What about 78s? It's kinda the lower part of villains range, especially against a player who is betting turn often and potentially betting some rivers for thin value or bluff.

This first time I seen this strategy suggested in print was in "The Intelligent Poker Player":

if I somehow played an overpair this way I'm never folding to a 3b vs another good player

Agreed that villain's line is pretty bad if his range is mostly JJ-AA.

Yep, against this type of player, turning crying calling hands into raising hands will work out well.

An example hand vs this type of opponent:

Villain opens in the CO and you call in the BB with 55.

Flop comes out T83

You check, he bets, you call.

Turn is a 4

You check, he bets, you call.

River is a 9

You check, he bets, you raise.

Notice, if you have have a clean image, this type of player may fold all one pair hands after this run out and this action making this "just in case" exploitative raise very profitable (until you're caught ofc).

If your reads are correct, this turn raise is hot.

We know Jon thinks he can make this exploitative play because he did just that, and that's the problem with this thread in a nutshell (in terms of discerning correct play): who are we to say Jon messed up when Jon clearly knows this guy better than we do. I mean, maybe Jon did mess up, but really only Jon can figure that out. I suppose we could challenge Jon's working assumptions, like for example, I am extremely skeptical that villain's range looks like this...

...after that river action. Why am I skeptical? Because most humans--good or bad--are taking an aggressive line with those holdings on the flop or the turn. IOW, something like this make's a lot more sense:

Although I disagree with redbouilon that we should expect 7x to "put in more action on the flop"*,



I agree with him on the "overpair/monster" part, which would typically mean that this player's river check/raise = the 7 improved him, as redbouilon alluded with this last sentence, or the guy is possibly check/raise bluffing with air which would make Jon's river 3bet terrible obv.

Only very very good players are gonna keep overpairs in their range by the river, and then check/raise the river for value with many of those holdings when the top card on the flop pairs the river. But then again, as you noted, Jon DID say that this guy IS a "very good player" who EVEN is aware that Jon's range is uncapped preflop. So we can't even challenge Jon on this front. Although I am very skeptical about Jon's river range, Jon's player description matches the exact profile of a guy that COULD have that river range, which makes Jon's river 3bet NOT terrible but possibly awesome IF this guy does not think like this guy obv:

I mean, I guess, but then the thread becomes kind of too obvious. Then 3betting the river is unequivocally the correct play. As it stands now, there's no way to know if Jon played the river right or not. What we know is he turned a crying call hand into a bluff in the heat of battle because he thought he could get some better hands to fold. Only Jon can know if he made a mistake or not. It's a "you had to be there" type hand. For some reason I find this current state of affairs more interesting than if Jon gave us a read that this guy is foldy because then the thread basically ends after 1 or 2 "nh" posts.

Yeah, it becomes kind of a semantics issue with the "mostly" part. All I know is, on dynamic boards vs aggressive players where one feels compelled to call down--on good run outs--with some of their A-high hands and other weak bluff catching pairs like A5s on that board, , one should definitely keep overpairs in their range by the river vs very good hand readers (what proportion is obv up for debate). This is something that only very good players would even think about (and ofc Jon said this guy is very good).

I think 3-betting as a bluff is ridiculous unless you have a very specific read.

Delaying the raise to the river is specifically about getting another 2 BB into the pot so that the Villain (in this case JL) won't fold weak made hands.

Re: Delaying.

Meh. In theory, a GTO expert villain will be delaying some combos of 89 or sets to have a raising range on blank or pairing rivers. But even most 'really good' players never take it this far.

You lose.

First of all, you're right, a 7x hand should not be expected to put in any more action on the flop or the turn. I missed the fact that the villain knows our range is uncapped. In that case, his range after the river raise is mostly 7x (primarily A7) and some bluffs. Folding then becomes reasonable, given that 88 is pretty close to the bottom of our range. Calling is OK too. 3b doesn't make much sense given his range imo.

The point you made in the post I quoted is very interesting, but somewhat questionable. Situations where we should definitely keep overpairs and other great hands in our range till the river are those where NOT doing that would cause the villain to only rarely check behind the river. It's not at all obvious that every or even most situations you described satisfy this condition. I'm not saying it's not true, just that it's not at all obvious. My guess is that even if what you're saying is true the proof is very nontrivial.

This actually doesn't matter. EVEN IF Jon's range is capped, and thus we can eliminate tons of overpairs.....if we have a hand like A7 on a 765 flop and Jon raises us, our hand STILL sux. Think about the kind of hands a good player with a capped range is raising on that flop after calling in that spot preflop. The minute such a player raises us on THAT flop we're gonna be at a significant equity disadvantage with our reverse implied odds top pair hand. Not a fun spot. Definitely not a spot where we wanna voluntarily increase our investment with a flop 3bet. And Obviously the fact that Jon's range is uncapped makes this spot much worse.

The 3bet doesn't make much sense vs the range you're putting villain on. I agree with that. But that's not the range Jon is putting his opponent on. Jon is putting his opponent on mostly overpairs. Combinatorially, Jon's story actually checks out. Think about it. In a game where "players will play slightly tighter in holdem rounds than they would in purely a holdem game", is a "very good player" gonna three bet a good player's CO open with a hand like A7o? I highly doubt it. Very good players don't 3bet OOP with equity dog hands that play horribly postflop vs other good players. No, they typically don't hate money like that. I personally wouldn't play one hand that had a 7 in it in this spot (except for 77 obv). So right away, I think we have to strongly discount 7x from the SB's range preflop. However, SB's postflop play is 100% consistent with 7x so we can't just ignore it, but if we assume that SB is likely not playing an offsuit 7x hand often preflop, and we assume that SB is good enough to take some overpairs to the river in this spot, then combination-wise, SB is very likely to have mostly overpairs in this spot.

So from this perspective, Jon's play does indeed make sense. He suspect's his opponent has a lot of overpairs in his value range once he check/raises the river, and then Jon "went for it" and 3bet the river hoping his villain will maybe fold a better hand. Whether Jon's play is right or wrong, who knows, but it does make sense. The river card helps Jon's range more than it helps his opponent's. By 3betting the river, Jon is telling a consistent story--given the way he played every street--that the 7 helped him or he didn't need the 7 to help him cause he already flopped strong with a set/2 pair/straight. After all, it is reasonable to assume that Jon would play 7x and all flopped monsters the same in this spot. But like I said before, only Jon can know if his river 3bet is correct or not, i.e. if he has the requisite FE to make this play viable.

The most important variable here is the nature of our opponent. Against someone who is very good--i.e. against an aggressive player who hand reads well, value bets well, bluffs at a near optimal frequency, etc--we will be giving up too much information on certain boards when we just call a flop raise followed by just calling a turn bet IF we don't take some strong hands like overpairs to the river.

We've all seen this show before, you know, when you can pretty much narrow down an aggressive player's river calling range after he meekly calls your flop raise and turn bet, we know this means most of his calling range will be Ace high heavy and maybe a few marginal pair hands (Because he's an aggressive player, if he had something he likes he would've likely taken a stronger line on the flop or turn), and thus we value bet appropriately, mercilessly and exploitatively attacking that weak range. So on the type of boards where you'll feel compelled to call down good run outs with Ace-high, vs the described very good villain, you should take some overpairs to the river so that he can't own you on that street.

I actually don't think it's necessary at all to take 2pair+ to the river even if it would be theoretically correct to do so, I think that's giving humans too much credit. It should be enough to take some strong one pair hands to the river against very good hand reading value bettors.

To be honest tho, I don't think this is very important. The above only applies when you're playing against extremely good players. Against your average player who doesn't value bet enough, and doesn't read hands that well, you're not gonna get exploited by giving up vital information after you just call a flop raise and just call the turn. The population of players in the poker pool who will exploit you for capping your range after you call a flop raise and a turn bet is very very small ime.

I agree. I still pay off like a fish, though.

Why? He gets to c/c if it turns into a 4 liner..and he gets to c/r river and maybe get a random WTF call where better hands won't raise. It gets the most bets in when ahead. IMO of course.


I'm not super optimistic that a 3! will get hands that beat 8s to fold...