I’ve got a tough one for you this week. This is one of the trickier spots I’ve been in of late, and I’ll tell you up front that I’m not 100% sure about my play or my plan at multiple points in the hand. So with that said, we’ll zero in on the river decision, but I’m very open to questions and criticism about earlier streets.
We’re on the last few hands of Day 1 of the Venetian $5K Main Event (which is nowhere near the money – about 50% of the field remains). Villain seems very good. He’s been appropriately active, which is to say not so aggressive as to assume he’s on any two when he opens the button but certainly opening a wide range. He seems thoughtful and capable of considering all of his options and thinking on a high level.
Hero’s image is probably similar, meaning that I’m not auto 3-betting late position opens but he’s also not going to expect me to have a hand that can call a shove every time. Neither of us has played much post-flop since I’ve been at the table, so any post-flop reads will be extrapolations from the above.
Blinds 250/500/50. Action folds to Villain on the Button, who opens to 1100 with about 2oK behind. Hero 3-bets to 3000 from the SB with 88 about 45K behind. My intention is to shove or call to a 4-bet if Villain shoves, though I won’t be too thrilled about it. I think that’s better than the alternatives, though. BB folds, Button calls.
Flop (7200) Jd 7s 3c. Hero bets 3500, Villain calls. My plan again is to call a shove or shove over a raise.
Turn (14200) 4c. Hero checks, Villain checks. Plan here is to check-raise all-in or call a shove.
River (14200) 2d.
Villain has roughly a pot-sized bet remaining. What’s your plan and why? If you bet, how much and what’s your plan if raised? If you check, what’s your plan for a bet that could be as large as the pot?
Post your thoughts, comments, questions, etc. here and I’ll do my best to answer them throughout the week. As I said, I’m happy to talk about spots other than the river as well. I’ll post results and my own thinking on Friday – hopefully by then you all will have changed my mind and I’ll have a better idea of what I should have done here!
Possible holdings that beat you: 77,99,1010,AJ,KJ,QJs,J10s (JJ+ would’ve 4bet flop)
Can’t imagine, considering his stack size, that he calls the preflop and flop bet with A5s or 65s
Possible holdings that you beat: 66,55,AQ,KQ,A7,sometimes 87s, A10s with backdoor flushdraws on the flop (AK would’ve 4bet preflop).
Our hand is too strong to turn into a bluff by shoving, but having to call a shove would be awkward, so I would be looking for the smallest bet size that makes us look committed, planning to fold to a shove. Since he’s a good player our blocking bet shouldn’t be too small. May be 4000? Ideally he will call with a lot of the hands that beat us and some of the hands we beat and only shove his monsters.
Is he good enough to bluff-shove over this bet?
I like how you played it. River is tricky because of stack sizes. I prefer to check/call. A bet is too committing and most of his calling range beats you. I’d rather let him stab at it and snap him off. You have good showdown value and should be happy with the amount of value you’ve extracted. No need to overplay it.
Some comments advocate check calling the river – what hands do we beat that the villain can have here as a bluff – I am stuck here not really seeing any hands we can beat. If the villain had a bluff, he would have bet the turn. Since he checked back, he has some value, and any hand we beat the villain will check back the river, so if he bets we are almost always beat IMO?
Good question. I think pairs make up some of the villains range but I think a big part if his range is draws. Ax5x is the only draw that hit. I’d like to let him bluff with his missed draws….any XcXc or sc. Although our 88 blocks the 89 and 68 gutshots, I didn’t realize until just now. He could also have a 67 or 57, 45 type hand that could go for very thin value.
Overall our 88 beats these low pair hands and with the manypossible missed draws id like to let the villain stab at it. If we bet its too committing and eliminates the villains ability to bluff.
I am not sure the hand range (bluffs) you listed here calls our 3 bet pre flop this shallow?
I think villain calls with a huge part of his range. 1900 into about 5000 to play a big pot in position is too juicy . I think he only folds trash here and calls with just about everything else.
I’d opt for a small bet, of somewhere between 5,000 and 7,000, on the river. I’m personally calling a shove, but I think that if you decide to bet 7,000 or so then folding to a shove is not out of the question if you get a strong live read or something. My goal in betting is to get value from worse hands. The bet also acts as a sort of blocker bet, since it will mostly stop thin value bets by hands that beat us.
To see why my line makes sense, let’s think of villain’s range. After he calls the flop we put him on one of the following:
1. a float (possibly with some outs in the form of overcards, gutshot, etc)
2. a middle-value hand that we beat
3. a middle-value hand that beats us (such as J7s, or maybe a carefully played QJ or such)
3. a trap
His check-behind on the turn give us a treasure trove of information. He’ll fire the turn with most of his traps and most of his floats, so we can severely discount traps and floats, to the point where they don’t matter much anymore for our decision making (all IMHO, of course). Thus, after the turn action the majority of his range is middle-value hands. It is instructive to consider just middle-value hands when planning our river line.
So, what are our possible lines for the river?
1. c/f
2. c/c
3. b/c
4. b/f.
I’ll discuss all of these one by one. Note that we’re not going to be too sensitive in terms of villain’s bet sizing because it’s not clear whether bigger bets actually signify more strength in this situation, since our range is mostly capped, and we don’t have enough postflop reads.
1. c/f: we know villain has middle-value hands, and we know he’s not going to be turning them into bluffs for the most part. Now, is he going to be betting a hand worse than ours, something like 7x, for thin value? To do this he has to believe that we’ll be hero-calling with ace-high. We can’t know for sure, but I think it’s definitely possible he’s going to be value-betting worse hands than ours, and together with the possibility that he still has some floats that he’ll bluff with, I think this takes c/f-ing out of the question. (Although if we do decide to check and he shoves, I guess folding could be fine, similarly to the previous What’s Your Play).
2. c/c: this is a very valid line, and is probably almost as good as the best line. The problem with this line, however, is that it helps villain play very well against us: he’s going to be thin value betting more often with the middle-value hands that beat us than with the ones that we beat, so when he goes bet he’s skewed towards the hands that beat us. Our call here is thus due to getting good pot odds: when he bets we don’t think we have a 50-50 chance of having the best hand. We fail to get enough value from the hands that we beat.
3. b/c: this solves the problem with the c/c line: villain’s calling range should be significantly wider than his value betting range, so we usually get an extra bet out of all those hands that we beat that would often just check behind, like 3x and 66-44. There is little downside to the b/f line compared to the c/c line in terms of getting value from worse hands, because villain has almost no floats left in his range. The only downside is that if villain happens to have a slowplayed monster or decides to make a thin raise with a hand like JT or QJ, we lose more than we would have with the c/c line.
4. b/f: this is similar to the b/c line, except that it behaves differently vs villain’s traps, floats, JT type hands that he decides to shove, and hands he decides to turn into a bluff. In the end I think these are all unusual cases, so this line is pretty similar to the b/c line. However, the b/c line can’t result in a huge mistake while the b/f line can result in a huge mistake, so given the lack of postflop reads I’m not so comfortable b/f-ing here.
About our bet sizing: the profitability of the b/c line relied on villain’s calling range to be wider than his betting range. But this might not be true if we, for example, shove our stack in. So we need to size our bet modestly to get calls from most of villain’s hands that we beat, and at the same time not value-own ourselves too bad against villains middle-value hands that beat us. I think a bet of 7,000 is about optimal for this purpose. But a bet of around 5,000 might be better if we consider the fact that villain might spazz out and shove over a small bet, in which case we win all his stack. It should be noted that if we bet 5,000 then we should never fold to a shove, while if we bet 7,000 we can fold to a shove if we get a strong read. In the end I’d go with 5,000 but I think it doesn’t matter much.
Finally, about earlier streets: I think the only debatable choices are the decision to b/c the flop (rather than b/f) and the decision to c/r the turn (rather than b/c). I didn’t give enough thoughts to any of these to know for sure, but I’d say your decisions look fine to me, for what that’s worth.
I think, any hand with no showdown value would have jammed the turn, so his range on the river should be hands that beats us + maybe 66, 55 (which would check behind).
Action: check – fold
If we wanted to do as Caius said, doing on the turn would be better.
I think that second barreling the turn would be the ultimate play, since we could make him fold 99, TT, and maybe make him give up from a bluff. Since we didn´t bet the turn and villain didn´t bluffed, he must have showdown value and won´t fold to anything but an all-in on the river, and that´s way to risky.
i don´t think he would have bet traps on turn. Since he only has a pot size bet left and the board is pretty safe, he can easily miss the bet on the turn.
AB, right on about this being a tough one. One question I would ask is what has been his 3b/4b frequency, if any. My main reason for this question is to determine whether he would 4b hands like 99/TT/AQ/AJ or even get tricky and flat a 3b in position with a premium like KK/AA.
Another question I would ask is how often hero has been 3/4betting pre, particular OOP. Since villain gets credit as a player with a higher than normal level of thinking, this context is important to me in order to come up with the best play.
Once we get to the flop, my plan would have been the same as yours.
Once he calls the flop, he only has slightly more than a pot sized bet remaining. His flat however, is telling. Since we are giving him a lot of credit (“seems very good”) and “thinking on a high level”) I’m going to assume he knows better than to rip it light here vs you as a bluff (this is where I’d like to know about hero’s 3/4b image). Since I’m making that leap, my conclusion is either he believes he has the best hand and is giving you some rope to continue betting or he is floating the flop to take it away on the turn with a jam on a reasonable turn card.
4c turn. Hero checks. I really like this play. A lot of opponents would auto-rip it right here once we check but our villain checks behind. A lot of people in the hero spot typically would double barrel here too reasoning that villain can only continue/jam with hands that beat us. Is villain good enough to deduce we are checking to induce a bluff jam? Typically I wouldn’t give a villain so much credit to the point where he is soul reading our plan/hand strength but AB stating this villain as good is no small statement. A good opponent would recognize our check here is actually fairly indicative of showdown value.
I am torn here between eldodo’s conclusion of just middle hand strength from our villain or whether his range still includes some floats. If villain determines we aren’t folding here, why wouldn’t he jam any Jx hand or TT for value? At the same time if he feels we aren’t folding why wouldnt he peel a free river with those few floating hands? I’m not saying its a huge part of his range but I don’t think its to be eliminated completely if villain really is very good.
River. 2d. To me, it comes down to bet/fold (which will sound crazy to some people) or check/call.
At this point, he is not folding hands 99/TT/Jx. Its just not gonna happen IMO. Those hands or anything stronger than he somehow has are going to bet or raise the majority of the time. I really don’t see him bluff-raising the river because any bet we make gives us almost undeniable odds to call. example: we bet 5000 and he jams, its only approx 10k for us to call in a pot of 30k. He should know that we theoretically aren’t folding anything with any value and thus only jam hands that beat us. If we did choose to bet, I would bet smaller and make it look like I am going for a crying call/bluff inducement so probably in the 1/3 pot range. If he is sicko enough to jam over top of our river bet with a weaker hand knowing we should never fold, more power to him.
I think checking may sometimes coax him into a last ditch effort to bluff with weaker hands that would fold to a bet since we have checked a 2nd time (thus neglecting to go for any type of value). The only time we lose value is when he checks behind 7x, 55 or 66. He bets these same hands a lot of the time too though and when he does actually have a hand that beats us, we lose less than if we bet/call (if its not a jam). Obviously a jam we would win/lose the same as bet/calling but I think his range when we check is wider than if we lead the river. This is the course of action I would take.
Based on stack sizes and player skill, I like 3-betting larger. I think your sizing would be perfect if he had 12k in his stack, but with 20k he can comfortably call a wide range and have position on you (and he’s good, so this is especially bad).
Given your assumptions about how wide he is opening (top 60%?), I’d be interested to see a math analysis on the EV of shoving 88 here (assuming the BB had 20k or less). I’m not recommending this–just curious, although I do think that you could still have a very balanced/strong 3-betting range from the blinds even if you took 88-TT out of your “normal” 3-betting range and put them in a ship-with-40bb-or-less range.
Lastly, I’m curious if you have a calling range here from the sb, because I think this actually is a great candidate for calling and then shipping in the event that the BB is squeeze happy (and if he calls you get positional protection against a good player, which isn’t bad).
I will also add that I think people are wrong when they just assume that he’s shipping all of his good hands. He is in a great position to flat you will all kinds of good hands, considering his position and the fact that his shove would be large relative to your 3bet.
As played, I like the flop. The turn is the key. Stack sizes are perfect for either one of your to leverage the other player if you had air, so the fact that it went c/c means that very likely does not have air (I suppose he could have been on a conditional float and doesn’t believe the turn is a good card, but this seems a stretch).
OTR, I was initially tempted to value-bet, but you are really counting on him having precisely 66/55 or a suited 7. I believe he will likely check all of these behind. He will value bet jacks and pairs better than yours. Perhaps the optimal play is to c/r the river all-in, hoping to move him off his thin value bets (this will be bet-size dependent, such that you may have to simply c/f). I think I am folding if he bets anything over 6,500 here, as his odds for calling the shove are just too good.
Live players don’t c/r the river very much, so he may not expect it from you (leading to more thin value bets from him, and he may also respect it). If he thinks you are a good player, he may realize that you could plausibly take this line with any overpair or even AJ (because you were going for a c/r on the turn).
Cliff notes: either raise to 3,700 pre or call (based on your range preference and BB tendencies), and check-evaluate river, going with a crai based on a combination of (mostly bet sizing) and live reads.
I’m missing how this spot is complicated, probably over my head. The entire hand you were willing to call an all in or shove all in if the villain bet. The 2d on the river is about as big of a whiff as you can imagine so the plan shouldn’t change based on that card. So we can eliminate check folding & bet folding, as options unless you decide your plan all along was horribly wrong but I don’t see why you would come to that conclusion.
So sticking with the plan, we either check and call his river bet or bet and shove/call if raised. I like checking and calling any bet. I can’t think of many better hands we actually get to fold by betting (is he really folding a Jack or 10s/9s?) and many weaker hands that are calling our bet. I think a large part of his betting range on the river is going to be hands we beat since we haven’t shown a lot of strength and are looking like we are either giving up on the hand or just trying to get to showdown. So I expect more bluffs than value bets.
Thanks for the comment. I’m not necessarily disagreeing overall, but see last week’s WYP for an explanation of how new information can change a plan. Also even if we still think I have a hand worth playing for stacks, I think it’s still a tough decision between whether I’m better off doing that by betting or checking. What are some examples of hands you expect him to bluff with on the river?
I just don’t see how anything the villain can do on the river is so unexpected it would change our original plan (not folding). It’s true that there are not that many hands that fit for a bluff if he bets, but there are some. There’s AQ,A10,KQ,109,98,86. The villain might also sometimes read that we are trying to get to showdown and bluff any # of worse 1 pair hands, although I think he’d rather show those down even if he thinks he might be beat because it’s hard for him to represent that he loved that blank on the river. I think there are not many hands he could have that beat us (Various Jacks, 1010,99, maybe 22) as I would expect other winning hand combinations to have 4 bet preflop or bet the turn. So a pot sized bet from him on the river would not be enough to convince me our original plan was wrong, I’m still calling.
Cant see V folding to a c/r on River with what would be less than 20bb behind after the initial River bet. If we bet anything, it could be the super small 2000-2500, but what hands will fold out to this bet that beat us? If V was already below 20bb then that might have a bigger effect on a decision to call or shove back.
It seems Hero was bent on shoving IF … but the IF never happened!! That doesn’t necessarily mean we dont re-evaluate the River. I think it comes down to how big of a hand we think will fold to a shove. If we can get AJ/TT/99 to fold out and only leave AA/KK/QQ calling us, then shoving and putting someone we think ‘can’ fold for their tournament life would be the way to go.
I dont think there is a lot of value to be gained from hands we beat here. So, by default, that means dont bet for value.
How often do we c/c? This is a tough spot since V may bet thinking that betting is the only way to win the pot … which means V could have AQ or something ‘that bad’ and force us out of the hand unless we are resigned to calling ANY bet, including a shove. Being OOP here really stinks as a fairly competent V wont do anything to scare us away if there is a set or overpair involved.
If I am betting, I shove …
If I am checking, I fold and save my 20bb for a different hand. How often is the V going to value bet Ace high?
Although Hero intended to shove Turn if bet into, I see the stack sizes as an issue here. If V had more behind then perhaps a c/r is better. But we give a free card if V checks back the Turn when we had every intention of shoving … so with a shove of around PSB=1 Hero should lead out with 7000 to shoving on Turn. Could just be a ‘me’ thing, but I tend to feel better if I shove into someone who has me killed but I have 1 card to go rather than shoving this River only to have a bottom set turned over!! GL
“Could just be a ‘me’ thing, but I tend to feel better if I shove into someone who has me killed but I have 1 card to go rather than shoving this River only to have a bottom set turned over!!”
I understand and sympathize with this sentiment, but ultimately it’s not a good decision-making tool. Going broke as the turn aggressor isn’t intrinsically better than going broke by calling or shoving the river. What matters is the equity you have against the range that gets in with you and the chance, if any, of making better hands fold.
It seems like your plan through the turn is based on him being aggressive and shoving a range that is 50% of the time (and with anything stronger), so I favor the small bet. You want to bet an amount that will still leave him a playable stack for the next level if he calls and loses, so I bet 3500 (which would leave him about 10K).
My whole comment didn’t go through right the last time:
It seems like your plan through the turn is based on him being aggressive and shoving a range that is 50% of the time (and with anything stronger), so I favor the small bet. You want to bet an amount that will still leave him a playable stack for the next level if he calls and loses, so I bet 3500 (which would leave him about 10K).
I don’t really have a solution, more like a question: why are we b/c turn? What are we expecting to get shown by villain? Maybe higher stakes play differently but online every time I call I see KJ or something similar.
b/c the _flop_ that is
Using the Brokos Hand Reading System, it strikes me that villain has passively put 25% of his stack into the pot ($1900 flatting the 3bet and $3500 flatting the flop bet ). This is one indication villain has a monster (basically sets on this board). Villain misses a bluffing opportunity (admittedly not a great one) on the turn. Villain’s passive play suggests he has a monster or a showdown hand he does not feel the need to protect (he put too much money in passively to have air).
Thus, on the river, hero should try for thin value or fold (bet/fold or check/fold). I think either approach is acceptable. This seems like a really tough spot, so there is some value in preserving chips for hero to find better opportunities.
Reconstructing the entire hand, and guessing at villain’s range, I estimate villain has a 3:2 ratio of hands that beat hero to hands that hero beats. With only a pot sized bet remaining, villain is going to receive at least 2 to 1 to call if we bet. Given stack sizes, I think we can expect villain to play the river somewhat straightforward. If hero makes a small value bet and villain shoves, hero certainly has good odds to call, so villain should know, he likely cannot bluff raise here.
My playing style would probably find me check-calling here. After further reflection, check-folding seems better than my default, but betting for thin value is probably the best move. I think I would bet about 1/3 pot ($4500) and fold to a raise.
if the board were KT7r, and we had QQ I feel like a value bet would be more appropriate, but because the board is J73, and there is a larger disparity between our range and the hands that we want to call our value bets, i prefer check folding. jmo.
I’m not a very good poker player, but I think of it this way. When he checks the turn I feel like he has showdown value, and of those hands the only ones he bets on the river have us beat. I would check fold the river, but I expect the river to go check, check. I feel like the only hands he bets on the river are a pair of jacks or better, and complete air. But why wait until the river to bluff? maybe because the board is incredibly dry, but I feel like most tournaments players aren’t trying to get that fancy, if he was gonna bluff in the hand, he would’ve bet the turn and not given your strongish range a free card. I would check fold.
I’m going to try posting my full comment one last time:
It seems like your plan through the turn is based on him being aggressive and shoving a range that is 50% of the time (and with anything stronger), so I favor the small bet. You want to bet an amount that will still leave him a playable stack for the next level if he calls and loses, so I bet 3500 (which would leave him about 10K).
I’ve read a lot of the replies so far and they are all well thought out. But, what I would also like to add is Villains perception of Hero’s Range. Hero has 3 Bet Pre, and checked the turn. In fitting with Hero’s story that he has an over pair hand, I think it’s Mandatory we bet the river. It’s very possible Villain has a hand like KJ or QJ, but it seems also likely he has an underpair to Jacks, which will be checking this river. I like a half pot bet on river that will really make Villain think twice about calling. Also, it will make it less likely for Villain to raise a weak hand that Hero is behind. I believe Hero will win the pot more often with that sizing, and lose less when behind. Also, I believe this Villain type could be floating to take the pot away from hero, and checking the river could induce Hero to fold the best hand. Value bet this River I think it’s real easy for Villain to have A/7. If Villain shoves, it’s a fold.
Joe, I think your thinking is disorganized. I’d like to encourage you to think in terms of lines, and what is the benefit and drawback of each, rather than in terms of random things we want to happen or don’t want to happen.
About sticking to our story and making villain think twice of calling the river: if you were in villain’s shoes, would you be folding 99 to a half-pot bet on the river? And if not, then what good does “sticking to our story” bring us? You suggest we try to bluff with our hand, which is weird, since better hands are pretty much always calling.
About being afraid of villain’s bluff on the river: as Andrew and Nate keep talking about in the podcast, we are only worried about this if we plan to actually c/f. IF we intend to c/c, then we *want* villain to be bluffing the river.
Thank you for your reply to my comment. Perhaps I didn’t articulate well enough, and I apologize. So let me clarify. When villain checks behind on the turn, this gives Hero a lot of information. I don’t believe Villain would be checking back 9’s, 10’s or a pair of Jacks here. So it is more likely that Hero is ahead with his pair of eights and needs to bet the river for value. In most 3 bet pots, competent Villains will usually play more straightforward. So, it’s also clear that Villain will most likely check back the river, because he has some showdown value, and hero misses value. But, Hero has established that Villain is capable of making good plays when opponents show weakness. So Villain Bluff shoving the river becomes possible also. I like that the hero checked the river with the intention of calling a shove, but I just like value betting the river more in this spot given the turn action. Also, regardless of Hero’s intention to call a river shove after checking, and following through is a separate matter. Why lose the initiative, and increase your likelihood of folding the river, and why miss value when all the information Hero has gathered indicates he’s ahead? This is a great hand discussion because this situation comes up a lot. And, I really enjoyed reading every one’s replies.
Great topic these mid pairs OOP and are tricky! I wanted to comment on the preflop and flop action, 3 betting 88s against a button open from the blinds is a pretty common line with this holding but find that this gets me in trouble when the opponent is a good player.
do you think its preferable to flat the open and try and play small ball with the 88s, given the villain has eff stack of 40bb? I think 3-betting and bloating the pot makes it easier for the villain to take it away post flop given his stack size. Also you can’t necessarily eliminate monsters from the villains flat of the 3bet IP, can you?
On the flop the cbet compounds the issue and builds a bigger pot and doesn’t give you much information besides that the villain floated on a J high fairly dry board. I think a check on the flop allows you to continue to keep the pot small and see what the villain does. It would also allow you the opportunity if he bets the flop to flat, then lead the turn or to raise the flop bet. Although I wouldn’t prefer check-raising the flop sticking with my idea of pot control with a hand that has equity but both these lines appear stronger than the 3bet preflop and the cbet donk lead.
awesome hand to look at imo,
Ill go street by street since I have comments on all of them.
preflop, given he is good im much more inclined to flat here than 3bet. I would rather play a smaller pot OOP ( I know a deeper SPR is more difficult to play but it also carries a smaller degree of risk.) whether BB is every going to squeeze fold and his stack size also plays a factor here as i like flatting more if he/she is a player that would squeeze 3bet/fold or has a good stack for us to back raise shove over. Im really not in love with getting 40bb in preflop with 88 even BU v SB especially facing a shove, even tho a 4bet shoving range is likely capped, it still contains a range that dominates 88, ie JJ-88 and AQ/AJ/AK type hands, even adding broadways to that range doesnt hugely add much equity to our end. I am happier 5bet jamming 88 because villain will likely have a 4b/f range however that also means we are often crushed when called, (obv we flip v some of his range but we must be at the complete bottom of our gii range here.) overall I see alot of benefits for 3betting but I also feel that this hand would be better placed in our flatting range.
flop, villian could be flatting 3bets with a reasonable range, (not stupidly wide and as you said he isnt opening all buttons either) so something like 77-JJ with maybe a few combos of slow played AA/KK. but also a bunch of playable hands that he doesnt want to 4b/f away his equity, like KQ-J10 and 109-87s. he could also be slowplaying AK type hands but i think it is much less likely given the equity drops his hand has on whiffed flops.
regarding our sizing I’m more inclined to make it slightly smaller, so we save money when we b/f our air, or c/f turn on bad turns, I also leaves a slightly higher SPR which is more favourable when we have a c/j range on the turn.
I’m really unsure about bet/calling this flop, its a spot where our range is pretty uncapped and villain should be able to recognise that we wont be bet/folding a huge part of our range. (what would you be doing with AK/AQ/A10 on this flop Andrew?)
when villain flats his range still contains 99/TT/77/JJ/J10/JQ/JK/AJ as well as some 89 910 KQ A10s type floats (this range of floats probably needs to be discounted somewhat since alot of his draws/air will shove the flop.
on the turn check/shoving makes sense if you expect him to bet/fold or bet/call his air, however there is still a substantial portion of his range that wont fold and has this part of our range crushed, at the same time checking doesnt really cap our range at all as checking is a viable play here with the top of our range given SPR. Given villain checked back I think we can remove most of the floats from his range as these would either shove (if they have some equity) or bet/fold (pure floats)
on the river I probably c/f it looks like the villain has a hand strong enough to take to showdown and im doubtful this includes Ax hands. jamming river is what we would probably do with most of our range but I just dont think given our line we can give him credit for folding 99/1010/Jx here given at best there are like 18 combos of overpairs and with Jx he will be blocking some of those combinations. This looks like a great river to vbet Jx and get called by worse but that also means its a tough river to turn our hand into a bluff, even tho the line reps most of our value range. once we check, I think its quite difficult for us to have heaps of value hands in our range, at the same time most of our range would either be bluffing river or bluff catching it, so i think its best to just c/f river and expect him to occasionally check back worse but largely have us beat in this spot.
our stack size on the river makes me dislike any line that leaves us with an awkward stack (b/f) as our equity when 3bet/shoving and our ability to take good r/f spots will be severely limited if we lose more than our rivers remaining stack.
cliffs,
I probably flat this hand a good % of the time preflop,
I probably bet closer to 3000 on the flop, maybe even like 2900,
I like the check on the turn, although i do start to wonder what our turn betting range looks like in this spot, and if both are checking and betting ranges are sufficiently protected
I c/f river, being moderately surprised if villain turns up with worse when he bets, expecting him to check back some Ax hands occasionally but not turn them into bluffs (I dont think villain would play many small PP in our 3beting range by default and so bluffing Ax to fold out them wasnt considered)
really tough hand, great one to analyze!
Check/fold: even if he floated flop he checked turn because he hit showdown value or a draw. More two pair, trips or straight possibilities than missed back door draws. You’re toast.
I’m a bit stumped by this hand, and more than that I’m busy at work, so I haven’t thought it all the way through.
I do want to applaud mwalsh for discussing Andrew’s preflop sizing. Some quick CTRL+F’ing suggested he was the only one who did so. IMO the player Andrew describes will often expect Andrew to 3b to 2325 or so. Obviously Andrew had good reasons for sizing the way he did, but I think that a good player will take careful note of this fact and react accordingly.
Now, I don’t know quite what to make of this. I think Villain will (correctly) turn some of his 4b’s into folds; probably he will also turn some calls into folds and 4b’s into calls.
I’m tempted to say that Villain is, especially given Andrew’s preflop sizing, rather unlikely to get to the river with a Jack this way. Unfortunately I haven’t yet figured out what follows from that. Can’t wait to read this thread more carefully tonight.
OK, OK, one more annoying observation without actually coming to good conclusions. I think many here are underestimating the probability that Villain gets to the turn with a decent/good Ace-high. Actually I think something like AQ or AT is one of his likeliest holdings on the river. (At this depth and with Andrew’s preflop sizing, I’m not sure he’s going to be four-betting even a hand like AQ. But on the flop, how can he fold?)
For precisely this reason, if I could bet-fold safely, I would probably do that. Else I’d check. It’s a passive way to play a very good hand, but sometimes being out of position forces you to play passively.
does 2325 not seem tiny given the stack sizes and being OOP?
Well, it seems small to me, but I don’t think it seems small to many tournament people.
Would you fold A7o, Q6o, or K3s to a 3-bet to 2325? Do you think a lot of ABC tournament players would? If so, there’s a reason to make it that size. Not that I don’t like Andrew’s sizing.
FWIW this sizing is situational and independent of my actual hand, though of course it’s still worth considering what Villain might read into it (and of course using 3000 instead of 2325 for my full range still communicates some information about that range). I like it precisely because it has the effects you mention and I want to be able to 3bet a pretty depolarized range in a spot like this (OOP and not closing the action vs a good player with a wide range).
Grunching:
My first instinct is that I’m not a huge fan of the three bet. I would like it if you were very confident in getting a fold or getting it in preflop versus a weak range, but 88 is going to play pretty badly versus a flat, i think, unless villain is very predictable, which it sounds like he is probably not. His open is smaller than it would likely be in a cash game, and maybe that makes it play more like a single raised pot, but I’m still dubious.
Getting 10x implied odds, what does he flat? I’ve not got a strong feeling about what a good player has in his range here. Probably not low pairs, probably not more than the occasional monster. This is the crux of the hand, i think. If the 3b is good, then it is good because we’re not expecting him to flat often, which should help us to define his flatting range. My guess would be that the core of his range is something like ‘stuff that can flop TP, plus stuff that can flop jammable hands’, so big suited cards.
Post flop, I don’t have much more than random thoughts. I think we’ll struggle to make better hands fold much, given the depth, but we’re vunerable versus a lot of his range (overcards). I don’t love betting the flop, but it might be the least bad option if charting a course for the rest of the hand is hard. CRAI on the turn is good only really if we think he might be floating a lot, but this sort of illustrates why 88 is a brutal hand to play oop in a 3b pot. With AA or KK I wouldn’t look to CRAI the turn with only a psb left very often, so i think a river jam looks a bit sketchy, rather than strong – I doubt he folds a jack, who knows about TT.
Hmmm, let’s start from the beginning as that’s where, as you know, most errors begin. Do you normally 3bet small-mid pairs from the SB? Clearly, that depends, however, depending on the person, isn’t it true that people generally tighten up near end-of-day hands? Villain, as you said, seems to have a clue so his range, even from the button, would appear to be stronger at this time, no? Wouldn’t a better play, even though it’s always tougher to play OOP, to just call in this instance? If the BB calls you’re still getting better odds and set-mining here is still a more viable option I would think. (You don’t provide the BB stack/play history so that part of equation is moot)
Okay, so you 3bet, the BB folds and the Btn calls. What’s he calling with? The flop is good for your hand, and you want to keep the lead so your bet is fine. I might have chosen to 1)bet 1/3 pot or 2) 2/3 pot, but being OOP, near day’s end, and with 1 over card and a flat call from the btn, 1/2 pot, imo, is probably not the best choice. Also, you seem to respect his play (up to that point) so what do you think “he” thought your range was? Normally, 3bets from the SB represent strength, so he has to put you on either 1) a really strong hand or 2) complete air.
So you bet, he calls. Now, what do you think he’s calling with on that board? What do you think his call represents? Do you really think he’s floating? At this time in the day? If he wasn’t a thinking player (your words), your decisions might be easier, but being a thinking player, you might ask yourself, “is he being tricky?” Obviously, this is why this is a really tricky spot and why you’ve posted this. Again, let’s go back to the beginning. You said you were willing to call off from the start. If so, why not jam pf? That would avoid any tricky spots and only monsters would call at this time of the day. But I digress….
What’s he thinking about your range? Would you 3bet with Jacks? Sure. 7s? Doubtful but possible. 3s? Unlikely. Which means he’s also unlikely to think you did that with eights. 99+, ATs (maybe), AJ+ If he puts you on those ranges, what’s he calling with? And of course, you have to ask, what’s he got? What’s his range? If he doesn’t have a strong jack, then he’s concerned about the jack but he has position and showdown value if you have air. You can take QQ+ out his holdings, he most likely would have 4bet those, includind jacks and possibly tens. . KJ, AJ+ are there but after the flop call, unless he floated with AQ, AK, you can take those hands out. So what’s left? sets of jacks, sevens and threes, tens, nines, eights, sixes, fives, 56 suited (possible offsuit), 89 less so, and A7, A5, and A3 suited (more likely than offsuit). If he has Ac5c, then he picks up the nut flush draw (and wheel)on the turn (but did he really do that, unless he’s being tricky, at this time in the day) which makes his check reasonable going to the river. He also could have checked back sets and a jack.
Now, what was your reason for checking the turn and what do you think “he” thought about that? And what did you think about his checking back? Btw, I didn’t include 64 originally as I just don’t see that in the mix, although anything is possible.
Now to the river: You gave up the lead by checking the turn so now what do you do? What’s he thinking about that? Pot control? Air? Hoping he’d bet so you could CR? Or maybe, that you’d bet again on a bluff, second best hand etc. Maybe he did slowplay Queens. When the deuce came, it made the wheel, the flush missed so now he has to think that maybe you did that with A5 suited and got there. What are you going to represent? Your bet (or bluff) has to tell a convincing story. Personally, I think the line you took on the turn is problematic. If he has tens or nines, even eights, he has to think he has the best hand; same with any jack, or at least, showdown value depending on your river bet size. He also may be willing to jam no matter what you do.
I think you have to check and be willing to call it all off. Your hand at this point is too strong to fold but to be clear, I think you have the worst hand.
One of my (at least I try to but I’m not always successful doing it) approaches is to ask myself how many hands beat the hand I’m holding. If I can come up with at least three or more, I usually fold to river bets, and almost always to river shoves. You have many hands that realistically beat yours. Three sets, two different str8s, one pr jacks and the occasionally slowplayed/passively played monster.
If the villain won the hand, I think he won with either tens or nines, unless you jammed and he ended up folding.
Thanks for posting as this situation comes up far more frequently than some may imagine, and when it occurs near days end, is even more tricky as some people lose their minds thinking about going into a day 2 short.
One more thought:
After following your WSOP, as I recall you bluffed off more than what you would have liked to do, so that said, I think you jammed the river – turning your hand into a bluff – as the 2 on the river made a wheel and it’s not totally out of line that someone would have 3bet (light) a button raise from the SB, c/betting the flop, checking a turn and shoving the river if he did, in this case you, getting there (a wheel) on the river. If you did, and he folded, it’s because he thought you hit a str8.
If he calls, I think you lost.
Thanks for the comment. Some thoughts/questions:
“Hmmm, let’s start from the beginning as that’s where, as you know, most errors begin. Do you normally 3bet small-mid pairs from the SB? Clearly, that depends, however, depending on the person, isn’t it true that people generally tighten up near end-of-day hands? Villain, as you said, seems to have a clue so his range, even from the button, would appear to be stronger at this time, no?”
I think tightening up at the end of the day and having a clue are inversely correlated. There’s no prize for making Day 2, and if anything having a clue might incline Villain to open a wider range on the button if he thinks BB and I will have tighter ranges as a result. But probably it’s a non-factor in the hand, certainly not as significant as you’re making it.
“Okay, so you 3bet, the BB folds and the Btn calls. What’s he calling with? The flop is good for your hand, and you want to keep the lead so your bet is fine. I might have chosen to 1)bet 1/3 pot or 2) 2/3 pot, but being OOP, near day’s end, and with 1 over card and a flat call from the btn, 1/2 pot, imo, is probably not the best choice. Also, you seem to respect his play (up to that point) so what do you think “he” thought your range was? Normally, 3bets from the SB represent strength, so he has to put you on either 1) a really strong hand or 2) complete air.”
I don’t follow a lot of this. What makes 1/3 or 2/3 pot better than 1/2? Also I’m not sure why you’re saying my 3B range would have to be polarized?
“You said you were willing to call off from the start. If so, why not jam pf?”
Good question. I think my equity is a little better against his jamming range than his range for calling a jam. Also jamming eliminates the really juicy prospect of him 4bet-folding. And I’d rather keep a wide/balanced 3bet range than do something like jamming that reveals my hand as “medium-strength” and subtracts all those medium-strength hands from my small 3b range.
“I think you have to check and be willing to call it all off. Your hand at this point is too strong to fold but to be clear, I think you have the worst hand.”
Why do you want to call with the worst hand?
“One of my (at least I try to but I’m not always successful doing it) approaches is to ask myself how many hands beat the hand I’m holding. If I can come up with at least three or more, I usually fold to river bets, and almost always to river shoves. You have many hands that realistically beat yours. Three sets, two different str8s, one pr jacks and the occasionally slowplayed/passively played monster.”
You must fold to a lot of river bets.
“Thanks for posting as this situation comes up far more frequently than some may imagine, and when it occurs near days end, is even more tricky as some people lose their minds thinking about going into a day 2 short.”
Thanks for the comment. Hope I didn’t come across as defensive/combative – just wanted to provide some feedback on how you’re thinking through some of these spots. The main takeaway is that I think you’d be better off if you focused on the structural elements of the situation (position, pot size, stacks, etc) rather than assumptions about what’s “usual”. Good players know as much about what’s usual/expected as you do, and I think you just end up getting into head games with them when you try to decide “A 3bet is usually strong and he expects me to expect him to to expect that, so his 3bet is probably weak” or whatever.
I’ll work backwards…:-)
—“Thanks for the comment. Hope I didn’t come across as defensive/combative – just wanted to provide some feedback on how you’re thinking through some of these spots. The main takeaway is that I think you’d be better off if you focused on the structural elements of the situation (position, pot size, stacks, etc) rather than assumptions’s about what’s “usual”. Good players know as much about what’s usual/expected as you do, and I think you just end up getting into head games with them when you try to decide “A 3bet is usually strong and he expects me to expect him to to expect that, so his 3bet is probably weak” or whatever.”
Nope, appreciate all feedback. It why I’m a fan. As for structure, it’s precisely what I do, always and always. Where I do get into trouble, and I think it’s far more ubiquitous than not for those striving to become better (or are already good) “thinking” players, is to think on higher levels than most players think. So you’re admonition(s) is well-founded. I hadn’t read any of the earlier posted replies (for whatever reason they didn’t appear – at first, in my browser), so my comments were/are, totally fresh, i.e., without any influence from others.
My initial thoughts on this hand was why you chose to 3bet 88 from the SB, after providing info on the Villain. So my “thinking” came to the fore. You didn’t, maybe you won’t, disclose why you chose to 3bet as opposed to flatting. (I’ll come back to this point later)
—“You must fold to a lot of river bets.”
Actually, I’ve learned to fold to more river bets over time. I’ll quote A. Esfandiari and Sam Trickett here, they basically say the same thing: “My poker earnings have risen considerably the moment I stopped being curious on the river.” Not verbatim quotes as I basically combined the same inferences together . Antonio says his winnings would be a million dollars more if he stopped calling river bets and Trickett states his earnings have risen doing the same…, stop being curious on rivers. As in most things poker related, “it depends.” I’ve made my share of great hero calls. The real key to the river however, is what happens in prior streets as you know. I’m totally interested in why you chose to check the turn as opposed to betting it. IMO, regardless of what actually happened in this hand, the odds of you winning this hand, as it played out, went way up if you 2 barreled it. JMO.
—“Why do you want to call with the worst hand?”
I don’t. But I (if I was you in this hand) put myself into this position by checking the turn. I gave a free card and know less of where I am in the hand than I did prior to the turn. Again, I’m anxious to learn what you thought he had, i.e., specific hands or ranges. From your comments, it seems implied that he was in the hand with a wider range than I would have given him credit for. Had he shown any previous stubbornness? How often did you see him float? He started the hand with 50BBs. He has 37bigs going to the river. On 2nd thought, no, I wouldn’t have called a river shove for 37BBs, I am in error with that comment. Actually, if I checked the river I don’t know what I would have called a river bet as I said before, a lot of hands beat me, so if anything, I’m betting and re-evaluating any action by the V. I would, hating it all the way most likely, make my river decisions on any real life read of the player.
—“Good question. I think my equity is a little better against his jamming range than his range for calling a jam. Also jamming eliminates the really juicy prospect of him 4bet-folding. And I’d rather keep a wide/balanced 3bet range than do something like jamming that reveals my hand as “medium-strength” and subtracts all those medium-strength hands from my small 3b range.”
Going back to the “over-thinking” elements I used in the hand analysis (of your hand), jamming 100BBs is not something I would choose normally, if ever, in this situation. So we agree. However, you did say you were willing, almost expectantly so, willing to call or cr jam (again, for 100BBs, your stack, or an effective stack of 50bbs), so this is why I asked. And why the “day’s end hands” seemed to be important, after all, you did include that so I assumed (incorrectly?) that you were thinking about that in the hand.
–“I don’t follow a lot of this. What makes 1/3 or 2/3 pot better than 1/2? Also I’m not sure why you’re saying my 3B range would have to be polarized?”
Not always, to my chagrin, but I try, to follow Ed Miller’s advice about planning hands. 1/3 pot cbets seem to have become the norm today, much like PF OR to 2.2x. Please remember, I’m commenting based on your hand information and you stating you were willing to get it all in.
You said, “My intention is to shove or call to a 4-bet if Villain shoves, though I won’t be too thrilled about it. I think that’s better than the alternatives….”
If you were willing to do this, then inducing a shove on the flop (some less-skilled players may interpret a 1/3pot cbet as weak – you never mention whether you thought the villain was a recreational player or not) is nearly the same as jamming/calling a 4bet pf from the V, no? You were prepared, almost excited, to get it all in or am I missing that? I hope you’re not taking offense at this, seriously, it’s not intended, I’m anxious to learn your thoughts so I can improve my game. It’s why I’m here and why I listen to yours and Nate’s podcasts. I’m sorry I left Vegas before your little get-together.
As to the 2/3 cbet, my intent there is to take it down right now and have him fold any weak jacks or AQ, AK, Qx, Kx as any turn and/or river bets should indicate that I was willing to play for stacks. Is the V willing at that time, with a marginal hand, willing to play for his tournament life with a weak holding? After all, I did (you that is) 3bet from the SB, indicating strength. 1/2 pot is soooo standard to recreational players that I find so many are now floating and honestly, with eights, do I really want to see a Q+ on the turn? No!!! Just my comments, anxious to hear yours.
—“I think tightening up at the end of the day and having a clue are inversely correlated. There’s no prize for making Day 2, and if anything having a clue might incline Villain to open a wider range on the button if he thinks BB and I will have tighter ranges as a result. But probably it’s a non-factor in the hand, certainly not as significant as you’re making it.”
My thinking may be waay offbase here. Here’s why: Empirical experience playing in some decently sized tournaments, e.g., WSOP circuits, a WPT, WSOP and some of the smaller tours, albeit not in as many as I would like, but I’ve experienced and witnessed some strange end-of-days play. So I very well may be over-thinking on this point. Point taken, thanks.
And thanks again for your reply and hopefully, a reply to this post.
Folding to too many river bets is obv very exploitable, but you’ll also never get the satisfaction of snapping off a river bluff with J-high.
“As for structure, it’s precisely what I do, always and always. Where I do get into trouble, and I think it’s far more ubiquitous than not for those striving to become better (or are already good) “thinking” players, is to think on higher levels than most players think.”
When I say structural, I mean just the opposite of this. Like, there are reasons why an UTG raise ought to be stronger than a button raise regardless of who the Villain is or what he’s thinking. I don’t have to get inside of his head to see that. Likewise a guy’s calling range should be wider when you bet 1/4 pot than when you bet full pot. That’s not based on any assumptions about how he’ll perceive a small or large bet, it’s just math. So all the stuff about time of day I wouldn’t factor into my decision unless I had a specific reason to do so – otherwise I would just treat it as irrelevant because there’s no reason it SHOULD be relevant and he hasn’t given me any reason to think it matters to him (because you’re right that it will to some people).
“—”You must fold to a lot of river bets.”
Actually, I’ve learned to fold to more river bets over time. I’ll quote A. Esfandiari and Sam Trickett here, they basically say the same thing: “My poker earnings have risen considerably the moment I stopped being curious on the river.” Not verbatim quotes as I basically combined the same inferences together . Antonio says his winnings would be a million dollars more if he stopped calling river bets and Trickett states his earnings have risen doing the same…, stop being curious on rivers. As in most things poker related, “it depends.” I’ve made my share of great hero calls. The real key to the river however, is what happens in prior streets as you know. I’m totally interested in why you chose to check the turn as opposed to betting it. IMO, regardless of what actually happened in this hand, the odds of you winning this hand, as it played out, went way up if you 2 barreled it. JMO.”
There’s a big difference between folding bluff-catchers on the river and folding hands as strong as the 4th nuts. My comment was a little tongue-in-cheek 🙂
“I gave a free card and know less of where I am in the hand than I did prior to the turn.”
How is that possible? We got two new pieces of information: we know what the river card is, and we know that he chose not to bet the turn. You might know less than you would know had you bet the turn, but you’ve also put less money into the pot. You certainly know more than you did before you checked the turn.
“Going back to the “over-thinking” elements I used in the hand analysis (of your hand), jamming 100BBs is not something I would choose normally, if ever, in this situation. So we agree. However, you did say you were willing, almost expectantly so, willing to call or cr jam (again, for 100BBs, your stack, or an effective stack of 50bbs), so this is why I asked.”
It was an effective stack of 40 BBs. I wanted to give my plan for a raise in each street so that there was room to talk about earlier street play as well, but I didn’t think it was all that likely to come up, especially not preflop.
“As to the 2/3 cbet, my intent there is to take it down right now and have him fold any weak jacks or AQ, AK, Qx, Kx as any turn and/or river bets should indicate that I was willing to play for stacks. Is the V willing at that time, with a marginal hand, willing to play for his tournament life with a weak holding? After all, I did (you that is) 3bet from the SB, indicating strength. 1/2 pot is soooo standard to recreational players that I find so many are now floating and honestly, with eights, do I really want to see a Q+ on the turn? No!!! Just my comments, anxious to hear yours.”
Getting him to fold a Jack is out of the question at any point post-flop. I bet the flop, willing to get it in, because I think I’m pretty well ahead of his range. So it’s certainly not my intention to communicate to him that I am ready to play for stacks and that he should go ahead and fold everything I’m beating. In fact inducing floats is one of the assets of a “standard” bet. You are only looking at worst-case turn scenarios, and actually even a Q is not that bad.
“And thanks again for your reply and hopefully, a reply to this post.”
You’re welcome and you’re welcome 🙂
Alright, trying to comment without having read any other comments. Good thing I thought to write this in notepad and then copy/paste it over.
Pre: I debated 3betting vs flatting here for a bit, but 3betting strikes me as better against a good player. I’d be more likely to flat against someone I think is nitty, not-so-positionally-aware, and passive postflop. Or if BB telegraphs disinterest. Or if there were more MTT life considerations than there are in a spot far from the bubble in which you only have half your stack at risk.
Perhaps my opinion is being poisoned by the results, but I _really_ don’t like making it 3k OOP with these stack sizes. With 40 beebs behind, a good player is going to flat this way too often getting almost 2.75:1, and then he’ll be able to defend many boards extremely well against your exact hand. There’s no way this outcome is superior to him either (a) folding away his significant equity + future positional edge or (b) getting it in pre against a hand that has decent equity against his (presumably) balanced 4bet shoving range. So, at a minimum I would make it 3400, but perhaps something conspicuously large like 4200 would be even better. This way, you give him an opportunity to make an immediate (and fairly big) fundamental theorem of poker mistake when he does stuff like shove 77- or fold Q9o. And if he flats a huge 3bet, you get some credible information about the increased strength of his range.
Flop: Plan seems fine here. Honestly I’d be surprised if a good player raised me on this flop, but if he did I think there’s enough 7x/gutshots-or-overs-with-bdfd to give you 33% equity even if he’s ripping it with the occasional Jx or slowplayed overpair. Sizing also seems fine; flop is too dry to bet bigger with your cbetting range.
Turn: I almost certainly start with a check here. The main consequences of betting are that he folds when he has a sliver of equity and calls when you have a sliver of equity. You can probably construct a nice balanced 2barrelling range of flush draws and TPTK+ without having to put TT-88 in there (of course we’ll also have to check some strong hands so we don’t get exploited when TT-88+ is the tippy top of our checking range). I’m not sure I really want to call it off if he jams or CRAI if he bets. I’m having some trouble constructing a jamming range against which we have 33% equity; he has to be ripping it in with a ton of his floats (turned flush draws, naked gutshots like T9o, overs without flush draws like KQo) and/or checking back a bunch of hands that crush us (unlikely on this increasingly wet board) to make me happy about calling. Like, i think this is a somewhat optimistic range for him jamming the turn and we barely get to breakeven by calling:
Board: Jd 7s 3c 4c
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 32.821% 32.82% 00.00% 10701 0.00 { 88 }
Hand 1: 67.179% 67.18% 00.00% 21903 0.00 { 77-33, AcQc, AJs, AcTc, Ac9c, Ac8c, Ac7c, Ac6c, Ac5c, A2s, KJs+, KcTc, Kc9c, Kc8c, Ks8s, Kc7c, QcJc, QcTc, Qc9c, J7s+, Tc9c, Tc8c, Tc7c, 9c8c, 9c7c, 9c6c, 8c7c, 8c6c, 8c5c, 7c6c, 75s, 64s+, 54s, AJo, KJo, QJo, J9o+ }
River: I really waffled between options here. But I think I settled on betting. It’s tough for him to have a jack or better after he checks back the turn. Why wouldn’t he bet small on the turn with AJ+ to induce from your overs, worse pairs, and draws? I don’t think he’s ever checking back a set on this turn either; with everyone’s ranges wide it’s now too wet a board and too big a pot to check back. I would expect him to bet small to induce with those monsters as well. Maybe he could check back the turn with exactly 65cc or with some of the weaker jacks in his range. But I think when he checks the turn much of his range consists of stuff that wants to get to showdown (or at least see a river) against what he perceives as your 3betting range. 7x, good A-hi, small pairs that now have a gutshot. These hands have little incentive to bet the turn, because you’ll just fold overcard hands that they’re crushing, and it really sucks for him to bet-fold his pair+gutter equity if you rip it over his turn bet. These hands are often just going to check back the river if we check.
I’ve spent way too much time thinking about this, and honestly I want to just quit and read the responses, but I think I’d bet something pretty big, like 6600, planning on folding to a jam. I don’t think people are suicide bluffing in this spot so you don’t have to feel bad about folding. Also, it’s a size that looks plausibly bluffy, and if the guy herocalls with 7x or A3 or whatnot he still has more than 10 beebs.
Anyway, Nate hit the nail on the head when he tweeted that preflop sizing mattered a lot. Maybe it’s results-orientation, but the small preflop 3b seems like the kind of small mistake on an early street that not only prevented your opponent from making a big mistake, but opened the door for you to make larger mistakes (or at least have to face extremely tough/marginal decisions) on later streets.
Note that the turn range is in part optimistic because it includes hands I think he’d check back in the river section. If the turn range is optimistic in different ways (more of those naked gutshots and 2-over floats, or that he bet/calls with some of those pair+gutty hands) it becomes much more of a call/CRAI.
I love these posts. Thanks.
Thanks for the compliment, Nate. I’m still torn on the river sizing. If opponent is capable of a suicidal river bluffraise, b/f 6600 is kind of a disaster for our exact hand (it might not be a disaster against our range as long as we get to the river this way with hands we’re willing to b/c with…seems plausible for 22 and 65s, maybe JJ [if we choose to bet flop with it] or A5s [if we don’t rip turn with it]). The river-seemingly-no-fold-equity-bluffraise just one of those things that you see so damn rarely (for good reason, opponent’s river raising range has to be value heavy to make Andrew indifferent to calling with bluffcatchers, it’s tough for Andrew to think opponent has a value hand other than A5 or 22, opponent’s risking his MTT life, etc etc).
So, yeah, maybe betting the river smaller is better. If opponent is likely to turn hands like small pairs/missed straight draw into bluffs on the river, we should probably just bet something like 3200 and call a shove. This sizing might be better because you lose less when he has one of the bluffcatchers that beats you (QJ-J8, TT-99, which are also the bluffcatchers he’s least likely to turn into bluffs); of course, you win less when he calls with the bluffcatchers you do beat, but you win more when you b/c against the hands he turns into bluffs.
OK, I’m not doing anything better yet today, so here’s some math. It’s based on a bunch of assumptions, but let’s see if it gets us any closer to figuring out what river line is best:
EV(river bet/planning to fold) = (%opp folds)(pot size) + (%opp calls and we win)(pot size + bet size) – (%we lose at showdown or fold to river raise)(bet size)
OK, let’s assume opponent’s range is something like: {AxQx,AxTx,Ax7x-Ax2x,AxQy,AxTy,Ax7y,Ax3y,KxJx,Kx7x,Kx3x,KxJy,QxJx,QxJy,JxTx-Jx8x,JxTy,Jx9y,TT-55,Tx7x,9x7x,8x7x,8x6x,7x6x,7x5x,6x4x,22} after he checks back turn. Feel free to quibble over how accurate it is; I think including KJ is pessimistic, but whatever.
Of that range, ~39% is 99+, Jx, A5, and 22. Let’s assume he never folds those. We can figure out how much he has to call with the rest of his range (ie worse than 88) to break even on our river bet. Note that this doesn’t really say much about whether betting is +EV relative to checking: if he’s betting a perfectly balanced river range that makes us indifferent to calling when we check and he bets then our EV of checking is 0 [this is another galactic assumption; our EV of checking is way bigger than 0 in reality, perhaps in part because is range is so weak that he cannot have enough value hands to accomplish this?]).
So, for shits and giggles, let’s see how often he has to call with worse when we jam:
0 = (.61-x)(14200) + (x)(14200 + 13500) – (.39)(13500)
x = -.252
Whoa, x is negative. Guess that means he never has to call with worse to justify shoving against his weak range. Makes sense:
EV(river jam) = .61(14200) + (0)(14200+13500) – (.39)(13500) = 3397
Even if we include more hands that beat us (AJ and slowplayed 65, bringing the “never fold” % up to 43%) a river jam is still +EV, and will be until opponent has enough hands in his range that beat us. Given that he checked the turn, it’s really tough for him to have enough hands better than 88 in his range. Obviously, a river jam will be even more +EV if it gets him to fold TT-99.
OK, so what happens if we bet 6600 and we assume he’s never suicide bluffing? Let’s use the pessimistic range. Also, let’s again assume he never calls with worse:
EV(river 6600) = .57(14200) + (0)(14200+6600) – .43(6600) = 5256
Let’s assume he’s suicide bluffing 5% of the time and calling with worse 15% of the time (pulling these numbers out of my behind):
EV(river 6600) = (.57-.2)(14200) + (.15)(14200+6600) – (.43+.10)(6600) = 5206
Not much of a change. I’m sure one could graph this and get some sort of interesting result that shows how much he’ll have to suicide bluff to make it -EV for us to bet.
OK, now I’ve spent too much time on this again. Instead of checking it and making sure things are correct, I’m going to throw this up there and let everyone else pillory me for my mistakes.
I want to ask you Andrew; do you think we get more value from our hand when we 3 bet smaller to like 2700 against this type of opponent considering he is getting better odds to call preflop with a wide range that were ahead of and also because by raising smaller we can induce a 4 bet possibly more often because our 3 bet represents a smaller percentage of his stack? I understand that we are out of position but isnt he almost at least always calling this off in position? I honestly think we can bet smaller on the flop because of this board texture being so dry and the fact that c betting is so standard that he is prob calling this as well. When we check the turn i think it underrepresents our hand a bit since were checking to a relatively harmless 4 and if we did have a jack if would def be a good spot to induce on the turn and quite often get a call on the river because of how weak it looks. I think we can bet the turn again here for half the pot calling a shove because if hes calling us on the flop i dont see him folding the turn on this board. Whats going through my mind this whole process is that villain has a lot more little pairs/ drawings hand and over cards that bet folding the river is prob best. This is my thinking behind the river bet: We bet about 5800-6200 therefore if he raises us all in we can safely fold because we would be getting really good odds on a call and it doesnt look like we are ever folding after that bet.( He prob knows that and im sure he can counter also by raising us all in). However i just dont think there is enough dynamics or history between the two for him to be able to pull that off against a total random. It would be genius but very difficult to pull off. Also by bet folding that amound we can get all those little pairs that hit the board to possibly call as well as him hearing us with a high because of our weakly played hand.
I want to ask you Andrew; do you think we get more value from our hand when we 3 bet smaller to like 2700 against this type of opponent considering he is getting better odds to call preflop with a wide range that were ahead of and also because by raising smaller we can induce a 4 bet possibly more often because our 3 bet represents a smaller percentage of his stack? I understand that we are out of position but isnt he almost at least always calling this off in position? I honestly think we can bet smaller on the flop because of this board texture being so dry and the fact that c betting is so standard that he is prob calling this as well. When we check the turn i think it underrepresents our hand a bit since were checking to a relatively harmless 4 and if we did have a jack if would def be a good spot to induce on the turn and quite often get a call on the river because of how weak it looks. I think we can bet the turn again here for half the pot calling a shove because if hes calling us on the f flop i dont see him folding the turn on this board. Whats going through my mind this whole process is that villain has a lot more little pairs/ drawings hand and over cards that bet folding the river is prob best. This is my thinking behind the river bet: We bet about 5800-6200 therefore if he raises us all in we can safely fold because we would be getting really good odds on a call and it doesnt look like we are ever folding after that bet.( He prob knows that and im sure he can counter also by raising us all in). However i just dont think there is enough dynamics or history between the two for him to be able to pull that off against a total random. It would be genius but very difficult to pull off. Also by bet folding that amound we can get all those little pairs that hit the board to possibly call as well as him hearing us with a high because of our weakly played hand.
Maybe this is horrible, but after his flop call and turn check, I am probably check/folding river.
It seems like there are some surface level reasons for him to mess with you but also: its the end of the day, where people often tighten up; he’s committing about 1/3 of his stack preflop and on the flop, in a spot where you can just jam turn and take his play away. This seems like it makes his turn check stronger too. If he was looking to bluff, he gave hero two chances to take the pot away.
And is he really going to value jam worse than 88 very often on the river? It seems optimistic to me. I also think making a value/blocked bet isnt too great either, since he can often either get away from weak pairs or turn them into bluffs and take the pot away. He’s probably good enough to pick up on a false commit?
Maybe this is too nitty, but I think getting to showdown cheap is fine, a bet is very thin value, and he is unlikely to make a move at this point in the hand. Check/fold, final answer
i think hero’s original plan was to commit until the turn. Once villain checks back the turn, all of a sudden it becomes interesting.
Obviously the key is to figure out what his range is to the river. I guess what makes Andrew think this is a tricky one is that a very good player can have a wider range until the river than average players? and having little information of his postflop tendencies made things even worse.
I’m having a hard time breaking down his range in this hand. I don’t think he’s calling hero’s 3bet with small to medium pocket pairs bc those hands are tough to play hand are good 4bet shoving hands pre(?). So i guess that leaves boardway hands and slow played monsters as well as some speculative hands (T9s etc…) that he’s calling hero’s 3bet with the intention of making a move postflop.
On the flop i think he’s calling with his value hands and some of his floats. But once he checks back the turn, i don’t think he’s going to have too many air in his range. After all, the point of calling with air on the flop is to bet the turn. Plus all hero did was 3bet vs a later position open, cbet on the flop, and check the turn (probably giving up). He should have some confidence that his floating would work. Therefore i think he’s going to have value hands that’s good enough for his whole stack or some showdown hands. (78s,A7s,etc..) The only air i can come up with is something like A5s with back door draws that he call hero’s flop bet with.
Given Andrew’s description of Villain being a very competent player, i’m having a hard time to exclude much of his value hands (Jx+) after he checks back the turn. If he had KK or AJs, i can see him check back the turn hope hero would pick up something on the river or bluff at it. The board is dry and there’s one bet left going to the pot anyway. Also in Villain’s eyes, what’s he going to value with KK on the turn?
Thus I think on the river he’s going to have a lot of value hands and some showdown hands as well as a small portion of air in his range. Which makes betting very little sense. Our goal should be try to get our hand to showdown.
i would check on the river, see how much he bets and guess his bluff frequency to decide if i want to call the bet. I think he should be good enough to turn is showdown hands (Ax, 7x)into bluffs if he realizes those hands aren’t good enough anymore. Also there’s a chance that he waited with his float till the river to pull the trigger. But i wound’t count on him to bluff too often bc the reason i mentioned above. (Hero didn’t show a great deal of strength throughout the hand. That’s makes even Ax has showdown value.)