1/2 Maryland Live

Hero ($700): Late 20s, glasses, playing TAG and running good + good image. Have shown down mostly winners. Biggest pot I won was when I defended the BB with 67s where I flopped double gutted against the V in this hand, hit the turn and V claimed to have folded JJ and I stacked a different V in this hand for $300.

V ($650): Late 20s, fat, have played with him a few times in the past and he remembers me. We are sort of respecting each other by showing our winners when the other person folds to show we had it. He's playing pretty straightforward - have not seen him bluff or try and steal. He's too loose pre, calling rasies with hands like J9o - but generally knows when he's beat. There was one hand where he cold called someone's raise on the flop with J9o on a 9-high board when he claimed he thought the guy in the hand was trying to bully the fish in the hand around. He then proceeded to call a big turn bet when an overcard came, and then called off the river when he binked 2pair with a J on the river. There was also a hand where I was betting all streets with the A-high flush draw and an offsuit A hit the river and when I bet just less than half pot he correctly said "you had the flush draw and ran into an Ace huh?" and then folded.

Hand: Limped in one place to me in MP with 97. I have been selective with my raises and winning most of my showdowns so I wanted to mix it up a little bit and use my image to take down a pot and potentially widen/balance my preflop raising range if I got to showdown. I raise to $12. I get 3 callers, including V who is 2 to my left in the CO. BB calls and EP limper called.

Flop ($49): T54

Checked to me and I bet $30. CO quickly calls, everyone else folds.

Turn ($109) :J

I bet $60. CO thinks for a second and calls.

River ($229): K

I bet $90. Reason I bet small was to make it look value-ish and to get all single-paired hands to fold. I also bet a little less than half-pot on the river against him when I ran into that Ace on the river I described in V's description.

Thoughts on every street?

River is way too small and you're giving him a great price to call. You want to maximize your fold equity. $90 is not good to do that here. $180 would have been better.

Also, I feel the turn bet should be a bit bigger. ~80ish. (of course, river would have to be bet bigger if done this on turn).

As played, I'd fold preflop. Getting in hands where "regs" have position on you and they are calling stations preflop and you have 9 high is not a good recipe for winning poker.

I don't mind the small bet on the river. When we bluff we need to bet the smallest amount we think he will fold to. Depending on what he has got depends on whether he calls. If he has hit the turn or river he might elect to call to any standard size bet regardless. for example AcKc, J10 K10. If he is stronger he wont fold.

What you are looking to get to fold are better hands that looked good on the flop but have now got worse with the turn and river. The board has got worse and worse for a hand like A10, AcXc, stubborn underpairs to the 10 and 6/7 (which we beat).

I think the small third bullet is the correct move.

I'm fine with pre-flop. I usually raise a 97s hand from MP once a session just to mix things up.

C-betting the flush seems fine. Double-barreling the flush draw-gutshot draw seems fine, too.

How are you ranging V?

I'm not big into triple-barreling against regs in $1/2 but the king on the river is actually a good card to fire. It's unlikely that he's got a K and you easily could have fired like AK of clubs for two streets.

I'd either check or bet more on the river though. You should be value betting bigger than half the pot when you randomly hit your ace when drawing for the flush. You should be bluffing bigger on this hand. Ed Miller says that you should always err on the side of a bigger....bigger value bets, bigger bluffs. I think that really holds true for this hand. Either check or bet like $160. We need to turn up the heat on the Tx, Jx hands. If he's cold calling flop raises with J9 and TP, he's probably loves making hero calls. If you're going to bluff, make it hard for him.

This is kind of horrible play and the faulty logic only seems correct in your own mind because you want to think that way. I just run with my power-poker simulator that 97 all the way to the river against that board of T54JK but have different opponents with different starting hands I got what I suspected a -EV. The entire concept of triple barrel with air is a waste of money.

Against one opponent:
hero: 18.17%
V1: 80.92%

Against 2 opponents:
hero: 2.97%
v1: 47.76%
v2: 47.76%

Now, hoe can you survive playing your strategy?

I think the fact that the turn was a J makes this 2nd barrel and 3rd barrel bad.

I don't actually mind the bet OTT since we now have a bit more equity, but I'd have just taken a free card.

But I think the river barrel is unlikely to work, and when it doesn't it screws up your image.

Also, stop showing cards.

The trouble with this is people don't play against simulators they play against people. He's likely not to triple barrel against two opponents for a start. He is playing the one opponent who called. When he triple barrel he isn't playing the strength of his own hand as such. The fact he is 18% isn't relevant because he knows he is behind but is representing a bigger hand. The opponent doesn't know his holding so needs to work out if his hand is good or not. Hero has raised weak pre and that is no big deal. He continued, can't fault him there. Double barrelled, fast playing his draw, bear in mind a scare card for a ten has hit and hero has just picked up more outs. Then he has triple barrelled when it is the only way he can now win the pot and yet another scare card for the 10 has hit. This all with an image of only having strong holdings.

I personally have played this way and other times I have checked the turn to try for a free river. There might be a difference of opinion but that's why we enjoy the game but simulations with no mention of the thought process is worthless information.

Here was your derail. Bet what they wont call. Otherwise, well done.

This runout may be your best considering this villain. Very textbook runout for a 3 barrel vs this type.

I would have HP the turn and then 85% on river (done in tempo speed).

Villain is described as stationy. I don't mind the first two barrels, but just xf the river.

He's most likely only getting single pairs to fold though because they were either strong initially or have improved throughout the hand. That is why I think we need to bet just enough to get the one pairs to fold as the two pairs+ IMO here will often call for the larger amount.

For instance If one pairs all fold for £90 and two pair+ all call up to £220 then there is no point in betting any amount between £90 and £220. We would have to bet the £90 to rid the one pairs or bet above £220 to try and rid some two pairs although you'd have to know the opponent to try that.

All you say is correct here however I am only trying to fold one pair.

This player should have only one pair here. We are never folding two pair out ever however this runout leaves villain with one pair and overcards most of the time.

This guy is sticky and non believer. It WILL take a large bet IMO to fold him off one pair. That was my point actually.

Our turn size lured him in, and now he feels more committed to the hand. We must break this thought by betting much larger on river to break him from the hand I believe.

If he were normal individual then 70% pot on river would be standard I would say, however he needs more arm twisting.

But he says he thinks he is betting enough to get one pairs too fold by betting the 90. I agree that often we might need to bet more but it comes down to judgement to work out the lowest amount to bet for one pair hands to fold. If we judge 90 is enough then bet 90 but if we think it will be 200 we need to bet 200.

I read somewhere if in doubt bet 2/3 pot. But the smaller we can make our bluffs and get away the more profitable we can be because we lose less when we get called by strong hands.

The fundamental issue I see here is that there is no mention of a range by OP on any street. It's pretty much impossible to bluff well if you don't know what you're trying to get to fold. Maybe it was good, maybe it was bad, but it doesn't seem like OP knows how to tell the difference. That's the big problem here.

Preflop isn't good unless several of the players behind you look ready to muck their hands or the combined age of everyone in LP is 250+. Even with a good image, you should be very selective with your spots in MP, especially if there's a player like described villain left to act behind you. Leverage your image when you're in LP (or are effectively in LP).

Did you show your Ace-high flush in the other hand? If not, I'm a bit worried that villain won't let you get away with running the same exact line twice and might get sticky/curious this time around. I just don't like to post-oak twice in one session against someone who plays by their gut because they're gonna start to feel like they're getting owned.

I certainly wouldn't just absolutely bombs away the river with like a $180 bet or anything, because that just looks like you're trying really hard to get him to fold (most people players make more coddling bets when they're valuing on these sorts of runouts), but the second time around, I might be more inclined to do a more standard 2x-same-bet all the way through. Maybe make it $115 so it sounds like you're trying too hard to make it sound like a bargain.

That's all kind of a leveling war, though, I think the line in general is fine.

Grunching,
How good or bad this three barrel is heavily dependent on what level villain is thinking on. Based on this
I am inclined to deduce he thinks you are capable of double barreling with some equity (a draw) or maybe a medium strength hands with outs to improve. This is in no way indicative that he thinks you are capable of a three barrel bluff.
With that in mind, let's try to look at what kind of a range you are representing from his point of view. So far I take it you haven't shown the ability to iso with a wide range so we'll assume he gives your preflop range credit to be strong and composed of maybe 99+ and AQ/AK, say sometimes with broadways like KQ. I would then argue that you are repping a polarized range when you three barrel this kind of board. I think you only three barrel with sets (TT/JJ) and AQ for a broadway. You also have busted flush draws in your range. Two pairs don't make much sense unless your image says that you are capable of isoing with weak broadways.
The turn and river cards are more likely to help his range than yours in general, so three barreling is going to rep a very narrow and polarized range that is not doing too well vs his. I am not sure that this was the best board runout for a triple barrel, especially when you are oop.
Just my $0.02

I don't understand this range vs range analysis. We rep AQ, AK, TT, JJ, KK, AA, KJ, KQ. That's a lot of hands.

I'm also not sure at all how this card hits his range harder than ours. The only hands in his range this improved was KT, Kxcc and some random floats (especially KJ and KQ). Our value range is also much more indifferent to this card because we can have two pairs+ as well as overpairs as of the turn, whereas he mostly just has Tx hands whose value is continually deteriorating on every street.

This is the beauty of triple barreling: the bettor pretty much always reps an uncapped range because it's pretty much always plausible that you would bet / bet / bet the nuts, while the caller has to either flat some nut hands in order to remain uncapped (and most people aren't willing to lose value with their nuts just for the sake of balance) or they have to call down extremely light.

Man I love me some Ed Miller, what book does he say this in ? PLaying the player, how to read hands, or professional no limit holdem with Sunny Metta? I have also heard that we want to bluff the smallest amount to get the job done, so a contradiction. Bombing the river obv gives the best chance for success but cost the most when called hmmm

I guess I was thinking that he is more likely to have stuff like JT,KT,KJ than we are and when a lot of draws bust we are not usually repping a one pair type of hand but rather something stronger. That is why /b/b/b/ lines are generally polarized. This is especially true in 1/2 where most players are showdown monkeys that love to pot control. From my experience at least, a b/b/b line at 1/2 tends to be viewed rather suspiciously. Like I said in my initial response, it depends on our image and on what level villain is thinking.

The small river bet is laying 3.5:1 odds on the villain, meaning he only has to be correct less than 1/3 of the time to make calling profitable. There are lots of MP hands that will call this river with those odds. You are probably getting looked up by 99, Tx and Jx here.

If you are going to 3 barrel bluff I think you have to bet the pot here on the river. You want to make life difficult for your villains, not give them cupcake calling odds.

go big or go home on the river

I really like a triple barrel here in this spot vs this V. Our range is uncapped, we are deep, V is wide pre, and has shown the ability to make folds. The riv is a scare card that hits our range. Perfect recipe for a triple, but your sizing needs improvement.

Flop is meh, but could go a touch more, Turn I like 70-75, and River I say the bigger the better. Say pot is 225ish I like 150-175. Don't try to level by making it look like value, this is 1-2. Do what you know will get the best result.

V's range should be a bunch of Tx, a few 1pair hands, some sd, fd, and some fd that just made a pair of J or K. We are targeting those pairs and the Tx to fold with this triple barrel. He's folding a ton of his range here that beats us except KT and maybe a weird played JT. Should be highly profitable, but we have to bomb turn and riv

66 on turn.
130 otr.

Looks good otherwise.

I am definitely not sold on the large river bet. Maybe I didn't give a good enough description of the V, but he wasn't making any hero river calls. Just calling when he thought he had the best hand. He was sticky on the flop and turn, but wasn't calling down with middle pair on the river. I still think I like the line of betting just enough to get all single paired Jacks and worse to fold. If he has 2pair, he's 10000% calling any pot sized bet, if he's got one pair less than a King, he's folding to anything near half-pot. I could see an argument being that $90 is still not enough. $115 does sound better.

Results: He tank-called with KTo...which definitely confirmed the fact in my mind he was going to fold to basically any other river card since he struggled so much with as strong as a hand as he ran into at the end here.

The final bet size rests upon your judgment of how often villain folds river one pair (non king) to a modest bet. If he is sticky, i say you get looked up too often with half pot bets or less. Thats my experience.

You have to go with what you think. Ultimately that is what will happen most often anyways and you may find your villains do in fact fact for less. All anyopne else can tell you is their experience with it. A conservative will fold to any bet. A sticky will call to most bets unless very large and painful. You have to decide.

I think there are further divisions than that. I think there are also textbook/ABC players versus play-by-their-gut/soul-readers/etc. A textbook player is going to fold more to larger bets and call more when faced with smaller bets; regardless of what their instincts tell them, they can't go against the book, and the book said something about pot odds. I've many times heard these sorts of players say, "I think you just have busted overcards," as their hand goes into the muck. Their favorite two words in the English language are, "Nice bet."

People who play by their gut are a little more complicated than that. I think on this particular board, it's not going to smell right to them if we bomb it for $180 because why the hell would we think we could get a call from Tx or even Jx for that much money once a big scary card hit? It really smells like we're trying hard for a fold. A smaller bet looks like we're trying to price them in. They're not always going to play backwards like this (and generalizing them with a "they" is problematic in the first place), but in a spot where overcards are dropping and flush draws are whiffing, I think they mostly are.

The textbook players are great because they're so easy to see through. The play-by-their-gut players are great because you can get massive scores on thin vbets, and effective results with smaller bluffs.