6 handed

you open BTN and a good aggressive TAG defends BB

flop is J77r and you bet and he calls

turn rag (2-6). statistically its more likely that a flush draw is possible now, so lets say the turn puts up a flush draw. anyways, you bet and he checkraises.

with what of your opening range are you double barreling?

if you are double barreling with what hands are you calling down the turn CR?

it occured to me that i would be double barreling most Ax and a lot of Kx in this spot to get value from 89, T8, 9T, etc, and because of that I am exposing myself to a turn CR with almost any two cards, and thus putting myself in a very tough spot.

of course, the easy answer would be to check behind all Ax and Kx and then call any river bet - however i think this line just gets you value owned against smart players who see right through the turn value check.

so in other words i have no idea what the best line is in this type of spot. i suppose one could ask the same question on boards like 965, T673, J782 etc, that encourage loose peels by the BB with wide ranges.

fwiw, your notes on TAG:

never 3 bets BB in HU situations

rarely slowplays OOP but does so occassionaly vs thinking opponents

capable of 2nd level thinking

I'm generally double-barrelling my entire range. I might occasionally check the turn if I pick up a flush draw.

But opponent tendencies are key, depending on how they will react to a turn check, how likely they are willing to peel the flop with air, etc.

What's his checkraising range? Is he going to c/r 88 on this turn? Are you assuming he's basically a clone of yourself, capable of all sorts of shenanigans? We're probably also assuming he's a showdown monkey I assume?

If you think this guy is c/raising the turn with a wide range of draws, then I just b/c with all my Ax and pairs and fold accordingly on certain rivers. I certainly bet all my best aces, and I want to bet my weaker pocket pairs since I don't want to give a cheap river to a hand that would have a bunch of hidden outs. I probably check KT and worse Ks, and most of my Qx hands... and barrel all gutshots hoping to fold out K/Q high.

So I guess I can b/f my gutters and call with the rest. And I've found that valuechecking with A high against TAGs usually works out better once you realize they're thinking on a reasonable level since they'll often level themselves into thinking they can fold out A high since you know that they know blah blah balh... and since you have no idea what they're actually thinking, you probably make a better choice just choosing to showdown since leveling wars are dumb coin flips anyways, and all they really mean is that you can't take exploitative lines like folding to a river bet against an ABC drooling TAG when you check back AK.

Why would you bet KQ on this turn? Is it to fold out A high which isn't folding? Or to fold out worse hands that might bluff the river?

In the modern online world, the same guys who never 3B in the BB are c/r all their 3 betting hands on the flop. Thus, you can still exclude that range when you evaluate the flop. When I first moved up to 3/6 on FullTilt, all of the regs were c/r semi-bluffing turned draws. Since they c/r both their big hands and their draws on the flop, it was almost profitable to 2 barrel your showdown hands because they polarized their range to quads or turned draws. All that to say, it really depends on your opponent.

My double barreling range has a lot to do with how vulnerable my hand is, how likely my opponent is to call hands I beat, how good/bad his c/r range looks for me (if he's likely to do it), and how much of his range bets if I value check. If your hand isn't vulnerable and he's betting 100% of his range on the river, you have to consider the value in that.

FWIW, I think that adopting the "never 3 bet OOP" strategy is aping high limit players and lacks basis in the games that most of us play. If a really good hand reader happens to steal your BB, there might be a small argument for not 3 betting. OTOH, how great a hand reader are you going to find in a 10/20 or 20/40 live game? We all like to think we're good; in reality, passing up value against a small or midstakes player for some GTO misdirection mostly amounts to losing value.

Don't forget that you get a showdown out of that 2nd barrel a good bit. If you can't call if you induce a bet, you have to consider betting. A lot of people float light on a flop like this; once you ignore the 7, every hand has 2 overs to "second pair". Also, there are a lot of gutterballs on this flop that think they have live cards. Even a hand like QT has value against the BB's defending range and may want to buy a showdown. The BB's range could be ATC or close to it.

Many multitabling TAGs are actually not SD monkeys imo. This might be one of their biggest mistakes, depending on the player.

If I'm against this type of TAG (I dunno, let's say 30-35% SD at 6max which is too low imo), yes, I'll b/f the turn with KQ to fold out ace high.

I'm generally betting this turn at least 80% of the time and when I get checkraised by that TAG on the turn, yeah it's a tough spot. If I know this TAG will be inclined to bet most rivers (improved or not) after I should check behind on the turn, I will be more likely to value check the turn with hands like AK, AQ.

If I pick up a draw on the turn I'm usually inclined to check behind as well because I would really hate folding any draw to a c/r, and often I would call the c/r, which is probably a mistake unless it's a good flush draw since the pot is not big enough.

Do you cap OOP HU against someone that isn't completely braindead/maniacal/super tilted? Because this is one balance play I've found that I absolutely love... bad players constantly misjudge your range and give you way too much action on a ton of board textures. Even good players don't adjust very well to this IMO, even if they know you're doing it.

As for not 3betting out of the blinds, I go back and forth on this. Somedays I never do it against reasonable players, somedays I 3bet the BB like crazy. I think the best solution in most live mid limit games, or small-middish online games is to 3bet the BB until you see how they react. If they like to cap light then I think you need to be 3betting a strong range just to get that extra value. If they don't cap in position then I don't think you lose anything by just calling OOP. If they play very straightforward when you 3bet then I start 3betting a lot wider since so many hands will be so much easier to play and we'll be somewhat nullify his positional advantage.

I'd imagine this strategy also screws up some players when they see you 3bet AA one day, then the next day you're calling your whole range and they give you too much action since they know you 3bet the BB.. I really do think a mixed strategy is probably optimal here.

Also calling out of the BB does probably require a higher knowledge of card values on certain flop textures against a given player's range. High stakes players know when to c/r AQ UI after they call it from the BB... I often find myself just c/c'ing down and then yelling at myself for missing lots of value by playing my hand straight forwardly.

You're right that there's not a huge functional difference in this scenario with KQ and AK, except that this TAG is probably going to call down with A3 so even though we still get value from gutters, we really just end up value towning ourselves, or getting c/raised by a draw enough to make me want to check the turn back and play rivers accordingly.

If someone is playing very straightforwardly then I barrel a bit more often, sometimes I'll 3barrel with a hand like KT if I think the TAG can fold A high on the river even though I have showdown value.

This depends a lot on the stakes. I've played mostly 3/6-5/T for the last few months, and your average multitabling TAG is probably showing down 38-40% meaning you have to pry A high from their cold dead fingers on a board like this. I'm assuming the villain in this example is good enough to not be some foldy nit.

And really AK is the nuts on this board, I think checking this turn with AK would be a pretty large mistake against basically any villain. If we assume him to be a good TAG then we just take our lumps and B/C since there are so many worse Ax and maybe even some Kx hands we can get value from on the turn after he c/c's that flop.

I don't know. I try to quit those people. I cap pretty lightly once I think that they aren't 3 only betting 1%. Running people over is underrated in HUHU. I wish I were better at it. You get the guy who is almost decent and you run him over a couple times; he becomes a fit/fold fish. The only reason to play someone HUHU at stakes less than 5/T (and maybe there) is b/c he is a fish. By sitting more than 10 hands with you, I'm stating that I think you suck at poker.

You've got to c/r most all flops because you passed on the value preflop. You had a clear edge. The argument is that you make it up 100% on the flop by c/r.

You make some good points about adjustments and stuff. You're thinking good/deep things. I find that even decent players are self-leveling; you three bet them, they decide that you don't have AA or KK, and they decide you're making a play. I'm not going to pass up immediate value when they don't play well enough to use the great read. Wander up to a tough 10/20 or 15/30 online game, and maybe they do. Being a much smaller-stakes player, I'd be an idiot to adopt the balancing plays that got handed down from the nose-bleeds as adjustments to adjustments. Taking on the style of a great player to look cool? That's just plain dumb.

The commentary in 5's a Crowd was a great discussion of these concepts.

Honestly, it's the same reason I c-bet the flop. Assuming villain can peel with no pair no draw on the flop (like 65s) and reasonably assume he thinks he has 6 outs+ or sometimes the best hand or make you fold A/K-high with a turn check-raise...

But as someone mentioned, at some point this becomes a leveling game and is so dependent on villain's tendencies and your history and player dynamics. For example, when Jesse raises my BB, I would peel this flop with a huge portion of my range that I'm not check-raising because quite often I get 2 free cards, I can bluff him off the best hand, I can suck out, I sometimes have 6+ outs, I might have the best hand, etc.

If we have to narrow villain's range due to his flop peel, then yeah, of course this changes things quite a bit.

I'll 3-bet out of the BB more frequently against someone I think I have more fold equity against. For instance, when leo doc, DougL and I were playing at the Mirage last month, leo doc opened on my BB in LP.

I had A2o. If it were DougL, I would have just called and tried to showdown cheaply and let him value-town himself (I also would have just smooth-called with my entire range). But against leo doc, I felt I had more postflop fold equity and he would play more fit or fold, so gaining the initiative was more valuable.

Nothing personal leo doc, I was just hoping you played better than DougL.

Ya I meant capping OOP in a ring game, in like a CO vs BTN situation. Obviously you can't cap OOP playing HU (unless you're on party poker where they had the dumb reversed blinds)

This is actually something I should look into more... I suspect there are a lot of flops where we're still the favorite against a standard BTN stealer and those are the ones I'd want to be c/raising. I laugh really hard when someone who calls their whole range from the BB c/raises something like a K9x board with AQs because they passed on a PF 3bet... I guess you could make an argument for protecting equity or something but usually they do that just because they don't understand why they're calling PF instead of 3betting.

Yesterday Wadsulat0r (nit tag multitabler) c/raised me with A5 on a 48Kr board. It owned me pretty hard when I decided to call the flop with QJo and make some ******ed tilted dumb FSDR on a 2 turn which he tanked and peeled, oops.

I enjoyed those series. It is pretty dumb to call from the BB just because a high stakes player does it... but I certainly think you have to experiment to see how opponents are going to react before you can make the decision. I'm certainly leaning more towards 3betting on a more regular basis than I was for a time, but I never think I'll always stick to either strategy.

Just curious Doug, 5/T 6m game, decent 29/22 player stealing 45% and showing down 40% from the BTN opens, what are you 3betting? Let's assume he's not paying attention to who's in the blinds for simplicities sake. How would you derive this range? Would you just use some 20%ish range, or would you weight it more towards Ax and showdown hands and suited connectors/small pairs where we'd want more FE? I guess part of the reason I like to call a lot is because when we get a hand like QTs, I have no idea why we're 3betting, but I feel like I should be.

One thing I've noticed lately is that people don't valuetown themselves near often enough, myself included. If we only need 50.0001% equity to bet a river (assuming a simplistic assumption of not getting c/raised) then we should be losing a lot more often when called than we actually are. I really only get shown a better hand with a regular basis on 4 flush boards, or boards like J74 where I c/r A7 and get to showdown to see.. 88-TT. But this is kind of a pointless ramble that isn't really relevant to this thread, (except to say that I don't c/r AQ on 723 enough and bet down for value often enough I suppose if I call it PF).

First, what is a good LAGTAG doing in one of the two seats on your right? It has to be because the SB is a total fish, right? Thus, it isn't a HU pot b/c that guy will cold-call a lot from his SB. Good blind defense starts with the buddy system.

Think about the good player's range.

44+,A2s+,K2s+,Q4s+,J6s+,T6s+,96s+,86s+,76s,A2o+,K6 o+,Q8o+,J8o+,T8o+,98o

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 50.323% 48.69% 01.64% 1797398716 60400400.00 { 44+, A2s+, K2s+, Q4s+, J6s+, T6s+, 96s+, 86s+, 76s, A2o+, K6o+, Q8o+, J8o+, T8o+, 98o }
Hand 1: 49.677% 48.04% 01.64% 1773527908 60400400.00 { QTs }

If he plays fit/fold post flop you just negated position with a neutral EV bet. Also, if he caps a strong range, you can rule out overpairs when you flop top pair. I don't mind JTs and T9s our range; the QT and KT hands are more likely to be dominated if he's tighter than we think. Meh, 3 bet about anything you want that has decent equity, imo.

In the end, it is really hard to have a hypothetical discussion here. In HU hands, you have recent history, reads, stats, and feelings about the player. With anyone decent, you have to think about your image. One of my favorite notes is, "has a note that I'm a crazy LAG". If you ever wind up showing down marginal stuff against a decent player, you have to consider that he has a note that will make him spew against you.

All right, that's it.



It is HU4Rolz for you mister. I'm calling you out. Getting me to value own myself vs. A2o? Get that weak stuff out of here, meat.

edit: I had to include the link b/c you live guys might not understand the tradition. I'll probably have to make a video as I take all your monies.

Yeah, I don't hang out in micros, so don't quite understand this one. But considering I've only logged 800 hands lifetime online and 0 HUHU, I'm going to have to respectfully decline. Make it live mid-stakes FR, and we can talk.

Cowardice in the face of a $1.43 wager is unbecoming.

You didn't gain the initiative until you c/r'ed the turn. If I wasn't drunk and owed you money, I'd have value checked the damned turn.

I don't know how Doug or I should take this. Pretty sure I just got reminded of the nadir of my trip, tho.

If we hadn't already, I'd say we've completely threadjacked this thread. Did you just call me a coward? OK, I'm sure I could scratch up $1.43 somewhere in my couch or something. I thought this was for actual money. You'll have to explain this thing, because I have no idea what the HU4Rolz is.

I had a few drinks, but I'm pretty sure I only 3-bet preflop and then bet bet and you mucked the turn. Oh well, if Doug can confirm your story, then I guess I really did pwn you.

You pwned me for true. I opened ATo from lj or hj; only you called. Flop was a bunch of middling stuff and you c/c. Turn was some bs card and you c/r'ed. I tanked for a bit (mostly 'cause I was pissed at myself for betting), then folded.

Pwnage was yours; gaining the initiative was not.

And if Doug confirms yours, then I was even drunker than I thought.

lol what happened to this thread...it got off to such a great start!

kind of like all my threads i guess that start off good and then dissolve into LC threads