just wondering if im doing this correctly, since the results surprised me.
in a scenario where, say, someone calls my 3bet and i flop tpgk with KQ on KJ9, i cbet and they jam for 100bb in a 50bb pot.
i enter my hand into an equity calculator vs a range of sets, straights, 2pair, top pair, and see i have low equity (<30%). i then begin adding flush draws and straight draws to his range, and notice my equity doesn't approach 50% until i add all kinds of gutshots to his range. im calling 100 to win 150, i need 66% equity to call easy fold with even tptk unless hes jamming stuff like middlepair/bdfds etc?
am i missing anything
thanks!

isnt it my risk/reward?

How big was your c-bet?
If you bet 25 into 50, and villain jammed 100, then you only need to call 75 into a final pot of 250, meaning you'd only need 75/250 = 30% equity.
If you c-bet smaller, like quarter pot, the odds wouldn't be so good (e.g. 35%, if you bet 12.5bb and had to call 87.5bb), but you'd definitely not need 66% equity.

ok, so with the numbers i gave im risking 100 to win final pot of 250$, so 40% equity needed.
thanks for the correction. that being said, im still in pretty poor shape vs someone who only jams 2p+ and flushdraws/oesds when i have tp. its not until villain jams gutshots and worse that calling becomes profitable when the jam is much bigger than pot?

sorry for the confusion my off the cuff numbers caused. with the exception of my erroneous odds calculation, i am analyzing the situation properly, correct?

I perfer to look at these situations differently than most people do I assume. As I've mentioned in a previous post I prefer a strategy where I understand my range, where I am at in my range with my current hand(top 10%-20%,30%, etc) and ask myself questions like "how often do I need to call to make my opponent indifferent to bluffing". There is some important information like positions, etc that was left out of the OP. For now I am going to assume that OP was in the blinds since he is 3 betting out of position. It is either that or OP open limped his KQ preflop? Without knowing the villians position I can really only take a guess. So for my answer I am going to assume hero is in the BB and villian is something like MP1. Also, for my type of answer your 3 betting range is very important in order to determine the correct action. Just to make life easier I'll use the predefined ranges in equilab for a bb 3bet against MP villian but in a real life situation I would highly recommend having a more balanced range than what they show.

Assuming a 3 betting range from the BB against a MP open raise of:
99+, ATs+, KQs, AJo+

The next step is to rank the range from best possible hand to worst possible hand as it relates to the flop. So something like this:
Flop: KJ9

KK, JJ, 99, AA, AKs, AKo, KQs, QQ, AJs, AJo, TT, AQs, AQo, ATs

Now we're looking at a 100bb bet into a 50bb pot. The formula I use for determining how wide I should be calling out of my range which beats a bluff is: 1/(1+(bet/pot)) which in our case comes out to 33%. So now we look at our hands that beat a bluff which we could debate where the actual cut-off but just to make life easier I'll say TT is our bottom bluff catcher. That gives us 11 hands in the range above to choose from. We need to call with 3.6 hands starting from the top of our range. This means we should be calling with KK, JJ, 99 and AA just over half of the time.

The result can change a great deal based on your 3 betting range. This answer assumes the 3 betting range I mentioned. If we were to use something more like what snowie suggests in this spot we would use the following range:



So that gives us a potential 3 betting range of: 99+, 66, ATs+, KQs, QJs, JTs, T9s, 98s, 87s, 42s, 43s, AQo+, A4o, A2o

A good deal of that range is only going to be raised a realtively small percentage of the time. Also, if you have noticed neither 3 betting range has had KQo in it.

So lets do the same sort of ranking as above:

KK, JJ, 99, AA, AKs, AKo, KQs, QQ, AJs, AJo, QJs, JTs, TT, T9s, 98s, 66, AQs, AQo, ATs, A4o, A2o, 87s.

In this example, I'll use 98s as our bottom of our range which beats a bluff. So using the same logic as before we have 15x bluff beating hands and need to be calling with 33% of them to make our opponent indifferent to bluffing. So with this range you would be calling about 5x hands so KK, JJ, 99, AA and AKs like 95% of the time.

KQo was not in either range and KQs was a pretty solid fold in both ranges.

I didn't see that post until after I had already posted my first answer. The change in pot size changes my answers.

1/(1+(100/250))=71.4%

So now that makes our continuation ranges:

KK, JJ, 99, AA, AKs, AKo, KQs, and QQ 85% of the time.

The continuation range from the snowie 3betting range:
KK, JJ, 99, AA, AKs, AKo, KQs, QQ, AJs, AJo

Now both are pretty solid calls with KQs. The size of the bet in relation to the pot makes a big difference.

I think all of this would only apply to a river decision though. It seems like you’re forgetting that opponents bluffs still have equity against us, so we don’t win 100% of the time our opponent is actually bluffing

thank you for the very thought provoking answer, i am intrigued.
Several questions:


i may be misinterpreting, but
-this seems to be saying i have 33% pot odds, therefore i should be calling with the top 33% of my range - correct? however, doesn't this fail to take into account the actual equity his "bluffs" have if he's jamming, or that the top 33% of my range may actually suck vs his jamming range? Ace high flush etc is in pretty good shape vs a "bluff catcher" , so is it truly that simple?

the 3.6 comes from dividing the 11 bluffcatcher hands (KK, JJ, 99, AA, AKs, AKo, KQs, QQ, AJs, AJo, TT) by 3, and calling with kk, jj, 99, and finally AA 66% of the time, yes?

im confused how you can do that, since there are a lot fewer combos of pairs than nonpaired hands, (ie theres 6 combos of aces, but 12 combos of AKo)
out of that range of 84 hands the suggested calling range (KK,JJ,99, 60% of aces) is only 18 hands, 18/84= ~ 25%
so categorizing them in a row like that and picking the top 3.6 would actually be a very uneven distribution since youre categorizing pocketpairs with the same weight as nonpaired hands, right?

looking forward to your answer, i am also posting a similar hand in the theory forum right now, would love to see how this thought process applies to it as well.

but why? and how do we define toilet paper

With this method we don't concern outselves with our opponent's hand/range/equity or the pot odds as it is traditionally looked at. When you try and do magic and place someone on a hand there is a rather huge margin of error and having a few too many hands in/not in a range can completely change the play.

The top 1/3 of your range sorted relative to the board in any given situation(flop, turn, river) should be pretty strong assuming you have a solid preflop range.

The whole hand range isn't bluff catchers. The bottom bluff catcher(lowest ranked within our ranking hand that beats no pair?) is the point where you start counting. Instead of saying "calling" I prefer to say "continuing" even though in this case it is an all in call. The reason for this is that in situations that aren't all in you'll be raising with some of those hands and calling with the rest. Interestingly to figure out your optimal bluff range here you would take a similar formula, (bet/pot)/(1+(bet/pot)=66%. So then you take the count of the combos/hands you are supposed to continue with and multply that number by 0.66. For example, we said 3.6 hands so our bluff range would be (3.6*0.66)=2.37 of the best hands below our bottom bluff catcher - we really should be using combos instead of hands as I mention below.



I didn't know your suits or the suits of the flop so I just went with the hand count instead of the combos. You totally should be using this formula with combos instead of just the hands for the reasons you mentioned as well as taking card removal into account.

so without taking card removal into account the range KK, JJ, 99, AA, AKs, AKo, KQs, QQ, AJs, AJo, TT, AQs, AQo, ATs has 92 combos in it. that means you should have been continuing with 92*0.33=~30 combos. When I check that in equilab 30x combos comes out to roughly KK, JJ, 99, AA, AKs, AKo(40 combos). If you were to take the flop into account as well as the suits it would likely change the combos again.

so based upon the bet size, i can figure out how often i need to call to make villain indifferent to bluffing, in this case calling with the top 1/3 of my range. I understand adjustments would be made based upon opponent, but, doesn't how wide / or narrow my range is in the first place have huge implications? if i have a tight range should i still be calling with 1/3 of it, what if m range is super wide? or, does it still make villain indifferent to bluffing since its a ratio of my range