I haven’t done one of these in a while, so here’s a simple little spot to get us thinking again. Playing $5/$10/$20 NLHE. UTG1 is a better-than-average player for the game but definitely on the nitty side. I’ve never played with BB before but he seems a little less straight-forward, in a good way, than your average live player, despite his very short stack. I don’t think he’s formed much of an impression of me.
UTG1 opens to $60 off of a $3000 stack. I call with 8h 7h on the button (I cover him). The BB squeezes to $160 with $300 behind. UTG1 folds, and I call.
Flop ($399 in pot) 5h 4h 2c. Villain checks. Hero?
Post your thoughts, questions, and preferred play here. I’ll respond to comments throughout the week and post my own thoughts along with results on Friday.
If you choose to check the flop, please consider your play facing a bet (probably a shove) on blank turns.
Hi! Why this is a call for you Preflop?
Pot odds. Getting 3:1, the call is just barely a mistake if Villain has an overpair 100% of the time. Give him AK as well and it’s a clear call.
Ahhh cool so it depends on if we give him AQ+, AJs+ – makes sense answers the same Q I posed in my post. If we feel certain of an over-pair read (for whatever reason, not necessarily this villain but with these stacks etc), it’s ok to fold here?
I think I check behind. Following your read, he could have anything from AA to ? – and I have nothing to lose by checking back because his stack size limits everything. Our stack is so dominating I fear no leverage and feel I have no leverage to some degree. By checking behind I think I leave him in the max confusion about my holding. If the turn is anything that helps me, I understand I’ve committed myself from my checkback. I’d re-assess the turn, knowing I’d call on an 8 or 7 (and any card that gave me a made hand of course). Any card over my 8 that hits the turn and he bets any reasonable amount I probably fold – I figure he’s not bluffing worse than my existing hand.
Basically, if I bet when checked to on the flop I’m committing to pay $300 total and he’s in the BB – less likely of an air squeeze.
weird action and squeeze size. If villain is good I expect the weird sizing can include AA where he expected both of you to call and was hoping to setup a triple up. You have a lot of equity right now vs AA and the gutterball would be so delicious I would have to check in position.
If he jams a brick turn it should be an easy fold.
villain has very few heart draws here as played. AKhh and AQhh open shove, so while we usually don’t have great implied odds to check and hope to bink a heart he can easily have a big overpaid or two big cards with a single heart that can call a turn shove if we do hit a heart. If an offsuit 6 hits I would probably bet small maybe $120 to setup the river.
Put the villain all in for $300 into a $399 pot. Your hand has its highest equity against villain’s range on the flop, so that’s when you want to bet.
My first instinct would be to shove, expecting him to call close to 100% of the time. I can see the merits of the check back, but I’d find it really painful to have to fold this great draw on the turn with the river still unseen. With the equity we have and the amount in the pot already, shoving the flop can never really be bad, but various bad things can happen on the turn, whether it’s hitting a pair and getting it in behind with only one card left, folding the turn to a hand we were a favorite over on the flop, or hitting a flush only to have the guy get away from it.
On further reflection, though, I think I also like the check-back, just because you say this guy is a little tricky and unorthodox. That probably makes him more likely to be inducing with a pair than checking a whiffed AK… if the turn comes an A or a K then, and he’s got JJ or whatever, he may give us another free card, which would be great. Also makes it less regrettable to have to fold the turn if it blanks, because we’ll know our equity is crap at that point.
Hero shoves. I think this situation is analogous to toy games discussed early in The Mathematics of Poker. Good draws (with close to 50% equity), like we have here, benefit from getting all-in on the flop.
If we check behind on the flop and then villain bets a blank turn, it will likely be +EV to call. However, our expectation is higher still by simply jamming the flop.
How can getting all on any turn be lower EV than getting all in the flop? Aren’t they functionally the same thing?
Yes, if we could profitably call any turn (rather than most or many turns) then they’d functionally be the same. But there will be non-blank turns where we won’t have a +EV call and will have to fold. We should therefore shove the flop to allow us to see all rivers.
I see only two options – option 1- check with a plan to give up if we miss the turn and he jams -This maximizes your preflop call by letting you see four cards for the price of 3. Option 2: go ahead and put him all-in on the flop – you may get him to fold overs and if not you guarantee seeing all five cards.
Making any other bet on the flop seems terrible. If he’s going to fold to the smaller bet he will fold the bigger one (so no difference) and if he doesn’t fold I don’t see any way he’s not getting the rest in on the turn or river. Maybe he checks the turn and river??? doubtful if you check the flop – so the cheaper way to get to the turn is a check and the only way to get to the river is to put the $300 in one way or another – so why not put it in all at once rather than in two bets. I think its pretty close to a 50/50 between the two options, and I think I break that tie based on some physical read/gameflow/or how it might affect my table image going forward (Do I want to look aggressive or more cautious?) or whether or not I’m up or down in the session (worse reason but honest)
Im not giving up the river. Put him all in.
My assumption (with his flop check) is his range is heavily weighted towards broadway cards so I shove given the fold equity plus actual equity I have if he calls. The problem would be if my assumption is wrong and his range is skewed more toward slow-playing over-pairs. But I would think many of those would just shove on the flop. Even if his range is 25% over-pairs that always call, 25% broadways that fold, and 50% broadways that call, I think the shove is probably +EV.
Ah it is always a great day to bring dualists back to earth.
We have a third option here. It happens to be the best option in my view. This is to bet small. I think $80 is best.
Villain has some range that is check-folding to a shove. We are actually a considerable favourite against this range, whatever it is. I do not think this range includes AQ AK and AJ. I think more likely it includes hands like KQ and KJ. We invite our opponent to make mistakes against this bet size by potentially check-calling once and check-folding turn.
Against a shove I do not see AK AQ AJ checking to fold. But they might check-call $80 to fold on a Tc turn. We never fold after betting $80 — if they check-shove, if they call and shove any turn, if they call and check the turn — and therefore we never surrender our equity share of the pot. We also never encounter the key difficulty with checking back, not getting money into this pot. A minor bonus is that we never freeroll KQ type hands for a 4-5 outer into a profitable situation.
We shouldn’t be trying to finagle our way around villain’s value range, which is probably most of their hands. But we can maybe get a check-call from AJ that would otherwise check-call an all-in or play well against us on the turn should the flop check through. The times that AJ checks the turn to check fold are just massive. So even though that is a tiny proportion of scenarios, we should try to get them in our favour, because the majority of outcomes are a wash here, we’re going to run our equity out against a range of pairs, premium pairs, and AK/AQ type hands.
Interesting re the $80, pretty outside the square there.
Word to the ‘wise’: If you’re gonna start a post with a condescending sneer directed at everyone else it’s a good idea to make sure you don’t then go on to talk nonsense (‘superficially clever’ as someone put it below). We know you have a well-honed sense of your own superiority, and it’s your right to maintain it, however misguided it may be , but – for one thing – you should do it while respecting others in the discussion and – for another – you should try not to regularly show up your conceit as a delusion.
I would respond to you at length but I am busy sucking a bag of dicks.
No response needed or desired – just cut out the condescending sneer, have the humility to recognize you may not be as clever as you’d like to believe, and treat others with respect.
You must be a treat at dinner parties!
I wouldn’t take advice from someone who hid behind a cloak of anonymity. Besides you’re preaching to the choir. I’ll condescend you, how about that? You can be a martyr for the lot.
As for “you may not be as clever as you’d like to believe” you need to do some research surely.
:D… popcorn.gif
At first my reaction was to bet something like $100 and call the very likely jam, with the hope that betting small would induce villain to jam his entire range here. If we are putting him on something like {TT+,AK}, we have 49% equity against that range and so that line has an EV of $190 (win $700 49% of the time and lose $300 51%). If villain actually has a wider range and either jams wider or gives us some fold equity by folding some hands, our EV only goes up. If villain folds AK and only check/jams TT+, our profit from this like also increases because we pick up the $400 pot a lot and still have 45% against villain’s jamming range. I think it is very unlikely villain will call our bet on the flop, but if he does, then we get to take our equity to the turn in position and have a good chance to see the river if we choose.
However, if we check back and villain jams his entire range on the turn, it looks like we might make pretty much the same amount by calling any turn where we have 30% or more equity. As it turns out, about 2/3 of the deck is good or neutral for our hand – the bad cards we fold on are 4x,5x or any non-heart 2,3,K or A (17 combos total). If the turn is 9d, Qs, Tc or similar cards, we have ~30.5% our call is around +$5ev.
8.5% – Turn is 6x -> 99%+ equity -> $695ev
17% – Turn is a heart (non-6h) -> 90% equity -> $600ev
12.75% – Turn is 7 or 8 -> ~53% equity -> $235ev
36% – Turn is non-heart A,2,3,4,5,K -> 25-29% equity, we fold -> $0ev
25.75% – Turn is a blank -> 30-31% equity -> $5ev
Our total EV for this line is $192 (8.5% x $695 + 17% x $600 + 12.75% x $235 + 25.75% x $5). This is essentially the same as $190, when you take into account rounding off the figures in the calculation.
That said, I think I prefer the bet on the flop, as this gives villain the chance to make a mistake – maybe folding AK to our bet. Also, it’s possible that if we check back the flop, villain might x/f some of his range when we hit (e.g., if the Ah hits, villain might fold TT or JJ), which would take a chunk out of the check-back EV calculations.
I should clarify that the {TT+,AK} is just an example using a tight range. As it widens, our EV for both lines goes up considerably. I haven’t played with the numbers much, but as more broadway combos are added, the EV of each line appears to increase at about the same rate.
My calculations must be off. Looking at Propokertools simulations, it looks as though our equity is quite robust on various turns and stays above 30% (the amount we need to call a turn shove if we check back) for well over 90% turns. This is the case for a tight range or a wider range for villain:
8h7h vs. {99+,AJ,AQ,AK,KQ,KJs,KTs,QJs,JTs}: http://propokertools.com/simulations/graph_hvr?b=2c4h5h&g=he&h1=8h7h&h2=99%2B%2CAJ%2CAQ%2CAK%2CKQ%2CKxJx%2CKxTx%2CQxJx%2CJxTx&s=generic
8h7h vs. {TT+,AJ,AQ,AK,KQ}: http://propokertools.com/simulations/graph_hvr?b=2c4h5h&g=he&h1=8h7h&h2=TT%2B%2CAJ%2CAQ%2CAK%2CKQ&s=generic
Although not directly relevant for the current question of which line maximizes EV (as Gareth notes, we’re going to run our equity against all of villain’s value range anyway and probably a good part of his bluff range, so it becomes more of a question of what is most likely to induce an exploitable mistake from villain), it suggests that the Mathematics of Poker proposition cited by others in the thread (that we want to get it in on the flop with a monster draw like this) is less compelling when the SPR is low. My recollection is that the conclusion was premised upon the fact that hero might have to fold his equity on blank turns – if the SPR is low enough that hero never has to fold the turn, hero gets to realize his equity even if he checks back.
I’m somewhat new to poker, so my thinking may be elementary, but I would bet what ever equity we have against the top of villain’s range. Pre-flop I would put that at big pairs and suited connectors, JJ+, AJ+ suited. Given that thinking I’d bet 1/3 pot and re-assess on the turn.
You say re-assess on the turn, but what are you expecting to happen when you bet? What hands do you think Villain will call/fold/raise? FWIW, I’d be surprised if you got many calls, meaning you won’t be able to “re-assess”. Either he folds and you win, or he shoves and you have to make your decision immediately.
What’s the minimum buy-in for this game?
Given his stack size (I’m guessing he bought in for more than he has?) I would put him on either trying to push everyone out of the pot, or an isolation raise.
If he shoved I would call.
Good thing to be aware of. Minimum buy is $500, which is what he bought in for (the game is technically just 5/10, but about half the time we play it with a straddle).
What I meant to ask is what are the hands you expect him to fold when you bet the flop?
“I would put him on either trying to push everyone out of the pot, or an isolation raise.”
I think you’ll find it’s more useful to think in terms of specific hands/ranges rather than more abstract stuff like this. OK, so it’s an isolation raise… with what? Or he’s trying to push people out… with what?
I’m expecting villain to fold any 2 broadway that doesn’t have a heart in it, and calling any heart and any pair.
Is villain pot committed pre-flop?
I can’t think of any hand that he’d be correct to fold pre-flop for $300 more. Whether he would or not… I’ve seen crazier stuff.
First off unless I am missing something, I do not see how BBs raise pre is a “squeeze” when he 3b a raise and a call by less than 3x the original raise (this is irrelevant to the thread, but just calling it out)
Second, given stack sizes I fold this 100% of the time as we have very poor implied odds.
Third, short of flopping 2p+ this is as good of a flop for our hand as we could have ever hoped for. I am getting it in and am very happy about it. I am not sure about the line of betting 100 and then calling a jam, since we are minimizing fold equity for no reason (in case he has AK or the likes). given that he has less than a pot size bet left, we need 2.3 : 1, so even if he shoved and shows his hand to us I am only folding if he shows Ah 3h. I am calling everything else (sets, higher FD which have us in a bad shape but we still call due to equity)
just to clarify, on the second point, I mean fold pre. as mentioned on the third point flop is a very happy jam given amount of money on flop and remaining stack.
1. I don’t mean to imply anything about his range when I say “squeeze”, I just mean that he’s 3-betting into a raise and a call. I’d say “squeeze” there even if I knew he had AA.
2. What about immediate odds?
3. Why does good flop necessarily imply getting it in?
1. I am not implying anything about his 3b pre range either. I am pointing out that for a 3b to be considered a squeeze, usually the raise should be large (5x the original raise at least). again, this has very little relevance to the thread, I just pointed it out to make sure I got the 3b amount right.
2. As far as immediate odds, I assume our strategy is to flop 2p+ or big draws correct. I don’t have flopzilla with me, but I believe that flopping 2p or pair + fd and the likes can’t be more than 10%. so we need 9:1 to break even and they are not offering us nearly that.
3. although this is an excellent flop for our hand given the action, we still have 8 high. so although we are favorite against AK, i believe it is 40-60 for us, so I still would rather have them fold. In short, we prefer the villain to fold, but if they end up calling that is fine too.
2. It’s a good deal more complicated than that. For one thing, you aren’t taking into account how much Hero stands to gain when he gets those very favorable flops. You also aren’t taking into account other situations where Hero gets to realize some equity. As we see here, Villain isn’t betting 100% of flops. You also aren’t considering Hero’s pot odds.
“For one thing, you aren’t taking into account how much Hero stands to gain when he gets those very favorable flops.” I thought I was, you are risking 100, to win 600 (300 in the pot before you call pre, plus 300 remaining in his stack). Also those 10% very favorable flops are not slam dunks either, it is not like you are flopping 100% equity in those flops either. as an example you flopped pretty much as good as you could have hoped for but you are still either flipping or 60-40 at best,.
“You also aren’t taking into account other situations where Hero gets to realize some equity. As we see here, Villain isn’t betting 100% of flops.”
the check is indeed strange and i strongly suspect it is a big overpair, probably THE overpair, checking to induce a bet from you. it could be AQ, AK too, different weak villains play differently. but let’s agree this is a low probability event. if villain checks flops with AA but shoves anything else on the flop then the odds dont change much, since you are either calling to crack AA which you are not getting odds for, or calling to flop well enough to call the shove in case he doesnt have AA but other hands that he will shove flops with.
“You also aren’t considering Hero’s pot odds.”
It woudl be very different if we know his 3b range is like TT+ AQ/AK and he goes all in for 100 more and bb folds. if you poker stove that and you have the right odds to call thats fine, but in this case there is still more money behind. so you are just calling hoping to flop well and I showed how you do not have odds to flop well here. most of the times you will miss and fold to a shove, some times you will flop middle pair and you will face a shove etc, I can’t see how calling in those spots is +EV, in my mind you will be just compounding hte mistake.
If you are going to win an extra $300 on 10% of flops, you don’t need to be getting 9:1 pre-flop to call. 90% of the time you lose $100, 10% of the time you win $600. That by itself is not enough to make it a call (ass I argued, I think there are other sources of value as well) but, “I believe that flopping 2p or pair + fd and the likes can’t be more than 10%. so we need 9:1 to break even” isn’t accurate.
Did the math and EV wise is pretty much the same if the guy has overpair w/o heart and we either:
A. check behind and fold the shove on the turn if we miss
B. shove now and get called
however if we do A), we might get folds by overcards, also dont let them shove with over cards on the turn (although this is unlikely). It is very close but any win we can get by people folding is +EV here.
I’m shoving this flop. We have so much equity that we don’t mind a call. I think we get called a lot but if villain folds even 5% of the time (and I think we will get a fold at least some of the time), shoving must be better than checking. If betting small will ever induce some light shoves from the “fancy” hands villain might have, this has to be inferior to shoving and forcing him to fold. After all, we have 8 high and getting folds from Q or K high would be an excellent outcome. Shoving flop also eliminates the possibility of villain “bluff shoving” on the turn with the best hand.
If he would have shoved, we would need 30% to call. The only hands he can have that we don’t have at least that much equity against are some of the small Ahxh hands. So getting it in here is certainly an option.
That said, I remember you once telling me that if you have zero fold equity, then it doesn’t make sense to bluff. So the question is do we have even a smidgen of FE? I doubt it honestly. If we shove, I can’t see him folding many hands since he would only need that same 30% to call. I expect to get called by any pocket pair and any Ax hand. This is the vast majority of his 3-betting range.
Maybe he makes this super small 3-bet with something like KQ, KT or 97s. again I doubt it, but if so, he may fold those. This counts as a smidgen, so I don’t hate a shove if he could ever give him hands like that.
In reality, he probably has something like AA or Ahxh. If so, this is where I am torn. On the one hand, he’s not folding so why bluff? On the other hand, if we check and whiff, our equity could drop below the 30% making a call of his likely turn shove bad.
So even though I know he probably wont fold, I like a shove now so that we can cash out our equity.
I like these! (Haven’t read other responses yet so I can test myself against all the thinking thinkers).
Not sure if it’s just me, but I don’t like BB’s sizing given his stack. I think I’d prefer a flat, fold or shove in his spot? He’s leaving so little behind – but OK maybe a big pair wants to keep you in the pot, I dunno. Alternately, if his squeeze is a steal play and no more, perhaps his sizing speaks of weakness.
Given his stack size, why call him pre? Your implied odds aren’t correct are they? I see you are getting 3 to 1 though, so perhaps that alone justifies the call. Of course I do like your hand a lot and I like your position, but I’d have thought you need him to be deep.
On the flop, his check seems to indicate broadway cards that missed (including the A for a gut shot wheel), a trappy play with a decent overpair, and other perhaps less likely holdings (higher scs, a set). A heart draw should bet and you’re blocking this anyway, though he may hold Ah.
With that range, I’m torn between checking back with our very good drawing equity, especially as we can cooler/draw out for cheap – or just putting him all in on this flop, again given our equity against the range I’ve assigned him, and the fact that his stack does us so little damage. This is especially so as I believe a flop bet from us could well lead to a small check raise all in – so let’s get this hand over. I also don’t mind taking the pot down if he gives up – which I must admit would be a bit weird on his part.
I don’t really love seeing a blank turn and giving up to his all in on the turn. But if that happens, I probably lay it down and move on to the next hand.
So I’m going to put him all in on the flop.
“his stack does us so little damage”
I don’t think this should be a consideration. The right play shouldn’t change based on whether Hero has $400 or $1000 or $10,000 behind.
Yeah good point. I left it in anyway but thought it wasn’t the really a top notch consideration even as I wrote it.
Agreed. This would be a consideration in tourneys. But in cash games $300 from a short stack are as valuable as $300 from a big stack. Losing $300 because of a bad mathematical decision hurts us no matter our current stack size.
I think if he has Ak/AQ/AJ there is about 0 chance he checks this flop. He has a gutshot with 2 over cards. It is foolish of him to check and let you hit a free 8/9/T/J (which is a decent part of your call/call range)
He may be slow playing AA/KK. He is more likely to not slowplay QQ/JJ/TT since those hands benefit a lot from winning the pot right away.
He may be giving up with some random bluff he decided to make preflop. (This is unlikely. He 3 bet an UTG+1 open with a short stack. His range is definitely valuey – even if wide)
1. Will better hands fold if you bet? I don’t think so. Unless you count something like JTo, Q9o that he spazzed out with preflop. Many K-highs would have just called an UTG+1 raise too. Even if he did check AK/AQ/AJ..those hands will not fold with a gutshot and 2 overs)
2. Will worse hands call? lol no.
Should you bet anyway to pick up the dead money? Technically yes, but I would argue that the money in the middle is not really dead.
When you called preflop I am sure you didn’t plan to bluff him out of a 1 SPR pot. You called to hit something. You hit a draw. You have position. Take the free card.
I would fold to a shove on the turn if it bricks. You don’t have the odds to continue if you don’t improve. My guess is he won’t shove the turn. It looks like he wants to keep you in. He might make a small bet on the turn and then move all in on river.
Actually there are a few worse hands that can call. They are just not likely to be part of his range — (67, 37, 38)
I would definitely shove this flop with a made hand like a decently high pp (88+)
Because in that case, there are worse hands that will call us.
This is not a great check by villain. Our overall calling range has nearly 30% equity vs a conservative squeeze range. Any check to induce will simply allow our weaker holdings to check behind and hope to catch up. most bets by us will be either 2 pair+ or big draws such as we have. The only tricky hands might be 77, 88. (I’m not sure if you 4 bet 99 with 23 bigs effective). So unless we go mental with JT of spades or something similar, the check won’t get much out of us.
Our hand has so much equity here that the only mistake we can make is to put ourselves in a spot where we have to fold the turn. So I think shove.
I liked Gareth’s idea of betting 80$. The only thing is, he might not cooperate in checking the turn. If he bluff jams turn, then we would still be able to call (as Gareth mentions) but may have lost an opportunity to fold out some of the few air hands in his squeeze range that still beat us.
This is a fun one.
So if we decompose his range into 3 chunks, the value hands he is never folding, the air he is x/f and the marginal hands he will x/c on flop but may or may not x/f turn. his value range is somewhat irrelevant to our decision, as we either put stacks in v them on the flop or the turn. his air we benefit from betting flop and preventing them realising their equity. but that is countered by what happens with the marginal AJ/AQ type hands, if they plan to x/c flop but may x/f blank turns then xb may be preferable with the intention of calling all turns and jamming when x to on most cards. If on the other hand these hands will jam most turns or still call it off jamming flop to fold out the air hands equity becomes the most important factor.
Im unsure which way to go tho.
Do balanced ranges matter when the SPR is so low?
How bad can betting $300 on the flop really be? I would think we could bet and feel pretty good.
On the other hand, if villain flipped over AA and said “I check”, we’d happily take the free card and save ourselves the $300 we’ll lose half the time. Maybe that is essentially what is happening. In which case, we can check the flop and fold bad turn cards.
If he has anything in his range that he may fold, though, I’d like to give him the opportunity to do so on the flop.
if he had AA and flips (assuming he does not hold A of hearts) then EV wise.
if we shove and get called our EV is
1/2 * 700 – 1/2 * 300 = 200
if we check and fold to a card that does not make our hand then EV is:
3/4 * 0 + 1/4 * 700 = 175
so even in this case we should shove. ok technically we have a little less than 50% equity so I think it is pretty close to even. but just the fact that he can have overcards that he might fold makes this a shove, which is what you hinted to.
Do we have to wait all the way until Friday… 🙂
In mathematics of poker there is disussion about how a big draw does the best if all the money goes in on the flop with around a pot sized bet to go. It seems that this is one such spot, ship it!
As far as I can tell the hand that has us in really bad shape is AKhh but wouldn’t he just cbet jam on the flop with that?
I think that the only reason not to jam here is if he is check calling very very often with his big paris. Then checking back, flop, turn and river unimproved would be the correct play – since you have no fold equity.
Does your read that: he seems a little less straight-forward, in a good way imply both either of the abouve comments. I think that all this read gives us is that he is capable of checking the big pairs planning to call. Not that he is doing it with a high enough frequency to check give up unimproved
The more I think about this, the more I think that Villain is unlikely to be folding. The guy has over 1/3 of his stack in the pot preflop and is said to be creative and above the average live player in competency despite his short stack.
Based on this, it seems we have minimal fold equity whether he has a range like TT/JJ+ or like AJs/AQs+. For the sake of simplicity / quick napkin logic, I’ll discount some hands like KJs, KQs and other SCs down to T9s – does he REALLY squeeze small with these hands? Maybe calling is poor with his stack size with that kind of range, so a squeeze is smart, but it seems to me to be quite an awkward stack he has at around 23BBs. Things change quite a bit if you don’t play this 5/10 game with a $20 straddle.
Do we think small to medium pairs are in his squeezing range? Because sets and straight draws enter his range on this flop if so, even though we block some of both of those outcomes with 8h7h.
Still can’t quite get my head around the right play, but I don’t think checking back is best. My original concept on shoving feels OK still, but I don’t mind Gareth’s small sizing concept of $80 (but could see that being up to $160 too) in the rare case we can eke a little more value / induce a calling error from the smaller part of his range that isn’t c/shoving or shoving turn.
“The more I think about this, the more I think that Villain is unlikely to be folding”
I think everybody agrees that we are not likely to get a fold if we shove. I also think the question is not if villain is likely or unlikely to be folding, it is more if there is ANY chance that villain folds if we shove. I think there is.
For checking back to be better than shoving, we need to be close to 100% sure that 1) we have ~0% fold equity OR 2) we can somehow make (or save) more money on later streets by checking. I just don’t think we have enough information to assume either of these are true.
I’ve seen some really weird stuff from live players even if they seem to be playing well at first. The read we have is: “I’ve never played with BB before but he seems a little less straight-forward, in a good way, than your average live player, despite his very short stack” This is just not enough for me to be 100% sure of anything.
Let’s see what happens if we base our play on trying to guess if we have any fold equity or not.
1) We assume we have ~10% fold equity. We are wrong and in reality we have 0% fold equity. We shove, get called and flip for it. We have lost a tiny amount of equity by being wrong.
2) We assume we have 0% fold equity. We are wrong and in reality villain would have folded ~10% of his range. We check back the flop and from there all sorts of bad things can happen – villain can “bluff shove” all the hands he would have folded on the flop, villain can hit a pair on the turn and shove for value, in addition, if villain shoves on a brick turn we are not really getting the right price to call. Seems like a recipe for disaster.
Why make a perfectly simple situation overly complicated?
BTW I don’t think villain ever calls flop and then folds the turn so for me betting less than all in is not an option.
There’s two important factors in my mind:
1. Likely more fold equity later in the hand.
2. Villain make a mistake by giving us a free card
There’s lots of scare cards that could come on the turn, that might either give us a free look at the river and/or create a good bluffing opportunity.
If the Villain could see our cards he would have bet. I’m not going to bail him out of his mistake by betting.
First things first: We have flopped a pretty huge draw (and even pairing our over cards could give us the best hand some of the time) and are guaranteed to have quite a few outs no matter what our opponent has. Therefore, even if we give ourselves only a very small amount of fold equity it simply can’t be a terrible play to bet the last $300 on the flop.
From there, the main questions to ask are
(1) how much fold equity do we actually have?
(2) is it of any great value to fold out the hands that will fold?
(3) is there a more profitable play available?
On question 1, we need to consider villain’s range for 3-betting pre-flop and then checking this flop. Given villain’s stack size, and the fact that he apparently seems like a reasonably good player, it makes no sense to me that his 3-bet pre is designed with any goal in mind other than getting all the chips in the middle sooner or later. I can’t imagine he’s EVER 3-bet folding pre-flop, and with effective stacks of less than pot-size post flop, he shouldn’t ever be planning to fold the flop either. I think that the vast majority of the time a villain holding AJ/KQ type hands (which have been put in villain’s range by many) will just call pre, and then look to get it in on a favourable flop (which he wouldn’t have much difficulty doing, given stack sizes). Given his stack size and 3-bet size, it also seems most unlikely to me that he’s running a weird bluff. I therefore think his pre-flop range is quite heavily weighted towards AQ+ and JJ+.
So if we give him this range, then which of them does he check the flop with? I’m not sure he ever checks AQ/AK here. With A-high, but plenty of equity if called, he’ll almost always get the chips in and be happy to take the pot down now, knowing he has equity if called. 3-betting pre with these hands then checking (or check-calling or check-folding – but I’m pretty sure he’s never check-folding those hands) just makes no sense – if you 3-bet with these hands and have less than pot behind, almost 100% of villains go all-in almost 100% of the time here.
So I think his range can be narrowed even further on the flop to just JJ+ a huge amount of the time. And, in fact, JJ and maybe even QQ likely go all-in on the flop a large amount of the time too to protect their equity against possible overcards on the turn – so I think we can weight villain’s range quite specifically towards KK and AA here. If this is correct, then we clearly have exactly 0% fold equity.
If I’m wrong about his pre-flop range, and he is indeed 3-betting rather than calling with KQ/AJ-type hands (which I seriously doubt), then I just can’t envisage him checking the flop instead of semi-bluffing his last $300, and therefore I still think we can take those out of his range when he checks the flop. As I say, 3-betting just over 1/3 of his stack positively SCREAMS to me that he is planning to get the rest of his stack in at some point, and if he checks then it is likely because he has a hand he is super-confident about and wants to give you a chance to either catch-up or spew.
On question 2, I have more or less eliminated “hands that will fold” from his range rendering it somewhat moot. However, if we again assume I am wrong and that villain does indeed have a check-fold range here, then is it hugely valuable to fold these hands out? Assuming his check/fold range is unpaired overcards, then we actually have many more ways of improving on the next street than he does – therefore, it may be of some value to check and encourage him to put chips in when one of the many cards that improves us comes on the turn. Furthermore, if he’s being so passive on the flop then there’s every chance he’ll continue to be on the turn, and we therefore may yet have a chance to take the pot away even if we miss. So, actually, I think that even if we do allow him a check/fold range on the flop (which would certainly then make a flop bet highly profitable for us) then checking back the flop still gives us lots more chances to make more money.
And so to question 3. Well, if we have zero fold equity, or something close to it, as I think is likely here, then I think the clear play is to check. If we are keen to see the river AND we have zero fold equity on the flop, then getting the money in if/when he bets the turn is functionally equivalent to betting the flop anyway. But this way, we get to see a free card against a hand that is currently ahead and never folding (but which we have huge equity against), and we can then make even better decisions about how/whether to get the money in once we have seen the turn card. This simply HAS to be more profitable than making any sort of bet at all on the flop.
Betting small on the flop seems kind of superficially clever, but I’m not sure villain ever has the sorts of hands it will “work” against, and I’m not sure many villains are bad enough to take the sort of check/call then check/fold line that would be required for it to work (and assuming a random villain is this bad is rarely a winning move, IMO). I think that kind of move (betting small, then betting the rest on the next street) likely has more merit as a turn/river line in the event that we miss on the turn and villain checks again.
CONCLUSION: Hero should check
I really like your reasoning here on villain’s range Chris, just what I was getting at yet reasoned and articulated better. I can even get behind your logic / profitability for checking, but I’m not sure you’ve addressed what our play is in the likely event that Villain shoves his assumed KK/AA into a blank turn?
Well, we obviously fold unless we hit a 6, 7, 8 or heart, since we don’t have the 30% equity to call a shove on any other turn. If we were positive that villain had exactly KK+, taking the free card and hoping to hit and call the shove has a higher EV (around $190) than getting it in on the flop vs. KK+ (around $150).
I really don’t think we can put villain on exactly 2 hands here, though.
Yeah, as Sean says, if we miss and villain shoves turn then we have to fold – which feels pretty annoying to do at the time, but [check flop/fold turn when we miss AND check flop/call turn when we hit] will win more money in the long run than getting all the money in with 0 FE on the flop.
Sean, I’m not arguing that villain can NEVER have hands other than KK/AA here, but I do think his range is quite heavily weighted towards them. As I say, in those circumstances when villain 3-bets pre-flop with AJ+, JJ and QQ, I think he virtually always then sticks the rest in on the flop. There’s little reason not to. Thus when he checks the flop I think we can to a great extent remove those hands from his range, which leaves us with just KK, AA and perhaps the occasional spewy bluff (which I think is only a very small part of his range, if it exists at all). This is a flop which wouldn’t be perceived to have hit hero’s range in a massive way, and thus he has every incentive to try and pick up the pot now with a semi-bluff if he has something middling. I can’t escape the conclusion that the main reason villain checks here is because he has a hand he’s very confident about, and wants to lure hero in/give him a chance to catch up (and, of course, he has no need to worry about building a pot with less than pot behind).
And as I argue above, I think even if I’m wrong about that, and villain is indeed checking with a middling hand, I think we are still much better checking. Either he’s betting the turn when we check back, in which case we can pick him off on the numerous occasions that we hit (and still always correctly folding the worst hand when we miss), or he’s checking the turn when we check back, in which case, if we miss the turn, we can either take another free card, or at this stage use the “bet small, then bet all-in next street” line which I think works much better as a bluff when done a street later.
I can’t see any reasonable range to give villain in which the best play isn’t to check back the flop.