Live $10/$25 NLHE cash game at the PCA, playing seven-handed at the moment. I haven’t been involved in many pots but may have an aggro image anyway because of a hand that went to showdown where I raised K6s, bet a backdoor flush draw on the flop, barreled a turned flush draw, and shoved a rivered flush.
Villain seems youngish and decentish but not a prodigy. We’ve been playing together less than an hour, so that’s not a strong read, but the sense I get is that he’s more of a live pro than an internet guy dabbling in live poker.
Effective stacks are $6000. The weakest, loosest player at the table is in the big blind. Villain opens to $75 in middle position, and I 3-bet to $225 on the button with Kh 2h. This isn’t exactly a standard 3-bet, but a lot of things favor it: we’re deep, I have position, and his raise size suggests he is trying to play a pot in position against the big blind moreso than build a pot with a really good hand, because that player was prone to overdefending his blind and would often be willing to call a larger raise.
Anyway, action quickly folds back to Villain who calls without much thought.
Flop comes Th 5h 3h. He checks, I bet $350, and he calls.
Turn Qs. Villain checks and calls $750.
River 7h. Villain checks. There’s now $2485 in the pot and $4675 in the effective stacks.
What’s your play and why? Leave your thoughts, questions, and comments below. I’ll respond as able and be back on Friday with the results.
You can assume in cases where I don’t give information about his timing and demeanor that I detected nothing noteworthy about them one way or another.
Very basic thoughts:
(1) If he’s maybe more of a live pro, then I wouldn’t expect crazy checkraise river bluffs.
(2) I think a lot of people would not check the Ah here because they will expect you to check behind this river a lot–both because they have the “ooo! scary!” reaction and because they would have expected you to pot-control or have other reasons to check a lot of the hands that contain the Ah. So, since you’ve gone 3-bet/bet/bet, your hand might look to Villain not very much like the nut flush.
(3) A lot of people will have to think about it, especially on the turn, with the Ah. If you didn’t notice much about what he was thinking, that can be significant (negative) evidence.
So, I think that Villain is fairly unlikely to hold the Ah, though hands like AhQx might be possible (if somewhat inconsistent with Andrew’s preflop read).
Obviously that indicates a bet. The question is how much. As usual I will point out that when your range has more of the nuts in it than your opponent’s and you’re in position, straight theory dictates that bet-sizing should be larger than most players would guess. I’m not sure that observation is very helpful here, though. Over the table I would be mostly trying to represent a range with bluffs in it; often that means not betting too small. $1650ish might do that job.
I’d like to be able to hand-read Villain here better, though in this case he is likely to be able to beat a bluff and not be able to beat almost any value-bets (right?), so the importance of precise hand-reading goes slightly down. Since you are deep sets make a lot of sense. A hand like JT makes sense, though I’d expect him to play those more often suited, so he wouldn’t be likely to have any flush in that case.
Hopefully I’m slightly on the right track here. Cool hand; thanks for posting it.
(Nitpick Alert: Technically 3rd nuts, nuts is 64hh.)
I’m going to sound like a weenie, but I’m inclined to just check back and take a showdown, mostly because I don’t necessarily expect him to c/c the river with a bare Jh. He’s ‘decentish,’ which seems to me he’s likely to think his hand either isn’t good, or he c/c twice with some kind of pr + Ah. Also, given that you have previously doubled a turned FD, he may also put enough NFDs in your range that he doesn’t feel like he can call w that.
This feels like a check back for me. I don’t know any hands he has that would call a river bet, since I think he raises the turn with the bare Qh and doubtful that the Jh is in play unless he called your 3-bet with KxJh out of position. A suited ace seems likely, and if you’re viewed as aggro I can see him check-calling every street, especially when you shoved a made flush on the river already.
Possible he could have flatted with AhTx on the flop and was willing to see a river. Only scenario I see you being ahead of him is if he had 55 and was willing to check-call at least two streets. In the end, I don’t think he calls with worse. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather go to showdown here rather than be forced to possibly bet-fold the river.
I have to say check, too, but I tend to be a bit conservative and probably leave a bit of value on the table with hands like the one described.
FWIW – during my initial “poker school”, where more experienced players taught me many things about NLHE the hard way, I would have bet another $1000 or so, hoping for a raise that could be shoved against. Got to watch many a game from the rail once those folks recognized the pattern.
Not sure I have a good answer, but I think PF and the turn give us the most information. I don’t think he pays off with trips, maybe sometimes, so that should be a small argument for betting. But primarily, I think we need to figure out how many weaker flushes are in his range, versus how many A high flushes. I think V could c/c, c/c, c with Qh Tx, Jh Tx, QhQx and JhJx (11 combos). Probably not with 9h Tx. Maybe Ax Qh.
What A high flushes are in his range? AhKx, AhQx definitely, and maybe some AhJx (call it one combo), probably not AhTx (would have folded preflop), unless he thinks Hero is a spaz. What about low suited Ah, if he thinks Hero is a spaz? So, like A2hh, A4hh, A6hh, A8hh, A9hh. Not counting AhTx, that is 10 combos (I don’t think 4h6h is in his PF 3bet call range). This is very close on whether to bet or not. It may be that the low suited Ah’s should be removed from his PF 3bet calling range, so only about 7 combos beat us. But maybe some of the J high flushes fold, so it’s really close. Live, I would probably stare him down and try for a physical tell read, and then flip a coin if I didn’t get a tell.
If I bet, I want Q and J high flushes to call, so I probably bet about half pot, like $1400. That leaves you open to a shove, which I would call unless I had some tell. It’s a leveling war, but he can bluff you, based on your long time to bet river (which I would do).
Then again, this vulnerability (due to stack sizes) to a river CR makes me want to check behind, which I might do. I always try to commit for discussion purposes, but I really don’t know what I would do here. Great question.
I think I disagree about some of these hands. I’m not sure he gets to the flop with (e.g.) AhTx, as you note (and as I also claimed in my first post). AhKx and AhJx are also a bit implausible, because they involve him not only getting past the flop (not impossible, but other plans are certainly at least possible) but also check-calling the turn planning to check the river when they get there. I’m not sure how reasonable and live-pro-ish that is, especially since I think he has some reason to think that Andrew will check behind a heart fairly often.
I do think that Villain could have the nuts, especially since I think they are at least fractionally compatible with Villain’s preflop range as described; but going check-check-check after the flop would be a real surprise to me.
It looks like there’s a significant disagreement between me and everyone else on the question of how likely the Villain is to have the Ah. I’m looking forward to seeing what other people say about that.
GTO- check back.The past hand with backdoor flush draw is not one way pure asset to get value on river.It can be incentive to get river call with “baby” flush or maybe even bluff.
Or c\c line on flop and turn could be just adjustment to your image(trap maniac).
I do think Ah/10x is more than plausible, and the way the action played out, I am more than willing to give up a little equity in favor of a check on the river.
I can also see something as crazy as QQ, but somewhat unlikely.
I think betting here is problematic in that you may be forced into calling a re-shove, and if that’s the case, is your hand actually good enough to simply go all in after the initial check by V?
I keep coming down on the side of Check back on this river… you’re only getting called by better in this spot.
I don’t think QQ is crazy at all. There aren’t many combinations of it, but there might not be many hands with greater probability of Villain playing this way given his holding that hand.
@Nate, I think AhKx is very reasonable up to the flop. V’s implied odds (on his flop call) are still VERY high with two streets remaining. His (reasonable) implied odds on the turn are lower, but if he thinks Andrew will repeat getting it all in with Khx, then Villain has the following implied odds on the turn:
1735 (amount in the pot after Andrew’s turn bet) + 4675 (expected to go in on the river if a heart comes) = 6410 to 750 (V’s turn call) = 8.5 to 1. Assuming Andrew has KhXo, then there are 8 hearts remaining giving V 36 to 8 = 4.5 to 1 against hitting on the river. Plenty of margin if V thinks Andrew will stack off with K high flush. Should V have pushed harder on flop or turn (or river) with the Ah? Probably, but I don’t know how certain we can be that V would do that.
Thanks for replying!
I really don’t think that Villain believes that Andrew will reliably put another 5k into the pot without the nuts on this river: I don’t think this would be reasonable to believe, and I don’t think that John Smith the Live Pro generally thinks this way (even if lots of players generally overvalue implied odds).
Interesting. Thanks for replying. You’re probably right about Villains read of Andrew.
I think if villain makes it to the turn with any AhX hand he is never folding it. It is just a question of how he continues and that even a ‘good’ cash game pro will often talk themselves into check-calling the turn even if they have the no pair variety of an AhX holding. That is to say we should expect them to often play bad in the situation that they get to the turn with the AhX insofar as they do get to that spot. How often they get there is less clear.
If he has QhX he has a bluff catcher since he removes the Qh and we won’t be perceived to be value betting the Jh, which makes a lot of sense, not least because we are wondering what to do with the Kh. If he has the Jh he could perceive us to sometimes be value betting the Qh, but I take this with a grain of salt.
I don’t think we should worry about be check-shoved on as a bluff barring some extraordinary read. If he doesn’t block the Ah, we could easily have it. In fact, we could have it a whole bunch. Our range is like an Ah bonanza when we bet the river! So I don’t mind bet-folding 1500 for value.
BUT with that said I think we can bet/fold larger for a few reasons.
First is that if we have a high degree of confidence he would only check-shove Ah here then the price we set on his check-shove by our river bet size becomes more and more irrelevant and we could bet-fold correctly getting a great price to bet-call.
Second a larger bet size will more effectively polarize our range and feed into any hero-calling tendencies. It is hard to see what we could be bluffing with here though. That might be a problem, see bet-folding 1100. But I say let’s go for 2300! With the plan of folding to a check-shove.
Third we win more money when he check-calls 2300 with QhQx than when he check-calls less than that.
Gareth wins again! Or maybe I’m just happy that he agrees with me (contra everyone else) that we should be betting.
I’d add that even if we’re not very worried about being check-shoved on, betting larger could still have the benefit of reducing the (already small) chances of a bluff-raise. That’s a bad enough situation that we should be happy if it becomes even a little bit less likely.
Finally, I note with embarrassment that I hadn’t noticed that Andrew got the pot size wrong in the OP. There is $2685 in the pot going in to the river.
Oh, also, the whole reason I was counting up the pot in the first place was to think about Gareth’s claim that Villain isn’t folding the Ah on the turn. I’m really not so sure that a pro-looking guy at 10-25 is just calling 750 into 1185 no problem with just the Ah. I definitely understand that people play badly sometimes, and that this is one of the spots where they do, but I’m still not convinced we can’t discount AhX significantly based on the turn action.
Got badly outplayed here by forgetting to mention the mistaken pot size when I had the opportunity to be ‘in before’ Nate’s correction. Can’t win em all.
Be interested to hear what Andrew thinks about the Ah turn point. I’m willing to change my mind but would say that if a guy like this plays a spot badly this is one of those spots with that kind of hand, because you know, people don’t like to fold and lose the pot. I think a lot of Ah hands don’t get to the turn by check-calling the flop, or at least, a good proportion of them. But like AhKX that didn’t three-bet preflop (guess we can throw in AhJx that didn’t fold preflop), I don’t see how any of them don’t check-call flop and then also check-call turn a very large proportion of the time. So that’s 6 combos? Also I guess it is worth mentioning that villain has great reasons to check-call AJhh on flop and on turn. He has some reasons not to, but its not out of the realm of possibility. Up to 7 now if we add in some AhQx and AhTx hmmmm I am getting very worried about value betting our Kh indeed!
Have I begun to count the monsters under my bed or can I rescind my original answer?
The AK/AQ/AJ/AT hands you list add up to 13 combinations. I think that AJ and (especially) AT need to be discounted given preflop; probably AK too, though I think I’m discounting that less than you are. I agree that check-call flop makes 100% sense with all of those. People do funny things, so I don’t want to not discount it at all in the most precise accounting, but let’s just say it’s 100%.
We are already down to ~7 combos before we get to the turn. Then he has to check-call the turn _and_ check the river! If he plays the turn like that 5/7 of the time and the river 4/5 of the time, that’s still only 4 combinations–and I’d take the under on both of those numbers.
There are some other hands he could have: he might have peeled AhXh before the flop and gotten very tricky, or tried to slowplay AA before the flop (actually I think this is not so unlikely at all compared to some of the other unlikely options). Add it all up and I’d want to give him 6 or so combinations with the Ah in them.
Shouldn’t he be getting to the river with way more other things?
Way more things, yes. Way more things that continue versus our bet, I don’t think so. Enough more things that continue versus our bet, I hope so!
I still like a river value bet for a large size at this moment for the original reasons I stated but am ready to be talked out of it.
Agree with your discounting to a degree, but that same method of dilution works just as well for some candidate river calling-with-worse hands, especially QxQh.
Beware the check-call, especially on the Turn. What range of hand are we expected to have in this spot? We certainly don’t have enough time against this player to know how, or when, he is prone to a trap. Can he be thinking about the previous action to make a somewhat stubborn call on the Flop and Turn (mostly Turn) with only the Ah?
I don’t really put him on QQh (or any set) since that would generally get us a check raise on Turn .. don’t really think he is putting us on flush yet either on the Turn. He has to have something to smooth call the Turn with … AND not re-raise pre-Flop with. So I put him with AhQx or AxQh (AAh or JJh??). It is possible for him to have a smaller flush, but he would have to be in ‘trap’ mode for this instead of making an opponent pay more for his potential 4-flush draw.
It is also possible that he feels that a check-raise on Flop or Turn would turn his hand face-up and is just playing the percentage game. One would think that a baby flush would bet out on the River for pot control/value so if he does have a flush it will be with the A or Q (unlikely 4-6). One would also think that if he didn’t put us on a flush on the Turn that he would value bet the River with any flush hoping that we would bluff catch call with Jh10x or similar.
I don’t really think we are beat here unless our opponent truly has a bad image of us and is relying on our River bet to check-raise with Ah. I REALLY like being able to turn over this rag hand to further ‘damage’ my image for use later with better holdings as well. I also don’t want him to be able to muck to my bet as I am very interested to see what he check-called with 3 times. I am a bit of an information guy I guess .. willing to lose some, and or win less, to see my opponents holdings if I think it will pay off in the future.
It is not often that you will get that 3rd check-call on a 3-flush Flop, 4-flush board so I would not bet any large amount here ($1800+) unless I was willing to call a shove. I would be willing to call a min-raise if I thought I could induce one from the Ah or Qh with a bet of $950 to $1100.
I think I check behind and show the table that the deck is still hitting me square in the face should I win OR show only the Kh when I muck to show my ‘expert’ reading skills to this opponent who wont know you had such a rag holding to go with it .. leave him thinking KhQh instead!!
This deep, it would be hard to justify checking the nuts all the way down, especially because that makes it harder to get 240 big blinds in the pot.
I don’t understand why you think we can’t bet-fold. Our range contains enough of the nuts to prevent a bluff-raise from him.
There are a lot of reasons for him not to bloat the pot with sets. Being deep and out of position can make sets very hard to play on this kind of board.
If our opponent doesn’t think we have a flush yet, or much of anything, it would be very wise to allow ‘us’ to keep leading out on Flop and Turn. With the 4-flush on River the nuts can check again hoping that we finally have something or that we continue to lead out. If the aggro image is assumed, they would be wise to let it play out.
I am willing to bet-fold, just not bet out a large amount and fold. I don’t really agree that betting less will line us up for more bluffs … as you stated, the nuts is well within our range by all accounts of the action. Why bet out a large amount when betting a smaller amout will get you the same response?
You may be right that a flopped set OOP could choose to sit back and see what happens (especially if our aggro image indicates we would call anyway), but if we are up against QQh it would take some real discipline to not check raise the Turn when we are drawing to the 4th nut and are very likely ahead in the hand right now. It very well could be that this play (check-call pot control) is ‘standard’ at this size game, but it would be very rare to see it at a 1-2, 1-3 or 2-5 live game that I have played in so far.
X is the maximum he will call with Qh.
Y is the minimum needed to ensure he will never bluff-raise.
Bet MAX(X,Y).
My guess is that X and Y are both around the same number, probably $1500-$2000.
I’m checking this back. I don’t like a bet because I cant think of anything worse he could call with (not much I anyway). He called rather large bets after a monotone flop. What would he continue OOP with? Sets, over pairs with heart, a pair with the Ah (although it seems unlikely he’ll call w/ATo, A5o, and A3o OOP this deep), maybe a GS with and flopped flushes. So that’s 33, 55, TT, QhQx, AhAx, AhTx, Ah5x, Ah3x, and maybe Ah2x + Ah4x. I don’t think he’s bluff catching with the lower sets because you could be bluffing with the best hand so often. And with his flopped flushes, what kind of suited hands is he most likely to raise and call a 3b OOP with? Suited aces, suited broadway, and suited connectors. Suited aces have you beat, and QJhh and 98hh are the only other hands that fit that criteria.
So if I’m right about him not bluff catching with with flopped sets, and only calling a 3b OOP with suited connectors, broadway, or aces, the hands he has that are worse that you hope to call are QhQd, QhQc, QJhh, and 89hh. If you add suited gappers to his preflop calling range you can add J9hh and 86hh, but I think that is unlikely.
Sure you can comfortably bet fold, but value betting hoping he’ll call worse with 4-6 combos of hands seems to thin for me. Unless I’m wrong about him calling with sets.
I’m checking back here. I think that if villain has the nuts he may well think his most +EV line is to check-raise, since that way he can get value from your air, and you have a barrel-happy image. Therefore, a bet here is certainly thin: it’s a question of how often we’re getting called by Jh and weaker flushes (or a set) vs how often we’re running into the nuts. I think the main non-nut holding you’re hoping to get called by is JhJx, which sometimes folds OTT, and I think there just aren’t enough combos that call you here vs the Ahx combos that you’re losing too. There might be some merit to betting small and hoping to get called by small flushes, sets, even two pairs, but then we need to decide what we do if we’re raised, and it seems we don’t know villain enough to be able to make a good decision. So it might seem weak, but I’m counting the river as an action killer and checking it behind.
Lets look at what range our villain can have here to check and call 2 streets on that board. Can he have the Ah? Sure he can, but its probably not naked by the time he calls the turn, so it would likely be a pair plus the Ah or perhaps with a gutshot and I would think he will often play this a little more aggressively. But with our pre-flop read he could have a number of other hands JhTx, QT, QhX, etc. If we bet again on the river we are going to appear polarized to a big flush or a bluff, and it would seem to me that he has more bluff catchers in his range than he does Ah hands… so we bet a decent amount and hope to get called. Should he raise we would fold without some kind of physical tell, I don’t see any reason for him to bluff here.
Don’t have much to add to the post-flop discussion, which I think is very interesting. But is a pre-flop 3-bet really better than a flat? We’ve established that the BB is the weakest player at the table. Rather than shutting him out of the pot with a 3-bet in order to play vs. a competent villain, did you consider just calling?
I assume hero doesn’t think that flatting K2s here pre is profitable. I would agree: it’s not a powerhouse to say the least, even given villains’ ranges and tendencies. Hero wants his 3betting range to be polarized, so he’s 3betting the best hands that he can’t profitably flat. Which would be exactly hands like K2s.
I think this is on the right track from a theory perspective. If I had to guess, though, at the time Andrew thought (a) that the hand wasn’t good enough to call with (as you point out) and (b) that he could take advantage of a bet size that indicated weakness.
Applying game theory lessons to range construction gets tricky in this situation. Game theory assumes a certain kind of common knowledge, or at least is meant to provide solutions that remain effective when made known to everyone. Once Andrew gets the bet-sizing information, he has a very basic and important piece of information that the other guy does not know that he knows. So we need other analytical tools than GTO theorizing to construct our ranges.
Villain never ever bluff raises the river. Not even if we bet $750.
We know from his line that he has a value hand on the river 99% of the time. He’s not going to turn it into a bluff. He’s just going to show it down.
I can see him playing this way with QhX and AhX but there are probably more Ah in his pre-flop 3-bet calling range. He can also play the nuts this way.
When Nate and Gareth count the combos above there aren’t a lot of them BUT I don’t think there are very many other hands Villain plays this way either. I think y’all are hoping for too much to think that Villain may be bluff catching the whole way.
It looks to me like Villain has a medium strength made hand. I’d guess that QhX is his most likely holding. It is probably more likely than AhX because he checked the river.
So, I want to bet a size that Villain will call with a weak made hand. I’m going to bet just under $1000, hope for a crying call, and snap fold to any raise.
I think betting larger reduces his calling frequency too much. I do agree that a much larger bet is better than a medium-sized one though. I think bets between $1000 and $2000 are the worst because they fold out too many of his weakish made hands.
I don’t see why Villain has to have a value hand here “99% of the time.” Can’t he just have a pair that he hasn’t seen reason to fold yet? Not all of those have made flushes.
Given Andrews description of villain as a decent player, do you really think he would call a 3/4 pot bet on the flop and turn OOP 240 BB deep on a monotone flop with a single pair hand that doesn’t have a high heart in it as well? I don’t see how he can have anything less than a set in this spot. I supposed AA or KK with no heart is possible but it’s a stretch.
I think that’s a good question. I think I’m losing track of the threads in this conversation. What I want to say is that we can’t have it both ways: if you think he can’t have anything less than a set here, then you probably have to take AhXh, AhTx, and other hands out of his range preflop. I doubt that this guy is planning to widen his range before the flop and also planning to shut down unless he crushes the flop.
But then I looked and saw that you weren’t the one claiming that Villain has a very wide preflop range.
I do think it’s very possible that Villain is only getting to the river with a tight range. I think a lot hangs on what he is doing with 9h9x and similar hands.
I’m calling his hand a ‘value hand’ as a way of describing how Villain is most likely to be thinking about it. If he does have a weaker hand like a pair that he hasn’t folded yet I think his mindset will be to bluff catch – not to turn it into a bluff. If Villain was looking to bluff he would have done something differently.
The 4th club will sometimes cause people to change their mindset from value-calling to bluffing but I don’t think that’s the case here because Hero’s range has too many strong hands on this river.
I think a large part of his range is AT, AJ, & AQ with one heart or two hearts.
One issue is that you have the same hand that you took to showdown and have taken the same line. If he is putting KhXh as decent % of your range, then he is going to play perfectly.
I was thinking of making a very thin value bet, but then that opens you up to getting bluffed off by AJh or AQh. I don’t like a large bet because he’s only folding or raising if he has the Ah. I think he would take this line with the Ah given the hand you showed-down.
Maybe I’m giving him too much credit, but I check it back.
AQ is inconsistent with Andrew’s preflop read. ATo is probably inconsistent with the preflop action. (I think.)
I do not expect to get bluffed by the Jh or Qh. It is rare for someone to turn such a hand into a bluff. Also, Hero’s range has so much of the nuts in it that it is difficult for Villain to justify bluffing into that range.
With Andrew’s table image plus the preflop read, isn’t a suited Ace [i.e., Ah plus (4,6,8,9,T)h] as well as 6h4h all in Villain’s range? Flop and turn action is also consistent with Villain slowplaying the flopped nut flush.
I also vote for checking it back.
Good players do not (always) react to postflop aggression with preflop looseness. It’s often much better to tighten up a little and then punish their aggression by having a strong range by the time they get aggressive.
(Hat tip here to old-school 2+2’er “J_V,” who has discussed that point more eloquently than I probably ever will.)
Did I tell you I played with J_V in I think it was the 2008 Main Event? Neither of us realized who the other was at the time, but he PMed me after I published my trip report. He bet-folded the best hand on the turn when I went for a thin value c/shove, just one of the many ways in which I got lucky without even realizing it in that tournament.
I see a lot of responses advocating betting for value on this board. Could we bet for value? Sure, it’s probably not -EV in the long run. Is it more +EV than just checking behind? I’m not quite sure. Given this 4 flush board, are you really expecting a villain to c/c a worse flush or set here? If there wasn’t a 4 flush on board, I’d barrel the river with 2nd nut flush all day and expect to get called by many worse hands.
The EV of checking the river is 0. If you think the EV of betting is not negative, then you should bet.