IMO Tx should bet the turn and should be severely discounted.

How is a decent player ever checking a ten twice here? A 3... yeah okay fine, but a ten is always either betting the turn or river.

DD: Read is that villain is good/ barrel-happy. That favors your argument. Generally I can see a lot of unknowns checking back Tx, then scaredly checking it back on the river. That is a real possibility.

Still. 8x. PPs. Those are still a big chunk of hands to target, which have an awful cry-call spot.

PS What is your turn checkback range for BTN. Looks awfully weak, but maybe you don't have a problem with that.

OTR: Even if they check Tx then vbet OTR, do they really call against the xr? Might as well bet first, to target 8x / PPs.


To reiterate my position: I think on river leading and xr are close in EV. I don't believe that xr is way better. Will depend on further reads.

Everything in hand one is close I'll agree but man it would suck checking both big streets with tptk and get paid nothing with it

I want to address this because I play live poker with a small group of the same players and I am known as "fancy" on the river. They will sometimes see me miss a bet on the river going for a check raise and laugh at me for FPS and I just laugh along. I love that that is imprinted in their memory. Do you know how many times I get a free showdown OOP and save a bet with a hand I would have crying called with? Or better still when they think and give up with a busted draw because they "know" I'm going for the CR and I win the pot with Queen high? Most of the time when the hand checks down they were going to fold anyway and the meta benefits are fantastic.

I rarely play with the same players, and don't often think of things in this perspective. Thanks deathdonkey I appreciate your posts immensely!

irrelevant results wooyay

Which is why I don't x/r Ax all day long here. I'm sure I'll get flamed for missing value, but I don't quite see it. It's just so easy to get owned by better aces/hands while stopping worse to hopeless hands from barreling.

I'm sure DD has considerations that are on a much higher level than mine, but I pretty much agree with ninefingers. It's true my x/c range seems pretty narrow here, but think that's okay bc it includes parts of my range I'm showing down with, as well as x/r'ng the turn with when I improve, and/or bluffing some rivers with if turn gets checked thru. It also includes hands I might opt to x/f before show down. So does this still make me too unbalanced/easy to play against even when I x/r turns that improve me while check/calling down hands as strong as Ax?

OTOH, I probably do have a (too?) wide flop x/r range that includes anything reasonably ahead of button's range along with semi-bluffs and big hands alike bc I think it's important to be able to b/3! turns with big hands and draws. I wouldn't always b/3! turn w AK here, but feel it's too high in my range not to x/r flop with if you don't have a 4-bet range pre.

So I'd appreciate if someone could spell out how much value I'm missing by not check/raising my Ax's here. And if that's true, then I guess I do need to be delaying more with hands like AK. I just hate delaying w two pair or sets and missing a b/3! on the turn. But maybe that's wrong.

As played, I think x/r river is fine imo.

Hand 1: I feel like I want to delay with something slightly weaker than AK because I think AK is strong enough to bet-3 bet some blank turns. I would prefer to delay and check raise turn with AJ or A9.

I think any ace is strong enough here that we should be raising at some point. A2 is really far ahead of a button open range on this flop.

Also I do like the river check raise line. I am not smart enough to think of it, especially at game speed, but I do see the merits.

In hand 2 I have a 4 bet range here.

Kevin Can you clarify what you are asking? What do you do with your range on that flop?

I thought OP was stating he feels a need to widen his delay range otherwise, check/call, check/call is too weak and allows button to play almost perfectly on river.

I'm saying one of the benefits to not having a 4-bet range is so we can check/raise lots of flops. But I do like to add some stronger hands (and I think way ahead/way behind hands are good candidates) to x/c with to offset the concerns OP raised. Maybe that's too simplistic?

I guess I'm asking if you think it's indefensible (as far as missing value) to check/call down this type of board with Ax? If so, it seems you're mainly balancing your flop check/calls by delaying, which is fine except when I try to answer what I do with my range on this flop

It's obviously player dependent, but I'm certainly check/raising for value with most everything I think is ahead of his range (I think this is important to make up for not having a 4-betting range?) as well as my semi-bluffs (although there aren't too many on this board). This includes my better aces. But I also want to have some stronger check/calls like with Ax, JJ-KK, maybe small pairs that I don't x/r. But I see the point that I probably won't improve often enough to where I can balance out my turn check/raises.

It's worth noting that your opposition is much tougher than mine. But do you think this is too far removed from being GTO when I need to be?

Ok thanks for clarifying. I feel like my answer is overly simplistic but yes I think it's too weak to have any Ax that simply check calls down on this board vs a button range. On some board textures I could probably make an argument in favor of it but not one in which we should have plenty of draws.

But sometime we might not have enough value hands to balance our draws too, like here.

For my part i do not have a tons of 3 in my range.
Now if we only c/called with weak T and some 3, seem to me our c/c range should be way too weak and could be exploited by putting max pressure on us on turn and river.
If we simply take some Ax ( like A2 and A4 for example) and have a pretty good c/c range with all the T as well, we can simply c/c some draws on flop and have some nice c/r range ( or donking range) when we hit our draw on turn .
Or have plenty of bluff catch ( with A2,A4 and all Ts) to not get blasted out from draws that we do not have when they hit on turn, when we are stuck to c/c the turn with our bluff catcher.

Unless you might be saying we should not have any c/c range here on the flop and simply c/r all our range we want to continue with, due to the amount of the draws on the board ?

Thanks DD. I guess I'm exploitable here and need to add some more x/c-x/r lines while getting more value out of my Ax's.

I'm also probably not assessing this flop texture properly. Other than spades (of which we have the nut blocker Ks), it seems rather dry to me. But I guess there are 40 combos of KQ, KJ, and QJ left.

I also hate owning myself w Ax to better aces. An ace is such a likely holding for a button open. That, or something hopeless they might continue barreling trying to prevent us from drawing. I get that's too sophomoric in principle. I'm glad I don't gotta play w you any more lol.

I didn't see this board as being all that draw heavy (and that easily could be wrong). Especially since our K is blocking 8 combos of KQ and KJ (and granted not a lot, but some spade combos). And I don't particularly like turning these hands into x/r semi-bluffs bc a pair of kings, queens, and even jacks will be good enough to show down a lot of times. I'm actually more likely to x/r a good T for value than Ax! So I think DD is saying there is something very wrong with that lol. Change the flop to AT9ss or even AT8ss and I'll have many more draws to work with.

Edit: But we're talking about Ax hands, which means we wouldn't have the Ks to know we're blocking 8 str8 combos. But I was thinking AK would be part of my value x/r flop range.

You can call twice with KQ,KJ, K and Q high flush draws in addition to hands you will at least be calling twice with which includes your weaker pairs like weak T's, 3's, pairs below Ace. So check call twice range not so weak.

I would be raising most of my top pair plus hands in this wide range situation

I agree with Crazylond about delaying Aces like AJ and CR flop with AK in order to b/3b some turns.

I'm thinking maybe delay some lower card flush draws? For balance and also we don't mind if we get a free card. Maybe these would be better slotted for a flop CR and barrel part of our range.

By my count we will have 25 combos of non nut flush draws I want to semi bluff alone. Need a lot of value hands to balance that which is most of our Ax.

thats great when you are good enough to call a BU steal with like all your suited junk like 92s,83s etc, i suppose

I am not there yet so, for me to c/r all my flush draw i do not think i have enough value hands

I didn't even count those, think the worst I counted was J5s

assuming i brick turn i feel like im supposed to check call twice with my strongest flushdraws, checkraise flop w/ my middle-ish flushdraws, and delay checkraise my weakest flushdraws... assuming im peeling as wide preflop as i am. thats a pure feelplayer read.

There aren't too many things I'm totally confident in but I am confident that is bad.

DD: explain? There might be better ways to distribute ones flushdraws hands but I don't see why this one is 'bad'.

I like having a wide xr range, so I would xr flop with *most* of my FDs. How I distribute the ones I flat once/twice would only have a small impact.

Specifically delay CR the weakest ones is very flawed

stop trying to re-live your glory days, old man