Warning/Disclaimer: might not be very interesting for some/low(er) content.

Won't spend too much time on pre...good hand, plays well against a flatting range and can cont. vs a 3bet, etc.

Was asking what a buddy of mine (good mid stakes cash pro) thought of my flop play. Obv play is to just call, so I knew he wouldn't really like it for (some) good reasons. I have (some) defensible reasons for 3betting the flop and for cbet sizing. Our hist is I show him lines where I depart from std/gto strat in MTTs (sometimes for valid reasons) which he usually frowns upon.

Predictably, he said he 'prob wouldn't 3bet the flop' and then he mentioned something that I didn't ever consider...that he would "pbb fold turn." I'm not that well-versed in chat abbrev, so I scrambled to look up "pbb" thinking it meant "probably never," or something to that effect. It did not. Once we verified that we were indeed discussing the same hand, a spirited discussion followed. There were assumptions RE:vill bluff frequency and whether our hand was a bluffcatcher. I was forced to wield the ultimate weapon of mass destruction (Pio) in an effort to prove my contention that folding was somewhere btwn insane and lol.

My assumptions: Vill c/r freq would be very low and would not be properly adjusted/expanded as a counter-strat to the small/high freq cbet. I thought vill c/r range would be various FD's and 2pr with virtually none of the "bluff" combos that u might see in a Pio sim.

I thought that vill could and would shove worse ott for value and therefore contended that our hand wasn't a bluffcatcher.

Cash Pro's assumptions: Vill would "have worse for value < 5% of the time" and vill's bluff freq "is like 5% or less." To reinforce his point he added, "there's no facking way he shoves turn with two pairs man." His contention was that the only worse hand he shoves for value/protection is TT (combos of which I would significantly discount.) I reminded him that this was an MTT, with the majority of the entrants being MTT players.


Looking at the HH again, I think it could be reasonable to flat TT here (if u weren't a 3bet happy aggtard like me.)

The hand is from the HR on ACR...no reads on vill, I didn't have any notes and didn't recall seeing him in the HR prior.

(If) I'm the one that's insane, it may be a relief and I can pbb deal with it, although I would have to run good to afford the therapy, so flame away.

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 100/200 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP+1: 9,500 (VPIP: 10.66, PFR: 6.56, 3Bet Preflop: 8.16, Hands: 122)
Hero (CO): 16,058
BTN: 24,903 (VPIP: 24.67, PFR: 16.16, 3Bet Preflop: 6.65, Hands: 982)
SB: 2,364 (VPIP: 14.81, PFR: 3.70, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 27)
BB: 9,600 (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 5)
UTG: 10,167 (VPIP: 19.28, PFR: 16.05, 3Bet Preflop: 7.32, Hands: 83)
UTG+1: 4,423 (VPIP: 19.19, PFR: 14.12, 3Bet Preflop: 8.65, Hands: 701)
MP: 15,490 (VPIP: 25.31, PFR: 16.50, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 804)

SB posts SB 100, BB posts BB 200

Pre Flop: (pot: 300) Hero has A A

fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 475, fold, fold, BB calls 275

Flop: (1,050, 2 players) T Q A
BB checks, Hero bets 365, BB raises to 999, Hero raises to 2,875, BB calls 1,876

Turn: (6,800, 2 players) 4
BB bets 6,250 and is all-in, Hero calls 6,250

Call flop vs check raise. As played I would expect he has KJo with one diamond. Lemme know if I guessed right

bet bigger OTF, why are you giving such a good price on such a wet board?

As played I'm just jamming OTF after the c/r

If you are using 1/3 flop sizing, which increases our cb% obv, and we are adding hands like Ax to our cb range, actually prefer your flop line. An alternative would be to pot our cb range, and check back most of our Ax, Qx, Tx. So depending on villain, may make later streets more diff. Think your raise sizing, makes sense as well. If you are ~cib AT+ otf, think we need to call now

Your friend is correct.

Also, I would debate whether we should c-bet here with top set at all. Correct strategy against bb's defense range would be c-betting big and and bombing those textures on further streets because of our huge range advantage. But c-betting with our hand against extremely capped mtt defense bb range seems like a waste of a hand. I would check it back like 80% of the time.

And yes, call his check raise the first time. And yes, turn seems like a fold.

I do agree we would check back most of the time with top set, however with this board I think we can c-bet comfortably and get called by worse a lot of the time

b/3b is pretty meh as v has every combo of kj, and you block a lot of his value hands that arent kj
anyway, flop sizing is pretty meh as well, theres no real good reason to bet small on this texture, you should be choosing a much larger cbet size on this board co vs bb. closer to 75% would make much more sense imo.
as played, id probably just station and hope to fill up :/

how many bets can you realistically squeeze out of worse with your hand here? Unless you fill up and he has trips (or some similiar miracle scenario) you are getting one bet most of the time. If we check back however he can stab any Jack or King, or big diamonds or whatever he wants, he can also stab twice if he has naked Kd or Jd.

agree w/onehandatatime otf, I don't think on coordinated boards with flush draws that checking back top set is optimal at least from explo standpoint.

despite our blockers Villain still has a lot of pair+gs hands that are relatively inelastic to sizing and we want to charge those asap. also when we make it 2.4x pre BB is gonna have less unpaired Kx and Jx hands that would stab turn, e.g. he's probably not defending K7o or J7o pre, and will have more pair+gutter hands as I mentioned that want to check it down but will pay bet(s). how many naked Kd Jd hands are in his range? not many if you think about it and those would pay a bet otf anyway.

Tbh I thought Shanhan's 2nd Half play-calling left a lot to be desired. While I will concede that he would have been secong-guessed had he opted for a very conservative approach, I thought his decisions reeked of stubbornness, if not outright arrogance. Imo the "go with what got us here" mentality is both shortsighted and cowardly as it failed to address significant variables such as the score and time-remaining.

i dont think villain has KJ or Axdd often as hand is played (with stack sizes behind i think he is almost always shoving this hands on flop), also i dont think he has TT/QQ(most likely 3 betting pre and most likely geting in on flop) i think villain most likely has Adx or KdT/KdQ i think hero is big fav to win the hand as played

what did he had??

Sizing is ok since we have a range advantage/smash that flop (and we do block two pair combinations etc ) but I'll prob go 50-60% otf and checking is just horrible, so I disagree with that.
What's your reasoning of 3betting flop? (What bluffs do we have here to balance?), I'll just flat (I will do w/ all my range) and re-evaluate turn.
Folding sucks but I doubt he has worse for value, unless V is a muppet. (Turn should save us a lot of chips)


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I think we should be betting 60-70% of pot otf. There are plenty of hands that will continue at least one street here and we should be maximizing equity on that street. There are turn cards that are going to slow down action. I think it's optimistic on this board to think our opponent is going to double barrel turn and river very often if we check flop because it's so hard for them to have an A, and if they do it's with a very narrow part of their range, like exactly Kd or Jd.

As played, what hands do we have in our 3-bet range and what bluffs do we use to balance? If we're playing KJs and AA this way (for example), do we put combo draws in as bluffs? Do we have enough bluffs with equity to have a viable range?

underrated post imo

Sigh. Next year!!!!!