Hi guys
This spot was annoying so thought I’d post
2/5 at thunder valley during wsopc pretty standard mix of withered regs and random young guys for the mtt
Anyway I just moved to main game a few orbits and we’re playing about 1k eff
Young guy with a stack ISO’s from co to 25 over some limpers. I’ve seen this a couple times in some obvious spots so it makes me think he’s probably playing pretty aggro vs fish who limp so prob has a fairly looser strat pf (just as assumption tho)
Anyway random guy on button calls sb fold and I have ad qh in bb
So it’s a pretty ez 3b imo so I make it 115 from bb I think pretty good sizing for his strat which will involve peeling hella wide (assumption ime for live 2/5)
So he thinks a minute and makes the call Btn folds and flop=
K95 with a heart draw.
So I guess it’s a pretty good board for me that will want a good bit of betting for me, so I think 1/3 looks good and bet 75$
He thinks a bit and makes it 190$
So I get confused
I don’t think he’s supposed to rly raise here since he almost has no value hands
But I have a hi and idk if I need to find a defend here
So I’m interested in Bet vs check here otf. Checking looks good for an easy c/c and I can do something’s later. But I also planned on doing a bit of barreling and if I a heart comes in ott
I can bet bet shove and have some good blockers and a hand that works pretty good for a bluff shove on that runout so I liked starting w a bet on this texture that I should be doing rly well on as the pfr in these spots
So his raise pissed me off and I wanted to just shove to prove a point but then it’s a pretty big punt to ditch a stack in this spot
But I also think it’s not a good hand for calling his raise since I think qx is some of his bluffs so interested in any card removal here if it’s bad blockers to bluff catch here w aq after I get here this way (which I think is rare for me to get raised here)
So I almost wanted to just call him down but then I was thinking jj or something is better for bluffcatching
Also I see some live regs spewing vs small sizings which they view as “weak” and just starting to raise more aggressively (small sample)
Ok so sorry for the long winded post but this Hand was tilting me

Betsizing is laughably small now you’re in a tough spot bc you’re not sure if you induced or not

Just bet like 125-200 imo

I’ve seen lots of people betting very small on flop I basically just raise it to 1.5x pot with virtually my entire range

Hand is played pretty perfect tbh. AQ is the hand I choose to spaz with too, so I get where you are coming from and why this is annoying. After a whole lot of fails, AQ is now a fold like 75% of the time, other 25% I mix it up solely based on my history or prejudices about villain. The more MUBSY they are, the more I like call and spazzing based on their turn action.

Also, if they decided to spaz here bc of your sizing and somehow let you know, that's not a bad thing at all.

Hand is fine. Now fold.

Diskoteque, that might be fine as an exploit vs regs who only bet small with weak hands but I think having one betsize of 1/3 pot in this spot as BB isn't bad.

I'm not sure he has almost no value hands. The obvious value hand would be AK - he thought pre and called the 3 bet. Could easily have been weighing call vs raise. I'm folding to the flop raise unless the V is a known spazz bluffer, which doesn't seem to be the case here. Nothing I hate more than losing a bunch of money with a whiffed AQ . I'm fine with the small Cbet.

I don’t want to hijack the thread but I would not mind a discussion on the merits of the 1/999 flop bet.

In my games I think there’s a ton of “regs” doing this because they saw Polk/whoever doing it and they don’t know how to handle being raised, and therefore bet small with their entire range and overfold when raised. I mentioned it because I would’ve done same thing as villain, only larger, with 56cc or whatever crap I have and expect tons of folds from everything other than sets and tptk and AA.

In this particular spot I don’t like the small bet. It’s wet and hits a call 3b range fairly hard. I’d much rather 3/4 pot, 3/4 potwith my entire range here since I view their calling range as fairly inelastic (and don’t think we have a hand that should call it off or rebuff if we induce)

ive seen some pio work on similar spots back and i think 1/3 probably is fairly close to optimal here. I dont think diskoteques strategy vs mine will perform too well because my range is pretty strong here and i will just end up making alot of $ since ill just have something pretty good most of the time (im not like folding jj here otf and hes gonna have to play the turn and river pretty well) which will be hard for him to decide on barreling off as hell just get called by my strong hands (which is mostly what i have here in this spot) unless im spewing pre (which im not)

i dont think it hits call b range 2 hard though all he rly has is some kq kj k10 and i block a bunch of kq. 99 is a fairly frequent value raise but that is probably playing a mix mostly call vs my line. i dont think he has bottom set at 100% frequency either so hes rly left with 99, kj, and a bunch of random stuff.
so i kinda feel like i should just call flop and see what he does on some turns tbh but i was like i have to fold sometimes its pretty bad to just defend 100% of my range to this play so i said ok ill find fold here with aq

looks good so far and i agree with the logic, id put in a 3b here and watch his cards zip into the muck.

then slyly shrug it off when he says something witty like 'nice bluff' or 'kj no good i guess'

the 3bet seems large, Can't 75 or 80 do the same job as 115?

You raised him $80 preflop but only $75 on the turn (and the $115 vs. $75 is an even bigger discrepancy) Which as Disko alluded, is a very inducing sizing.

I'm not sure what your intention was with this sizing... to make a turn bluff more believable? But you already expect this player to be aggro so the odds of getting a call seem small. I think you need to bet at least $115 to even be in the neighbourhood of selling a made hand or a semi-bluff.

bet sizing seems very good of course if your plan is to 3-bet like br3nt00 is saying

If someone raises to $115 pre and then follows it up with a $75 bet, I'm raising them every time until they adjust. It's just so weak looking.

As played I guess you have to fold, but your sizing may have cost you a pot.

Yeah that’s my play as well but it sounds like OP is willing to call down with JJ type hands so we wouldn’t necessarily be printing money off him, just people who don’t continue enough.

That being said, I would recommend betting a normal size ( half pot to pot) with your entire 3b range for max value and avoiding inducing this sort of stuff

the sizing is just taking advantage of a range advantage for me in this spot. I have so many more strong hands than him and I am pushing alot of ev which lets me bet quite a lot of my range for the 1/3 size.
most standard strategies will involve calling alot and playing turns. i was confused and titled that villian finds a raise in a spot that shouldnt involve much raising.
i can bet this size again with almost all of my 3b range and lets my turn barrels work rly well, forces him to continue with many of his hands that i am crushing and lets me keep his range wide for effective turn barrels with a hand like aq, i can also get all in by the river by going like 75% pot ott and jam river with my nutty parts of range which i have all of and villain has none of)

this is also why you can bet this size because folks havent done enough work off the table to figure out optimal sizings and respond in spots incorrectly which yields my range alot of ev aka "spewing"
also my range isnt really worried about inducing, (this combo doesnt like it) but i have so many rly strong hands that will be continuing vs this raise flop strategy (16combos of ak, kk, aa, qq, jj, tt, 99, kqs, some random fds that i was bluffing pre and i can mix up shove and call down)
this isnt strong logic, "if someone bets big pre, and bets small otf, im raising"
you arent considering ranges and how they interact with the board texture.
again on this spot k94 or whatever you basically are trying to say i have 99, or kx that i am protection raising. (which is a tough sell)

i ended up folding as i didnt like having a qh, thinking blocking a good amount of his semi bluffs hurts the ev of defending and makes my hand look better as a fold vs his response (i just figured if i call with this specific combo i dont have a folding range) and i wasnt prepared to deviate this far from what i felt was a good fold and start calling 100%

in game i did feel like his strategy or internal dialogue sounded like drool he bets 1/3 pot lol i raise this is weak and i will print $ but idk if me sticking it in with aq is rly all that good for me here ( i think jamming that combo probably loses quite a bit vs raise) i can just jam like again 54s or 102s all the ugly parts of my polarized 3b strategy here

Yeah if I were to take this line and sizing it would be a fold for me as well for the reasons you mention

So you raise larger because you think you think the combination of villains range (presumably wide) + what you expect villain to perceive your range as (presumably he sees your range as having more strength than his range)

But then doesn't your small c-bet directly contradict this message?

It feels like your bet is turning your hand face up: "My hand was very strong preflop, but on a king-high board, it got significantly shriveled up"

He would bet the same amount with top set as well, is the idea and on a range vs range basis he will do better this way

I disagree this is the most +EV strategy but that’s his point

well the idea of raising larger pre is mostly due to positional disadvantage/spr/and just charging him more to continue, which i think we will want to do very frequently ( do people fold vs many 3bs in your games?)
so a nice adjustment (which i make in most of my live 2/5 and 5/10 games) is to play pretty tight and just size big pre to take advantage of the splashy gambly pf strat of most live players at this limit.

flop just says hey my range > yours on this board so i can basically just bet my whole range here. id bet the same amount for 1/3 pot with my whole 3b range in this spot. But i could be off here.(on this specific board im not 100% sure if its optimal, but i have def seen pio tell me that 1/3 is performing better ev wise compared to what folks who have done 0 pio analysis think is standard (half-3/4 pot) on similar k hi boards in similar spots)

this gets me value vs lots of parts of his range like 77/88, random floats and stuff that would be doing lots of folding vs larger sizings. And i dont rly have all that much air here.
its annoying when he finds like one of the only hands in my range here that doesn't continue, but its pretty nice for me for him to take this line when i have one of the many many hands that will just be loling and bluff catching.
(if someone wants to show me why or how i am wrong with pio analysis or solid logic id be def wanting to see it)
dont think that, yo lolp you bet small i think its weak so i raise is good. even though its probably exactly what this villain was thinking

also ak seems almost impossible as a young mtt reg probably 4bs this almost 100% and i have an a

Well if he's a mtt reg you are probably right. Cant rule it out but less likely. I still like the fold with AQ there. Just not a great spot.

Flop K95 with a heart draw. Which two cards are hearts? this is quit important to analyze V's range. I like the preflop play, perfect sizing. But on the flop, I don't mind bet larger on the flop. I heard people saying, "ya, I would bet the same amount with nuts". please.... you just have A high here, when you bet nuts with same amount, you are begging a raise, but now you wish a fold... and on the wet flop, it does make sense if you bet $150ish. As played, fold cuz V is unknown and you are OOP.

Use paragraphs bruh

Your sizing is good and its ****ing great if it induces obv.

I've been experimenting w/flop 3bets in these spots with mixed results. Most of the time they really do have it (it being 99/AK/KQ here, yes he does still have AK this is live poker man)

Folding is fine. I think I'd float/3b with AQs with the backdoor suit. Qh is not a good card for us.

The key takeaway is that yes live regs do spew vs small sizings (which is a good thing) but they still do it with equity. Like you arent getting owned here by black 78 or 56s or whatever. They have Kx sets and flush draws. Thats alot of equity. You have A high. Its okay to fold A high sometimes.

After reading this thread I have noticed a lot more when players 1/4-1/3 betting the pot after making large re-raises preflop.

Sometimes hero has a strong hand, sometimes hero missed the flop
Sometimes villain calls, sometimes villain raises.

Never does villain fold.
Never, ever does villain raise with worse than hero.

Small sample size but it is what it is.

I think a lot of posts ITT are actually accidentally validating diskoteque.

Just to clarify the HH, it's ~$260 going to the flop, we bet $75 and he makes it $190 total, giving us a call/raise/fold option for $115 to play for $640? My sense of it is that we should be calling nut no-pair with second nut BDFD when he raises 1/3p on such a light board for the preflop caller.

I plugged a similar situation into a solver (I got lazy with ranges and just pretended this was BBvBTN, which makes the ranges a lot wider, but still), and it said our whole range should be calling 61% of the time (shoving an additional 15% of the time) and AQ with a heart is flatting essentially 100% of the time.

So unless I'm mistaken about the pot and raise sizes, I really think diskoteque is right that even if some internet kids are learning that 1/3p cbets are all the craze and do it with strong hands too, they haven't necessarily learned how to handle a raise.

That tends to be most people's continuing strategy regardless of the original size, no? So how is betting 3/4p with your whole range and folding everything but those hands any better than betting 1/3p? It sounds to me like players in general are just vulnerable to raises.

So that raises an interesting question: does betting this size simply induce an otherwise under-utilized play of raising cbets? Well, the solver for this spot (admittedly using my inappropriate ranges) only raises 4.5% of the time, likely because this flop sucks for IP taking an aggressive strategy. Just so long as you make that raise futile (continuing with 75% of your range to a small raise and continuing with 45%+ of your range to a large raise), and maybe more importantly, you follow up really aggressively on their weak flatting range OTT to make them pay for capping their flatting range so hard by having an aggressive flop strategy, then you're inducing a massive mistake from your opponent by having them raise a lot.