In some situations I think its fairly straightforward, like in this situation. I'm far ahead of his range, he is very aggresive and has an above average PFR especially from the CO and BTN, I know he is gonna double barrell on boards like this alot of the time. His range is pretty much any pair, any two high cards, suited connectors, hands like J7,J8,J9,Q9,Q8,K9 etc etc. So I can call witout hesitation with 1010.

Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 2796774
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP1: $18.09
MP2: $10.15
CO: $18.43
BTN: $10.86
Hero (SB): $10.00
BB: $10.92
UTG: $10.12
UTG+1: $10.30

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is SB with T T
4 folds, CO raises to $0.30, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.25, 1 fold

Flop: ($0.70) A 5 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.33, Hero calls $0.33

Turn: ($1.36) 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.70, Hero calls $0.70

River: ($2.76) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

Then there are situations like this which is a bit trickier IMO. He is UTG but judging from his stats he has about the same opening range from UTG as in MP which is relativley wide. He is relativley aggresive and I would assume he is gonna double barrell here with some hands, specificly draws.

On the turn I put him on having AA,KK,QQ,JJ,1010,99,88,AK,KQs,AQs,KJ, and maybe some lower pair like 77.

Assuming this is his range. Theres 20 combinations that will have me beat, 34 that I will beat, 6 that will split the pot(AJ). When I run this through equilab I get 56,78% equity in my favor.


Poker Stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 2796776
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

UTG+2: $5.00
MP1: $5.20
MP2: $5.00
CO: $5.07
Hero (BTN): $5.00
SB: $1.83
BB: $5.00
UTG: $9.61
UTG+1: $4.18

Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero is BTN with A J
UTG raises to $0.15, 5 folds, Hero calls $0.15, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.37) T J T (2 players)
UTG bets $0.20, Hero calls $0.20

Turn: ($0.77) 8 (2 players)
UTG bets $0.45, Hero calls $0.45

River: ($1.67) 6 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

I'm mainly looking for feedback on situations like in my second example when I had AJ. Is it a snap call on the turn against players like this? Is my hand ranging good?

I've been playing around alot with equilab in the past couple of weeks and just a deck of cards, putting my opponent on ranges and working out the possible combinations.

And I'm not really sure if it's enough to only be "slightly" ahead of the opponents range in order to call like in the second example, the margins are small and the range I put him on might not be correct so theres a good chance it actually isn't profitable... In situations like the first example I'm so far ahead that it's an easy call.

in the first one, did it never cross your mind that villain might occasionally wake up with an ace and is taking you to valuetown?

in the second one, if you think your hand is good on the turn why are you not betting the river when it comes a blank and he shuts down?

Id prolly call one on the flop shut down on turn.
-(Sort of a leveling spot he's not going to try to get you to fold an A on the turn once you called the flop unless he puts you on medium pp's)
-If you are going to call the turn you have to have a plan for the river so if your calling the turn here you should auto calls rivers
-Is his range balanced for double barreling in that how does his double barrel range compare to his other ranges/lines and given you know opp. will double barrel a lot you can exploit him (if he is unbalanced) by calling and x-raising a lot and always calling the river if you call turn and then possibly bluff catching/bet/folding rivs since he gets to the river with a lot of his bluff range
more then any part of his range given his tendencies.

Yeah 2nd one is def a bet on the river for sure (not a big bet tho 3 streets with tptk is pretty damn good anyways 2 streets is fine with me even if he folds)
-Does opp. hero call with his bluff catchers or nah (what is his bluff catching range OTR and how often will he be likely to call and whether we can have a bluff range by the river and whether or not opp. can have a marginal range by the river)
-most of the time double barrels are polarized (depends on turn) if you see some sort of weird line like check, bet, or bet, check, then you can start going for bet/folds and raise/folds given there is more thin value to be had
Unless villain can be value owning himself the entire way with J8, J9, JK, or JQ

Offcourse I have taken into account that he also can have an ace. I forgot to add that. I put him on having any ace aswell as any two highcards, pairs, suited connectors, hands like J8,Q9. I was far ahead of his range on a whole so I had to call and I knew that he would frequentley double barrel in situations like that... he showed J8 offsuit.

In the second situation. Like I said I only thought I was slightly ahead... If I would have betted the river my thought process was that most hands he would call with would have me beat and I wouldn't get him to fold better hands obviously. My hand was decent but not great and I didn't want to build up the pot more. He could obviously call with KJ and maybe QJ, but if he was putting me on a range he would see that I'm ahead of him on a river bet scenario and possibly fold, I also don't think it would make sense for him to have those hands espc QJ since he double barrelled.... he showed KK.

Obviously I'm not sure if my reasoning was correct, hence the thread.

First one looks pretty standard, except you can/should 3-bet pre. Turn is close. I'm not sure what else you'd be flatting in the SB, but TT would be near the bottom of your calling range on the turn I expect. I think I'd dump 99 for example.

Second hand, I'm not sure what other regs do, but I fold pre. AJo is a really marginal hand against an UTG 3x. As played, probably fold the turn, even though it makes me feel a bit nauseous to say it. As played, I check back the river 100% of the time like OP did. You should have many better hands that are more obvious valuebets, and a few missed draws too. Villain has QQ+ or trips+ pretty often, along with some whiffed overcards, and hardly ever has KJ/QJ.

watafak.

Hand being call ott =/= hand being a valuebet OTR IP

My thought process with a hand like 1010 in a situation like that, is that unless I know villain calls 3-bets with a wide range it's more profitable to just call and induce the c-bet and possibly a double barrell bluff. At 5nl and 10nl it seems most players are pretty tight when it comes to calling 3-bets. And if I were to 3-bet with 1010 and get called my hand would seem kinda marginal and tricky to play unless the board is super dry and low, espc OOP.

That situation might have been a bit of an extreme example though as villain had a very wide pfr ratio from CO and BTN of around 30% and 40% respectivley, and was very aggresive. So in that situation it was pretty much a snap call on the turn.

-

I usually do fold a hand like AJo against an UTG opener, but this villain's pfr was the same from UTG as it was from MP and I had a decent sample size of him so I put his range on being relativley wide for an UTG opener.

And by the way, thanks for the replys all.

That all seems reasonable. Just bear in mind that 3-betting pre and making villain fold X% of the time might actually be more profitable than flatting and only winning the pot Y% of the time. 3-betting with TT is never a pure value-raise, since villain has some better and some worse hands in his range, but quite a lot of hands with decent equity that you'd quite like to fold out immediately, but that might also call and outflop you. The same can be said about AK, FWIW. With a very large sample and some database analysis, you can determine if you make more money by flatting than you do by 3-betting, but variance will have a huge say about it. Sometimes you 3-bet, get called and flop middle set vs top pair and win a stack. Sometimes you get the same flop and villain doesn't put a cent in the pot. Sometimes he wakes up with aces, and you have to fold to the 4-bet. If calling in your games makes more money on average than 3-betting, keep doing it. I don't know for sure what's best. At higher stakes, 3-betting is definitely the play (with virtually no flatting in the SB), and you'd 3-bet with quite a few "worse" hands too.

Not in every situation, but in this hand, I don't see how you can

1) call turn
2) think this "if he was putting me on a range he would see that I'm ahead of him on a river bet scenario and possibly fold"
3) watch him shut down on the river when a blank hits
4) and then not bet out on the river to realize your fold equity

I don't think checking is a terrible play, but given that OP think he is ahead in the hand and he has fold equity, why wouldn't you bet river?

Both hands pretty horribly missplayed pre-flop.

: D

Just think yourself about the spot for a little bit. You might realize what is wrong with your thoughtprocess there.

Well, you only gain fold equity if you bet the river, but you don't need any fold equity if you have the nuts. So unless you have the nuts, I'm not sure why you wouldn't bet to gain some FE in this hand (obviously not saying that you wouldn't bet if you had the nuts).

But since I couldn't come up with anything substantial by thinking about it, I did some math . Just to be clear, I'm basing this on OP's read on the hand, not necessarily my own. And not to say that my own thought process isn't wrong, so hopefully you will enlighten me if it is.


A) checking (OP thought he was slightly ahead but I rounded to 50%)
EV = .50*($1.67)
= $0.84


B) betting $1.00 on the river (I figured if V calls he is only doing so ahead ~80%)

50% he folds and you win $1.67
50% he calls; he beats you 80% of the time

EV = .50*($1.67) + .50*(.80*(-$1.00)+.20*($2.67))
= $0.83 + .50(-$0.80+0.53)
= $0.83 - $0.14
= $0.69


C) betting $2.00 on the river (should increase likelihood V folds)

75% he folds and you win $1.67
25% he calls; he beats you 80% of the time

EV = .75*($1.67) + .25*(.80*(-$2.00)+.20*($3.67))
= $1.25 + .25(-$1.60+0.73)
= $1.25 - $0.22
= $1.03


As long as you size it more bluffish and less VB-ish, a river bet could be more profitable. I don't disagree with Arty's line though, which makes me think there are some flaws in my assumptions. Like maybe he's beating you 100% of the time he calls if he never has QJ or KJ.

thinking about it in terms of fold equity isn't really the way to think about it. it's the river, if you want a fold your bet constitutes a bluff and you should just be thinking about how often he folds to your bluff for it to be successful.

I think this will be the lesson I will take into consideration, that I could/should have betted the river but there seems to be some disagreement if that is the best move judging from the different replies. I would like to point out though that offcourse I valuebet the river when I'm confident in my hand... but this wasn't one of those situations.

I was concerned that I made a mistake calling the turn and I didn't want to make my mistake even bigger by putting more money in the pot.

It's a borderline situation on the turn, at best I'm only very slightly ahead(56,78% equity) Remove KJ from his double barrell range and it's (51,44%). With KJ I think it's more probable that he checks/calls the turn.

And this is assuming my hand ranging of him is any good. It could be a bit wider or a bit tighter. He was UTG but his pfr ratio was relativley high from that position and he was aggresive.

And I also still don't really get what I would accomplish by betting the river. It's not a bluff. And if it's for value then what hands can he realisticly have and call with that I beat? QJ,KJ is unlikely. Not because of his position but because he double barrelled. So that leaves only hands that have me beat QQ,KK,AA or missed semi-bluff hands that have missed the river and is just gonna fold anyway.

It's difficult take someone seriously when they don't give any reasoning or motivation.

OK - thanks for clarifying. You're either betting to get a worse hand to call or a better hand to fold. Probably not the former in this case, so if I should call that bluffing instead of realizing fold equity, no problem with that. I originally had a bit about forcing him to basically turn KK into a bluffcatcher tacked onto the end of my 1st paragraph, so I think I was on the right path.


I think it is a bluff in this case. Like you said, you're not going to get any worse hands to call, so that just leaves betting to get better hands to fold. Anyway, if Arty agrees with you, that's a good thing in my book. I don't really have a problem with the way you played the hand. I think I would have bluffed the river, but checking is the safer play.

I don't see how he can fold a better hand though like QQ,KK,AA. I have showdown value with my TPTK, and I beat out his double barrell semi-bluff range like AK,AQ,KQ,99 etc.

What range do you think he's putting you on having called both flop and turn? Was he in the first hand where you called preflop with TT? Why would he stop barreling with KK on that river? Realistically, all he has is an overpair on a semi-wet board. One that doesn't beat AA, JJ, TT, ATs (or KK technically). Or KT/JT if he thinks you're capable of calling with those hands from the button. At this point, I don't like my KK hand very much if I'm in his shoes, but it is very villain dependent. You're right that some would never lay KK down here.

One factor that might add to the argument for checking is to actually see what he's double barreling with.

To make a profitable value-bet, you need to beat the range that calls you more than 50% of the time. If he mostly calls with better hands, you're burning money.
To make a +EV bluff, you need to make villain fold some better hands. If he never folds a better hand, it's spew.

Since villain's calling range beats you, you can't bet for value.
Since he never folds a better hand than AJ, you shouldn't bluff.
Ergo, you have showdown value and should just check back. You'll still lose to the better hands, but you'll beat random bluffs that villain made and then gave up with. (The hands that you beat will simply fold if you bet).
Same principles.
KK is not strong enough to triple barrel for value in this spot. On the river, it's just a mid-strength bluff-catcher with showdown value. It beats bluffs and Jx, but loses to trips+. Since it's too weak to bet for value, and too strong to turn into a bluff - it's literally the middle of villain's range - it makes sense to check-call.

Thanks Arty. So is this read villain-specific / specific to micros? Like I mentioned earlier, as villain I don't really like my chances with just an overpair after being called on both flop and turn. Only bluff I really see coming on the river is K Q. So aren't I putting OP on big pairs (TT+) with maybe the KQs and AT/AJ (I would assume AQ/AK would have folded turn)?

Arty - here's the math I came up with for the above to determine if I would call with KK. It assumes OP would just c/c overpairs the same way, which I think I would, but maybe is not a valid assumption. Also I guess a bluff is less likely if I have K although you could still bluff a missed OES draw with other KQ. Anyway, this is what I came up with:

- KK beats QQ, KQ, AJ (18 combos)
- KK loses to TT, JJ, AA, AT (16 combos)

If combos are correct, I assume OP checks QQ, AA, and AJ, bluffs KQ (2 combos), and value bets TT/JJ/AT (12 combos)?

So EV of c/c a $2 river bet = .14*($3.67) - .86*($2.00) = -$1.19

Does it matter that my blockers only do so for the bluff combos? That should make it less likely that a river bet is a bluff, which makes my EV calc even worse, and that makes me think my math is even more wrong... What other bluff combos am I missing? Maybe I have to keep AQ/AK in as bluff combos as it's incorrect to assume those would be folded on the turn?

On hand 1, villain is in CO. In late position I think your range on him is way too narrow. Opening the pot from CO could include a whole range of suited connectors.
Hand 2? Fold pre. AJo is way too easily dominated by an UTG range.

It's hard for me to say what villain should do on the river, because I'd never be barreling with KK in the first place (I check the flop). But what I often see in the micros is that when the OOP player checks the river, the player in position will make "bad" value bets with hands like AJ/KJ/QJ/J9, even though they shouldn't get called by worse. (It's kind of like an accidental range merge; a bet without purpose, because the player doing it isn't sure if he's betting for value or turning his hand into a bluff. He just likes betting). In addition, some players just can't fold overpairs, even if the board is pretty bad for them, so I wouldn't be surprised if KK snap-called if hero had bet the river.
The player in position won't bluff with total air all that often on this board, partly because most of his flop/turn calling range has a pair as well as a draw (KQ, as you say, is the only obvious whiff, but I wouldn't rule out AQ) but bad players have this idea that "I probably have the best hand, because villain checked, so I should bet", which means you can often check-call the river with any sort of hand that beats TPGK.
Most micro villains don't take the following line very often, but with an absolute monster like JT or JJ, I would probably go for a river check-raise if I'd bet the first two streets, and I'd likely also check with trips. If I was checking with boats and trips too, I wouldn't need to use KK as a bluff-catcher, but as I said I wouldn't have bet KK for 2 streets anyway.

I really can't be bothered to do the intricate EV maths of this one (especially if I have to count the blockers), since I play the spot quite differently whether I'm the guy with kings or AJ, but the short answer is that if the player in position only bets a few combos of bluffs, and several more of trips+, then overpairs should be check-folded. If the IP player will bet many combos of Jx, as well as all his air and nutted hands, then overpairs have to call.

If I've reached the river with AJ here, I'm betting as a bluff, so I was trying to explain why to OP and don't think I succeeded. To me it seems pretty apparent V has an overpair - I'd check that flop too with KK OOP, so when he double barrels it seems pretty clear what I'm up against. But agree that all the fancy math in the world isn't going to stop some from just snap-calling anyway.

Like you said, lot of money to be made by checking behind with hands that beat TPGK on the river. This was a pretty interesting one to me. Thanks for posting OP.

he's obviously talking about the hand in question not like in general

seems pretty obvious v-bet for us at 10NL, you think V c/c QQ instead of b/f??

Goodday all,

1. If i would like my hand to be reviewed, should i post in Beginners question or another section? Should i open a new thread?

2. is it a must to present the hand history in the above format? Is the text file (copy and paste it here) in PT4 acceptable? If the above format is preferred, how do i convert it into the above format?

Thank you all