6/12 Oaks

Villain is competent but with leaks. His PF game is decent, though slightly on the passive side (limps KTs in EP/LP rather than raises them). Saw him isolate a poster on the BTN with 65o (flopped bot pair, bets two streets and checks river).

From conversing with him, I can tell he thinks about things like "what hands would I bluff out?" (Context: Villain checks all the way with another player with 88 from the blinds against an EP PF raiser who had TT. PF raiser checked all streets on a KJ492 board. Villain mentions that "TT is the only hand he could hope to bluff out")

I raise AQo in EP 8-9 handed, villain 3bets BTN, blinds call, I call.

Flop: A 8 4 (two diamonds) Pot~15sb

Checked to villain who bets, sb calls, BB folds, I raise, villain calls, sb calls.

Turn: T (non diamond) Pot~21sb
sb checks, I bet, villain raises, sb folds, I call.

River: Q (non diamond) Pot~25sb

Discuss the merits of all the following:
1. Bet/call
2. Check/call
3. Check/raise/call a 3bet
4. Check/raise/fold to a 3bet.

I think the biggest question is what we think Villain would do with 88 preflop. Do we think he has a cold-calling range, or is he 3-betting anything he's playing second in from LP vs. an EP open? And if he's playing 3-bet or fold, is his perception of ChocolateMoo's range such that he'll 3-bet ATs or even ATo?

My initial thought is a pessimistic one, which is that Villain's range appears to be something like AK, TT, 88, AQ, AA, against which we're just a slight favorite to win the hand in terms of combo count (and against which we're a money dog on the river due to being out of position against an opponent who doesn't sound like someone who will automatically value bet AK on a river card that is scary for AK).

But to whatever extent we can start including AT and discounting 88 in Villain's range, that's going to help our cause.

@Nick: The information I provided is all that I could glean from my opponent. He plays long hours with me and seems like a slightly-winning player. I'd estimate his PFR % to be around 10-15% and VPIP around 20-25%. (Mine: PFR > 30% and VPIP ~30-35%.)

If he understands how to isolate and bluff, I wouldn't put 88/ATs past him preflop, though perhaps slightly discounted if he's more on the passive side. (I don't see him 3bet very much preflop). He has a semibluff range (e.g. he calls in the blinds with K8 multiway from the sb; flop comes: 972 Villain c/c's a bet from EP, strings 3-4 players along to his left. Turn:6 Villain leads.)

Another key piece of information I left out is the board texture: I believe the AT were both showing.

Estimate for villain's range:
AA - 1
AK - 8
AQ - 4
TT - 3
88 - 1.5 (disc)
ATs - 1 (disc)
KQs/KJs/QJs - 1.5 (disc)
AJ - 6 (disc)

I beat 15.5 / 26 combos (and tie 4 more). As the discounted range approaches 0, however, then I beat 8/16 (making c/raise/call 3 bet breakeven)

My perceived range should be Ax/bluffs. I opened UTG, so my Ax range is probably something like A8s/A9s/AT-AK. My concern with c/raising is if villain scare-checks AK (he's only getting value from AJ/A9s), making his river bet polarized towards hands better than AQ.

I don't think he's bluffing with any non-pair hands on the river, so I think any semibluffs he tried on the turn checks the river as it has SD value. This is a pro for leading river, but his semibluff range is likely small (or 0) considering that the pot is protected when I raised. So I think the decisions are among: c/c, c/raise/call 3, c/raise/fold. I think I like c/raise/fold, but folding for 1bet in huge pots always feels ludicrous so in reality I'd just call the 3bet.

If you think his range is that tight, I think you should fold to his raise on the turn.

@Chillrob:

I'm getting 13.5:1 immediate, but because I'm obviously calling a river bet, it's really 14.5:2. Against a range of:
{AA/AK/AQ/TT}
(of which, prior to the river card, there are still 6 combos of AQ)

AA - 1
AK - 8
AQ - 6
TT - 3

8/18 * (6%) + 6/18 * (50%) = .027 + .165 = .192

(Someone check my math or stove it. )

I only need to be good 12% of the time to call down, while my equity is 19.2%.

I have a difficult time reconciling you saying you have a PFR > 30% and you asking about A2s. What exactly are you raising if A2s isn't part of the 30%?

@callip:

Actually, I realized I just guesstimated numbers without any real basis. Not really sure what my true PFR is.

In position, I isolate a lot from BTN/CO/HJ, especially against loose limpers. (As wide as A3-AK, K4s-K7s/K8-KQ, two cards 9 and higher, etc.) My thought is that I will always be able to value bet better/thinner than my opposition, and that most of the time, my hands have an equity edge against their hands. (Plus, I get to utilize my position). From EP, I try to raise a lot less (something like KJs+, ATo+, 88+); I don't want to play a 3-4 handed pot for 2-4BB against hands dominating mine, when I can play it for 1-4BB against 5+ players, of which I can dominate.

I'm a firm believer that stove analysis has some inherent weaknesses in that it doesn't factor in the problem of equity realization. So even though I may have an equity edge raising A2s from the sb against 8 limpers, I often won't realize that equity as I'm forced to fold a lot of flops/turns. (and yet, I still raise it like it's my job)

My PF raising % is too high and is likely a leak. I've definitely opened hands like JTo from EP (usually out of boredom/tilt) or trying to isolate one limper with 98o only to get called by both blinds (not quite sure how bad this is; likely is just -EV). Need to work on constructing better preflop raising ranges.

In the case of A2s, I want players with hands like Q5o/J2s/54o in the pot with me who may limp but not call a raise. It is true that raising pre might fold out A3-A8/A9/AT, but the keyword here is "might".

I didn't read all the responses, but I think that you need to CR the river as he has AK a ton here. If I am him I play AK exactly like this. If he has TT or 88 w/e. You should be able to fold to 3! on the river but of course I'd probably call in game.

Your pot count doesn't seem to add up.

I get that you would need to be good about 16% of the time after the turn raise, and I think you need to discount AQ and maybe add in some ATs.

FWIW, if I were Villain, the AJ combos would be close to zero. (I most likely would have just called down from your flop checkraise if I had that.) So, to me, including in Villain's range 6 (out of 8) combos of AJ feels optimistic.

But, anyway, according to the river range you provided for Villain, it's looking like a bet-call will net you roughly +3.5 BB per 26 rivers. (I'm assuming Villain will raise sets and straights.)

If he bets AK and better if checked to, then a check-call is going to net you +2.5 BB out of 26 rivers (based, again, on the range you provided).

So long as he bets AK+ and pays off a checkraise (and never 3-bets AQ or AT), a river checkraise-fold would net 5 BB out of 26 rivers based on the assumptions we're using.

A checkraise-call is not vulnerable to a spazzy accidental 3-bet bluff like the checkraise-fold is, but it also potentially is less effective. I don't have a very good feel for how often Villain goes ahead and 3-bets a set, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me if he did. But if he's almost always 3-betting when he has you beat, then a checkraise-call is about break-even, like you say.

Since I want to discount AJ more heavily than you have, and since Villain quite likely cannot really be counted on to bet AK 100% of the time if checked to on the river, and since Villain is likely to do a good job of picking which of his hands to raise if we bet into him, I suspect that a river check-call may be the best play, even though it feels distasteful.

I think c/r fold to a 3 bet is clearly best vs most people. If villain was really good then I. Would likely c/r/call since when you checkraise this river your range is pretty much AQ 100% of the time and since you and lots of other players likely fold to river 3 bet here, I think villain should be 3 betting river with AK, but since he's almost certainly not doing this id checkraise-fold.

I'd probably fold to the turn raise.

River is more than just counting combos. We can't turn our brains off and not hand read. Villain called flop and raised turn, this is NOT how many people play AK. Many players (in fact maybe even most who are of the "competent but with leaks" variety) are 3betting the flop in that multiway spot. This means we have to discount combos of AK significantly (to keep things simple, I would discount AK by 50%), and then the river play becomes obvious. Check-call.

So yeah, I strongly disagree with Nick C when he says, "I think the biggest question is what we think Villain would do with 88 preflop". No. The biggest question is what we think Villain will do with AK--the one lesser hand we would be attacking with a hypothetical river check/raise--on the flop+turn.

YMMV but from what I remember about 6/12 games people are more likely to call down after the flop CR than to 3 bet. I see your point, I just think you are wrong in discounting AK.

Irrelevant point. Villain has already taken an aggressive line. Now ask yourself, which line is more likely from typical villain with AK in that spot.

1) Call flop-raise turn.

or

2) 3bet flop.

Now we both know that many players often choose line 2), therefore it is self-evident that AK has to be discounted here. The only remaining question is how much should we discount AK.

This. AK is the value hand that we need to know how he plays. Yoh described villain as passive....is he passive enough that he may not be raising ak for value on the turn? What about combo draws on the turn? Kqdd etc?

A little confused by your sentence. If he raises AK on the turn, of course it is for value. You mean would he not raise AK on the turn, period?

I think he's capable of semibluffing on the turn. If you reread my description, villain is saavy enough to understand "what hands I could bluff out". To ILP's point, it is true that we have to weigh frequencies for when our opponent 3bets the flop with AK vs waiting for the turn. But the same could be said for his sets. Also, I wouldn't put it past him to FSDR KK-JJ some non 0% of the time. But that's pretty hard to quantify.

I didn't put this in the description, but this is probably relevant. I have an aggressive image. He may think that raising the turn may inadverdantly blow out a weak ace from the blinds and isolate my perceived wider flop c/raising range (by wider, i mean relative to other players).

In addition to being rusty in general post-Black Friday, I'm also so used to using and running into the in-position call flop, raise turn play from online 6-max that I didn't take into consideration that Villain had the alternative aggressive line of 3-betting the flop that he could have used and didn't, and, more to the point, that Villain might choose an immediate 3-bet for some hands and take a wait-till-the-turn approach with others.

(Incidentally, I did consider trying to weight TT but wasn't sure how to go about it. Does Villain always bet the A-high flop 4-way? I figured he probably does c-bet in this spot nearly 100% but wasn't sure. Does he nearly always peel in particular his diamondless TT at 14:1 after getting checkraised? My guess was yes, but again I wasn't sure. One thing that is clear is that the turn play is consistent with TT.)

Anyway, I don't know how much to discount AK, but ILP is correct that we should attempt to weight the AK combos in our analysis.

The point isn't so irrelevant, is it? If a Villain fitting our read would just call down with AK some percentage of the time, then that's something that he's doing with AK besides waiting and raising the turn, and we should take that into account when discounting.

For instance, if all Villain ever did with AK in this spot was call down, then we would eliminate AK from consideration entirely even though he's never 3-betting the flop with it .

This really doesn't matter as far as our river play. If he's still bluffing the river, we can safely assume he's not calling our check/raise. So against this tiny piece of villain's range we're indifferent between check/calling and check/raising.

In my 10 years experience I would say most non-timid players are 3betting the flop in that spot instead of calling and raising the turn. They usually try to get the 3rd guy out right away. I think discounting AK by 50% is reasonable and conservative.


Absolutely not. Villain's play mimics TT perfectly every street. Barely anybody in the poker universe 3bets the flop with TT in that spot. TT's should not be discounted at all.

88s should be discounted cuz of preflop, same with ATs. Typical 6-12 players don't 3bet preflop with those hands. Those are calling hands to them, especially the type of people who limps with KTs in LP as your OP said. As far as the last set (AA). Well there's only 1 combo of that left. Doesn't really matter to me what you do with that. I would only add that most small stakes players tend to wait to the turn with their monsters, but whatever.

This doesn't matter tho. The decision point on the river is between check/raising and check/calling. We get nothing from that range either way, and these type of hands don't make up enough of villain's range for us to want to switch away from a "check/x" strategy to a "donk/x" strategy.


You're thinking too much man. This is still a 6-12 player.

To reiterate, the the decision point on the river all comes down to how much we discount AK. I mean maybe villain can have ATs or 88s, but we can just assume those holdings cancel each other out. We can discount AA by 50% if you want, I don't care, but we should not discount TT at all. Once we appropriately discount AK (the major hand we are attacking with a hypothetical river check/raise) it's all over. It's check/call time.

In live 6-12, villain's will tend to wait til the turn with their monsters and 3bet the flop with their good but not awesome hands (hands like TPTK or an overpair) whenever there's an uncommitted third guy in the pot. With a third guy in, more savvy villains will 3bet the flop with their entire value range to hold serve in the information battle. What you're referring to above is more about HU strategy, in a game (online six max) that is much more sophisticated than live 6-12.

My working assumption is villain will always cbet the flop. It's a good enough approximation imo.

Again I think it's a good enough approximation to assume villain is always calling our check/raise with this holding.

Yep. His play matches TT to a tee. So I wouldn't discount this part of his range at all. All 3 combos should go in our analysis.

For the sake of simplicity let's assume the discounted hands (ATs and 88) roughly cancel each other out, since we beat one holding and lose to the other. And of course we can ignore those times villain has AQ. And we can ignore those times villain is somehow bluffing since those hands presumably won't call our river check/raise.

Then we're left with AA,TT,AK.

EVEN if we don't discount AK at all, we're still indifferent (mathematically speaking) between check/calling and check/raise-calling:

Discount AK like I recommend, and there's no value to the dubious line of check/raise folding in this large pot either:

All we can do on the river is check/call.

If you are going to go into it with this much detail I think you can discount TT somewhat because of the flop play.

Yeah holmfries post makes no sense. He's saying I'm wrong for discounting AK, but the logic of his argument indicates I should discount AK.

I strongly disagree. The argument for discounting TT can only come from preflop since lots of small stakes players do not 3bet preflop with that holding. But once they do, they're betting that flop, and they're not folding to that flop check/raise for one more small bet. Again, that's obviously just an approximation, but it's close enough to reality to make me not discount TT. But sure you can discount TT by 10% or something if you want. Won't matter after we discount AK appropriately.

Also: I'm ok with assuming that this guy is always 3betting preflop in that spot with TTs.