What’s Your Play? Middle Pair, Coordinated Board Results

Thanks for all the comments on this week’s What’s Your Play?, and sorry that I’m late in getting results up. My weekend turned out to be a lot busier – in a good way – than I’d anticipated.

Preflop

I’ll start with a quick note on the raise vs fold pre-flop decision, which I think against Villain 2 in a vacuum is a close one. Obviously it’d be nice to win the pot immediately given the opportunity, and I think we can with some frequency (and failing that, with a flop c-bet). However, Hero’s image is bad for this purpose, and pre-flop is one of the easiest times for a scared money player to get stubborn, because it’s a comfortable and familiar spot to him. Four-betting light is not going to be uncomfortable for him, as he won’t have a tough decision if he continues to get action, and he can also painlessly choose to call and get stubborn postflop, which again doesn’t require a lot of stones in a heads-up pot where he knows my range is wide. I don’t think a raise is bad, just that it isn’t a slam-dunk obvious move.

The arguments for calling are several. Hero’s hand plays well post-flop in position, and though rarer, higher-margin spots will likely present themselves where we can put Villain 2 in some more uncomfortable spots if we suspect that he’s often making a play at Villain 1.

Speaking of Villain 1, he’s the best argument for just calling. When your decision is otherwise close, you might as well keep a weaker player in the pot rather than get it heads up with a stronger player.

Hand Reading: Villain 1

This is a good flop for Villain 1’s range, and he could easily have flopped a monster. Just because they are in his range doesn’t mean he has them, though. Remember that for every combination of T9 in his range, there are more combinations of 98 or 76. For every combination of 99, there are twice as many combos of 55. It’s just not that easy to flop a monster, so there’s no reason to be scared of the flop immediately.

Personally I think a snap-call on a coordinated board like this is a good reason to discount monsters. I find that although weaker players love slowplaying, especially against someone they consider aggressive, they also hate getting drawn out on, and this is a draw-heavy board. It seems to me he would at least consider raising.

Some commenters thought otherwise, though. Even if you want to leave monsters in his range, they are still not that common, and you still have to consider his entire range. Suppose that you think he could play a monster, a draw, or a marginal made hand this way (all of these were possibilities suggested by more than one commenter). You could use a timing or sizing tell to double the likelihood that he has a monster and they still wouldn’t predominate in his range. It takes a really strong read to promote a small part of a player’s range to the dominant part, and we don’t have one here.

Though he goes on to argue for a fold, I agree with Botswana Nick that, “My problem with this is that usually this line (check-call the flop, donk the turn oop) from an extremely passive player often indicates a hand that has greatly improved on the turn (they are straightforward players after all). But it is hard to see how the 4s helps any hand (only possibilities are 44 or 75d, or maybe 54d?).”

I expect this player to show up most often with some combination of a draw and a marginal made hand. That range includes hands that beat Hero and that have decent equity against him, but overall it’s not a bad range for us.

Hand Reading: Villain 2

We can straight eliminate monsters from his range as early as the flop. He’s not likely to check them, but he’s super-unlikely to overcall them and then just call the turn bet. I’d also expect him to bet most of his better draws, though that’s somewhat more player-dependent. Given the read that he likes to pot control, I could see pair/draw combos and maybe even overpairs being in his range, though that’s more likely after the flop call than the turn call. Basically I think he has a range of mostly made hands that is ahead of Hero.

What to Do About It

JD nails it with his suggestion:

“I think a raise (more specifically raise-fold) is in order. You want to bet an amount that will get villain 1 to call with his pure draws (possibly folding some pair + GS hands but that might be wishful thinking) and get villain 2 to fold top pair hands. Given your read that villain 2 has a “decided cautious/pot-control streak to him” I wouldn’t think he wants to play for stacks with top pair in a 3 way pot.”

A big mistake that I see a is making your first priority showing down the best hand when you have it. Your first thought should be, “How can I win this pot?” (or “How can I win the most money?”, really), not necessarily do I or don’t I have the best hand. Although it’s true that Hero probably has enough equity to call here, that doesn’t make it the best play. And if you raise, it’s not primarily to figure out whether you have the best hand – it’s to make better hands fold and/or worse hands call and/or worse hands with equity fold. This is a spot where Hero can represent a monster much more effectively than either of his opponents, and the simple fact that we have some showdown value shouldn’t keep us from doing that, especially when it’s possible that worse hands could call the raise.

Although it’s true that Hero’s image for this isn’t ideal for this play, you have to ask yourself what are these guys really going to do about it? Is Villain 2 going to put in 200 BB with an overpair in a single-raised pot when every single better hand is in Hero’s range? If he calls the turn with T8, is he going to close his eyes and call a shove on any river? Making Villain 1 fold a better hand will be trickier, but it’s possible, and regardless I’m less worried about his range than Villain 2’s. As Hunsucker says, “Even if your image is aggro, even semi competent players should know if they flat your turn raise, they are facing a big bet on the river. They simply cannot call with the huge portion of their range.” For more on this point, see What Are You So Afraid Of?

Calling and Bluffing

A few people advocate calling and then trying to bluff certain rivers. Although Hero might occasionally get away with representing a draw that it turns out neither Villain had, this won’t come up often, and bluffing blank rivers would be a disaster. By calling, Hero eliminates his ability to represent monsters and takes away the opportunity to leverage his stack. They key to running a big bluff, especially when your image is bad, is to put your opponents in spots where, even if they are suspicious, they are too scared or otherwise handcuffed to play back at you. It’s simply too easy for someone to call when all the draws miss and they know that that one call will guarantee them a showdown with no further investment. Stefan puts it well: “If you are going ot bluff at this pot you cant really just call the turn then bet a blank on the river just doesnt look as good or seem as believable as the whole raise turn fire blank river story.”

Results

I raised to $240, and they both folded. Going much smaller than this would be a mistake, because it starts to reduce the risk to Villain 1’s stack. This is the size I’d want to raise with a monster so that I could shove for less than pot on the river, so it’s the same amount I want to raise with a bluff in order to threaten Villain’s stack and possibly even set up a river shove.

What I would have done on the river would depend a lot on who called. Most likely I’d look to check it back against Villain 1 and bluff against Villain 2.