Hello I got lucky playing live 1/2 and want to learn from a big hand I played. I’m hoping to learn both where I can improve and to find out if my opponent did anything wrong or just got unlucky.

This isn’t a brag post about winnings I just want to get better.

Effective stack sizes $725

Hero 55 on the button opens to $10 which had been the standard open at the table. SB calls and we are heads up. Pot $22

Flop A39
Villain checks
Hero bets $10 (I honestly felt like this was a bad bet as soon as I made it, but really I don’t know. I’m fairly new, I was thinking I was in position, had some equity, and the board is scary to anyone without spade)
Villain calls
Pot $42

Turn 5
Board A395
Villain checks
Hero bets $20 (Here I’m worried about the flush but I didn’t feel that checking back would be great)
Villain calls
Pot $82

River 3
Board A3953
Villain checks
Hero bets $40 (I was happy that I hit the full house but I’m still not great with bet sizing so I bet half pot)
Villain raises to $200
Hero raises all in to $685 (Should I be worried about a bigger boat here or am I always shoving)
Villain calls
Pot $1452

Villains shows K8

I’m hoping to learn both what my opponent and I should have done differently. Were my bets big mistakes? What about bet sizing. In retrospect I was behind until the end but I felt I could justify each bet but I’m still pretty new.

Should my opponent have raised earlier or was letting me build the pot and then just getting unlucky the right play. Should he consider folding to all in with nut flush.

Thanks

NH. I wouldn't do anything different.

Now if you hadn't hit on the turn and river, I would have checked behind on the river.

Wow nice scoop, pretty huge cooler. I'm not a fan of the flop c-bet. Going to be checking back with some give-ups like KQo no spade and some hands I intend to call most turns with(some Ax, some hands like Ts9x etc).

Turn is definitely a bet once you hit your gin card. It's very hard to flop a flush, and even though your opponent could have done so, he will have boatloads of Ax and one spade hands that will call the turn. I think you can size up a bit on the turn, maybe $30 into the $40 pot.

River you can size up too. If he has any Ax I doubt he's ever folding, especially when the low card pairs.

River jam vs his c/r is good. Your opponent should have raised somewhere before the river, probably on the turn. When he makes a large check-raise on the river and you jam for $685 he has to fold ... he's just never going to be good there. River raises at live low stakes are usually nutted, and river 3-bets at live low stakes are ultra nutted. So yeah, I think you played the hand much better than your opponent for sure.

I'd size up OTT given an ace or a FD will call most sizings.

On the river, I'd bet small, no more than 40% pot, targeting a narrow range. Small might even incent opponent to turn KsXx into a bluff.

Against a good opponent, shoving the river is a mistake. Your shove can't mean anything other than a boat, therefore only a bigger boat is going to call you.

But if you're regularly playing against villains this bad, 3betting the river with a non-nutted hand can be +EV. But be aware that you're only making a profit by exploiting a terrible mistake and don't try it against good villains.

Flop probably should be checked but at least you didn’t bet big on that board. Rest of hand looks fine. I’d expect aces to 3 bet pre so you only lose to 9’s full and quads. His nut flush combos alone will be enough to target, let alone lower flushes and A3


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You played it well.

I'm checking flop but betting small is totally fine too.

I'd bet larger on the turn. Pot seems good. It's to charge draws and get value from an ace.

River is a slam dunk jam. Anyone saying otherwise is a massive nit. Live villians have tons of flushes with this line and a few worse full houses. We only lose to 99 and 33. That's 4 combos (and those should be heavily discounted) If you aren't shoving with the effective nuts here you are leaving tons of money on the table I know it's the fourth nuts but v doesn't have AA with this line and very little 99 or 33.

Live villians love to protect their hand if they had flopped a set you would have heard about it before the river

They’re probably saying OP played it bad because they’re results oriented live players who saw OP go runner runner. While they had zero comment for the guy who called with K8s OOP, flopped the nuts, waited until he no longer had the nuts to put significant money in, and then called off in an under bluffed spot with a hand that probably should be folded to the jam with no FH blocker and based on where he is in his range (I’d expect him to have some A3/99 in his range as well).

Villain played it bad, received justice for his bad play, calls the other guy a fish to preserve his ego instead of rectifying his play. Typical live stuff


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This is exactly why I can beat 1/3 and am reading way more than posting on hands.

Your opponent should have folded K8s in the small blind.

By villain a drink. Make friends with him. Arrange to play with him as much as possible.

You played it ok though giving up on flop is fine. Villain made many mistakes, the worst of which is calling your river shove

Mat, is the villain ever showing up with a larger full house here, like ever? He check called the flop, check called the turn and then decided to check raise river?

I could be off here, but I don't think even the lowest nits would either a, not bet the flop or turn or check raise one of those streets to protect a set. Is the hero's hand not the effective nuts on the river as played? Just my thought...I don't think I am ever worried about a larger boat or quads here.

Solver likes to bet 3 streets with our combo specifically, but prefers sizing slightly larger, 66/80% pot

Given only the option to bet 50% pot:
On the flop it bets our combo 45% of the time, while only betting 32% of range.
On the turn and river it bets our combo 100% of the time.


Villain should be raising all of his K high flushes on the turn and just calling with the weaker ones.
He has about equal K high flushes as weaker flushes.


On the river, even when I lock in all the flushes as calls on the turn.
Villain should NEVER be raising a flush or two pair.
Solver is raising a few TP and middle pair's as a bluff.
It's calling all flushes and two pairs.

Only 99 and A3s are being raised for value by the solver.

Obviously your villain isn't going to play like a solver, so I would think he raises with the nut flush a fair amount of the time here.


So I like calling the river raise.

Solver is calling it with 55 and 53s 100% of the time
It's even just calling 99 28% of the time
and even AA 21% of the time.

It's only raising quads and 99/AA with a few bluffs mixed in.


I think when we then 3bet all-in that's a HUGE mistake.
Unless we've identified villain as a call station, which was not mentioned anywhere.

It's already unlikely villain is raising us on the river with a worse hand.
It's crazy unlikely he's going to be calling a 3bet shove with something worse.

I think almost every player would be capable of folding the nut flush to your raise and you just got lucky this person didn't.

In the long run though, I think we're burning money by 3betting river here and we should just be calling with our mini-full.


If our villain played GTO he will often show up on the river with 99/A3s (GTO is almost never raising these on flop or turn.)
I see no reason why our real villain wouldn't be capable of showing up with these on the river.
Especially since we know he's not raising the nut flush on the flop or turn either.

A lot of villains will try to keep the pot small with a set on a monotone board. You might be against a flopped flush, and many players love to semi-bluff. If you raise you might get 3-bet and you have to fold. Many times I play pot control there.

By keeping the pot small, you're reducing variance. You will sometimes win a medium pot if villain misses his flush draw, or sometime lose a medium pot if they flopped a flush. But you have outs to a boat.

Mat, thanks for the reply. Your point about the villains keeping the pot small on a monotone board makes sense. I agree with that.

Yeodan, how did you set up your solver range? I am asking, because I wonder how often a solver ever flats in the sb with specifically AA, considering we have a button open to 5x, over 350 blinds deep? The opening range should be very wide, and the sb 3 bet frequency with his range is going to be fairly big as well. I don't imagine the solver has a whole lot of flats with AA in the sb with this situation.

I don't think this is a situation where you run into AA on the river as the hero. If sb did flop top set, is he never once betting his own hand for value and to charge a single flush card? The idea that sb shows up on the river with AA is pretty far fetched. Even if he wants to keep the pot small. The stacks are incredibly deep on the flop and turn and AA could certainly call across the board for a raise from the hero on either flop or turn. I just don't see that hand check calling flop or turn both. As for 3's full of aces, i would think that hand finally finds a lead on the river, maybe check raises some type of frequency to get paid on a lead by a weak flush and should fold to heroes river raise. 99 I would think would likely bet at some point in the hand for the same reasons AA should, regardless of whether or not the sb chose to 3 bet preflop in the configuration. I just don't see many hand combinations the sb can really have that beat the hero here. How often this deep does the solver not 3 bet out of sb with 99, and then check call flop, turn and check raise river?

Those are the important numbers in this situation I think. There are just too many instances that seem like they need to happen for the solver data that you proposed to be correct in this exact situation. It seems like the solver in this situation is just a little simplistic, given all of the actions needed to account for.

Now, I will agree that the sb's flushes should be folding to the raise from the hero on the end. However, obviously, the sb is not a world beater, nor are the majority of those players. If there is a percentage of the player pool that would call off the nut flush and the smaller boats, is there not enough to make jamming all in a profitable play here on the end? I guess we need a frequency of how often AA and 99 never 3 bets preflop, never bets or check raises turn and never bets river and then check raises, showing up with those hands.

Anyway, interesting data and discussion. I appreciate the time you took to run out some data with the solver. If you get a chance to check out the preflop actions I spoke of, let me know kindly. cheers.

BTN is never opening 5x pre, SB is never flatting pre, if we're using solver ranges. I don't know of any preflop solves for 350 bb, so I could be wrong, but SB never flats at any stack depth I'm aware of

47% BTN range

SB range I took an UTG range of 14% and removed most of the top combos.
Think I had AA at like 10%


You would need to get called by worse pretty often for the shove to be profitable.
Since you lose your shove every time you get called by better.
And you often won't win more by shoving vs worse.

No offense but this is one of those spots where I really DGAF what a solver says, and I would heavily advocate studying with solvers even for live poker. 3-betting is printing money here vs. live villains. A3 is folding to a shove in practice approximately 0% and live players can have A3o combos here. That doesn't even consider slow-played flushes or rando garbage like 93, 42 that you'll see once in awhile. Even if they usually fold they make up a lot of combos collectively. You only need to find about 4 worse combos that will call a jam to make it better than calling.

+1 this was my point.

I think if we agree that the majority of the player pool are not world beaters and show up with some strange hands, they could also call off lightly.
The villain proves there is at least one monkey willing to do so..I think more go for the banana as well.

Appreciate the discussion.

Thanks for providing the set up Yeodan.

Villain would need a very wide range to have A3o here.
Not sure if ppl are actually calling 40%+ from the SB, I doubt it.

I assumed a very tight range, since calling an open from the SB is generally pretty bad.
Pretty sure I took K8s as the bottom of the range. (So scratch my earlier comment saying I took a 14% range, since that obviously never has K8s in it.)

If we're talking a 100/150bb eff stacks, then yeah sure, get it in.
But 360bb deep? You won't easily change my mind that this is a huge mistake.

I've sat in a 2/5 game where this sort of action on the river, and I'm always hoping for the player to fold, cause it's obvious they're beat, and they're bad and I want their stack.

And so often they call, and they shake their head, and they go home and tell everyone about how unlucky they got.

This is 1/2, plenty of people want to give away their money, they already decided they won the hand before you went all in on the river, how can they fold now? They were gonna win all that money

I think this is pretty applicable here. The villain pretty much snap called. I think after he flopped the nut flush he felt that he won the hand and the rest was just getting the money.

Could be that I'm underestimating how bad live players are :')

I've seen something similar happen today with the nut flush vs straight flush.
Also snap called the river 3bet with the nut flush, like 300bb deep.

Villain played like ass so it'll be hard to really quantify the best line to take here. That being said a cbet isnt great. Just too often someone will have a spade and simply never fold no matter what. Sure you get the non-spade hands to fold, but you are probably beating those anyway like JTo or something so there's no rush to protect against a 6 outer. Ordinarly I'd say if the board was rainbow I'd opt for a cbet because then we are happy to take it down with a high frequency. Once you hit the set it's time to step on the gas. Without a boat river becomes a bet/call with these sizes. With a boat you're pretty much always playing for stacks because you basically have the nuts on this board. We know he doesnt have AA and probably not 99 either so bombs away. Especially since we know at LLSNL made flushes will probably play this way as well.