded. Thanks to everyone who participated!
I really enjoyed this one, glad that I wasn’t too far 🙂