Weeknight at MD Live.

Villain is a late 20s black dude. Sat down an hour ago. VPIP/PFR roughly 65/25. Too loose pre, but willingness to play aggressively has allowed him to build his stack. $800.

Hero has been playing tight/aggressive game during the time villain has been around. Played a few hands with him, squeezed against him once before this hand. $400.

Hands of interest:
1. First hand he sits down he raises in EP, gets 4 callers, leads for $10 in a $50 pot on Q73. Old Asian reg bumps it to $35. Gets back to villain and he 3b to $105. Reg calls. Turn 2. Villain shoves, reg folds.
2. Villain raises in EP. Called by old man to his left and one other player. Flop K75. Villain bets, old man calls. Turn K. Villain bets, old man calls. River 3. Villain shoves (effectively just under a psb), old man tanks and calls. Villain shows K7.
3. Against same old man, he goes bet, bet, x/c in HU pot and loses to the old man's thinish value bet with 99 on J43r 7 3.
4. Villain limps in EP, another player limps, hero raises BTN, SB (young Asian player) calls, V calls, other player calls. Q86. SB donk leads for half pot, villain calls, other player folds, hero folds. Turn 6. SB makes same bet, villain raises 3.5x, SB calls. River 3. SB checks, villain shoves for less than pot, SB calls. SB has KQ and villain had 57.
5. Villain opens in EP for $10. MP calls, CO calls, BTN calls, SB calls. Hero looks at his hand in BB and makes it $55 to go. Villain thinks for 10 seconds and then folds. Folds around and hero scoops.
6. Villain has been UTG straddling every chance he gets. Hero raises BTN to $17, V calls. Flop KT7r. Villain checks, hero bets 2/3 pot, villain tank folds.

On to the hand:

Villain opens in EP for $10. CO (new player, white guy, 40s, polo shirt, $150) calls, BTN folds, SB (new player, Asian woman, 40s, sweater, $200) calls. Hero looks at TT and makes it $50. Villain takes about 15 seconds, shrugs, and makes it $150. CO calls, SB folds. Hero ???

I fold this one. V seems loose, but he hasn't 3-bet or 4-bet in any of the history hands. Sizing is such that you can't set mine, and really have to gii on any flop. You get to see his hand because CO is in so you get info any way. Hard to construct ranges for V and CO that you're ahead of with TT.

Also, I'd probably just flat TT here rather than 3-bet, and I don't think this is me being results oriented. V can make some huge post-flop mistakes and double you up if you flop a set, and you're closing the action (I think). Also, while you have bad absolute position, you have great relative position against V when he's the PFR, since he'll c-bet most flops and you get to see how the other callers react. I'm more likely to 3-bet JJ here, and definitely 3-betting QQ.

In addition to the hand in question, this fundamental decision is another point that would be nice to discuss. When I play online 6max I'll tend to make a roughly pot sized raise squeeze against 65/25s and a few loose callers with a range as loose as 77+, AQ+, KQ, Axs, Kxs, Qxs, T9s+ (depending on whether I'm IP/OOP, image, dynamics, etc). When I played at Foxwoods and Mohegan I saw a bunch of good young players have success in ring games while using a similar strategy in regard to squeezing, esp when the initial raise smelled like a "pot builder."

How do we feel about squeezing ranges for live ring games in late 2016? Specifically, how do we build the value portion of that range? Is there more of a benefit now in keeping it pretty polarized?



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As far as the hand goes, my initial thought was that calling was the worst option. It would put me OOP HU with $250 behind and a pot of $450. Overcards will hit fairly often and I expect this villain to c-bet frequently, creating a guessing game that would leave me at a disadvantage. I quickly looked at the decision as a choice between shove or fold.


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I don't have a comprehensive answer to this question, but given raise sizing and stack size this is not a spot that I'd want to squeeze with medium pocket pairs (TT-77). We have an extremely profitable set mining situation here, and I'd just play it that way. Reasoning is mainly that the PFR is really aggressive post-flop and can stack off very light, and I don't want to get blown off my hand with a 4-bet. Would rather squeeze-lightish with a top pair kind of hand, like KQ, AQ or AJ, which I'm going to have a harder time playing in a high SPR, multi-way pot, and which I'm happy to fold if I get 4-bet. Squeezing AK and QQ+ for value, maybe JJ too (on the cusp). But closing the action here I usually wouldn't have a range for squeezing light without reads that the callers could call/fold.

Just to be clear, my initial advice was to flat the first bet from V, rather than flat his 3-bet. I agree that as played this is a shove/fold spot. Can't put in almost half of our stack pre-flop as a caller unless we're trapping with AA/KK and are completely committed.

Had he 3 bet or 4 bet pre at all yet besides hand 1

A second thought: if this guy is silly aggressive post, I dunno if I want to put myself in this spot pre with TT if I'm not willing to GII here versus playing to bleed him dry post

I let this one go. $150 basically commits you, so you might as well shove -- you can't set mine. Plus, CO could have you beat. You'll most likely get to see V's hand, anyway, which will be great info.

He has not, but I would note that he has the three most passive players at the table to his right so his 3b opportunities over his 35 hands are prob just the two times I raised and his 4b opportunity was just the one time I squeezed.


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grunch:

3bet seems good, and fold seems good now.
We're close to the bottom of our 3bet value range (I would think..) and we got 4bet.

While he has been somewhat loose post flop, he hasn't fought back yet pre flop so I think his range here will be fairly strong.
Also, the 'shrug, raise' is normally pretty strong imo.

So fold.

Need more info on SB's sweater...


Also, y u no setmine?

As played, 4b is unlikely to be a bluff. Fold.

Fluffy, reddish orange.

One aspect about this I thought was interesting was the caller's range. He quickly calls original raise, then quickly throws in the $150 and says, "I need help." That sounded like AQ to me, and his money effectively makes it a question of whether I want to put in $150 to win $300 in the main pot and then $250 to win $250 in the sidepot. If the caller has AQ and villain has a range of KK+, AK I end up with a close decision.

Speaking of maths, to set things up I can compare EV of 3b/f option (minus 50) to EV of 3b/5b ship option against estimated ranges, right? In other words, the 5b ship doesn't have to be +EV but rather has to be better than -$50, right?


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More times than not just calling pre for 10. If I am 3b then 50 is too small.

This just means he's gambling. I'd give him a top 10% range, but it really could be a lot wider.

As for V... Until I see V 4b with AK-, then I put his range at QQ+ and mostly just KK+.

I don't think its very close.

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

13,669,158,888 games 13.081 secs 1,044,962,838 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 60.632% 60.05% 00.59% 8207898876 80058768.00 { QQ+ }
Hand 1: 22.247% 21.61% 00.64% 2953887228 87143280.00 { 88+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo }
Hand 2: 17.120% 16.95% 00.17% 2317158504 23062272.00 { TT }

Yeah, this is the thrust of the decision imo.

I understand that requiring a previous 3b/4b example is a way to evaluate whether this V would likely 4b a range wider than KK+ here. To me it's just odd that a guy who shows a willingness to put money in "creatively" in previous spots would never look down at AK and think, "Guy has squeezed on me before. I have blockers. Let's give it a shot. I can push him off some flips and won't be in trouble all that often." The first year that I started to play aggressively I know that I would 4b AK when I felt as though I was being 3b by a range that wasn't likely to be exclusively AA. I knew that I wasn't even doing that badly against KK. I've even reached as far as AQs to make that play when I thought there was enough dead money involved, and I see myself as kind of a nit. This villain struck me as pretty aggressive, so I'm not convinced that we can just limit him to KK+ in this spot. But I'm willing to hear arguments against my position.

Another thing that makes me want to fold is the shrug-raise. In my experience, the shrug-raise or sigh-raise is so nutted. It doesn't even make sense, someone is saying "I don't know how to react here, this is a tough spot, I raise." That's not how LLSNL villains react to tough spots. They usually call or fold.

I agree with you. I'm always happy to GII with AK when V is likely to have stuff in addition to AA. Especially when there is a fair amount of dead money in the pot.

So, if Hero had AK, then it would be a pretty easy snap 5b AI, high-five the waitress.

I'm not sure that I'm willing to go so far as to put V in the same thought process.

With TT, I think V has to have way too much "4b Broadways" for it to be good. And this isn't realistic at 1/2NL, IMO, without direct evidence. (If your poker buddy strolled by and said, "V cold 4b me with blah-blah yesterday", for example... this would be good enough.)