I just disagree with auto assuming fish has his super tight 3 betting range because you think loose fish are always passive. I see loose fish everyday 3 bet with JQ, 67s type hands. It's one thing if OP said MP is a lose fish who only 3 bets premium hands but he didn't. And to completely ignore the possibility of him having KQ, JQs, q-10s, JJ here is really going to skew your results.

And I would probably cold cap AQo in buttons spot given utg super wide range and the fact he was 3 bet by a loose fish
But I can only base my assumptions on what I see from people that I play with everyday (.which encompasses lots of 20-40 holdem with loose fish).

This is live poker. With no reads to the contrary, your default assumption should be a tight 3betting range against an UTG open until you collect more evidence that suggests otherwise.

Loose fish rarely make that play, they call with those hands. Loose aggressive fish do that all the time.

True, but with no information, the starting assumption should be premium hands. Again, this is live poker.

I believe my range of the loose fish after he 3bets preflop, bet/3bets the flop multiway into the preflop capper, bets the turn in an undefined spot where he could still get raised, and then bets the river into 2 people, is already significantly wider than it should be (which is the way I like it), and the river is still a fold. If you disagree with my range that's fine. Then we're at an impasse. No biggie.

That would be a pretty bad play imo.

This is live poker. With no reads to the contrary, your default assumption should be that a loose fish is likely to do something loose and fishy.

The most common fish phenotype in live poker (at at least 20-40 and below) is loose with calls but tight with raises. That's why we should respect that fish's preflop 3bet (and his extremely strong postflop line) until more information says otherwise.

So yeah, I think your approach is flatly wrong.

I agree with the points ILP is making. However I disagree with using the word phenotype.

I think it's perfectly rational to question my usage of that word in this context.

I get the feeling he's beening intentionally contrary.given you, chocomoo, and myself feel the same way. I think its reasonable to give the mystert villian a slightly wider range than the nuts.

Don't agree with the generalization that capping the flop with AA/KK is bad poker. Calling the flop 3bet to raise the turn really runs into multiple risks:

1. Loose fish checking turn cards
2. Blowing hero out of the pot (though arguably, that may be desireable)
3. Unbalanced (you're just calling the 3bet with QQ/TT when you have a huge equity edge? If you cap those, then you only call the 3bet to raise the turn with AA/KK?)

But either way, I don't agree with the deduction that "decentish TAG" translates his "raise-flop-call-3bet" to be heavily weighted towards (or only contains) AA/KK.

"And if you're capping in these kind've spots, you're not playing as well as you think"

Completely irrelevant and hurts your stance in arguing your point. When did it become personal?

I also disagree with this. This is 2014, hero has the BTN and cold-capped. His range can still be +88/AJ+ and be +EV. After loose fish 3bets flop, there is definitely reason for concern. But again, investing an additional sb to protect 10+ BB pot is standard poker.

I said his range is "weighted towards AK/JJ/AQ/KQ". He can still have AA/KK; I just think it's in the minority.

Again, attacking my handreading is not relevant to the discussion. Just state your stance.

Calling all decent tags. Anybody cold-capping the BTN with AQ in what's described as a "loose 20/40 game"?

I'm going to concede here by clarifying that I think it's important to consider BOTH hero + MP's images here. MP's 3betting range is influenced by Hero's range, and BTN's 4bet range is inflenced by both MP and Hero's ranges.

If you want to talk about tendencies of live play, then you should be fair and include a nonzero WTF-range for live players. I've played against many a player that I've pegged with a particular read that will still surprise me with uncharacteristic play. 7betting the river with 9 hi from a loose-passive? Yea, I've seen it. Calling one bet on the river with quads (which, is the nuts) and not raising? Seen it also. Check-raising and calling a 3bet on flop and turn, c/raising and folding to a 3bet on the river by a loose-passive? Seen it also.

3bet-barreling off in a large pot with AK by a loose-passive player that may be frustrated? Definitely seen it as well, by multiple players.

I've stopped counting the personal attacks. But seriously, it just hurts your argument.

Some of my numbers might've been off, but we need to be good something like 5%. Imagine that loose-fish had a range of {AA/KK/QQ/wtf}, where wtf comprised 15% of his hands. (That's like ~2 combos of ANYTHING that we beat. This includes hands he spazzes with, misreads, overvalues, etc.) Now, imagine TAG's range was {AA/KK/wtf}. What % of hands need to be in his wtf-range to make our call EV-neutral? Turns out it's 33%:

5% (what we need to break even) = P(TAG beating us) * P(fish beating us) = 1/3 * 1/6 ~ .05

I argue that his range is weighted away from AA/KK. Even if we conservatively assume TAG will cap 50% of the time and just call 50% of the time, that would give us 6 combos of AA/KK. At 2 combos of AQs and 6 combos of JJ, we have more than enough combos of hands we beat to make a call profitable.

It only gets better for us; if fish's wtf-range goes up, the number of worse hands we need TAG to show up with goes down, etc.

There is an even shorter heuristic we can use; I believe it's called "Jesse's Theorem":

If you can think of 2 hands that you can beat in your opponent's hands in very large pots, you should call.

Hand Equity Wins Ties
AQ 23.42% 106,764 71,169
TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, AK, AQ 45.64% 240,893 69,641
88, 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, ATs, AJ, AQ, AK, KQ, KJs, KTs, QJs, QTs, JTs
30.94% 171,614 31,771
BTN is risking 4sb to win ~13.5sb. To breakeven, he needs 29.6% equity. Having a 6% equity deficit translates to .24sb loss preflop. However, he does have position (~.2sb bonus; http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...sition-904316/) on the spot at the table.

Based on these numbers, I don't think capping or folding preflop are that different in terms of EV.

Well it absolutely is bad poker in large multiway pots.

Not a concern. This very rarely happens in this spot, Setting up a chance to protect our hand on the turn in this large pot, is way more important than worrying about this small possibility.

Blowing people out of large pots when we have one pair is of course generally desirable.

This pretty much doesn't matter. In large multiway pots, one should take the strategy that wins the most pots. But if you think it does matter, then of course the best balancing strategy is to call the 3bet and pop the turn with your whole range of hands you deem worthy. LOL at the idea that calling a flop 3bet and popping the turn with QQ/TT is giving up much or anything here--that's a totally reasonable value line with those holdings.

I never made such a deduction. I was attacking this statement of yours:

I want you to see how a decentish TAG could just call with AA/KK on the flop here. The fact that no expert in the world would cap the flop with AA/KK here (barring bizarre exceptions) might clue you in to the idea that it IS possible for a decent player to have AA/KK here.

Not getting personal at all. I stand by that statement.

I will concede that my argument is based on the perhaps controversial assumption that hand reading is still relevant in 2014.

Ok, maybe this is where you are going wrong. The flop cap is basically for PURE VALUE. It gives us approximately ZERO PROTECTION. When people call 2 small bets cold in that spot, it means they're not folding for 2 more small bets cold the 2nd go around. The ONLY viable way to protect our hand is to call the flop 3bet and raise the turn. This is also a great value line. That is why calling the flop 3bet and popping the turn is the CLEAR superior play to capping the flop in this spot (again barring bizarre scenarios). It's comparable in terms of value to the flop cap, but calling the flop 3bet and popping the turn gives us something the flop cap doesn't: protection.

Yes I know what you think, and you're dead wrong here. By the time the tag calls the river, after that action, AA/KK is not in the minority, those holdings make up the vast majority of the tag's range.

With all due respect, without your atrocious hand reading, this discussion would never even exist.

You will only hear crickets. No decent tag is cold-capping AQo here with no read on the 3bettor's range.

Of course, the above goes without saying. Just saying that as far as figuring out BTN's range, BTN's impression of the 3bettor has significantly more weighting in importance than BTN's impression of Hero.

You seem to be trying to construct an argument for calling the river, but let's not forget that we're in an overcalling situation where we are big underdogs to BOTH these players' ranges. We need BOTH players to be doing something out of line here for our hand to be good which is a very long shot indeed.

Again, let's go back to the line the fish took:

TT,QQ,AA are the only hands that make sense for the fish assuming a normal amount of rational fear that most humans possess. For the tag, AA,KK, and a discounted AQs are the only holdings that make sense. For margin of safety purposes, I add all 16 combos of AQ to the fish's range even though given the line the fish took every street I expect to see this holding very rarely. And I also didn't discount AQs in the tag's range. IMO, that is enough margin of safety for hero to fold the river. I.E. if this expanded range says hero should fold, then it's a fold to me. Now one can always argue that this is NOT enough margin of safety, that we need to add more fudge factor hands, and that's fine. But at the end of the day, I am not overcalling in that spot and I have thoroughly explained why. Everyone's free to disagree with me.

You're taking things WAY too personal.

It's not though. Just curious, do you play a lot of live poker? Because anyone with extensive experience at playing live, will tell you the exact opposite.

LOL at not discounting JJ at all here. Without special reads on the fish's play, discounting JJ down to zero for the tag, while technically wrong, would still be a good approximation. IOW JJ needs to be discounted SEVERELY here.

Anyways, I'm satisfied with my river ranges and the conclusion it leads too. You're free to construct your own range and make what you think is the right play.

I highly suspect this heruristic will not work out well when it comes to overcalling the river.

To nit just a little, AQ for the fish should be discounted a lot, as loose fish usually cold-call with this hand.

But anyways, let's just say that, given the fact that we have no read on the fish's 3betting range, and given the fact that live players generally do not 3bet enough, I highly suspect, but obv cannot prove, that getting involved with AQo here is going to be on the significant -EV side. But, hey, how can anyone REALLY know right? All-in equities, which are the basis of my argument, do not tell the whole story, as you aptly point out. And as mentioned before, I personally would also fold AQs in this spot as I am extremely skeptical we can turn a profit with that holding here.

ILOVEPOKER929 - go back and reread some of your responses. It reeks of personal attacks.

"TT,QQ,AA are the only hands that make sense for the fish assuming a normal amount of rational fear that most humans possess. For the tag, AA,KK, and a discounted AQs are the only holdings that make sense. For margin of safety purposes, I add all 16 combos of AQ to the fish's range even though given the line the fish took every street I expect to see this holding very rarely. And I also didn't discount AQs in the tag's range. IMO, that is enough margin of safety for hero to fold the river. I.E. if this expanded range says hero should fold, then it's a fold to me. Now one can always argue that this is NOT enough margin of safety, that we need to add more fudge factor hands, and that's fine. But at the end of the day, I am not overcalling in that spot and I have thoroughly explained why. Everyone's free to disagree with me. "

Here's how close it is:
fish {AA/KK/QQ/TT/AQ}: 16 combos beating you, 8 you beat
TAG {AA/KK/AQs}: 12 combos beating you, 2 combos you beat

P(hero wins) = (8/24) * (2/14) = 4.76%

This is < 5.4% that we need. How sure do we have to be?

(8+x) / (24 + x) * (2 + y) / (14+y) <= .054

When x = 0, y <= 2.71; when y = 0, x <= 1.72.
When x = 1, y = 1, then P(hero wins) = 7.2%

In short, if you were to so much give each player 1 wtf-combo of ANYTHING that you beat, you should call.

If TAG ever shows up with JJ and fish with AK/KQs/QJs/KJ/something completely random, you should call.

We'll need to agree to disagree that our analyses lead to different conclusions, and that's fine. But the last point to consider is that, given any analysis, in close spots we need to factor in uncertainty. Perhaps adding AQ to both players' ranges IS that uncertainty factor for you. I'm merely pointing out that, as your uncertainty factor increases, what was a slight +EV fold quickly becomes -EV. (At 100% certainty, calling is burning .07 BB.)

ILP, most of your analysis and reasoning is good. I think you just fail to consider how bad so many live 20-40 players play. And while it's more likely thst a 20 player will cold call JQs or KQo than 3 bet it, I see it happen on a daily basis.

Here's an example from 10 minutes ago, very tight passive reg that plays evey day open limps 2 hands over 30 minutes (shows down 99 and KQs). He opens utg 8 handed and shows down K2s. We can do all the stoves we want and never include K2s but to completely discount other possibilities that he "shouldn't have" is just going to lead us to the wrong conclusions.

I used to play daily with a friend thst posts here and I'd make lots of river calls he didn't always understand-agree with. When he asked why I called if explain because villian is bad at poker. And while simple this analysis usually proves to more useful thst complex stoves and analysis.

If these hands were online 30 games than I would agree with most of what you have to say, for example I would cold cap AQ on the button exactly 0%, but in live 20 games there are going to be spots where I'm not folding to the 3 bet.

I didn't understand the stuff that directly followed this part of your post, so just based on the above: I think you need to adjust your math because the ranges of the two villains are not independent. If those are correct ranges, hero only wins if both villains have AQ (or AQs). If you put those cards in one hand, it significantly reduces the combos in the other, which should result in a significantly lower final percentage of time hero is good here.

I really do think that jon_locke's posts jamming home the concept that "people are bad at poker" has helped me tremendously at game speed.

Like, just because I wouldn't play AK a certain way, doesn't mean MP won't. There's a reason why bad players are bad: they do bad things.

One true thing that Jon points out regularly, that bad players do bad things, glosses over something that I've found to be true: bad players are unpredictable in their badness.

Obviously there are some players who are both bad and predictable but it's far more rare than you think. The fact is, the reason bad players are bad is that they're irrational. Every time they look down at a hand they have a chance to act irrationally. It doesn't take many unexpected plays to mess up our perfect fold.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that when someone is a relative unknown, it pays to add a little wtf room when thinking about their range.

@OTR:

I do think ILovePoker929 makes a good point about how strong but vulnerable hands benefit from raising the turn for protection in bloated pots. What are your thoughts here about waiting until the turn with AA/KK to raise? (i.e. raise-call flop, raise turn?) What are the ramifications for the rest of our range if we do this with AA/KK 100% of the time? (i.e. do we sacrifice value with QQ/TT?)

It's hard to quantify how much value we may sacrifice by deferring to the turn with QQ/TT. But perhaps it doesn't matter nearly as much as increasing our chances to win this incredibly bloated pot.

I think that's pretty obviously what we should do on the turn.

First of all, I think it's great that people disagree with me on the river. Disagreement is always more interesting than agreement. I would be willing to bet that the majority of people in this forum--a place where basically some of the best players in the world convene--would disagree with me here. If I'm rational, that should give me pause, and it does, but at the end of the day I still have to say would I would really do in real life (and explain why) given whatever info--or lack of info--is in the OP, whether I'm right or wrong.

BTW, all the reasons that people wanna call here, are pretty much the same exact reasoning why I don't make big folds on the river in non-overcalling situations at limit holdem. But I do play significantly tighter in overcalling spots, perhaps tighter than most on this forum, and perhaps--god forbid--maybe, just maybe, incorrectly tighter.

I think what's more important here is that people get this general fuzzy message (that I'm sure no one would disagree with): When you're on the river, and you need BOTH players to show up with hands that shouldn't be there in order to win, you need to adjust your calling standards big time compared to being up against just one player on the river. That parlay is very very tough to win.

In the actual river spot I gave the fish 8 combos of hands that "shouldn't be there" given the way he played his hand every street. (all AQ combos--some are removed due to flop cards and hero's holding). So 8/22 = 36.4% of the fish's range on the river are fudge factor hands. I would even argue that KK for the fish is a fudge factor hand given that live players (who generally err on the more cautious/passive side), don't tend to bet/3bet the flop into the preflop capper on a QTx board, and then fire away on the turn with this holding, when the tag's range is still not defined, . The minute they're raised by the capper on THIS flop, they usually go into call-down mode. But we don't need to go there. The bottom line is 36% of one's range being made up of fudge factor hands that shouldn't be there is a very large number--a number I am more than comfortable with.

I only have 7% of the tag's river range made up of fudge factor hands (1 combo of AQs). The tag has two combos of this hand by the river. I think this range should be discounted though given the way the tag played the hand. So 1/14 = 7.1% of the tag's range represent hands that shouldn't be there. I'm also comfortable with that number. The main villain here, the fish, is more important here. So the disparity in fudge factor percentages is acceptable to me.

I think I have more than an acceptable margin of safety to not overcall this river at live poker. I could certainly be wrong and I'm ok with that. All I can do is make what I think is the best play possible in every hand I play.

Usually when I post in threads I can care less if people disagree or agree with me, but I would be lying if I said this is always true. Sometimes the human factor does slip in.

IF this thread allows CM to figure out that he should never be capping the flop with AA/KK in this spot (barring bizarre exceptions), then I will have a moment of happiness.

That's not always true. Sometimes we get to overcall spots where we beat one player an overwhelming majority of the time. As always judgement is important.

Of course! But that's not analogous to this spot--a spot where both players will have us beat a majority of the time.

Just to make sure I understood correctly, you're advocating we should have a 0% 4betting range on the flop here in this spot and be raising the turn with a range of AA/KK/QQ/TT/some semibluffs?