Today went pretty much perfectly. I had an amazing table draw in the Millionaire Maker, put my money in good several times, busted in just a few hours, got a seat in 10/25 game, won back my MM entry and then some, registered for tomorrow’s $1K turbo, and got home in time to make dinner. I even timed the lights well on the drive back from the Rio.
I don’t think any of the Millionaire Maker hands were terribly interesting (though some were humorous), so here’s one from cash. UTG is the spot at the table, which isn’t to say he’s terrible by any means, but he’s got a huge amount of money in front of him and is a little too eager to stick it into the pot. BB seems to be a very talented player, not sure what either of them thinks of me. BB has 9K, I have 10K, UTG covers us both. One player is away, so game is eight-handed.
UTG opens for $75, I call UTG1, and BB calls.
Flop ($235 in pot) Ah 8s 3c. Checks around.
Turn ($235 in pot) Qd. BB bets $150, UTG folds, I raise to $625.
What should my raising range look like? What should BB call with? What should he 3-bet?
AA, KK, QQ, AK and AQ are discounted because you didn’t 3-bet pre. I have to assume that you have non-zero percentage 3-betting in this spot. It could be zero to not scare him out of the pot, but if it is non-zero, then it would definitely include AA, KK, QQ, AK, and possibly AQ.
So, you can’t count raises with AA, KK, QQ, AK and AQ fully, so you are left with some of those combos. 88, 33, A8s, A3s (the latter two being loose PF calls honestly) are raise combos (those that you played in this way anyway). I would raise KQ, AJ, AT (presumably only ATs) for value, any gutter (KJs, JTs, J9s, T9s) and pair smaller than 8 (22-77, excluding 33, assuming you cold-called with 22+) as semi-bluffs. I can’t think of how much raw air you’d want to be betting here. You’d probably only want to do so, if you feel confident that he is unbalanced in the line that he is using and will fold more often than he should. His line taken could easily be unbalanced, but there’s not enough info to say either way.
BB is going to see your actions thus far and should see your range as fairly strong, but capped. You still have to had cold-called with the rest of the table behind you, so you definitely had incentive to raise to isolate and get equity from your biggest hands, but you didn’t.
Therefore, he should be inclined to 3-bet with all his best hands (Ax, KQ, 88, 33) and thrown in a few bluffs about 30 bluff combos (2:1 value to bluff).
That’s my best guess. A caveat here: I’ve been drinking with my friends all night playing stakes exactly 1/100th of those specified in this post. So take my commentary with a grain of salt! 😉
I imagine you’re doing this to protect yourself from getting exploited when you check back the flop on A/K high boards in future? Because this doesn’t seem like the best way to get value from your good hands.
BB lead into 2 EP players on turn. His range often includes hands with good showdown value (Ax suited, AQ-AT, KQ, QJ/QT/Q9s, some gut-shots for his bluffs).
You are rarely getting folds on the turn. River play will depend on BB’s willingness to bluff catch against you. To him, your range does look polarized to slow-payed sets/two-pairs and gut-shots for your bluffs.
If you want to be balance your raising range on turn after checking back A-high flop, you might want to include the following:
{some combinations of AK-AJ, some combinations of 88 and 33, 86/87/89/8Ts, KJ, KTs, J9s, JTs, 9Ts)
Reasons: Since you’re rarely getting folds on turn, you want to include some strong one pair hands/sets for your value hands that can level BB into a pot-sized call on river. And you need to ensure your bluffs have as many outs as possible. So turning small pairs like 44-77 into a bluff doesn’t seem like a good idea. You should be more inclined to turn 86/87/89/8Ts into bluffs since they have 5 outs against most of his range AND also block the strongest hands in his range (set of 88)
For the same reason, K-high gutshots are better to raise with since you sometimes have 7 outs (the 3 added K outs) against his pair of Q or worse.
Note that I am less inclined to play A8s/A3s this way. With 88/33, you can hope to get paid on later streets if someone has a good ace. So it’s okay to sometimes slow-play those hands on flop. But with A8s/A3s, if you slow-play them on flop, you are just losing value. There are fewer combos of good Aces your opponents are going to pay you off with. No need to scare them away with a big turn raise/pot-sized river bet.
I would follow this up with a pot-sized or bigger bet on almost all rivers with almost this entire range (may be not the smaller gutshots) and let villain worry about bluff catching.
“this doesn’t seem like the best way to get value from your good hands.”
“You are rarely getting folds on the turn.”
How do you reconcile these seemingly contradictory claims?
I’m never going to make a play simply to avoid being exploited. If I were to check back a set on the flop, it would be because I believed I could, on balance, make at least as much money with it that way as if I bet the flop. Now, that may be because Villain will have increased incentive to bluff, bluff-catch, and value bet after I check the flop, and I think that’s related to what you mean by “protect yourself from getting exploited”, but you make it sound like I’d be passing up value in order to achieve some theoretical balance, and that’s not the case.
I said it’s not the best way to get value from your good hands because it relies on villains firing on turn with their showdown hands/bluffs. Once they have fired the turn, they are not folding on turn too often and your slow-play has worked.
Against most live villains though, bet/bet/bet would be more profitable than check/raise/bomb. For one, bet/bet/bet line could invite over-aggressive mistakes from your opponents. Check/Raise/Bomb line forces them to bluff-catch and you miss out on any aggressive leveling mistakes they might make. Very few live villains are 3-betting the turn as a bluff.
These are some easy questions! BB should not have a turn three-betting range here. Your range to raise should look like QQ, AA and T9s. BB should just fold.
And yet you got two of them wrong!
Yeah but I know which two. And who are you to say anyways?
Hero should raise 88, 33 plus a few broadway gutshots for balance.
I guess that means that BB should only call with 33? He’ll be ahead of your range if you are balanced because he blocks your value range.
BB should 3-bet 88 and a few broadway gutshots.
I suspect that you think BB is betting too wide for these ranges to be correct! 8)
I’m not even sure what your preflop range is. I’d guess mostly implied odds hands with some slowplayed value hands, avoiding hands that can be dominated by UTG? So maybe QQ-66, KQs-T9s, and a few combos of AKs and AA-KK?
While you want to playing more against UTG due to his tendencies, he should have a pretty tight range here, so I wouldn’t call too loosely. While sometimes it makes sense to just call a UTG raise from early position with premium hands, I don’t think that makes sense against this player, so I would definitely be 3-betting QQ+, AKs at least. I’m think a good calling range would be AJs, ATs, AQ, KJs+, 22-JJ, suited connectors down to 56s. Your priority is to make nutty hands to take advantage of UTG’s tendencies.
On the flop, I could maybe see betting AQ for value/protection, but I don’t see betting your sets here just because villain shouldn’t have too many aces. I guess you would balance with a few bluffs, probably suited connectors that have running straight and flush draws.
The turn bet from BB should have some weak aces, two pair, and sets, along with bluffs. I would raise my sets for value, along with gutters like KJ and JT as bluffs. The only hand I would expect villain to have that can 3-bet for value would be 88, plus a few combos of bluffs, while he should call first with hands that have blockers to your sets and good value against your bluffs – definitely hands like A8, A3, Q8. Other two pairs seems like pretty reasonable calls, as well as top pairs. I have no clue how wide villains range should be for his turn bet, so it’s hard to say how many combos he should be calling with.