I thought this was a fun hand from last night's session. I play a 2/4 private game $600 max buy in. It's a pretty great game with lots of loose passive play, except for the V in this hand.

V: I've played with him some before but not a whole lot. I know he is very keen on raising limpers and running roughshod over them. He's on the unbalanced lag side and has a weaker than normal range for everything. I don't know much about postflop since he normally wins the pot pre and on the flop without a fuss.

H: I just started the session maybe 30 minutes ago. Not much to say about how I'm playing yet. Haven't played many hands, if any.

V is BTN. Hero is in BB with 86. I start with $600 and he starts with $1000.

UTG call, MP call, BTN raises to $20, Hero raises to $75, fold, fold, call.

I'd like to preface this by saying this is a really once in a while play, on the order of 2% of the time. Totally not standard but I do this stuff on very rare occasions on a somewhat random basis.

Flop ($155) 599

Hero bets $55, BTN calls.

I do this with my entire range most of the time.

Turn ($265) K

Hero bets $135, BTN calls.

This card hits my range pretty well and I'm still uncapped. I think BTN should be calling this with marginal hands still as well as strong ones himself.

River ($535) A

Hero bets all in $340.

I think I stand by my action but am open to hearing dissenting opinions on how I played it since I don't think it's so straightforward how often BTN has a good enough heart, or how often I get heroed by whatever. Also I am curious what BTN should do with a hand like 88 with the heart, or AK no heart.

So you rep QQ with QQ of hearts only. Poor play imo, flop bet is fine but I'd go 65 minimum, after that I'm not a fan, bluff turn with Axh.

Do you really mostly cbet this flop texture with a ~1/3 PSB with TT/AJs+?

Pre 3b should be a 0% frequenxy unless you have someone you can exploit here by 3-betting OOP.

Postflop is as “standard” as it gets, wp postflop

I'm with you up until the river. Why didn't you just give up on the turn? He should be folding most turns...

I bet a bit bigger on the flop ($75-$85). But I think it's wp, I'd do the same considering the way this board run out.

You said v is LAG. He called you on flop. Called turn after you've shown strength the whole way. I repeat LAG. Loose aggressive. You are being trapped 90% of the time here. I think he almost always has a boat or flush under these circumstances.

Preflop you're getting virtually no folds with that sizing. I also don't like the fact that at no point in your description did you say you have seen him lay down a hand/is capable of laying down a hand. You can't try this stuff with a guy who doesn't have a fold button.

Or, you know, KK and AA

I represent plenty: KK, AA, QhQx, JhJx, AxQh.

Yes

Because when I bet only 1/3 on the flop a lot of his weak hands are going to stay in. Also I think I can get him off pocket pairs by the river. This river might definitely be a good one to shut down but I am a pit bull in 3b pots. I'd much prefer to shut down a lower heart.

This is a valid criticism, a trap would play this way. I think I kept in a lot of weak holdings with my flop and turn line though.

Sometimes you just have to BRING it when that K and A come out. Sure as hell don't want to check and let him win with black queens or jacks, Kx, etc.

We now know that V wasn't calling flop with a K-high or A-high FD. He also can't have called turn with a hand like AKhx. V's likely turn calling range is 9x (since most 3bet calling hands with 9x are suited, he won't have many hearts), or TT-QQ with a heart.

If you're in V's shoes with that kind of calling range, and Hero jams river, you have to fold basically everything except maybe QQh or A9s/K9s. And even those aren't snap calls.

Thanks but doesn't a $75-$85 bet make it harder to portion out 3 barrels? Or do you suggest jamming turn? That would leave me about $450 behind and $315 in pot.

Exactly. Plus your flop bet as you said forces him to defend wider otf and you should have more profitable barreling opportunities on later streets since his overall range is wider and forced to fold. If you do half pot half pot, you have like 15-25% shove otr and that’s bad bet sizing plan. Pre is still mega spew though

Probably a fold pre, or maybe a call if the 2 limpers are never limp/rr but probably just a fold. If BTN is raising limpers too wide and is folding to 3bets too much (or not 4betting enough) then 3bet can be fine

Flop is good

You can definitely consider check give up on the turn but with our gutter and the king being an overall better card for our range (and definitely a perceived better card for our range) I like the turn bet.

River at first glance seems like a mandatory bet but if we think about our value combos assuming we bet flop 100% of our range we have 1-3 of KK (KK is gonna check turn a decent amount I feel), 2-3 of AA (AA is also gonna check turn a decent amount), 0-9~ of QhQx, JhJx, ThTx (these hands might check turn and river is kinda thin with Th or even Jh) and then lets assume we 3bet K9s and A9s 100% of the time pre then we have 4 combos of those, and 1 combo of QhJh, and 1 combo of QhTh.

So we have 13~ value combos on the river. I think I can find 8 better bluffs than 86cc. Also exploitatively, unless villain is peeling super wide on the turn I don't think he's going to overfold this river but this is a big assumption to make

I'm a fan of preflop. Well done. I might make it 80-85 here though.

I like the flop sizing too.

I like the turn and river too. You have a decent amount of value here (AA/KK/QhQ/JhJ/AQh/AJh) and this bet puts any hand worse than the Jh in a bind for villain.

So yeah, I think this is fine. NH.

FWIW I think we have more value than ~13 combos. And my guess is villain will be overfolding a bit here. Like he's gonna have a lot of 5x/77/etc in his range right? A lot of live guys don't make the decision based on their range and the math anyway.

This is a good post but can you tell me what better bluffs I can have here? I thought this would be a great hand to bluff since we don't block any broadway cards that we want V to have. And since I have this hand so rarely in my preflop range these flopped gutshots are going to be a pretty tiny portion of my bluff range.

I think I'm fine with this. Turn is a tricky spot in terms of how we play our whole range. My instinct would be to check with a lot of midstrength made hands (JhJ, AK etc) but since that's a good card for our range my instinct is probably wrong there. We'll have a lot of hands we want to bluff there so should continue betting with anything resembling value I think.

You could be right! Maybe they are overfolding this river but I don't think so. They could for sure be overfolding flop and turn, but not this river. This river is actually a bad river for the 3bettor; we don't have a lot of flushes.

This is a really bad river for the oop 3bettor; even though we have more nutted combos, we don't have enough stack depth left to leverage that polarity advantage. In other words, villain can just comfortably call his flushes and 9x. This is a product of us betting the flop with 100% range and betting this turn at a relatively high freq (~50%); OOP ends up with a lot more combos than we'd like to on the river (about ~67).

FWIW I ran this with the below ranges (and forcing an OOP 100% bet 1/3 potsize) and we're only betting this river like 30% of the time, IP has 330 EV and oop has only 206 EV.

86cc is a fine bet on the turn like I thought (still check/given up at some freq, but bet 4x as much), but on the river it's check/given up twice as much as bet, but still bet a low freq. So whatever man, this is a close spot either way and you shouldn't focus too much on it. The more important lesson for the river is to recognize that this river is actually a very bad river for the 3bettor and to not bet too frequently.

Side note 1: I was very surprised about the turn; it's not as good of a card for the 3bettor as I thought. It looks like a great card, but because we bet 100% range on flop, and our BB vs BTN 3bet range is actually pretty loose, we end up with a lot of junky hands (that's my guess why at least).

Side note 2: The IP player only folds 10% of the time to our cbet (lol). Now of course real players are going to fold much more (for example, IP is calling some % of A8dd, A8cc, T8cc, T8dd, KsQd, 100% of KJdd, KJcc, etc etc). Just kinda cool how little the IP player folds to the cbet even though oop has the EV advantage AND equity advantage on the flop. I guess it's a product of the value of position on dynamic boards!

EDIT for side note 3: I was curious if I put the flop folding range vs 1/3 potsize of the IP player to something more realistic (that I think even REALLY good regs are going to do). Basically I forced AJo no heart, KQo no heart, A4cc/dd, A8cc/dd, and (AT-AJ:KQ-KT:QJ-QT)cc/dd to fold instead of calling at some frequency. I think a lot of people are going to overfold a lot more than this, but even with this small adjustment it makes the OOP 3bettor bet 100% of their range on the flop. So ya, I like betting our range on the flop for sure.

And after making IP fold those types of hands on the flop then 86cc is almost never bet on the turn, and is definitely not bet on the river. So, ya.

OOP range

AA,KK,QQ,JJ,TT,99,AK,AQ,AJs,AJo:0.5,ATs,A9s:0.5,A8 s:0.5,A7s:0.5,A6s:0.5,A5s:0.5,A4s:0.5,A3s:0.5,A2s: 0.5,KQs,KQo:0.5,KJs,KTs:0.5,K9s:0.5,QJs,QTs:0.5,Q9 s:0.5,JTs,J9s:0.5,T9s:0.5,T8s:0.5,98s:0.5,97s:0.5, 87s:0.5,86s:0.5,76s:0.5,75s:0.5,65s:0.5,64s:0.5,54 s:0.5

IP range

99,88,77,66,55,44,33,22,AQ,AJ,ATs,A9s,A8s,A5s,A4s, KQ,KJs,KTs,K9s,QJs,QTs,Q9s,JTs,J9s,T9s,T8s,98s,97s ,87s,76s,65s

Hate preflop. Like everything else.

When you 3bet oop with junk you want folds therefore 90 pre. Id also only do this if villain is fit or fold to 3bets. Against a sticky opponent who has position we are just burning money.

Thanks for the analysis Jarretman. I think on the river I do have a decent sized give up range consisting of a lot of broadway cards I want V to have. Interesting to hear we ought to bet river at least 1/3 of the time, more if he overfolds. In my OP I was concerned we are getting heroed a decent amount. We didn't get heroed in this hand but it seemed like a spot where V has to call lightish some % of the time or else get run over.

FYP and +1 to this. Fine until the river shove. You "credibly" rep nothing by firing three barrells on this board. And, once V calls the turn, you need to give up because he isn't going to fold anything but stone air on the river getting almost 3-1.