Thanks to everyone who participated in the first part of our Hand of the Week.
Assessing Range Advantage
The only information I gave about the SB was that he’s “capable and experienced” and probably has “a similar opinion of me”. This really isn’t enough to make aggressively exploitive assumptions about what his bet “means” (if he’s doing a good job of balancing, it doesn’t mean any single thing) or how he’ll respond to a 3-bet.
Let’s start instead by examining some structural features of the situation, at the time that we see the flop, before there’s any action. I have to agree with Matt that, “I really don’t see him having a wide calling range from the SB. Playing out of position against tough opponents is not very easy, of course, and calling invites a third (also competent) player into the hand, which leads me to believe that he will be heavy on 3betting and folding from this spot.”
This isn’t an exploitive assumption; he’s out of position and closing the action, so he really is constrained. He can’t just decide to call with a bunch of weak hands because that’s his “style”. If he doesn’t have a disproportionate amount of realizable equity, which will usually be the case, his best play is to fold pre-flop. Many of the hands that do have that kind of equity do better by raising pre-flop. If we act too strongly on these assumptions, then we give him incentive to call more weak or strong hands, but still, we should recognize that he’s dealing with some heavy pre-flop constraints.
Likewise, we can recognize that my range can and should be rather wide, again not as a question of style but because with the button and very deep stacks, there are simply a lot of hands where raising is more profitable than folding. And the BB can have a much wider range than the SB, given that he is closing the action and getting a better price.
I suspect that if we were to compare the overall equity of the SB’s range vs. mine, he would be ahead. Even though I have some very strong hands that’s unlikely to call pre-flop, such as AA or K6s, I also hold a lot of weak hands that he’s unlikely to call pre-flop, such as 74s.
On Donking and Raising
This constrains me a bit: I can’t expect to continuation bet profitably with anywhere near 100% of my range, particularly given that there is also a third player in the pot. So, I will check the flop a significantly non-zero amount of the time, and the SB has many hands like pocket pairs and Ax that are likely best but very vulnerable to free cards. These hands have some interest in donking the flop in order to deny me equity.
However, because his range is, not exactly capped, but weaker at the top end than mine, he’s vulnerable to getting raised by a polarized range. So, his donking range should contain some hands that can profitably continue to a raise, either by calling or three-betting (sometimes for value, sometimes as a bluff).
K6 fares well against those ranges. It figures to be ahead of his calling range (and even ahead of his range for calling down multiple streets), and although it may turn into a bluff catcher if Villain three-bets, it will be a very good bluff-catcher in that it blocks some portion of his value range and has equity against it as well. We may not be rooting for a three-bet, but we shouldn’t be lost about what to do when three-bet, either. I think calling down will yield a profit, even if it’s not the part of the game tree where we’d ideally end up. When we’re holding a 6, though, Villain only has two choices: three-bet rarely, or three-bet a bluff-heavy range. Considering that we’re prepared to call to the river, either is fine.
It’s true that the majority of my continuing range will not benefit from raising, and I’ll respond to his bet far more often by calling than by raising. It’s also true that because my calling range will consist mostly of hands that do not want to play large pots, SB will have some incentive to make large, possibly over-, bets on subsequent streets with a polarized range. This gives me some incentive to just call the flop with very strong hands, which in turn reduces his incentive to employ such a strategy.
These situations usually resolve themselves in a mixed strategy: I should call some hands that are prepared to take a lot of heat, and also raise some such hands. MCG and PokerNoob both do a good job of explaining why K6 is a better candidate for raising than calling.
The Bottom Line
K6 is an extremely strong hand here, so close to the top of Hero’s range that it can happily put in four bets for value and profitably, if begrudgingly, call down five bets as a bluff-catcher. Calling makes it tricky to get that fourth bet in. Sometimes Villain will just check-call down, and we’ll get only three bets (though overbetting might be able to compensate for this). Even if he does bet the turn, as Raffi says, “flatting and potentially raising at a later point makes it really hard to rep a bluff.”
It’s also worth pointing out that, unless Hero’s hand improves, it will not be quite as strong on future streets. Each new card that comes, unless it’s a K or a 6, pushes our hand, as well as our value targets, further from the nuts.
Essentially, this is a hand that benefits from frontloading, and I think raising with it is generally best. You may not be accustomed to thinking about your kicker when you have trips, but when you’re this deep, it matters.
Results and the next decision point are coming in the next post.