6/12 Bay 101

Table is pretty active. I've been running good. There are 2 other players at the table who I think are decent, but otherwise standard LLHE crowd.

V1 has been in almost every hand and his raising range is enormous. If he gets 3! after he's raised, in most cases he's capping and saying "Hey, why not." After capping he's shown down all kinds of hands from AJ+ down to things like 54o

V2 is a seems to be a meh TAG and plays basically straightforward after the flop. He'll bet his stronger draws, bet overs with BD draws, but I've also seen him make some odd draws at times.

Hero is in SB with TT

PF: A few folds, V1 raises, fold, V2 3!, BTN cold calls (std loose passive player, he'll play any A, any 2 broadways, and maybe any 2 suited cards PF) Hero...

Is this an obvious cap? I can't imagine folding, but calling 3 seems like a bad idea to me as a general rule. Maybe I shouldn't have a general rule? I haven't done my homework for this hand, but I think most of V2's range here consists of maybe 88+ and all the broadways. I'm not really sure if he'll 3! pairs lower than TT, and I'm not sure how much he's paying attention to the fact that V1 is raising really wide most of the time.

I think the only bad play here is folding. Calling is certainly acceptable, and may well be the best play. Based on your description of the other players, I don't think capping is a bad play at all, but I might call here just to see what the other players are going to do. If it's anything like the 6-12 games I play, someone is going to cap it anyway; might as well let someone else do it, with a hand like this. If you miss the extra pre-flop bet, I don't think it's a tragedy. And frankly it's borderline anyway b/t call and raise.

I'm capping from the SB vs. an mp opener with a huge opening range and a not so great TAG 3-better. We have the best hand a ton here and I don't need BB sticking around. I think calling is the worst of our options. IMO, raise > fold > call. AQlthough, I could probably be talked into folding.

The real key here is how V2 reacts to V1. Some "meh TAGs" would open up their calling cold range vs. the maniac but still not 3bet much more than their normal 3betting range. If V2 is 3betting a normal range, tens are in trouble. If he's 3betting a little wide, tens are probably about even but getting value from V1 and the button.

Depending on your read of V2's range, this could be a fold or a cap. Without a specific read I'd probably give him credit for 3betting wider and cap to get value. I don't see any rationale for calling.

Letting someone else cap it makes it much more likely for the BB to come in. If no one else caps it, you're missing value with a hand that you believe to be way ahead of V1 and button's ranges.

Cap.

Ok, ran some Equilab to look at some numbers. I gave MP1=V1 a 70% opening range, MP3=V2 88+, all broadways, and A9o and A9s for his 3-bet range. Cold-calling button gets a 60% range here (not sure how accurate that is). I ignored the BB for now and got these results:

So it looks like this is an easy cap based on value. Being OOP might bring up some playability issues (Captain R had a good post on TT OOP, but I can't find it right now), but I think capping for value is correct after looking at it some more.

I think I tend to undervalue TT a lot, at least PF.

Yeah, he's not a total TAG, so I kept his range a bit wide. With all the broadways in there, I think I ahead of a decent portion of his range. If I could peg him for only top 9%(JJ+,AJs+,KJs+,QJs,AJo+,KJo+,QJo), I'm about even with him: we're both at about 33% equity PF. If he's only 3-betting QQ+, then yeah, I'm hurting.

I still can't imagine folding. Even before running the equilab I thought folding was the worst of my options. Again, if the 3! meant only QQ+ the situation would be different.

Also, here is the thread I was referring to regarding raising TT OOP. Granted, the situation PF is different, but Chasqui and Captain R bring up some good analysis and the issues about playing it post-flop. The conclusion is basically the same: capping here seems the clearly better play.

QJ in his 3b range seems a bit optimistic. You don't need to be a HU favorite to cap, though, because the field is subsidizing you with weak hands and, assuming the BB folds, his dead money pays the rake. You just need to be enough of a money favorite to offset the RIO of playing TT out of position.

Yes, I agree. Bad choice of words on my part. My range for this villain could use some work to be sure, but I think the point to take away from this (for me) is that I seem to greatly undervalue TT in situations like this. The equity numbers can be tweaked and ranges adjusted, but the overall conclusion is still basially the same.

Resident limit poker experts, please critique this argument (made in stream of consciousness ):

It seems like the more bets you put in pre with an equity advantage, the more postflop play becomes automatic, even when that includes a litany of depressing crying calls in huge pots. Thus capping would reduce the RIO of playing TT unless you lean toward making bad folds in huge pots.

The analogous big-bet concept I'm thinking of is reducing IO by reducing stack/pot ratio. For example, in PLO it's virtually always correct to make a pot-sized reraise to put in 1/3 or more of your stack with AAxx, because it's impossible to misplay AA postflop that shallow.

That said, in LHE it's always at least 2.5 BB to call down if every street is bet, and you can only get 2 or 2.5 BB in preflop, so the application of that concept may be negligible. In a 16-bet pot on something like KQ7, we pretty much have to check/fold if V1 leads and V2 raises, right? Yet we could easily be ahead of V1 and have substantial equity against something like JT or Ax for V2, right?

I don't play a lot of 6/12, but I don't recall players being that aggressive preflop. Like you really need to take out JT/QJ/A9 IMO, but you would know the players better than me. If their ranges are really that weak, then fine, cap preflop. But I think you overestimate V2's range by quite a bit.

If you give them tighter ranges or if you think V1 is going to cap most of the time anyway, I prefer calling preflop and then postflop is pretty straightforward. C/r low card flops, donk a T, c/f an Ace.

Yeah, you're right. My chosen range for V2 is not accurate, it should be tighter. I'm just starting to get into these equity calculations with Equilab, so it's a learning process as I try to set up reasonable ranges and incorporate the results into my thinking.

Modified attempt at equity calcs:

For V3 (cold-calling button), I kept the range the same but removed AA and KK since I assume even he'd cap it up with those.

V2 I tightened up a bunch (about 7% range). 88 and 99 might be debatable, but I left them in.

I even tightened up V1 because despite being loose, my earlier range was a bit silly. I gave him a bunch of Axs, all pairs, all big and little broadways, and bunch of suited connectors.

Equity-wise this puts me slightly behind V2, but significantly ahead of V1 and V3. This seems more realistic to me.

Here's a range I would've used. Is V3 really calling any two suited cards? That seems kinda insane. I mean, that could be wider than V1's range.

Anyway, what I guess are somewhat reasonable ranges:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
1%-75%	16.19%	94,493	6,141
88+,AJ+,KJ+	31.89%	187,559	8,317
TcTd	28.29%	166,545	7,154
33-QQ,BB,8x7x+,Ax2x+	23.63%	139,087	6,246

If V3 is really as wide as you are using, then yeah, cap for value. I'm giving him any pp (sorry, forgot 22) to QQ, any two broadways, 87s+, and any suited Ace.