curious what i'm missing with the shove river crowd. villain has $100 behind as played, probably about never folding hands we're behind....

Huge leak that LLSNL rando villains have...

1) Call when they should fold.

2) Fold when they should call.

Shoving river exploits both.

You can only play an exploitative strategy at a higher profit than an optimal strategy if you know what leak you're exploiting. You're using the old "he might call with a worse hand and he might fold with a better hand" justification used to justify button clicking.

Great post.

Doesn´t $125 into $275 OTT look more like (KQ,KJs,77-QQ, AQdd,AJdd,maybe ATdd) than AA, AK, or even KK on this wet board? If he bet bigger I think I could find a fold fairly easily. With these stacks, IDK what my plan for the river is honestly. I guess I´m hoping for a free showdown vs his medium pairs, maybe pick off a blocker bet vs. KQ,KJ, maybe soul read him and pick off a bad bluff if the diamonds brick out, folding to a decent bet probably. We´re getting 3.2:1 OTT. Is it not worth it to call here IP for ''turn pot odds''. Part of me actually prefers to be OOP to make this play because V is more likely to just check back with his TPGK hands and thus his betting range becomes more nutted.

With deeper stacks I think the turn is an obvious? call because we don´t have committment issues and a ton of river cards can give us great bluffing spots.

AA 6 combos
AK 8 combos
KK 1 combos
KQ 4 combos
KJs 2 combos
77-QQ 36 combos
AQdd,AJdd,ATdd? 2-3 combos

Obviously need to do some discounting.

Getting 4:1 OTR BTW.

I could quite easily talk myself into a call OTR.

Would seem unbelievable for V to fold AA,AK,KQ for $100 more.

4:1... right. Forgot to add his bet in. If this keeps up, I'm going to have to start paying you for the corrections.

It's really hard to determine much from his turn bet size. 125 into 275 a tad small, but not very. If he bet like 100 or less, I'd really start to smell blood. That said, it is less than half the pot (though V's don't always know exactly what's in the pot and he could easily think it's half a 250 pot) so I'm tentatively assuming whatever he has isn't huge and throbbing.

I don't expect 88 and 77 to be common in EP PFR and I don't expect QQ - 77 to double barrel a K high board (unless V is aggro).

I also think it's moderately unusual for non-aggro V to double barrel with NFD. Possible, but less likely.

I think AA and any kings in his range (AK and KQ certainly, maybe KJs) could very likely play this way. On the one hand "We has the besst hand, precioussss. We betses!" but on the other "but nassty, tricksy person might have a set or outdraws us. Mustn't bet too much, preciousss!"

If I'm right about the pairs (which I'm most confident aren't triple barreling), we're ahead of 2 KJs, pushing KQ, and losing to AA, AK, KK, and the nut flushes. I think KJs is a bit optimistic, but I also think not every nut flush gets bet this way. There's probably a reasonable case for a thin value call here, though it's close.

It is tempting to call the turn. As you say, pot odds! I think that's why there are so many threads like this one. To paraphrase one of the Jurassic Park movies (the original ones), "Sure, it's all fun in the beginning. But then later comes the running and the screaming and the dying." It's tempting to call the turn. But then we're often faced with a river bet that we're also tempted to call, except that we're now pretty sure we're no good. It sucks to lay down what may well be the best hand OTT. It sucks more to lay down a big chunk of our stack to V though.

With a bigger stack, calling the turn isn't as bad. As noted, we have some bluffing opportunities. V may also be less likely to bet river at all if we have a credible raise. Then he's the one looking at RIO.

Yeah, all his nightmares have come true on the river (unless he has the nut flush), but sadly the shrunken remains of our stack means we can't bludgeon with it as we'd like. Shout out to Lapidator for swinging some serious wood, but I don't think 100 on top is enough to get folds 25ish%


I think the key takeaway is not that it's always bad to call TPGK on all three streets. It's that it's bad to decide whether we're doing that on the river. The turn is often the point where it's time to decide whether we're stacking off (or all but stacking off) with our hand or not. (Well, the flop is better, but it's often reasonable to call the flop and eval the turn.)

On this particular hand, with a readless V and TPGK, I think the appropriate decision on the turn is that V is not putting in three bets with a hand we beat. So, we're either calling the turn and then folding to a river bet or we're folding turn. Calling the turn for the pot odds and then calling the river because of the pot odds is draining the spittoon in one long string*. It's actually an example of an incorrect problem statement. The real problem statement isn't "should we call the turn given the pot odds", it's "should we call the turn and a possible river bet given the current pot odds".

It's also a great example of why reads and hand reading are so key. Sniffing out those times when we can call three bets (aggro V, empty vbetting range, bet sizing tells) is huge. We turn the hand from a small loss (pre and flop bets) to a big win (pre, flop, turn, and river bets). But until we have enough info to do that, it's generally better to take, say, five small losses that to take four small wins and one big loss.



*Man in the Old American West bets another he won't take a sip from the spittoon. Man drains the whole thing. "Why'd ya do that?" "Well, it all kinda went down in one long string." See also: boiling frogs

If you call pre you have to realize the RIO implications. Villain opened in EP and is leading out strong into a 5 player field. I wouldn't blame you for peeling one, but I make an (exploitative) fold on the flop more often than not here.

The RIO writing is on the wall. Write out the combos that you beat. Hint: it's not much. Even his 3 bluff combos (AQs, AJs, ATs) have good equity vs. you on the flop. To the crowd saying 100 bigs is hard to play - it's not when you avoid RIO spots like this and have the betting initiative on your side.

PS: congrats on taking a shot at 2/5 dead fish

Villains are folding on the river after putting in 80% of their stack getting almost 10:1 odds to call? I'd have to have the read of the century to think this was even a possibility in any game I've ever played in. I'd more believe that a unicorn was at the table. The villain is most likely to stall for 3 minutes, then say, "You must of got the flush. I'll pay you off," call and flip over AK.

It really depends on the skill level of the player as what to do pf with KQs facing a raise in MP. If you're going to stack off with TPMK by calling all three streets, it might be best to fold it automatically no matter what the read is. If I'm early in a game without much of a read, I'm pretty tight and would probably lean towards folding or 3betting depending on what I see the rest of the table doing. If it is a limp fest, I'd 3bet. If the first couple of flops had someone raise pf, I'd lean towards folding.

You read my mind.

I'd strongly consider folding turn. Seems weak-tight but unless this guy is a total maniac, he's gotta be super strong here blasting into the world and following up on the turn. IMO this is AK/AA and sets.

Edit: lol at the "shove river" crowd. He's never folding unless he's got total air, and in that case shoving doesn't make sense either.

Hero doesn't state his position, but is this really a call preflop? It is a RIO hand because you're dominated so often. If you're CO or button, then this can be a call, but in MP after someone already called the raise?

Fold turn

I don't really like how you played this. The preflop call is okay, but a fold would also be perfectly fine.

I think you should fold the flop, honestly; unless you have a read on this guy that he's going to be c-betting into 4 players with air a lot of the time, we should believe that he has a hand.

It feels wrong to hit your TP and then fold to a single bet, but this isn't a good scenario for us.

Fold the turn.

AP, shove the river if this guy isn't just some fish; to me it looks like a thin value bet with something that's not a flush. It's not a confident looking bet.

Call turn tons of fds possible and some worse kx. Pot odds and position. If he potted it you could fold.

Fold river. You beat nothing. Raise is interesting idea but they're not folding ak or aa often enough in these games so dislike

Think folding the turn advice is too results oriented. If river was a brick and villain checked and op posted same hh considering thin value no one would go back and say fold turn.

I'm also inclined to 3b to iso a probably weak villain. Although spr going to be awkward given his 5x pre.

Calling turn to fold various rivers is a completely sound play

Completely disagree. What fds is hero ahead of other than AQs, maybe AJdd? Three combos, when AA/AK dominate villain's range. Granted we have no reads on villain, but I think it's very foolish to assume this guy went nuts with KJ or KT. He raised in EP, cbet into 3 players oop, then bet again.

Screw pot odds when we're likely drawing to a 3 outer. Villain can get stacks in with a 1/2 PSB on the turn and river. Calling the turn commits us and puts in nearly half our starting stack.

Folding the turn with a RIO hand is not results oriented and it's ridiculous to think so. The turn is exactly the moment when we can get away from the hand since hero has only committed 20% of his stack. I think a lot of posters would say to fold the turn even if hero called, the river bricked, and villain checked. Going for thin value with TPGK if the river bricked is suicide. How can hero get value from 50+% of villain's range with this line?