Dipping into the archives to bring you some poker content…
Villain and I were starting a game. He’s pretty solid and not someone I’d ordinarily go out of my way to play heads up, especially not at 2/4 where there’s easier competition available.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $4 BB (2 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
Hero ($402)
BB ($400)
Preflop: Hero is Button with Qd, Kd.
Hero raises to $12, BB raises to $44, Hero calls $32.
Flop: ($88) 5s, 2h, Jd (2 players)
BB bets $52, Hero calls $52.
Turn: ($192) Td (2 players)
BB bets $162, Hero raises to $306, BB folds.
Final Pot: $660
Results in white below:
No showdown. Hero wins $660.
The key to floating successfully against a good player is having a lot of turn cards that improve your hand (or that you’ll be comfortable continuing on, anyway). I happen to get a particularly good one, but here that could be any A, K, Q, T, 9, or diamond.
I specify “against a good player”, because it’s much easier against someone who will just bet the flop and then give up if he has nothing. In those cases it doesn’t matter terribly much what you have, but against a good player who will fire second barrels with a good frequency, you need to have a hand that plays well on a lot of turns.
I noticed that you’re AI on the turn, for less than a minraise. Don’t you have to have a really strong read that his range is mostly bluffs to make this move when he’s getting almost 5 to 1 on a call?
I won’t pretend to speak for Andrew, but as I see it, with a straight-flush draw and two overcards, he’s got a ton of equity already. It’s true that giving villain 5-to-1 odds is likely only to get him to fold bluffs, but some of those bluffs are ahead of Andrew’s currently only K-high hand, so getting the equity of folding them as well seems to make this an EV+ move.
Andrew has pretty good equity against very wide range(TP,str8 and flush draws,bluffs).
But his opponent -(good HU player) realizes that this fact does not change another HU axiom that his hand and range likely have still pretty good equity aganst Andrew hand(draw range)-even “if his range is mostly bluffs on turn”.
Villain is risking 162 to risk 192. If I fold 50% of my range on the turn, then he shows an immediate profit making this bet with two cocktail napkins. That number is much lower when he “bluffs” the turn with a hand that has enough equity to call a shove. So unless I have a read that he WON’T bluff the turn as often as he should, I need to continue with a fair bit of my range.
This is a more important number than the odds he is getting on a call, because his turn betting range ought to be polarized. That is, there are hands he bets planning to call and hands he bets planning to shove. That ratio ought to be related to the odds he’s getting, but there aren’t like hands where he bets and then is like “oh whoops priced in guess I have to call.” He’s either bluffing or he isn’t. I need to estimate how often he bet-folds (don’t know but assuming against a good player his frequency will be at least roughly optimal) and how much equity I have when called (a lot).
Not that I’d necessarily fold T9 here, but I think KQs probably has better equity against his calling range than T9 does. The question you really need to ask yourself is whether KQs is in the top half of hands you could have on this board. I think it clearly is, and if it isn’t, then your flop calling range is way too tight and you are probably getting exploited there.
I love these analysis’ because I always take something away to chew on.
I’m getting in some live donkaments this weekend. Hoping I bank so I can get some lessons.
My thinking would have been, “I’m way too good to fold. I don’t have enough money left to dick around with a second call. That leaves shove.”
This is exactly what I am thinking.
Is the shoving is the only option here?
I just do not see another option than shoving because of my general HU agrometagame and my medium poker skills.
When I shove in this particular situation I realize that I have zero fold equity against TPGK+ and I force only to fold only worse hand -weaker draws and bluffs.
I do this anyway because any “blank” river card screams:”you missed your (draw)range in big fu… way.There is medium possibility that “blank” river card will hit my opponent bluff range.”-we have here case of info asymmetry OK?.
I believe that such info asymmetry could be utilized by my opponent easy because I am on the wrong end of this asymmetry.
Summary:Poker is the game about information exchange and you want to know more than your opponent does.
You could construct a hypothetical opponent who would three-bet preflop and c-bet the flop with a wide range then morph into a two-ton slab of granite on the turn, betting only with top pair or better. In that case, calling is better than shoving on the turn. However, such a player exists only in our imaginations. The typical online HU player has enough bluffs and semibluffs in his turn-betting range that you can’t just call.
Frankly, pure bluffs are probably a quite small percentage of opponent’s range on the turn. His “bluffs” are likely to include all respectable semibluffs and perhaps some bluff-beaters such as A9-A6.
Raising the turn will get him to fold the pure bluffs and take you off having to guess whether to call the river if you miss.
However, getting him to fold the pure bluffs is not the main advantage of raising – in fact, you’d rather he’d call with aceless, pairless cheese. Where you gain is if he folds some of those bluff-beaters, namely the unpaired aces and/or non-top pairs. You also gain if he is semibluffing with any no-ace straight draw or any weaker no-pair flush draw, because these hands will not pay you off on the river if they whiff, but they won’t fold if you raise the turn. You have a big edge over these kinds of draws, so get the money in now in case he holds one of them.
Thanks for correction.I used bluff range to group hands which included pure bluffs,semibluffs and bluff beaters A9-A6.
I will not agree with your that pure bluffs are probably a quite small percentage of opponent’s range on the turn.
Let’s say I am in BB and I have 67o.
1.I 3-bet preflop because I like to have polarized 3bet preflop range.
2.I missed flop but because the board I (default)assume that my HU opponent missed too.
So of course I make my continuation bet .
3.Before I fire the turn barrel I check the stat regarding his response to my second barrel.
If I see “tideness” here I see myself turn barreling my pure bluffs somehing like 100%.
I largely agree with what you’re saying about how you’d play villain’s side. It’s just that when you start adding up hands he could have that completely whiff the flop and turn, I can’t construct that many hands. 76 is the most obvious one. I’m hard-pressed to think of others that are worth a preflop three-bet, even if villain’s range is pretty wide. Even 87 is probably worth a bet-call on the turn against a good, aggressive player like Andrew who is capable of floating with light values on a rag flop when he has position.