Villain is relative unknown with a few reggy looking stats so far.

Because I only 3 bet any ace that could have made two pair on this board roughly 50% of the time, and only when they're suited, if I fold here my range is such that I am folding close to 100% of the time. That said it certainly looks like a fold and stacking off 120bb deep with a medium A feels all kinds of gross. OTOH this board seems like an alright candidate for a hero call.

I never check AK,AQ,AJ or 24s on the flop here and I bet straights 100% of the time. Gutshots can't check call but can realize strong fe so I always bet them. Should I change that?





[converted_hand][hand_history]Poker Stars, $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 2 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand #22454471

SB: $60.36 (120.7 bb)
Hero (BB): $61.45 (122.9 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with T A
SB raises to $1, Hero raises to $3, SB calls $2

Flop: ($6) A 2 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $4, Hero calls $4

Turn: ($14) 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $9, Hero calls $9

River: ($32) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, SB bets $44.36 and is all-in, Hero calls $44.36

Well played. Would do the same.

3bet bigger 7x/8x, rest looks fine.

Holy crap, that's a sick spot. My first thought was that you should fold the river, but then I realized that this would mean folding close to 100%, which surely can't be right (as you note in the OP). So either it's a call, or you should do something different on an earlier street. The option that seems most interesting to me is c/r flop. Not sure how I feel about it off-hand, will need to play around a bit first and get back to you.

I started typing something only to delete it again four times, this is such a weird spot. Given that you are at the top of your range calling seems to make sense, I just don't see many hands he'd bluff with. And you'd also have to know if he's a thinking reg or a rec. Vs recs this is a clear fold. Vs an unknown I'd fold early in the match. Vs a thinking reg I guess call is fine but it seems really thin.

Oh and 3bet bigger pre but thats arbitrary.

At 50NL, this is probably not a call

Justifications like "I don't want to be folding the top of my range" are not very useful heuristics. Doesn't matter if you're folding the top of your range or the bottom of it if he's bluffing <20% of the time. That's something you only need to *potentially* worry about against an observant reg who you're going to be playing for at least 1000 hands. Otherwise, stop getting wrapped up in your hand strength and just make the best play. People don't bluff like this and everything he could have with equity would've hit, so fold.

An empirical question of "how often do people bluff like this" should not be answered by a theoretical one (i.e., "what part of my range am I calling here").

So you are basing this on reads on the player pool? When did you last play 50NL HU Haseeb?

it's like 2009 again

Haha, okay, fair.

I fire three there routinely in the SB's shoes
I'd also do it with any A.

The BB's range is almost always KK-TT when he xCalls and the rest will be giveups which he just xFolds

And, yesterday a reg called me down (in something like 4th hand of the match, with nothing happening in the first 3) with KK for stacks.
When I think someone will do that, I adjust by firing only [draws, Ax] OTT and OTR I have usually close to 2:1 Ax/air ranges

Then he is a fish, sir.

I'm talking about what the regs are doing

On the contrary, this is a very useful heuristic. If it seems correct to fold the top of your range in a spot, then that is a strong sign that either your intuition is off or you're doing something wrong on an earlier street. It is certainly feasible for a situation to arise where folding the top of one's range is called for, but such situations should be rare, and you should be able to understand why doing so is correct before assuming you've found one.

lol wut

People don't bet in position after facing checks on a board where a check usually means a weak one-pair hand?

Backdoor spades hit? K5s? K3s? Q5s? Q3s, J5s, J3s, T5s, T3s, 95s, 63s?

The question "how often do people bluff like this" should not be asked in the first place, because it's a stupid question. Knowing the answer will not help you win money playing poker. Knowing the correct calling range against an optimally-playing opponent, on the other hand, is extremely valuable information, as it allows one to set an unexploitable baseline and make adjustments based on data obtained about any specific opponent.

Obviously it's a useful heuristic in many cases--that's why it's a heuristic. Most of the time, not folding the top of your range is obviously correct. But I don't believe it should be used to make close decisions, because it rarely provides any missing insight into a hand; it inevitably just gives us an additional, extrinsic reason to call (which, as humans, we always kind of want deep down).

Also, it's worth noting that ATo here is not the top of our range... AA/A7/A8 are the top of our range, and I'd agree with your heuristic--I would not fold any of those hands.

I disagree wholly, but I understand where our difference in stemming from. You are thinking of this spot in terms of GTO and balance, and I don't think either are terribly relevant in this spot, I just care about straight optimization. To that end, I don't care what an "optimally-playing opponent will do," because we are not playing an optimally-playing opponent, we are playing the average NL50 Zoom player; the model we should be optimizing against is our model of the average NL50 Zoom Player.

But more to the point: there are many spots where calling with the top of your range is -EV. High-stakes players routinely fold in spots with the top of their range. Why? Because people don't perfectly balance all of their betting lines, period. I'm contending that bet-bet-overbet on this board isn't a weaker hand than ATo often enough. The truth of that proposition doesn't really have anything to do with how close ATo is the to the top of our range.

Could I be wrong? Of course. It's a close hand at 50NL posted on a poker forum. None of our lines of argument are going to solve this question, nor is any poster's opinion going to offer a definitive answer. Even OP posting the results of the hand wouldn't answer the question. Short of the villain coming in here and stating what his general betting pattern tells are, or a statistical analysis of showdowns in similar betting patterns on dry ace-x-x checked down boards, this question isn't going to be meaningfully resolved.

Point is: make a read on how often you think is bluffing in this spot. I think it's close to 1/4. You think it's over 1/3. I don't think other lines of argumentation hold a lot of weight here.

no exactly that is not the point

wtf is going on here guys call vs everyone and win vs A9

if we had A3 i still click call, but wtf is this ****

*edit* i once paid haseeb 600$/hr for coaching. i learned a lot. that being said,

fyp

I mean it depends on the situation right? In spots where folding the top of your range would be very exploitative(big ev loss compared to calling vs optimal play) youll need a strong read before you can fold. However in spots where top of your range is a 0ev call vs optimal play theres nothing wrong really with folding everything or calling everything if you have some small indication your opponent bluffing freq is off. Its exploitable sure but there is no way your opponent can really exploit it unless he opens himself up for exploitation aswell.

Kinda agree with spladle tho that in this hand if your population model is good enough to fold AT you probably shouldnt play it like this. So then Given that you played it like this you can still fold the river ofc if its best but you think about what that implies for the way you should play this hand and other hands in the maxev way nnext time vs this opp.

@kaby 2013 players not folding top of range anymore surely has more to do with better opposition now then with a fundamentel differrence in the way they think about poker?

the answer to that is both yes and no

If it's a useful heuristic, then of course it should be used to make close decisions in the absence of a superior heuristic. Claims to the contrary are absurd/nonsense.

This is wrong. Just as it should rarely be correct to fold the top of one's range (unless the range you've reached a decision point with is improperly weak), it should never be correct to call with the bottom.

That might be the top of your range, but I wouldn't 3-bet A7 and would bet AA on the flop. In any case, which hand(s) comprise the absolute top of our range is largely irrelevant. The question raised by the OP is whether folding AT on the river here creates a situation where the SB can profitably bet any two cards on all 3 streets, which he plainly ought not be able to do on the majority of run-outs. If such a situation exists, then we know either that we must call with weaker hands than our intuition suggests is correct or play differently on earlier streets so that our range for reaching this spot is stronger.

No, this is simply wrong. We are not playing "the average NL50 Zoom player;" such an entity does not in fact exist. We are playing an individual. Indeed, any attempt to create a model of "the average NL50 Zoom Player" is doomed to failure, because the very concept is absurd/nonsense without knowing far more about every individual NL50 Zoom player's strategy than could conceivably be gathered from human brains. Furthermore, human players do not have static strategies; thus, even if we pretended that we could capture a snapshot of every player's strategy by digging into their subconscious and extracting information from them by simulating situations until we had complete knowledge of their strategies, by the time we had finished they would have changed.

Correction: There are many terrible opponents against whom calling with the top of your range is -EV in many spots. At equilibrium, or against non-terrible opponents, there are not many spots where calling with the top of your range is -EV.

No we don't. When is the last time you played high stakes? How high were said stakes? Who were you playing them with?

Making a read is not always possible. Knowing the correct play in spots where you have no reads is important.

No, I have offered no opinion about villain's bluffing frequency in this spot, nor do I think it matters.

I have an aversion to getting all-in with TP4K and a flop SPR of 9.56 when >1/6 of my flop range has TP4K beat. I suspect you're right that AT is a call here due to the flop/turn action substantially weakening our range, but I definitely disagree that the SB should bet/bet/jam with A9 (or any other one pair hand in his range, for that matter). If we're good here, it should be because the SB is bluffing.

So I take it that means you think going bet bet bet with A9 is exploitable (presumably due to it letting make AQ more money when checked rather than bet)?

I am digging your methods but what you suggest nonchalantly above seems something like climbing K2 in January. Do you think there is validity to the approach of learning to correlate various ranges with stats or combinations of stats, particularly where the opponents in question will be playing far from equilibrium? I envision that as a way to go about learning the rudiments of the game and developing the abilities you and other nosebleeders posses as far as being able to mentally picture regressions of strategy-counter strategy-counter counter strategy and then gleaning whats best from that process. I have very little ability to do that currently.

Yes, I think it's exploitable, but not because it lets AQ make more money by checking; it's because I don't think the BB should be check-calling all-in with a range that A9 has >50% equity against.

Not sure how what you're suggesting is different from what I'm suggesting. If you have a read, then obviously use it. The line you quoted simply says that it's important to know how you should play in the absence of reads; it's not possible to properly deviate from your default in an exploitative fashion without first knowing what your default ought to be.

Quick clarification: I am not a nosebleeder, have not been a nosebleeder for awhile, and will likely never be a nosebleeder again.

"Do what works" is almost always good advice.

In before igoopopy finds out where you live and comes to punch you in the face