Main villain (MV) plays poker for a living, and often plays much higher when it runs. Can definitely get out of line pre and post. We've got a good amount of history, he's seen me bluff a lot especially with equity vs weak ranges. He's seen me check equity, including top pair out of position. He's also seen me go for a lot of thin value / big value. After seeing me go for thin value and make big folds, he x/c'd 3 streets on a double paired board with 88 and then x/r'd big ($1400 after I bet $420 otr in a big pot where I should have a good amount of AA/KK/QQ but I actually had quads and snapped). Recently we played a hand where I x'd AJ on a J53r board three ways oop and x/c'd turn and river. Has $900

Other villain (OV) is playing way too many hands and just giving away money, but has a fold button postflop. Has $1700

Hero covers.

Straddle UTG, OV limps in MP, MV overlimps, folds to me in the SB, I go $65 with AT in the SB, OV and MV call.

Pre seems standard value, MV opens anything better than my hand and OV does the same and is so wide to this range.

Flop: K95 ($200)
I bet $160, OV folds, MV thinks a bit and calls

This flop hits my SB raising range pretty well and we would want to build a pot vs OV / but he also has a lot of air he folds. It's real hard for MV to have a strong hand here - K9s and 55 / maybe K5s are his strong hands here.

Turn: 3 ($520)
I jam $575

I dunno my range is stronger than his and I turned equity lets put it in

Flop seems unnecessarily large for this board texture. What’s your turn plan when you don’t turn equity? Wouldn’t be surprised if you got called off by any pair tbh.

Not really sure why the large bet. Calling ranges are fairly inelastic here so your bluffs just want to go small, and your value wants to keep in weaker hands. Also if you have a range adv generally it doesnt make sense to bet large. There are cases you can but that’s a different story and the strat is very complicated.

Ap turn cant do anything but shove AP with barely PSB left

I have two sizing on this flop - it's a board / players who want to continue a lot, so IMO a larger sizing makes more sense. Against less sticky players a smaller sizing is better I think.

Turn plan was to give up if I didn't turn any equity
If ranges are inelastic, then a larger sizing is better because it lets us build a pot vs OV who still has ~10x the size of the pot left to bet on the flop. If people are playing GTO then it doesn't make sense to go larger with a range advantage, but if people are sticky / want to continue a lot when GTO says they shouldn't, then it makes sense to go larger to make more money with our range advantage.


I think $100 gets MV to continue with QJ/QT/JT type hands, while $160 gets those out of the pot. With not a lot of visibility and a hand that I plan on giving up with if I don't turn equity, $160 seems a lot better. If I have a hand like JT/QT/QJ, then smaller is better cause I can double barrel without turning equity / I want to keep in those weaker hands to double them OTT.

If ranges are inelastic, you want to go big with big hands, not with bluffs. Inelastic means they will call or fold with relatively the same range regardless of bet size. Why bet big on a bluff if you can bet small and get the same result? This is why strong ranges bet small on favorable flops. On this flop you want pp higher than middle pair and unpaired big cards to call when you hold AK. When you blast it with a bet more than .75 pot, those hands fold. Because of that you can't bet huge with a draw because opponents will know you just have a draw or junk. Betting smaller also allows you to get away much more cheaply when you are raised. Flop bet should be closer to 75 imo. You then have 2 good sized bets remaining when you turn equity.

Why would players feel compelled to continue on K95r? It’s an incredibly dry board that is hard to hit. “Value betting” $160 would be really bad imo since villains are folding the majority of their range.

This makes zero sense to me. You are using a sizing that looks incredibly bluffy and ensures any continuing range has A-hi beat.

Why would you want to fold out hands that you are 70/30 versus and will make horrible flop calls? I think you’re overlooking how bluffy this line looks, especially the turn overbet jam.

I think he want's to fold out those 70/30 hands cuz he plans to give up on the turn a lot, and they'll either hit or bluff him.

However, I agree that he underestimates how bluffy the line is. I actually don't see much reason to raise pre against tricky and sticky Vs. I hate being in a position post where my real hand is a weaker version of what I'm repping.

I'd rather just call and have a deceptively strong hand than a deceptively weak one, particularly on an ace flop.

I'm not a big fan of treating straddled pots as halving the BBs in general because people just don't play that way. However, a pro who plays higher stakes will in fact look at this as a hand that he started with 90bbs (even less, in a way since there are 3 blinds) and could call off fairly light.

I'm wondering if you ever take this like with AK/KQ/KJ/AA johnny? Since it gets called down so light?

I haven't run numbers, but I'm pretty sure my EV getting a good LAG to fold OTF for 160 is higher than my EV when he continues vs 90 with a wider range. Regardless, I feel OV really weights my preflop and flop range towards large and value (the 160 is value/folding equity vs OV) - the fact that we get heads up with MV is unfortunate but should not drive our flop sizing IMO

FWIW I just ran it through PIO, AA,KK,QQ,JJ,TT,99,88,AK,AQ,AJ,AT,A9s,KQ,KJ,KTs,QJs ,QTs,JTs,T9s
vs
77,66,55,44,33,22,A9o,A8o,A7o,A6,A5,A4s,A3s,A2s,
KTo,K9,K8s,K7s,K6s,K5s,K4s,K3s,K2s,QJo,QT,Q9,Q8s,
JTo,J9,J8s,T9,T8s,T7s,98,97s,87,86s,76s,75s,65s,64 s,54s
Which I think is a relative fair limping range for a villain who is going to be isolating a lot with his stronger hands, gave it an SPR of 4.5 and 30/50/90 percent flop bet sizes with 25/50/80 turn bet sizing, and it wants to bet 90% of the pot 93% of the time and bet the smaller sizes 7% of the time. Vs that sizing, the IP ends up folding 57.5% of their range, including some 9s and about half their gutshots.

However, it prefers a half pot sizing for the turn, and then jamming 80% of our range OTR, which makes sense from a leverage POV (villain never jams cause of our range advantage in this simulation)

No. It’s hard to make a pair and there’s nothing but a couple gutters out there. Sure, it looks cool when you stack 9x with KJ but I doubt it’s the most +EV way of playing your range versus theirs. Plus I’m going to have many bluffs which want to size smaller for reasons mentioned by others.

If Pío is correct here, we all need to rethink our approaches to dry flops. Thanks for sharing this. Does it matter that you ran it HU? In the HH, there’s 2 Vs.

oh it definitely matters quite a bit, since min defence frequency drops a bunch when you have other people in the hand, but there are no solvers for 3 way action.

But the underlying principle, of wanting to bet large when you have a big range advantage / villain doesn't want to fold too much of their range should apply

Yes it makes an enormous difference to the point you’re comparing apples to Ferrari’s. PIO also makes assumptions about your opponent which rarely apply in the real world. Having a 3-way pot with a fish involved is kind of the complete opposite of its intended purpose.

Further, unless I’m misinterpreting Ranma’s post on the PIO output, the fact that it’s telling villain to fold any 9x or call any gut shots facing a $160 bet makes me question the usefulness of it at LLSNL - especially the weekend loose action degen type games Ranma is playing in.

I don't have Pio yet, but I study some theory. "Range advantage" is not a very descriptive term. Our bet sizing depends on more than a single Boolean, like the actual composition of ranges and how hand strength is likely to change on future streets. For example if we are betting a polar range on a wet board our sizing should be large, but if we're betting a range with an overall equity advantage, but not too many nut hands on a dry board, I think it's correct to bet smaller.

From what I understand, in this specific spot it is a simplification with little EV loss to range bet a smaller size in order to avoid the difficulty of using multiple balanced ranges, and solvers actually do prefer betting a larger sizing with a lot of hands.

+1

Exactly what i was saying above.

I agree that a smaller bet makes more sense with what we are repping and sets up a triple barrel.

But, what about OPs concern that a small bet gets floated by the numerous gutshots and pairs, then he has the pot taken away unless he hits an ace or a spade? (And, while a spade is good, it's not like we automatically win by turning a fd). Or are we often bluffing our stack, but over 3 streets?

Maybe we could bet very small, like we have a set and hope to win vs the total trash occasionally, investing less when most turns are bad. We might even be able to go into check call on some turns, like a 9.

We're really 100% sure we want to go to war in a spot where it looks like we are stealing the straddle and limps, against a professional who plays bigger stakes, out of position, holding a-t, with the BB and straddle still behind us?

Do we even make much money when we hit our ace? Like, if the flop is A94?

Call me GG, but it's SO much more appealing to me to let worse spades, ts and As in behind me and take a cheap flop with a slightly underrepped hand than to sprint head first into a better player with A-t.

I'd rather do this with a deceptive hand, if I must do it.

results ?

Villain calls with j9o and we brick