Hero (485) is UTG+3 w/ Ad As

UTG limps

UTG+1 (covers) raises to 10

Hero reraises to 40 total

Folds to UTG+1, who calls.

Flop (80) 743ccc

Villain checks

Hero bets 50

Villain CRAI

Hero?

Villain was competent and his PFR size was purposefully small, likely indicating a speculative holding such as 65s+ or 22-99; obviously this flop hits that range on the head. Assigning V a range of 6x6c, 5x5c, 44, 33, 77, 8x8c, 9x9c, 7x8c, 67, 75, 89cc, JTcc.

The argument could be made that he has a lot of AcXx holdings in his range, but having played a couple of orbits with him where his avg PFR was 20, I strongly do not believe this to be the case.

Based on my odds, ~1.5-1, I need to have 40%+ equity to call. Assuming the above assigned range, or even slightly wider, in retrospect I believe the correct decision to be clear.

When action came to me I experienced a concentration fixation: He is making a move. I certainly thought I could be behind, but I was consumed, paralyzed and blinded by my perception that he was semi-bluffing. More accurately, my state could be described as fearful of being bluffed.

The question I pose to you is: Do you encounter such circumstances, where an emotion or thought consumes and paralyzes your deductive reasoning? If so, do you have any tricks or methods to produce decisions based upon logic, rather than hope or fear?

I am sure overcoming this is part of the process of improving. My greatest leak is making decisions out of frustration based upon fear, hope, or other emotion or simple thought. Any help is appreciated.

Certainly can relate to your difficult feelings OP, and you describe it in a very accurate way. First step into improving is to admit for yourself and the other issues your struggling with, thats a huge step into improving the weaker parts of your game. Players who arent able to swallow their pride and see their own weak spots wont be able to improve.

What i will encourage you to is to slowly focus on two things to avoid freezing up and filled with those negative emotions in certain spots:

1)Keep focus on planning out the hand. What do you do if you get reraised preflop? What do you do if flop texture A comes? What do you do if flop texture B comes? What flops do you want to C-bet? What flops do you want to check? What will you do if your flop bet gets raised?

You probably get my point When you focus on this kind of though process over time, it will slowly become automatic kind of thing you do and makes your life so much easier. That focus will take away some of the tention of the negative emotions, and get you on course to your task: playing the poker hand the best way you can.

2) This is strongly related to point number 1: ranging your opponents. Ask youself what kind of hands this opponent will do action A with, what kind of holdings will he do action B or C with- based on your reads on him.

In this particular hand you have a read on villain that this flop smacks his calling range. So what are you trying to accomplish with your C-bet? What are your actual thought process here, and did you think through how you would respond to a reraise before you made the C-bet?

I am not necesserly saying your C-bet is wrong, i just ask some questions to find out more of how you was thinking ahead in the hand, or if you did plan the hand/action at all before you made it.

For example would my thought process here be like this flop is kind of meh with AA no club. Its not the worst possible flop, but not very good either. If i C-bet here on this texture and getting raised, i dont love to continue on with the hand at all. So to disguise my AA a bit and to keep villains continuerange wider, i think check the flop and see a turn is certainly an option here.

Gilmour has good points. You want to be planning what you will do ahead of time. I know this is a bit of heresy, but thinking about the boundaries of his range is post facto work. In the heat of the moment in situations like this, you want to be thinking about putting your villains in certain categories of holdings. For me it is:

1. The nuts.
2. A good hand.
3. A hand of some value.
4. A bluff.

Then think about what are the odds he'd bet like he did. In this case, we can be pretty positive he doesn't have the nuts. He wouldn't want to chase you out. I can see him having a good hand like a smaller flush or a set worried about being out drawn. A hand of some value he's going to call with to see if he's good. He can also have a bluff here.

Next, how often is he going to bluff his stack. In LLSNL, the answer is rarely to never.

Finally, what are our chances of improving. If he has a flush, we're going to need runner-runner. Therefore, we have little chance to beat a flush. We need a 2 outer to beat a set. Also, not likely.

Therefore, the answer is easy, which is to fold. You have to keep repeating to yourself, "they aren't playing back at me, they aren't playing back at me."

A reason I suggest avoiding ranges at the table is that a TAG with a PFR of 20 is never going to have most of those hands in his range pf that you proposed. You basically loaded it up with improbable hands to make it look like you can call it. If you playing around with an odds calculator will over a short period of time you be able to come up with more probable ranges.

Can this be a bluff or TP? Sure, but based on what we know, the odds are low on that. If he shows you, then you can adjust it later. The bigger point in all this is to have a plan in advance. That way you won't talk yourself into a call you shouldn't make or worry about it. If you are consistent and discover that you're making a category mistake, you can then correct easily enough and move forward.

One thing you can do here is adjust bet sizing to avoid these problems. Raising to a bit less then 10% of your stack is a bad size, because it sets you up for a bad situation on flop. Your setting yourself up with a SPR low enough that it's hard to get away from an over pair but gives villain just enough odds to call with drawing hands. The odds for pairs and suited connectors are low, but villain knows they will have a better then usual chance of getting paid also. In this sort of situation either raise to $30 to give yourself some more maneuvering room post flop, or go to at least $50 to kill villains drawing odds. Given the situation here, where your still in EP and villain obviously wants to play, I would probably just go straight to $75.

As played, fold flop. Villain may be bluffing but not likely and I'm never banking on that without a lot of history with villain. Far more likely villain has a set, straight, a big flush draw or a combo draw, and against that range your in trouble. Your including a lot of unlikely hands in your list, do you really think any straight draws or pairs that don't have a club draw are making a move here? Those hands are pure bluffs on this board because you could easily have a high club in your hand and be willing to move in with it. Even the low flush draws are unlikely to want to push on this flop for the same reason. If you have AcAx or AcKx your likely to be willing to move all in.

Thank you for the responses. I appreciate the obvious time and effort you three put into them. It seems clear that my greatest blunder was failing to plan the hand, which resulted in my impulsive action. By concentrating on planning the hand (as Gilmour stated) and continually assessing my course of actions and their possibly deviations I will be proactive rather than reactive.

This should have been an easy fold, but I did not allow myself the opportunity to make that decision. I reacted impulsively and based on emotion. I failed to properly consider the pertinent variables.

Great post, and great responses. We all make these kind of thought process mistakes at times, were we just go down a rabbit hole and fail to keep our mind relaxed and looking at the big picture and all the info out there. It's much much easier to analyze afterward from the coolness of distance.

The only thing I would like to re-iterate is not to jump to quickly to feeling that sick feeling of not wanting to be bluffed. As Venice said, a bluff here for full stacks is not going to happen often. You don't need to overly protect against it by calling it off with over pair hands. Really think about how often that player is going to make that move with the action and board as played out with a completely bluff. Relax and play your game, wait for a better spot. I think you can learn a lot from this experience. And yes work on planning ahead, something that almost all players can continue to improve.
Don't beat yourself up too much about it, you had the hand that easily brings down a lot of castles, we all hate to relinquish that hand.

OP thanks for a really great post. This moment you captured in the hand is one that myself and I'm sure many of us experience. It is nice to see a post where the thought process/brain lock/leveling is described so well. The post and responses are things that I need to keep hearing over and over and over again until it is second nature.

Happy to hear you got something out of it. I often struggle with these kind of situations myself, so its very familiar- especially in 3 bet pots as the pot size really start to grow.


Another point not to forget is that the player calling your reraise preflop in a 3 bet pot (like the one we are discussing in this thread) is probably more afraid of your percieved strong range than the other way around, wich is easy to forget when you sit at the table and starting to freeze up or getting filled with some negative emotions or stress.

Also agree with the last poster ITT- dont be too harsh on yourself OP, but work on the issues in a constructive way. Think it through, make arguments for your play and actions based on actual facts/reads at the table, make reflections, play some more and practice with focus on planning ahead in the hand and/or ranging you opponents- then rinse and repeat

Jared Tendler talks about this in his "Mental game of Poker"
The way I understand it is: when someone check/raises you like this (and you weren't expecting it) your emotions kick in to high gear and your natural response of "fight or flight" can overtake your logic.
One way to combat this is to do something logical (like count from 100 backwards, count in 2s or 3s, do multiplication, etc). This often helps engage the logic side of your brain and allow you to make a decision based on intelligence, not emotion.
Remember, for an All In call - it's okay to take a few minutes to sort through the action. I often tell my table - "sorry guys, I'll just be a minute" so they don't think I'm hollywooding it. Some Vs will use this against you and call a clock... but you should still have 60 seconds to make your decisions.
Hope this helps.

Probably folding with no redraw. Sucks but your equity can't be that good against any hand that would shove here...