PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 25/50 Blinds (5 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB (t3023)
Hero (BB) (t3978)
UTG (t4344)
MP (t2230)
Button (t1910)
Hero’s M: 53.04
Preflop: Hero is BB with Q♥, K♠
1 fold, MP bets t100, 2 folds, Hero calls t50
Flop: (t225) Q♦, 8♦, 6♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP checks
Turn: (t225) A♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets t150
You can argue with the action up to this point if you want, but I’m prepared to dig in my heels. I’m most interested to know how you’re going to proceed from here, both on this street and on club, diamond, straightening, and blank rivers.
I leave Canada tomorrow morning. We’re flying into Las Vegas, camping for a few days in Death Valley, then flying to Maryland for the holidays. All that travel will likely delay my posting the results until Saturday or possibly even Sunday, but I’ll get them up when I can.
Until then, the action’s on you. What’s your plan?
This may sound like heresy, but I’m totally OK with folding. It’s not necessarily a board I expect villain to cbet with showdown value (Ax, PPs, 8x, 6x) because it’s so wet he’s going to get ch/r a lot and have to fold. Unless he’s turning a lot of those PPs into bluffs on the turn, what does he have on the turn that he needs to bluff with that he doesn’t just check back again?
I’m assuming we have no reads, so ch/r turn or ch/ca to ch/r good rivers is not really that viable.
Any reason why there is no history or stats on this player? Were you just moved to this table?
The reason why I ask is I’m not sure what to read into his raise to 100 pre-ante.
Is this standard for this player or for this type of tournament at this level?
Just trying to get a sense of the perceived range for this raise pre-flop.
From bad players and in live low buy-in tournaments this can sometimes be a narrow range of only
strong hands, but I’m guessing that is not the case here.
Anyway, w/o any other information I call on the turn. His bet is ostensibly saying he has an A,
but he could also be bluffing an A, or have some other hand like a set or flush or straight draw
and he is betting now so the pot is bigger if he does hit on the river (and hitting on the river
will be somewhat disguised since he didn’t bet the flop). I have a piece and the bet is small
relative to stacks so I’ll call. I don’t really feel like raising and building a big pot oop.
If the river is a blank I’ll check and probably call most bets up to pot size. There’s probably
some optimum calling %, not sure what that is.
If the river is club, diamond, or straight card, there are 3 options:
a) check and fold
b) bet out as a bluff – you can make it seem like you hit on the river and if he has the A hand
he might fold if he believes you. You want to make it seem like a value bet, so mabye about 400.
c) go for the check-raise – this seems risk as you’ll need to basically raise him all-in so
you’ll have be pretty sure he is on an A hand (as I think d is better for missed draws)
d) check and call a bet as a bluff catcher. If he has a busted draw he will probably bet,
and he probably does this almost as much as he bets value so you’ll be getting the right odds
to call. Plus if you check and he has an A hand or some other hand that is scared of the river,
he might just check back and you get a showdown cheaply. So I think I’m going with this option.
meant “..there are 4 options:”
Knowing his flop continuation bet % would also be helpful.
I wouldn’t read much into the min-raise. This isn’t uncommon and a good player isn’t going to give away much with pre-flop raise sizing tells.
Andrew,
In the absence of history/stats, will assume villain is a std TAG.
What is most likely to be true – His range neither include Qs (he woulda bet for value on a drawy board) nor As (since he woulda cbet them).
Given that you have checked twice, he is likely thinking his 1-pair is good (pair of eights, sixes or pocket pairs 77 or lesser) and may also be v-betting some flush draw+pair type of hand.
So,
if a flush hits -> check/call upto half a pot bet
any other card – bet/fold.
Why do you assume he would have c-bet Ax on the flop?
This is a situation where I really don’t know what to do, especially on the river.
I guess it really all hangs on what his reason is for checking back the flop.
I think there are some players in the games I play who are only checking back the flop with hands which they think have some sort of weakish showdown value – Ax, or bottom pair, and would always cbet any Kx, any Queen, and any draw.
When that’s the case there is something to be said for just folding.
On the other hand if he checks back with a wider range, perhaps because he thinks this flop hits your range, or because he views you as aggressive and likely to check-raise with a wide range, then there must be a case for calling at least the turn.
There are now a lot of flush draws and random gutshots to protect against if he did check back the flop with a low pair. It does seem unlikely from his perspective that we have a strong hand here since we would surely lead the turn on such a drawy board if we did. He may feel that he is presented with a good opportunity to get us to fold whatever equity we do have.
He may also feel that he is better off betting his low pairs on the turn rather than attempting to guess on whether his hand is good if the turn checks through and we lead the river.
His problem if he checks back the turn with his low pairs is that it allows Hero to value bet as thin as he likes on the river – certainly any Ace and any Queen, plus some bluffs. So if he checks back turn it must be to essentially give up.
On the river I think its pretty hard for him to turn his low pairs into a bluff, because there aren’t that many great river bluffing cards after the Ace comes on the turn.
One possible exception is a club. He might think he can rep a hand that picked up a club draw on the turn. He can’t actually have many hands with 2 clubs in them – the Ace is out, and I would expect him to cbet with JTcc or KJcc type stuff. Problem is it’s still pretty hard for us to check-call a river club if he’s value betting all his Aces.
Ok so my (probably disastrous) plan is:
1. Check-call the turn. (assumption is his range is Ax for value + a lot of worse pairs for protection/easy river decision)
.
2. Check-fold the river unless we improve to 2 pair, with possible exception if a club hits. (assumption is he isn’t turning his worse pairs into a bluff, except for when he reps clubs)
3. Probably lead river on a K or Q.
Nice post, you explained a complicated idea very succintly. I agree that checking a pocket pair on the turn does give Hero license to value bet very widely on the river, but do you think that turning it into a bluff is more profitable than just checking and either giving up or winning occasionally at showdown?
Now you ask the question I think the answer is probably ‘no’. I think you have enough Ax and Qx in your range that he shouldn’t feel bad about giving up with his pocket pairs. There’s also some chance you check a worse pocket pair down, and a lot of your no-pair hands would have bet out on the turn. So he should be relatively happy to fold to a bet on the river.
What’s my plan if I were you? Get a hotel room. Weather sucks for camping right now.
With that said, lets look at the hand. Is a min raise typical of this player? If he had AQs+, AQo+, JJ+, or KQs he would have raised more, hoping that is looked like a steal attempt. If he is TAG then I wouldn’t expect 2P or OESD to be in his range, but even if they were I would expect a c-bet on any OESD, flush draw, Queen, 2P and set with the board that wet. That still leaves Axs and unsuited maybe down to A8o or A7o. There’s also a lot of gutshots (KJ, KT, J9) and a double GS (JT) in his range. Also since most of his flush draws come from Axs a diamond if more likely to complete his flush, but then again if he was playing any other Axs he has top pair already.
A fold is not out of the question here given your position, but you are still ahead of his range. A c/r on the turn will just build a big pot OOP. If you call, I can’t imagine a leading out on the river with a scare card will get him to fold top pair, 2P, or a completed draw (in other words better hands). If it were me in the heat of battle I would probably figure my 2 checks showed signifigant weakness and the ace is a good bluffing card. Since people I play against love playing JT in a similar fashion I would probably c/f a 9 (I don’t think I could fold 2P with a King), and c/c just about anything else less than a pot size bet. So basically my plan would be to turn my hand into a bluff catcher, but that’s why I’m a donk.
I don’t play 6m a whole lot. The times that I have played it, it always seemed way more aggressive then what I’m used to playing.
Min raise from MP I’d imagine small PP’s and suited broadway cards up. (AK, KQ, QJ, J10)
We check flop with either the intention of pot control or check raising. When he checks back I think you can rule out AKdd as against a pair with 2 overs and flush draw you’d want to get more money in. I think you could rule out broadway hands with Q’s in them as again you wouldn’t want a flush draw to draw cheaply. Plus you had initiative and position.
We check again on the turn and he leads for around 60%. At this point he could lead all of his holdings since it looks like we’re just giving up. If we try to check raise I think we’re getting called a lot with villain re-evaluating the river.
I think we should call the turn bet and then lead any 10, 5, Spade river for 475. With our line I think can get every PP to fold.
I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to fully analyze the hand so I’ll post more once I’ve had a chance to think about it more and also read others comments.
MP’s line here doesn’t have to be very strong. He almost certainly didn’t have a very good hand on the flop. With a smallish stack at this stage and around 40 BB, he’s unlikely to try to slow-play or trap with any kind of value hand on this kind of board, so on the flop I guess he has Ax/some kind of PP. It’s also less likely he is opening speculative hands with this kind of stack since I give him credit for being at least reasonably competent at this buy-in.
I also think it’s unlikely he has a diamond draw, since any big broadway hands with diamond draws would have enough equity for him to want to bet hard on that flop.
Therefore his range on the turn is 22/JJ excluding sets, AK without diamonds, AJ without diamonds and maybe AT/A9 likewise, and maybe KJs/JTs. I think he is betting pretty much his entire range on the turn because you have showed extreme weakness throughout the hand.
Based on this I’d call turn and check/call all diamond rivers because he is more likely to bluff those. Unless we improve I am probably going to check/fold on blank rivers, because I don’t think he would fire again with his low/mid pocket pairs.
Given that it’s mutually understood that he would usually be betting his diamond draws on the flop, doesn’t that make it less likely that he will bluff a diamond on the river?
Jonny, there’s no reason to assume that he knows people usually bet flush draws on the flop. More importantly, even if he does there is no reason to assume that he thinks you think so, unless villain is world-class there’s no reason to level yourself by thinking this is treated as given.
I think he’s quite likely to bluff river, because our line is weak and there’s pretty much no strong hand that we could possibly play this way.
It’s definitely something which is opponent dependent. But I think the average decent player knows that he can’t really rep diamonds once the flop checks through.
I think not knowing anything about villian I’m not about to give him credit for the Ace just because.
I’m not sure what he’d min-raise preflop with, but I suppose it could really be anything,
though I’m favoring some Aces, a mid/low pocket pair, pocket Aces I’ve seen do this in the past,
mid suited connectors like 8-9, 9-10,6-7 or even 2 paints, ie: KJ,QJ,etc…well, I guess I described mostly anything…
We both check the flop so when he bets the Ace on the turn, he could be betting anything here, again, we’ve shown no interest in the pot so far and it was only a bet to call preflop…
I would think he’d probably c-bet an Ace-high on the flop or Aces or a diamond draw, possibly a open ender so he’s probably got something like 6-7,8-9,9-10,10-J or maybe a K-high, like KJ,K10 hoping to rep the ace or he hit a set and was hoping we hit the ace.
After we call the Ace of clubs my most likely scenario is me turning my hand into a bluff-catcher. So I think we’re best to check-call just about any river, hopefully around 400-ish but probably not pot-size.
Now if a non-straight club hits the river, I may think of check-raising/shoving in order to get him to drop an ace.
I think the only way he calls is if he has a set or hit the backdoor clubs himself.
He may be able to call A-8/6 but he might just be able to fold them a decent amount of time to make it profitable…Does anyone else think it’s feasible to rep the backdoor flush or maybe I’m just getting creative to be creative…? I don’t think we can rep diamonds because with his stack size I’d want to take control of the pot size and bet a certain amount on the flop and maybe he’d raise me and I could shove him at that point so it seems like it wouldn’t make complete sense to check the flop if we had diamonds.
I think it’s feasible to rep the backdoor flush as long as he doesn’t have it. He’s more likely to have that than a diamond draw on this line as he’d want to bet the flop most of the time with two diamonds to build the pot. However, I think it’s more likely he has some other hand so it could be +EV to rep that if a club hits the river.
I assume this has been said already, but we don’t have enough information to know what’s the right play here.
This is true, not least because it’s a tournament and we have no idea how villain plays with a 40bb stack.
This isn’t true. There is always a correct play given the information you have. You might be able to make a better play with more information, but of course we resort to defaults in the absence of concrete information.
It depends on how you define solve. There are plenty of problems without enough information whose solution set then involves variables that would be “plugged in” given adequate information. This is a perfect example, if we knew anything about the player or his frequencies we might be able to say something. Otherwise a solution set is going to look like an algorithm, if value x is between a and b then, if value x is above c then, and so on. So if that counts as an answer I guess that’s true. But that seems more like a deficiency in the question for all practical purposes.
Anyways the statement that “there is always a correct play given the information you have” is definitely not true not least because you can arrive at poker situations where actions have equal EV.
I don’t think there is any deficiency in the question because this is a real tournament situation which will occur with a pretty high frequency. The hero (and you) have to make these decisions on a regular basis and I don’t think its the case that you just make plays at random when you play against unknown opponents.
I might be wrong but I took Gareth to mean something like, its going to be hard to give a convincing case for one particular line over another, given the information provided.
I think people have a tendency to overestimate the strength of their reasoning for a decision, when in fact they are doing no better than picking an option at chance. Acknowledging that this could be the case in this example seems to me to be a good thing.
This is very common in poker though. You almost are always dealing with incomplete information. You still need to formulate the best plan with the information that you have.
You never really know the optimal line until you see all the cards and know you opponent better. But you can still take a line that suits you best. Whether that’s a low variance or a high variance one is more up to the player.
Yeah but the point was there might not necessarily be a best line given the information you have. So you might as well be picking from 2 or more options at chance.
I definitely agree that this is a common situation in poker in terms of the board, our holding, and the action. But there isn’t any way that Andrew wouldn’t have more information at his disposal in the hand in question than he has posted. We have literally no information about this villain and that’s actually never the case in this situation. You will always know how long he’s been at the table (even if this is his first hand and therefore has no observed play), you will know what his listed country is and what time it is there, you will know if he has blocked being searched, and if he hasn’t, how many tables he is playing and what type of tables they are. All this precludes the introduction of any HUD stats. So while I agree in spirit with a lot of what Prabhat and Shawn are saying, I just don’t think the question is realistically going to be well addressed.
I’m never making a decision in such an information vacuum and neither is Andrew. And this situation, being common but also tricky, is the type of situation where any additional information can help. And yeah, I would still say that additional information might lead to inconclusive results. Its very ok and healthy to say “I don’t know” or “I can’t decide” in poker even if you have to shrug and actually make an action in game.
I didn’t leave out any information that was material to my decision. Although you’re right that any of the factors you mentioned could be significant, I think there’s plenty of value in discussing the hand without them. Does the time of day at Villain’s location really influence your decisions so significantly that you can’t discuss a hand without knowing it? FWIW I rarely dig up the information you list here when faced with a small decision in a small pot.
Making slightly better educated guesses than your opponents is a valuable tournament skill. Even if it’s hard to make an overwhelmingly strong case for one or the other of two very viable lines, discussing the pluses and minuses of each can be very valuable. After all our goal here is not really to figure out how best to play this exact spot but rather to learn concepts that apply in many other spots. In other words, even if the result of weighing a tough decision isn’t conclusive, practicing the process of weighing it can be very valuable.
Agreed. I didn’t mean to suggest that the situation wasn’t worth discussing without more information.
Hello,
In general, when there is an ace on the turn, vilain bets when he does not have an ace and check with it.
So at this point I think you have the best hand.
You check twice and he bets, so I think there is a lot of bluffs in his range. We can add in his range a club flush draw (he would have bet on the flop with a diamond flush draw) and a straight draw. I do not think he has a pair because of his turn bet (this bet make sense for a hand wich need fold equity, not for a hand wich have showdown equity).
Hero hand seems to be a drawing hand, so my plan is to check to induce a bluff and check/call on every river card because his bluffing range is so large that I think a call will be EV+.
In this case if he did have an Ace he would definitely bet now that there are 2 flush draws and numerous gut shots. I do agree that there are more bluffing hands than value hands in his range.
I find it’s helpful, rather than referring to bluffs in the abstract, to talk about the hands he would play this way with which you’d expect him to bluff the turn. In other words, which hands exactly do you expect will make up his bluffing range?
OK, this is my try.
This is my guess for his preflop’s raising range : [22+, A2s+, K9s+, QTs+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 87s, 76s, 65s, A8o+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo].
I think he would bet on this board with : [QQ+, 88, 66, AQs+, A8s, KQs, QTs+, JTs, AQo+, A8o, KQo, QTo+, and the flush draw non max].
So I think he would check with : [JJ-99, 77, 55-22, AJs-A9s, A7s-A2s, KJs-K9s, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 87s, 76s, 65s, AJo-A9o, KJo-KTo, JTo].
After your second check he can think that you give up, so he can bet with a wide range.
On the turn his range for value is :[AJs-A9s, A7s-A2s], his range for semi-bluffing is : [KJs-K9s, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 87s, 76s, 65s, KJo-KTo, JTo] and his range for bluffing is : [JJ-99,77,22-55].
With pokerstove, the equity of KsQd against [JJ-99, 77, 55-22, AJs-A9s, A7s-A2s, KJs-K9s, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 87s, 76s, 65s, AJo-A9o, KJo-KTo, JTo] is 63%.
I don’t know what vilain can think about hero’s range but my plan here is to call the turn, I don’t want to raise here because I don’t want vilain to fold his bad hands and I don’t want to be raised. I want to pot control (OOP is it possible ?) and induce a bluff so I will check/call the river no matter what is the river’s card.
FWIW I’d be a lot more likely to bet a draw on the turn then to check-call with it, and I think Villain realizes that. The only draws I would check-call would be those that had showdown value, such as pair + draw or nut flush draw hands.
This had really got me thinking. It got me to not so much figure out what my opponent had(hand ranges) but what I feel is a more general strategy.
We’d like him to keep putting in more money bluffing but we don’t want to put more money in while we’re behind. (obviously I know just bare with me 🙂 )
Looking at this hand and board texture I believe villain is more likely to bluff at hero then to value bet his holdings that beat us.
Even in this case if we check call the turn. What river is villain going to value bet us? Obviously nut hands but how many nut hands does he end up with at the river?
If a diamond comes I think he’ll bluff at it. The reason I wouldn’t think he had a diamond flush is because he most likely would have cbet the flop to try to build a pot while he still had a lot of equity.
If a club comes how could he possibly bet it. With our check flop check call turn. After the turn shows up with a club draw I think it’s much more possible that we have a club draw than Villain.
If a straight card comes what combination of hands does he MP1 min raise with 6m? How many combinations do we have after check and check calling the turn?
So even though he’s obviously going to bet his nut hands on the end I think there are many more scenarios where the river is going to get checked through or he bluffs.
I like to call the turn and now I’d rather check call the river.
I was so focused specifically on what we have, what he might have, what he might think we have that I didn’t think about the general hands.
How likely is it for villain/hero to show up with:
1. a diamond flush?
2. a club flush?
3. a straight?
4. 1 pair hands?
5. 2 pair hands?
I agree with this line of thinking (and other’s similar thoughts). However, this all goes out the window if villain perceives hero as a calling station, as then he will be value betting the river more. We didn’t get any information on the villain, but I doubt he would view Andrew as a calling station. However, if they have some history, then there could be some leveling (this line will look like I’m bluffing to him so I can value bet my A). But we didn’t get any of this information. I’m wondering if that is the point. What do you do vs. an unknown opponent.
“If a diamond comes I think he’ll bluff at it. The reason I wouldn’t think he had a diamond flush is because he most likely would have cbet the flop to try to build a pot while he still had a lot of equity.”
What if Villain is also aware of this general principle that most people c-bet flush draws on the flop most of the time, and expects me to be aware of it. What would you make of a bet on a diamond river in that case?
I think it’s still a call a reasonable bet. I wouldn’t call a shove or maybe even a pot sized bet put like 1/3 or 1/2.
Even though villain would make more money on this hand I think he loses money in the long run by not building a pot earlier.
I certainly have done this though. Where I check the nut flush draw on the flop to try to get some money by the end.
Especially if it’s an all low flop.
after flop check: villian’s range looks more like: Ax, T9,J9,JT type hands. Villian realizes his equity with gutshot hands and may be Ax.
I beleive those gutshots might have picked up club draw aswell on turn.
Therefore, when villian bets turn in pos. He never has bluff, but more draws and Ax type hands.
I beleive all the value hands would bet the flop: and even flush draws would have bet the flop as well because villian could have shoved over Hero’s check raise on flop with his flush draw. Further, Villian would have bet his stone cold bluffs as well.
Villians Range:
A8o-AJo, A2s-AJs, T9s,J9s,JT
I’m having trouble following you here. Why do you say he “realizes his equity with gutshot hands?” What’s your argument for why he “would have bet his stone cold bluffs” on the flop?
Either i have this realizing equity in position concept wrong. or im not understanding why its not correct to check behind on flop with gutshot when it is great board for check-raise on flop.
Stone cold bluff hands dont have any equity. Only way you are going to win the pot is by betting. If you dont bet, then you are pretty much giving up on your bluffs.
I’d fold (I’m a nit) why play oop where you chances of making a mistake are higher than his your m is great wait for a better spot
I leave Canada tomorrow morning. We’re flying into Las Vegas, camping for a few days in Death Valley, then flying to Maryland for the holidays.
Incongruous – when flying to Las Vegas means taking an enforced holiday from gambling.
Hahaha, yes- that’s occurred to me more than once!
I am not quite as educated as most of you all on all the concepts, math and situational probabilities, but based on the information that Andrew posted about the hand thus far, I would raise that bet of 150 to about 375.
There’s a few reasons why I’d do this…
1) Obviously there is a decent chance that Villain actually has a hand that he’s betting for value, but I think in this circumstance, with only 2 players in the hand, with him in position and only 375 in the pot itself…I think Villain is going to bet almost ANY hand here just to see where he’s at. For informational purposes alone, I think raising here will draw the absolute best information…more so than just calling, and obviously more than folding.
2) Hero is in the BB, so there is just no telling what he could have. A hand like Q6 or 86s would not be out of the realm of reasonable possibility to call in defense of blinds.
3) A check raise like that signals strength, but also a cautious look for the draw. If Villain just calls the raise, he most likely has two diamonds or J 10. If the draw misses on the river, Hero leads out with a 3/4 size the pot bet and the hand is over.
4) If Villain 3 bets here, then it’s time to let it go…and Hero has not lost many chips.
5) Hero has Villain covered…so why the hell not?
Thanks for the comment, Justin. I’m going to ask a couple of follow-up questions, but don’t take it as my necessarily disagreeing with you. These are just things that aren’t obvious to me about your argument:
3) If you think Villain mostly has draws when he calls your check-raise, what does betting the river accomplish?
5) How does having Villain covered influence the hand? Is there a reason you wouldn’t want to play it this way if Villain covered Hero?
And OK one argument from me. It seems like what you say in (1) and (2) about both players’ ranges doesn’t take into account the action up to this point. You haven’t said anything about what kinds of hands you’d expect Villain to check on the flop or Hero to check on the turn, for instance
Thanks again for the thorough comment!.
Hey there, Andrew…thanks for the follow up.
– If I am going to assume that Villain is on a draw when he flats my raise, then I do not want to check/call or check/raise the river. I feel like since I am in weak position with a decent pair, but I have represented stonger than that, then I need to lead out with a good size bet if a non-draw card hits the river. But now the more I think about it, even if the third diamond hits or the 9 to complete a straight, I would still toss out the same bet in the instance that maybe he actually DID have Ax and no draw. Check raising there would not seem pragmatic to me because if I really did hit a small to mid size flush or straight I would definitley bet half to 3/4 size of the pot for value. So if he wasn’t chasing, he would most likely consider folding. The chance of him having a hand that is second best to my pair of Q’s is also possible, and with that size bet and without a draw hitting, I think I could convince him to call with a smaller pocket pair or weaker Q.
-Having Villain covered does not really influence the hand all that much with blinds this low and a pot so small. I always keep a mindful eye on everyone’s chip stack and the fact that Hero has Villain covered by a substantial amount is worth noting in case all the chips get into the pot. But mostly I was just being funny…I would not actually put that much stock into that.
-As for your “arguement”…THANK YOU! Per my email I sent you a couple of months ago, I am still learning all of the intricate details in ranges, hand reading and all of the nuances that Hold ’em encompasses. I am glad that you pointed that out because you are absolutley right, I did not even consider hands that Hero or Villain would check on that flop.
Your knowledge is invaluable, thank you for taking the time to point that out, Andrew. I’ll work on that!