Thursday night during the hot-seat promo. The gambloors are out in force.

Hero (bout $350) is MAWG and by far the tightest guy at the table. Image really only matters to one V, but to him I was probably seen as TAG/near nit until he saw me three-barrel a semi-bluff in to an OMC and fail to get him off third pair about an hour ago. Now he knows that I can make moves, but may still see me as kinda nitty. Rest of table is basically only playing their own hands, but I likely seem very tight and prone to bet big when I do. Still, it doesn't affect their play much, if at all.

V1 ($200) MAWG in gear from his drag racing team is a LP fish, and he knows it. Just there to have some fun and donk off his money.

V2 (covers) MAWG in some sort of work polo talking a lot about his upcoming Vegas trip "for the series" (plans to play the Colossus and various dailies, no other WSOP events). He is a thinking player and trying to be a LAG, but he's a gambler and has a major case of flop addiction. He limp calls a LOT PF from any position. Post flop he is very aggro and sometimes completely spewy. Has been caught bluffing and merging in really weird/bad spots. On the other hand, he also has been getting paid by the even worse players who love the action. Stack has been up over $1K and down as low as about $400. It's around $600 now.

Hero sees red 77 UTG and raises to 10.
5 callers who are all flop addicts, including both Vs in the blinds. Other Vs will all overpay for draws, stack off with TPNK, etc. One of them is spewy young Asian who will bet huge with semi-bluffs often. The others are more standard.

Pot $55
Flop 3c5d6c

V1 leads for $10 (lol) from SB. This is 100% a weak pair hoping no one has anything or a draw trying to set a cheap price. His weak pair range will fold to most any raise, and his draws will call almost any raise if it is not a gross overbet.

V2 flats very quickly from BB. I put him mostly on draws or pair+GS that like the cheep price, though the game has been actiony enough that there might be some monsters in there confident that someone will raise for him. Usually expect a bit more thinking from the monsters rather than the snap call of the tiny bet, though.

Hero raises to $75 for fat value against draws, planning to GII with Asian if he RR. As hero is cutting out chips, two of the other late position Vs telegraph folds. Definitely willing to listen to comments about this decision, though it is not my main question.

Folds around to V2, who snap shoves.

Hero? What do we put his range on here?

I like it as played.

Now taaaaaaannnnnnnkkkkkk fold.

With a table full of guys who want to see the flop, I dont understand why you are even raising 77 UTG, especially to only $10.

Personally, I don't like the pre-flop raise. If you limp and are raised, you can still call. But if you raise and are re-raised, you probably can't. If it limps around, it's not a disaster. Raise/folding UTG in plain view of 9 other people who's money you are trying to win, that would be a disaster.

Flop raise feels too big. I don't have a great reason for feeling that way, but that's what my gut says. Take that for what it's worth. I realize it makes sense in relation to pot-size, but I think the gap from $10 to $75 feels too big. I'd play with this in future sessions and see if you can get fatter value at $50 or $60. Overall not a huge deal though.

Not sure I love the move though. Any draws that call you still have significant equity. This would be better with JJ/TT instead of 77. Furthermore, you're kinda forced to bet the turn if you're called, from out of position, without much idea of whether or not the turn card helped anybody. and once you do that, you've committed. Anyone who follows you to showdown is bringing significant equity with them. I think all you're doing is challenging someone to a race.

As played, fold. The bet is way to much to even be considering with 77 here. If has a draw plus overs he may even be an equity favorite. And if he has anything that's not drawing, you're toast.

Raise was good - now call

Can you elaborate on the raise to $75? What's the plan for 'fat value'? Are we planning to bluff/semi-bluff shove a safe turn? Or are we planning on taking this to showdown against Axcc? What's our plan on the turn if called? Do we have one?

Not trying to be mean, but there are two questions that you need to ask yourself.
1) Do we need to be an equity favorite here? (hint: no)
2) What do you mean by "anything that's not drawing?" Is 56 drawing? How about Ac6x?

The answer to the question about what to do rest on three questions.

The easy one is "how much equity do we need?" (simple math. price of a call (C) divided by total amount of pot if we call (P) = equity required for break even call (E), or C/P=E. I'll leave the answer as an exercise)

The hard one is "what is his (weighted) range?"

The relatively easy one, but too much math to do at the table is "what is our equity against his weighted range?"

The real question here is the hard one, but if you don't take the easy ones in to account, even knowing his range will do you no good.

So V2 is bb?


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I see what you're getting at. I played with ranges on equalib. How does this look?

JJ-33, A6s, 87s, 76s, 74s, 63s+, 53s+, 42s+, AcQc, KcQc, AcJc, KcJc, QcJc, AcTc, KcTc, QcTc, JcTc, Ac9c, Kc9c, Qc9c, Jc9c, Tc9c, Ac8c, Kc8c, Qc8c, Jc8c, Tc8c, 9c8c, Ac7c, 9c7c, Ac5c, Ac4c, Ac3c, Ac2c, 65o, 54o }

We have about 42.47% equity against that range, and we only need 36% for a call to break even. I kinda see what you're getting at with this thread.

However....

Final pot = 745 x .4247 = $316.
$316 - $265 = +$51 of EV.

Adhering to the 'no set-no bet' policy would have saved you 75

I probably do my math different than others, but I'm pretty sure it's right. It says that when V shoves, you have $265, and could keep $265 if you fold. However, if you call, on average, you'll end up with $316, or an extra $51 of EV.

However, you had $340 before you started this mess.

What was the plan if V just called? Were you firing again on the turn? Which cards, roughly? Or were you just gonna try and get to showdown ASAP after that?

Yes. Will add to OP.

Exactly the right idea on the EV calcs and the kind of feedback I'm looking for. IMO, though there is no JJ in his PF flatting range, and he usually 3-bets TT as well. As for his sets, I'm just not sure how often he plays them this way. The board is awfully wet to let four more players call for only $10.

I don't want to make that a declaration though. I'm really interested in hearing what folks think his range is here. Does he have all the sets in his range? Half? None? How often does he flat/shove with bare draws? Is his bluff/semi-bluff wider because everyone else has already acted? That is why we have to weight his range and not just do our calculations on every combo he could possibly play like this.

FWIW, I think he thinks I can fold overpairs, generally speaking, though I don't know if he thinks this bet sizing is the best way to increase FE, or if he thinks I'll be more suspicious of the shove and therefore more likely to pay him off.

This is the feedback I'm really looking for ITT.

This is a fair point, which is why I said that I am open to feedback on the flop raise. It definitely puts me in a high variance situation. However, I am never folding an overpair plus GS for $10 in a $75 pot. As for calling, I felt that giving basically free cards here a zillion ways was not good, especially against Vs who are happy to overpay for their draws. I am open to critiques of this thinking, though.

TBQH, I put the likelihood of V2 being the only caller very low indeed. I felt that his range was (before the shove) heavily dominated by draws, and he was less likely to overpay than the other Vs. I was targeting V1 and a couple of the unnumbered Vs in particular and thought that V2 would likely only come along if a chain of calls gave him a decent price to draw.

If he had just flat called after all others folded, I would have been very suspicious, and would have done some serious re-evaluating of his range, though some gambol-feeling draws could still be in it, especially if he felt that he had "bluff outs" to add to his real outs by repping scare cards.

Mostly, though, if he'd gone flat/flat on the flop and then donked turn I would likely fold as that is a very strong line, unless turn improved my equity (non club 4s and 7s, of course, and to lesser extent 7s and 8s and the club versions of the above).

If he had checked turn, I'd likely give him the free card, even knowing that he'd almost always bet river, as I could pick off enough bluffs to make up for his missed turn c/r's.

As played I was curious why you made it 75 as well. In terms of setting up a turn shove you might want to go a bit bigger or a bit smaller if you don't plan on shoving a bunch of turns. As played, I think it looks good. I would be very surprised if this villain is flatting sets here with hands that have you dominated. I think you seem pretty tuned in to this villains thinking. That being said, I think he could be shoving with clubs, pair fd's, maybe even some pair + 4's based on your reads. Can you describe the spots you've seen him spew? My standard play here vs most villains would be to just raise smaller otf and fold if they shove but vs this villain you are really painting a picture with his specs that he could be doing this fairly wide. As played + reads I am calling, if not I am probably sizing my raise otf smaller and folding.

Limp preflop. Last time i played, people still go broke in limped pots, esp on an action table with this crowd.

pf raise was fine. People are comparing 77 with 22.

When the guy donks out small just call it's a 6 way pot. If we were heads up we can raise the weak bet but there are too many people in the hand to do that which is over playing a medium strength hand by far.

Fold to v2 guys shove

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Garick, I'm not really sure why you're asking the forum to try and do a Level 3+ diagnostic on V's range. You were there, and all we have to go on is a paragraph written by you. Basically from what you've given us, we have a guy who is on his way to Vegas, and isn't doing much to conserve his bankroll. If you put a gun to my head and made me guess, his play here is probably more gamble-y than value-y, but I really don't think it matters.

A better question is what does V think your range is. You've repped TT+ here, or possibly some big broad way clubs AK, AQ, KQ. So your range is pretty narrow and most of it is un-fold-able. He probably firmly believes he is ahead, or has 40-ish percent equity at least, if called.

You happen to know that your hand is worse than TT, so you should realize that your opponent probably has more equity than even he thinks he has.

To call here, you need 36%. Just your gutshot and set outs get you 2/3 of the way there, so I guess, as played, you can find a call if you can stomach the ride on the variance machine. But I really think you gotta zoom out here and evaluate your entire line on the flop.

The range I gave has 43%. If you beat it up and start dropping JJ and TT and some sets out of there, your equity will go up. But you need to get to 48% just to be even EV-wise with open-folding on the flop. If you want to make money with this hand, and not just ride the variance train, you need 55% or more, and there probably isn't a range for V, or any V, that gives you that.

So we've learned that raising to 75 is a money-loser if you're raised. You have to calculate that loss x the % chance that it happens into your original plan of getting 'fat value'. In other words, you're already in the negative before you even started.

Also, if you're called, you need to get someone to fold later, or pay you off later, or check/fold all the way to showdown. that may happen, or you may fold later, or you may pay someone else off later, or you might simply lose at showdown.

So there are still a lot of ways to lose money in this hand, and I think you need to evaluate the cost of all of them, and then figure out how much "fat value" you need just to be breaking even. I'm guessing it's a lot. I think you need to do a decision tree in excel, and see if any of the branches end with positive numbers. I'm not hopeful

Folding pre-flop is a viable option
Limping pre-flop is a viable option
Raising pre-flop is the least desirable of the three.

on the flop. Fold. Yup $10 into $75, fold. you're out of position, at an action table, the pot is already bloated, your SPR is not very high. You have V's who haven't even acted yet, so you're really clueless as to what ranges you're up against.

Playing this hand this way, at a table like this, is pretty spewy. You're essentially gambling your entire stack in, what is at best, a high variance and slim EV situation. I gotta believe that this table will afford you better opportunities to get loose with your whole stack.

"Thursday night during the hot-seat promo. The gambloors are out in force"
Looks like a good reason to fold 77 pre. On loose FR table 77 on UTG is rather -EV hand.

As played Im affraid on this board mw small overpair is closer to fold than to raise for value. With 77 we must
a) make all better pairs fold
b) to be lucky and win against possible draws
c) hope that nobody holds set, straigt, 2p

In this game I call without too much thought planning to have to fade a ton.

Analysis:

I'm not a "moar pre" usually but in my 1/3 games this is a pot sweetener. 15-18 here for me. We aren't going to ISO the blinds often but rarely are we going to love the flop so the fewer players with position the better here to navigate postflop.

Flop raise is good maybe consider a slight overbet to make shoving a lot of non c turns easier.

When v back ships this flop he's draw heavy unless he knows with certainty you are raising the lol donk. So I've discounted sets but included the 3 combos of 55. I've included 99 and TT but doubt he plays them this way as he will 3! From the blinds some with TT and straight raise the donk bet some. I included half of those.

PokerCruncher-Advanced-iPhone V.9.1.2

(Equity, Win, Tie)
Player 1: 43.8% 43.0% 1.65% [7h7d]
Player 2: 56.2% 55.4% 1.65% {55, TdTs, TdTh, TdTc, 9h9s, 9c9s, 9c9h, AcQc-Ac2c, KcTc+, QcTc+, JcTc, Tc9c, 9c8c, 86s+, 76s, 7c4c, 65s}

Board: [3c 5d 6c ? ?]
Deal To: River
Dead Cards: {}

Monte Carlo Simulation: 500000 trials


We need 39% to b/e. Call now.

No, I think it really does matter. If his range is nutted we only have 20% equity. If his range is mostly "air" like pair+NFD blocker, we have 75% equity. Most likely it is somewhere in between, but where, and how wide? As his line is so unusual, in my experience, I need some help from the rest of y'all figuring out what kind of range could do that.

Agree with most of this, but not the bolded. I fully think V thinks that I can sometimes fold an overpair here. I don't think most of the Vs would think so, but this guy both sorta understands FE and has seen me fold in tough spots.

Def disagree on the "any V" part. For instance, a range that is all combo draws and pair plus draw gives us 67% equity. If V never takes this line with a real made hand (2P+), we're laughing. I know a lot of Vs who would never flat a value hand to a tiny donk on a board that wet, as they'd be terrified of someone drawing out on them.

I don't think we've actually learned the bolded. It depends. I agree that it's debatable though. Of course there are a lot of ways to lose money in this hand, but there are also a lot of ways to make money. With a bunch of V's who love to overpay for draws, the fact that the board offers a bunch of draws and that they usually won't come in (especially since I double block most of the straight draws) betting to get bad calls from these Vs is not the disaster you make it out to be. I'm not sure it's unmitigated EV-printing either, but I need a lot more analysis than the list of things that could go wrong to be convinced that it's bad.

Citation needed

No offense, especially as I appreciate you putting so much thought in to your posts ITT, but this is just ridiculous to me. First off, SPR is not designed for 6-way pots. Secondly, even if I have no idea where I am, I have 20% equity against the nuts specifically. Thirdly, I'm being asked to put in a paltry 12% of the pot. This is never a fold, imo, though call or raise, and if raise to what size are debatable.

+EV is +EV, even if the variance is high and the positive amount is slim. It's not a tournament. I can take the mediocre spots and the great spots. That's the nice thing about having a bankroll. There is no opportunity cost to me getting stacked here, except that my stack will be $300 instead of $340 when I re-buy.

Now whether this is +EV or not is definitely open to question, as is whether there are more +EV ways to play the hand. The EV of folding is always zero though, so as long as any line is +EV even by the tiniest amount, it is better than folding.

Grunching....

hmmm nothing too subtle about pushing 340 into a 135 pot. A lot depends on your read of his snap call indicating a non-monster. Is this the guy that noticed the early 3-barrel bluff? I'm going to assume no (although you may not have noticed that he noticed).

You also describe him as spewy, over-aggro post-flop. Sound a bit like you are post-justifying a loose call.

I think that better hands that could play the hand like this would be sets and 2p. (I feel that overpairs would have raised V1).

Hands that are currently behind would include nut FDs (eg. A4cc) or hands like OESD (likely 44 or 45).

I wouldn't call.

I think you already know that his range isn't mostly nutted. You also know that you need ~35% equity to make this call. You've estimated your potential equity as 'somewhere in the middle of 20% and 75%. That should be enough information right there.

If he understands fold equity so much, then he knows that he should leverage it in situations where he has actual equity to go along with it. If he doesn't hold an over pair himself, then he probably has every reason to believe that he has at least 10 outs.

I'm not sure why you're so interested in refining this analysis. The math is simple, you need 35%. Suggested ranges given already in this thread give you much more than that. We have put real effort into over-analyzing things in order to come up with a range for V that convinces us to fold.

The questionable play here, is the raise to $75. That should really be what we're talking about.

Where are you getting 67% equity. I dropped JJ, TT, Sets, and two pair from my previous range. It didn't help us much.

Board: 5d6c3c
Equity Win Tie
UTG 49.85% 48.55% 1.30% { 7d7h }
BB 50.15% 48.85% 1.30% { 99-77, 44, A6s, 87s, 76s, 74s, 64s, 54s, 42s+, AcQc, KcQc, AcJc, KcJc, QcJc, AcTc, KcTc, QcTc, JcTc, Ac9c, Kc9c, Qc9c, Jc9c, Tc9c, Ac8c, Kc8c, Qc8c, Jc8c, Tc8c, 9c8c, Ac7c, 9c7c, Ac5c, Ac4c, Ac3c, Ac2c, 54o }

Well you start the debate then. From your previous post, it doesn't sound like you have a great plan here. It sounds kinda like you had a gut feeling another spewy player was gonna get it in with you super light, and when that didn't work out, you're trying to reverse-engineer a justification.

What plans you did provide involve giving free cards to these draws that you're trying to victimize. if you're doing that then I assume you've identified which runouts you hate, and have some kind of plan to 'play perfectly'

We really really really need to discuss this decision. I think you just connected with the flop in an unorthodox way and got a little over excited.


Can you call a 3-bet pre-flop?


The concepts behind it still apply. Regardless of the number of players, the SPR gives you an idea of how many betting actions you'll have before you're committed. Here, the number is low. And our hand still kinda stinks.

How do you have 20% against the nuts?

Board: 5d6c3c
Equity Win Tie
UTG 9.14% 1.82% 7.32% { 7d7h }
UTG+1 90.86% 83.53% 7.32% { 7s4s }

I was generous by giving the V spades. Assuming we're only talking about suited two-gappers in V's range, you have a 50/50 chance of only having 6% equity.

And 7 of our 9% comes from ties. You have less than a 2% chance to win.


In LLSNL we have a diverse cast of characters and table dynamics. Some are better than others. The good ones, are called "action tables". You need to capitalize in those spots.

If a foot ball team can successfully run a fake field goal play on 4th and goal 50% of the time, that's 3.5 points of EV. A field goal is only 3 points, even it's 100% successful. So obviously the fake is the preferable play. But in the super bowl, you wouldn't run the fake. You'd take the points.

Same thing here.

I guess the variable would be your own personal style and level of discipline. I'll admit to a personal leak where I tend to extend my sessions if I'm chasing losses. Taking big swings increases the frequency with which this happens. While I don't specifically remember playing when I didn't feel I could play my best. I'm sure it's happened.

I don't want to turn this thread into too much of me posting, so I'll make this brief and bow out for a while.

1) I screwed up on what I called the "nuts" there. 20% is actually the equity for sets and 47s. If we add 47o in to his range, and look at straights only it's 8.7%, as you said. I really meant more like "effective nuts."

2) As for the part you really want to have a discussion on, go for it. I admitted it was debatable. That said, your comment about my plan was what I said I would do if V2 flatted and was the only caller. I put the chances of that result very low. I actually thought that V1 was far more likely to flat, and I was planning to bet big again on most turns for pure value on most cards. I mentioned previously that if the spewy Asian guy raised, I planned to GII (I assumed he'd basically never flat). If I got multiple callers, things would be far more dicey, as the pot would be huge and any draw card and often any over would likely hit one of them. That's a large part of why I sized my raise as a near PSB, much less chance of a chain of callers. I would likely have just given up if that happened.

W/r/t V2's range as played...

1) I think this is a very standard line for V to take with a set or 65, as played, against a tight H's UTG range, who will likely never fold.

2) Folks need to discount the middling, non-SD flush draws in V2's range. Like T9cc... OK yeah, it's possible, but not every time. Kxcc and Axcc hands can be in the range, but you must discount them

3) Given V2 is in the blinds, I think he can still have QQ- in his range (looking for a safe flop to get his $$$ in).

I haven't done any equity analysis, but my gut tells me that 77 just isn't strong enough to continue. JJ+ is an obvious call. Not sure where I draw the line...

Just gonna do this roughly in regards to the raise to $75.

You saw two V's telegraph folds, so let's define the possibilities as:

A) You get it in with Spewy asian, you haven't mentioned his stack size, or I missed it. i'll use $250 for now. Let me know if I need to update. Let's say you have 60% equity against him. Not sure how, but we're having fun here. So he puts in $240, you put in $240, there is 75 already in there, pot is 555.
A1 - 60% You win 315 = 189
A2 - 40% you lose 240 = -96
Total for Scenario A = +93

B) You get flatted by either V1 or V2, not both. We calculated ranges for V2 and gave ourselves an equity % in the low 40's. Then we got closer to 50% if we threw out V's value range of 2pr+. Let's be saucy and give you 45% equity here against either one of these guys. You said in an earlier post that a line of flat/flat/donk (or for V1 lead/flat/donk) would be very strong, and you'd have to fold. But if they check, you're firing again, which would commit you.

The average effective stack between the two of them is 275 (I know this is super simplified, but I'm not calculating every branch of the decision tree on my own ok!)
B1 - We win 35% x 340 = +119
B2 - We lose 55% x 265 = -145.75
B3 - We fold turn 10% x 75 = -7.50
Scenario B total = -34.25

Scenario C - We get into any kind of multi-V situation. I think we agree that the turn is impossible to navigate in that situation, as is our ability to calculate V's ranges and our equity against them. We're FUBAR'd almost every time here. But I'll give us 5% just in case they all brick and check. Assume the final pot is the $55 plus another $75 from two V's
95% we lose $75 = -71.25
5% we win $205 = 10.25
Total Scenario C = -61

Scenario D - Everyone folds to your 75
100% we win $75 = $75

Now assign probabilities to each scenario. I know I averaged stack sizes and probabilities in a lot of places so all of this has a pretty significant margin of error. Just spitballin' here but if I give A, B, & C 30% and D 10%, we get about $6.80 in EV. In other words, a 2% return on our stack.

I've never though of it like this until just now, but it's worth considering. What kind of return on investment (our stack) should we be targeting when we make bolder plays like this? 5%? 10%? 20%? I'll bet 9 out of 10 poker pros would suggest a number higher than 2%

I know I was going to bow out, and I appreciate what you put in to that post, but your Scenario B is very wrong. Our equity against a flatting range is not at all the same as our equity against a raising range. Against a drawing/draw+pair/combo draw range our equity is over 60%.

Also, Scenario C, even if they cover basically all the draws among them, no draw at all will come (no flush, no straight, none of 3 overcards (8 or 2 randomly chosen club-draw's overs) about 15% of the time.

Without changing any of the other assumptions:
A) EV= +91
B) EV= +90.5
C) EV= -33.75
D) EV= +75
And using your likelihoods, overall EV is +72.075, or a bit over 20% of my stack.

As for what ROI we should be targeting, it should be the highest one available. If the highest one is 2% (it's not) that's still way higher than 0%

As for the rest of your assumptions, I'm gonna let others discuss that. I just wanted to hack the math.

I'm not sure how much farther you wanna take this. You got your answer about calling V2's shove. Don't forget, even though the call is EV, its still less EV than simply open-folding on the flop.

Backing up to look at the rest of your flop play requires us to make some bold assumptions about an infinite number of possibilities and calculate our equity for each. We've done that very very very roughly here, and found that there may be a few dollars to be hand here, if you can handle gigantic swings of fortune.

To me, that seems like a total waste of an action table.

I realize you're bankrolled, and that poker is infinite and all that. Personally, I don't agree with the approach, but most people think my method of bankroll management is total garbage, so take this for what it's worth.

Using the football analogy again, there are many many many teams in the NFL today that can successfully execute the 2pt conversion with greater than 50% efficiency. However, everybody kicks PAT's.

Why is that? Because the goal of the game is to accumulate as many points as possible within a finite amount of time.

That's how you should view this situation. It's 4th and inches at your own 25. You really really really really really think you can get the first down. But you punt anyway. Why? Because if you fail, your opponent takes over with a short field that virtually guarantees that they win points. Now you have a deficit, and even less time to play before the game is over.

In poker terms, you only have so much time before the action-ness of the table diminishes, or until you are forced to leave. Doing something that has an excellent chance of putting you in a deficit forces you to consume some of that time to make up the deficit. That ends up wasting part or all of the session.

I would be trying to make as much money here as possible with this limited opportunity. Personally, I'd be looking at this as an opportunity to really pad my bankroll, or possibly generate a mini-roll to take a shot at some higher stakes.

If you're willing to take swings, then win a few buy-ins here, take it to a 2/5 table next session, and see how high you can ride this wave. That kinda variance sounds way more +EV, more fun, more challenging and better for you overall than trying to get spicy with 77 here.