so i am mostly a $2/5 player, but i've dabbled in $5/10 games. my results are mediocre in $5/10 (small sample) but good in $2/5 (decent sample)

think im having trouble adapting to $5/10 a bit.



game is a $2/5 with a mandatory $10 straddle

can buy in for the big stack at the table so stacks usually are around $1k to $3k. plays close to a $5/10 game

villain - covers (~$6k) - SB - younger guy and is a reg at the $5/10 level around my area. plays somewhere between a TAG and LAG game. he is up a lot for the session after winning a couple huge pots early on. we've been friendly with each other. he's capable of running bluffs for sure.

hero - ~$1.1k - straddle - villain prob perceives me as a TAG. maybe more of an ABC player tbh. we haven't played together a ton but this session I have been mostly card dead and haven't been very active.

folds to villain who opens for $40
hero calls with 8s6s

flop (~$80) Ah6h4c
villain check
hero bets $50
villain call

turn (~$180) Ah6h4c 8d
villain check
hero bets $125
villain x/r to $400

hero? if call, how do i play different rivers? folding too nitty? jamming spew?



I'm really unsure how to range villain here. are $5/10 regs usually bluff heavy here or value heavy? what hands do you range villain on? maybe a hand like 45?

my thoughts: i feel like i have more hands to call with here (A6, A8, A4, 66, 44, 57... I have some worse hands here like some combo draws, I double barrel some Ax but not all; i feel like he bets most value on the flop and also cbets a lot of bluffs (FD, 57, etc) on the flop as well.

Definitely not folding. Close between jamming and calling.

how should i range villain here? if we assume $5/10 reg and let's say he's average/above-average reg

$2/5 i rarely see these lines and can typically just exploitably fold in $2/5

I would check back flop. I think most likely he has a pair that picked up a draw on turn and is now turning it into a bluff. Really hard for him to rep much here except maybe the one combo of 88 or a passively played 75 or a weirdly slowplayed hand.

I’d probably jam since our hand is pretty vulnerable.

Pre seems like a good spot to 3b, we are IP the whole hand people dont light 4b or 4b wide enough for value so yeah i think 3b overall here is going to be decently better. 86s plays pretty well in 3b as aggressor, lots of boards to barrel or turn pairs into bluffs on runouts.

Flop seems like a super clear check back, i dont think he is ever checking here with intnetion of folding.

Turn probably just folding, hard for him to be bluffing and if he wanted to bluff most likely would have been otf. I can expect to see AA/88/Ax8h/some 75 here, maybe some random spaz or bluffs but i dont think often enough at all to rip here. Flatting is definitely not optimal

agree with check back flop imo, seems like a bad board for us to have too wide of a betting range, and even BvB this is one of the worst of your 6x.

i like calling turn and using position on river; if led into, we can call any river that doesn’t counterfeit us. yeah, it’s gross the times he spikes river but by calling we allow him to fire his misses. Also this is just my experience, but 5/10 LAGs as described love to rip in 2/5 games (perhaps especially so with straddle) with so much garbage here that some hands he has are drawing super thin.

if checked to OTR: we can jam as a bluff on an 8, cards that bring four to a straight, and for value on blanks or boats.

But despite all of that, jamming turn seems better to just extract the max ASAP when we’re ahead and realistically we get stacked when behind. Ranges might be too wide BvB to pass this up?

Argument for why villain can be bluffing turn is that it’s hard for us to have too many value hands that can stand up to a raise. We should’nt have much Ax after not 3bettimg pre, and if he has a hand like 54 he can block set combos.

When he checks flop, a lot of his range is small pairs, and a lot of those hands pick up draws on turn so going into bluff mode might feel like very tempting for a creative player.

yeah i also wasn't sure about my flop bet at the time, i considered checking or betting. i thought checking is better with like 8c6c where i have more playability on future streets, but maybe i am overthinking it.

i thought villain could have some x/f here but maybe not as he would bet most of his air. im not sure how wide villain is willing to open from the SB.

so people advocate flatting turn are looking to call like every river basically? also our stack size is weird i mean we are committing almost 50% of our stack by the river right?

If I were to flat, I think we have a really hard time calling if a heart, 7 or 5 shows up, which is why I'd rather jam turn.

Turn is jam or fold imo

We can have a lot of Aces up, sets, 75s and some 75o if we defend that pre. And we should have many thin value bets ott and we shouldnt have that many bluffs either just overall vs a flop check imo on Ax vs PFR. He has to have exactly 77/55, chose to not cbet, and then decide to turn them into a bluff ott

We're probably 3betting a lot of our Ax combos pre and 88.

And 76/65/54 all work as well.

A4/A6/A8 overall shouldnt be 3-betting at high frequencies

Good point with 54s-87s tho

I think offsuit combos of A4/A6 make way better 3bet light candidates than flatting candidates. Very hard for them to make hands good enough to call down in an unraised pot, even HU.

One thing I notice is that folks 3b ranges are really all over the place in these forums. Off suit combos of a4 and a6 make for awful reraises. 86s is ok ish at a low % but mostly a call
The flop bet is silly here it’s a pure check
As played I’d call turn x/r (who said it’s a fold or a shove? That’s silly)
Gl

^^^why are A4/A6 bad reraises? They block well and don’t really have good playability post

Think about your whole 3b range
You already have like tt+ for value and all these combos of ako aqo kqs that’s a lot of hands already. Then you want to 3b some 109s 78s 54s a5s from time to time, some qjs/ kqo sometimes/
Now you want to add a6o and a4o for another 32 combos- you will really start bluffing way 2 much. If you are dying to add some weak ax/ a5s is the most popular choice /a2/3/4s work well 2.
Also a6o/a4o just lose money hard post so you don’t want to be putting extra $ in the pot with weak hands like this. A6o really just wants to fold pre multi way /a4 looks a little better as a call bc of wheel potential.

^ not sure if you've run preflop sims of bb vs sb 3bet ranges/frequencies if sb plays raise or fold but based on your comments I think you're gonna be really surprised by the ranges the sims come up with. We don't end up 3betting a "standard" range that you're used to, we end up with a range that has some really junky hands that would surprise you a lot... like some % of J7o and other weird ****.

Generally I agree with you because it's a lot easier to play a "normal" 3betting range (especially because the sims have such a ridiculous mixed strategy that no human could ever memorize/implement) but keep an open mind and don't be so dismissive

PM if you wanna talk more about it

Missed that it was sb v bb in these spots ur right there’s a ton of mixing pf from many diff parts of the pf range. Low frequencies of k2o and stuff that doesn’t have much playability and benefits from the wide sb range having to fold alot so agree w your point.
Still think a4/a6o plays mostly better as a call sb v bb ignore the stuff about a6 being folded which is obv wrong for a sb vs bb scenario.
Wrd to 86s it’ll play fine as a 3b but it’s a mix frequency thing and you gotta be careful as you can start getting pretty exploitable if you get 2 wide in these spots
(Prob harder for villains to catch on in live poker as u don’t end up in a bunch of bvb spots like you do in the online streets)

^ ya for sure. In practice im never attempting to play that type of range bb vs sb

PM'd you but curious what range you are 3betting bb vs. sb here

So am I if you'd care to share. It sounds interesting.

@Jarretman yeah would be nice if you just posted here instead of PMs (if you are willing to share). seems like a good discussion