Live 2$/5$/10$

This game started as a 2$/5$ game with a rock and we are now 4-handed and sick of the rock so we just made it 2$/5$/10$. I don’t have a ton of history with the main Villain in this hand. I watched him overbet a river IP on a relatively dry ace high board and get called by two pair which was good. They have stack matching at this casino I had 4,000$ on the table and he bought in for the full 4k and seems very comfortable playing deep and a lot of people around the card room seem to know him. On to the hand!

(3500$ Effective) 2/5/10

Villain opens BU 35$
Hero in the SB 3bet to 140$ w/KhTh
Villain calls
All others fold

Flop:8h7s6h (290$)

Hero leads for 250$
Villain raises to 675$
Hero calls

Turn Ks (1640$)
Hero checks
Villain checks

River 3h
Hero?

Will post results later

325

Why?

we might get extra 325 from a random 98 and getting raised by all his flushes (and get bluffraised a non trivial amount)

I like Alpha Fish's thoughts.

It's really hard for us to have nothing here, other than As9s or Ks9s, Js9s. Unless Villain thinks we are (regularly) turning 99/TT/JJ/QQ into a bluff, if we now bet 3/4 pot on the river, he should find a fold even with 2pair he raised flop with then checked turn with.

I think that button mostly has one pair hands or flush draws with this line, hands that used the good old "let me raise the flop so I can see the river without facing a turn bet" strategy.

Well I checked thinking a lot of his flop raises would either be flushes or they would go ahead and bluff the riv. He bet 1200$ I snapped it off and he had the ole 53dd. Just curious what is best long term here.

Flop seems an excellent candidate to check

Checking range on flop

As played river is prob a mix between lead and check, and honestly it's close between x/jam and x/call if you do x but I'm leaning towards x/jam even if theoretically it's too thin cause you're just always getting called by worse flushes in this spot.

x/r if you check. Betting small is better than x/r though.

Don't c-bet the flop with anything. X/c vs a big bet on the flop, mix x/r and x/c vs a smaller one.

Could someone explain in depth reasoning for range-checking on this flop?

Careful with your flop sizing, if you're only bombing it with bluffs a villain like this could easily catch on. Halfpot flop seems fine.

River is super complicated and wouldn't fault you for choosing any of the options. My favorite is to bet halfpot and just hope he makes a bad call, most people do. But could definitely argue for a check since he probably had air and might consider repping the flush.

From a GTO point of view:

1) This is a dynamic flop which suits IP players more.

2) There are so many turn cards that can change the values of all your possible hand dramatically.

3) If you do not want to be exploited by a competent villain, u need to have a value range as well as a bluffing range when u bet flop.

4) Hands like overpair fare badly on this flop and u should therefore check all overpairs.

5) if u want to bet sets and two pairs+ on this flop, u need to balance it with a range of bluffs that have equity. But doing so will hugely imbalance ur betting range since this board connects better with the IP player and since u have more bluff than value, this will be a losing play.

6) as such, the best play will be to check all ur range with plan to check raise ur sets+ and some high equity bluff. You also need to have a check call range and overpairs and pair+draw or non-nutted flush draws are good for that.

In addition, checking flop gives u a lot more playability when compared to lines like bet/bet/bet or bet/bet/check or bet/check/check.

Nice explanation! In general you can have a rule of thumb that you should check boards that are bad for your range and good for your opponents range.

Just ask which of you has the nuts more often here, him or you? He has the nuts way more often with sets and straights etc, you just often have broadways or overpairs. (ofc you can sometimes have a straight too as a preflop bluffraise, but its pretty rare)

Just don't forget that checking your range in this spot is a simplification ), which I'm a big fan of especially OOP with a SPR > 10. Even though we "should" be betting ~30% of the time with a small sized merged range; it's a lot easier to check 100% and play your range like that.

So basically, don't forget we're giving up a small amount of EV to simplify our strategy. In this case, 134.24 EV (with 30% bet with 1/3 pot, and 70% check) and 133.59 EV with 100% OOP check.

I'm flatting pre waaaaay more often then I'm 3b this hand, especially oop this deep. I'd much rather 3b with an ace, suited connectors or even gappers. It's going to be really hard for you to show down a 1 pair hand vs this opponent. After that, I'd size the flop much smaller since this flop hits vill range much harder then ours. On this turn (and only this turn, although betting some hearts has merits) I'm betting this turn to set up a river shove. Even seeing vill make the bluff earlier, it's still a suboptimal spot when river is a blank q or whatever and vill bombs it. I think biggest difference between my game now and 5+ years ago is I've decided to get pretty agro in big pots instead of check/soulreading the regs. People have fewer tells and are more balanced in these spots, but don't really react as well vs aggression, especially when its unexpected.

agree with this for the most part, I still 3b a small % of the time depending on villain/stack and some other stuff.

I like check/call on the river. A lot of missed stuff can bluff you. Also, if he has the nut flush he won't automatically get your entire stack.

I don't like 325 bet, because I think it invites the nut flush to jam on you which isn't what you want. True, you'll get bluff raised, but I think those hands are probably bluffing anyway.

This is really helpful, thanks

I always wondered why we don't just c-bet with lower frequency to compensate for our narrower value range (and add a narrow range of bluffs), rather than "check with our entire range". Understanding that it's a practical strategy simplification makes sense to me

no problem. there's a lot of spots you can simplify by altering slightly from equilibrium as long as you know how to play the resulting game trees there's a lot of benefit to simplification imo

Think one of biggest leaks for live full ring regs is they want to not 3b value hands because they are deep

@Alpha Fish
So you prefer to "simulate" a block bet in the hope that V either call or see it as a great bluff opportunity ?

In that case I like you bet size.... but would actually suggest more like 275 as you then are below 20% pot bet, which is often the border where people think they are getting to good odds to make a crying call ... or make a bluff raise.


@SetofFives
There are way to many holding V can have that V like to check down - so for me it is a bet.
You could bet like Alpha Fish suggest which I like.
But given the dynamic described " I watched him overbet a river IP on a relatively dry ace high board" and the levelling "I know he knows ..." /V knows you have see this hand described and are perhaps afraid to been as scared to play) you could got for a huge bet - like 1750 or so - and see if V see it as a bluff

This is me half the time. And then the other half I'm trying to play optimally. Villian dependent.