Reads: Middle age guy who limps quite a lot pre, and is reasonable aggro postflop. The only two medium-large pots I recall involving him were: he limp/calls from EP against a MP raise and my LP flat. Flop is Q 7 4 rainbow. He checks, preflop raise c-bets, I flat with 99, he makes a pot sized c/r and gets us both to fold. The other hand was stranger: He completed SB after a few limps. Flop was A 9 5 with a flush draw. A lot of action on the flop and turn (don't remember exact lines), but V never bet, only called. He faced a massive, almost pot sized turn bet 3-way after 1 player was already all in, on something like a 2 (non-flush) turn, then check/folded river. He lost like 1/3 to 1/2 of his stack, and it's tough seeing what hand could call such a huge turn bet profitably to fold river.

9 handed and UTG opens to 15. V flats three seats to his left. CO calls, SB calls. I call in the BB with A5. Pot = $75, effective stacks against all players = ~$500.

Flop: QQJ. Checks around.

Turn: QQJ6. I lead for 50, only V calls.

River: QQJ6J. Pot is $175. Hero?

And questions:

1. With AQ and KQ, do you always only flat these pre? Do you fold KQo? With KQo, do you fold pre if only against the preflop raiser but flat multiway (this logic applies to suited connectors and small pairs, wondering if you apply it to KQo too)? What other Q-X hands do you flat pre?

2. With Q-X hands on the flop, do you put them in the check range, in the bet range, or a mix depending on kicker?

3. Do you bet this turn with J-X?

4. Do you bet this turn with every single flush draw or open ended straight draw?

5. Do you have so many Q-X in your river range that you can bet 100% of your missed draws and be balanced? Note that A5 is an inferior river bluff hand than K10 as it has more showdown value and inferior blocking effects (it blocks missed flush draws that V can fold).

c/c'ing river, we beat missed draws, 6's and counterfeited PP's and lose only to a J really. Seems EZ.

We don't beat missed ace high FDs though. And except for 66, I don't think he has much if any 6-x or 22-1010 in his turn call range. I do see some merit in c/c though as betting could only make him fold the worst hand.

That's literally the only chop he can have though, aside from that we're either beat and he's not folding, or we already have the best hand and he might bluff.

Checking to induce is the only viable option here IMO, closer to c/f than a bet I think.

Played fine. Bet/folding the turn. I'm also bet/folding the river. Villain might have called with a AhXh flush draw and we can avoid a chop. We credibly rep a Qx boat here. I'd bet about $75. Villain should have a very inelastic calling range here. We shouldn't need to bet much to get Ax hands to fold.

1) I would probably 3!/fold AQ. I'd mostly call KQ because of the UTG raise and a greater threat of domination from AK/AQ. I would sometimes 3!/fold KQ as well.

2) I would plan to c/r premium Qx and gii on the turn. I'd probably c/c weak Qx. Really depends on the action.

3) I would bet Jx on the turn. I would not bet Jx on the flop and would c/c the flop. I'd fold Jx to crazy action on the flop.

4) I do not bet straight draws because I only have 4 clean outs on a paired board. No thanks. I would bet/fold nut flush draws and check all others.

5) I generally don't worry about balance at low-stakes. Really depends on the villain whether or not I bluff

You don't think it's possible he folds J-X? The below thread is also a double paired board, and lots of posters are folding the lower boat (and the pot odds they're offered are ridiculously good).


http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...52/?highlight=

I'm pretty stationy (more then I am laggy, even). I'd say c/c or c/f river if big. Vs line is totally consistent w Jx so far, and even makes a little sense for bad Q. If it's a weaker pair (6x, 88) then he'll probably check as well. Call a small river bet, but I'd fold to a large one.


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Ck-f riv, he has lots of Jx.

Looks like he paid for/missed his gutter/FD for all the chips on A59

I think there are key differences in that thread;
1) V donked flop on a much more static board than we have OTT here
2) V led every street
3) The top card paired last
4) We can probably overfold because i) V is likely underbluffing here and ii) if he is bluffing he has paid a lot to get to this particular river card to bluff on -> we're likely calling him down or raising him a ton more than we need to with Kx and Tx and JQ or a draw on different runouts making his prior bets all hugely -EV if he's bluffing, and we have Kx OTR plenty enough that he's not printing anyway.

I had some other thoughts about that hand but I can't remember them for the life of me >.< but yea I think it's quite different and we can call with some Tx there and fold some if we want to and JT is a good one to fold then.

About this hand, I didn't really think about him folding Jx but I guess it's possible. The thing is that I typically assume V's live tend to look for reasons to take an action that will let them win the pot. Rather than ask themselves is it likely that he is bluffing? they focus more on is it possible that he's bluffing? and on a board like this I think they call off a lot (probably correctly) with Jx so if I'm bluffing I really want to make sure that I'm not going wild and my A high's are definitely way, way too good to put in there. It might be like breakeven to bet to bluff him off Jx but I think it's probably a bit -EV and I think c/c is going to be better anyway.

On a somewhat unrelated note my initial thought when I saw river was that I probably don't bet anything and c/r with {Qx, bluffs} and c/c with {Jx, A High} since I think a J quite likely bets when checked to. Not sure about this but I think capturing value from his bluffs is important and we're more likely to blast him off Jx that way.

Check turn

Checking every street

Results: I bet 110 on river. While villain is tanking, I try to employ some reverse psychology by telling him I think J-X has to call. He ends up calling with J-X.

C F river.

give up Jx never folding when two fd's miss.

You talked him into a call.
Misplayed river on every level.


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He tanked a long time after my comment, and indicated by his own comments that he "think he can get away from this". He was close to folding.

Also, how is this misplayed on the river if you don't know how many Q-X hands I'm flatting pre with and whether I bet or check flop with them? If I'm playing the strategy I'm trying to use as default, it's impossible for me to lose long term when I bet this river, even if villain always calls. I know my own strategy, and I know with most Queen-X hands where x isn't that high, I'm check/calling flop but betting turn and river if flop checks through. And I'm trying a default strategy of having Q-X here ~75-80% of the time when I take this line.

Dude you take the GTO thing way too far. It's misplayed because you never fold better when you bet this river. You pissed away $110. $110 is money. Keeping money is good.

This is rationalizing crappy play in the hand, in the guise of "GTO."


GTO: money is good. OP torched money. That is not optimal play

I'll make it real simple for ya. No rec who plays at a casino is folding Jx OTR. In general, people don't fold when the flush draw misses. On this board there is two flush draws which both miss. That combined with Zeebo's theorem, people are just never folding Jx here. This is not a difficult realisation to come to on the river and you should really be able to figure this out and save your $110 otr.

Even THAT is waaay overthinking it. The use of "GTO" should be banned in LLSNL because this **** literally doesn't apply to live games. You're way over-complicating a very easy game. Does v fold Jx, if no, give up.

Game Theory Optimal applies as a concept. However to appropriately apply Game Theory, opponents play must be taken into account. So in a hand like this which is entirely RIO, game theory would dictate checking as bets are going to fold out worse while losing money to better.
Game Theory Optimal at this point, is not to bet.

Claiming GTO play based on near-perfect opponents on a poker math app, millions of hands, and defined preflop ranges shows a complete misunderstanding of the game being played.

So OP and his buddies quote "gto" to justify torching money, they are also misunderstanding Optimal game theory (Optimal theory commentary might apply in a hand where a 4 to a straight hits and you bet to try and blow him off a range that is weighted heavily to pairs and sets.... as it's a profit maximizing play vs a more defined POSTFLOP range)


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GTO is effectively the study to find an equilibrium. This basically means that we're trying to play to a point that when our opponent plays perfectly that we make/lose $0. This works at high stakes because many of the players are playing GTO also and all the money is made from the players who are not, essentially the pros are trying to break even verses each other and chop the recs money.

The problem in LLSNL is that no one is playing like that. Even the pros aren't playing like that because either they aren't good enough or because it's not worth it because no one else is good enough. So when we play GTO, we will probably make some money because we're playing more balanced than our opponent and they have no clue what to do but even if we played unbalanced most of our opponents still don't know what to do.

Essentially if you want to play GTO, it should be against a select few opponents. Other than that, we should take the most exploitative line possible. In some instances, we should shove the flop with TPTK+ because certain opponents are fish and will call. That is never a GTO line but in certain cases it is by far the highest EV line

As for this hand, going into the river I would believe this opponent is a fish and he's never folding a J OTR, so I would check. We're never getting called by worse and we probably get called by all chops, Js and obv Qs

Talking to him is epically bad unless you know exactly how he's going to react. If he's mulling about actually folding, why would you say anything? For most people in general, you should never talk to them unless they are going to do the exact opposite of what you want and talking is essentially a freeroll

That was the worlds best river apart from hitting your flush or your ace (all draws miss, 6x counterfeits) so i would instinctively say c/c against most opponents but he seems to be pretty passive and I don't like that 5 people made it to the turn so I would likely c/f. I would never bet into him here unless I made it 2-3 players to the flop and it's one of the handful of people I play with that would hero me with kx.