Hi all,

5/10. Hero is taking a shot with the min buy and is about even at $725. Hero raises 77 UTG $25, pro UTG+1 3! to $75, hero calls. Previously V had commented about how hero was tightest player at table. Have also seen him 3! light once or twice. I figure he is quite strong here if he’s 3! my open UTG+1. AK, JJ+ probably.

Flop ($150): K-7-4r. Hero checks, V bets $40. Hero calls. I figure no need to raise on such a dry board.

Turn ($190): K. Hero checks V checks. I was going to c/r turn if he barreled targeting AK. Now AK less likely. Looking more like AA, QQ, JJ.

River: J. Hero checks, V bets $125, hero contemplates just calling but c/r to $325. V jams for hero’s last $275. Oops.

Did I botch the river? I c/r river figuring I was beating AA, QQ going for thin value, and of course a weirdly played AK. Once he jams can I fold for the last $200 something since I’m most likely beat? He has no fold equity and it now looks like he probably has JJ (maybe quads) the way he played the hand. We aren’t exactly super deep either so I feel pretty committed.

Thanks,
DT

Fold pre facing the 3bet. At 72bb pre UTG 9 handed 77 might even be an open fold idk. If the game is high rake I bet it's an open fold.

x/c flop is good but we should have some raises, esp vs this sizing.

x turn is good

I'd lead the river as I don't expect AA/QQ to bet/call enough, and I don't expect enough bluffs to make x/r better but ya x/r is fine too.

If you x/r river you should jam yourself with this stack depth remaining, not this <3x sizing despite the paired board.

As played river decision you have to call; he could have AK.

I don’t understand why you’re shot taking with the min buy? but that’s not rly material to the hand

as played his 3b is large relative to your stack so he should have a wider range than you’re giving him. just x/shove river. maybe the pro leveled himself into thinking you’re weak and shoved for $200 more. after you leave yourself with so little behind you have to call his jam

Thanks. I guess I played it OK, just destined to go broke.

I am not folding 77 here pre at either decision point.

if he's not sure how to play a set short stacking in a 3bet pot there's no way he can play 77 profitably overall

I mean I don’t think I made any major mistakes but just wanted to check with the pros....

Seems like he has an ok idea about how to play a set but a relatively poor idea about what hands would benefit from posting on this forum.

I like your thought pattern – it shows you have good instincts and think a lot about the hands you play.

When contemplating a river value raise, the hands he is thin-value betting that you beat are only relevant if those hands will call your value check-raise. River play is simple in this way, due to there being no unrealized equity from your opponent’s folding range. If there are more combos of hands that pay off your check-raise that you beat than there are combos of hands that pay off your check-raise that beat you, you can start to make a case for a check-raise.

The problem in this particular situation is that whether your opponent has a good strategy or the strategy that the vast majority of 5-10 players have, you can similarly heavily discount hands like KQs and AK. These are hands that some players will call a check-raise with if they get to the river with those combos, but it is a very rare player that can have those by the time we get to the river.

So you’re gambling on whether he can sometimes (say 50% of the time) call with AA or QQ. If we give him all of the combos of these hands (in addition to all the combos of JJ and KK) by the time he gets to the river, you’re ahead of 60% of the range that gives you action (again, assuming he is 50% to fold hands like AA and QQ).

That said, with your image, I'm not sure if the frequency is even that high, and the potential of his jamming the money he has behind creates a reverse-implied-odds type situation (more accurately, it is just a case of a future branch of the game tree being mostly losing for you, even if it is +EV when considering the odds you can take).

I like an exploitative fold here a lot, due to your having JJ here a lot, and your image with villain. IMO, your opponent is very likely a recreational player, given that he commented on your style of play. We need him to have 2 combos of AK that jam river to call, and I suspect he does not have them, because we can discount them so heavily with both his check on the turn and the fact that he is jamming, as opposed to calling the river. Certainly open to what you and others think about this.

I agree that depending on both how you construct your pre-flop range and how much experience you have, open-fold or open-raise are both reasonable, as are fold to 3bet or call 3bet.

I agree a fold is probably the best on the river. I could have JJ and he's still jamming, so he either has JJ or quads. Meh. Zeebo's theorem...?

Cool. lol. Yeah, I guess my personal preference has been to adjust frequencies of action with hand combinations. It is a hybrid way to play, but it's the best I have been able to come up with given the difference in confidence levels we have about what our opponents' strategies are. (Open to feedback or advice on where this has been described mathematically - personally, I got my exploitative framework from the book Quantum Poker and my theoretical understanding from Applications of No Limit Hold'em).

Only with a high degree of certainty in our opponent's strategy do I feel we can throw out our theoretical framework altogether.

Theoretically, it is inaccurate to fold anything more than the bluff-checkraise part of your range on river. Even though your opponent is representing full houses, you theoretically must pay off with all your bluff-catchers with the odds you are getting.

But river play is always the most filled with possible exploits, IMO, as well as strange-looking moves to regain balance after imbalances we created from earlier decisions (we all have them).

For example, if you know that your strategy includes no bluff check-raises by the time he jams the river, calling with 77 at 100% percent frequency may be paying off with 100% of your range. If your opponent is never bluffing himself (very reasonable assumption for the 5/10 player as described), and is very seldom jamming less than a full house, we can save a lot of EV by massively over-folding river as played.

The situation is such that you have to be folding 43% of your range for your opponent to have a profitable bluff (MDF is roughly 57%). Let's say you wake up and realize you have only 77 and JJ when faced with the river jam. While I suspect you have more JJ than 77, I like an exploitable strategy of folding all of my 77 in this spot, as many as 50% of my hands in a spot where I am supposed to be folding no more than 43% of my hands.