V BB ($1000) I have about 20-30 hours played with V. He seems to be playing his best approximation of a GTO strategy with some clear adjustments against bad recs. I would say he tends to play a little more wide/aggressive/sticky than a perfectly balanced strategy would dictate. I can’t remember any hand histories where he has donk bet and it has gone to show down.

H UTG+1 $800. The two other pros at the table are either not seated or have already folded and the game is very soft so he might perceive me to be opening wider than usual in this spot.

OTTH:

H opens AdKh to $20 and V flats the BB.

Flop Kd6s4h

Pot:$40

H$25, V calls.

Turn 5s

Pot:$90

V leads $60 H calls.

River: Js

Pot: $210

V $140, H?

Seemed like a really close spot. I ran it through Pio which says to fold half the time and call half the time when we don’t have a spade and always call with a spade.

Exploitatively, I’m not sure if most players, even aggressive ones, are going to have enough bluffs once the spade hits for me to call profitably here. I still beat the pair+straight draw hands but his pair+flush draw hands/combo draws got there in addition to straights/two pair/sets that he will lead for value.

We could also consider raising turn, I don’t think I like that line here but it seems reasonable.

Hmmmm, if this is the first time he's donked into the aggressor then I'm inclined to think it's a very specific and small range of hands.

Let's think about hands he definitely wouldn't do this with as a part of an attempted balanced strategy: weak pairs including marginal top pairs don't make any sense to do this with vs an EP preflop raiser. Weakest hand I think he'd consider this with would be KQs for TP2ndK and then only if he thinks you're wide here for some reason (not sure 2 pros being out of hand is sufficient reason to think you loosen up considerably in UTG+1). If so that would be a one street value-bet ensuring he doesn't give a free card on the turn but I guess if called he's not looking to v-bet the river with any great frequency for danger you have AK.

But if you think about it if villain does that he's making it hard to balance either his turn checking range or his turn leading range. Obviously this is the ubiquitous downside of using leading ranges!

It isn't like he can have no turn checking range otherwise he's going to be very wide and weak on the river or have to have folded exploitably wide on the flop. However, he's flatting UTG+1 from his big blind so I don't see that he needs to be particularly wide preflop. Probably he is mostly set-mining with a few BWs/good-SC for balance but he could elect to flat premiums preflop here and actually have a near 100% turn lead. That would complicate things a bit. I'll stick with idea he's set-mining/speculating with good suited cards for now though...

So, if he's attempting GTO here, I think it's easiest for V to lead a completely polarised range on the turn and keep his reasonable top pairs in his turn checking range. His large (PSB) bet on turn lends support to this hypothesis - he'd feel compelled to go smaller if he was leading a merged range.

If he's polarised he's leading a mixture of draws and 2-pair+ Given the flop was fairly dry I think he has all of his flopped sets and draws plus any turned 2-pair+ and draws to choose from. So he can both lead a small polarised range and still have a handful of strong hands and draws left to X/R or X/C.

I'm putting his turn lead range as some but not all of: 87s(with BDFD on flop) 66 44 65s KXss A4ss maybe some AJss and ATss (flopped BDFD and BD-gutshots) 77 76s

The river completes the flush and V bets 2/3rds pot. PSB would maximize his opportunity to bluff and he doesn't do that. Maybe that's just because he realised it's pretty much impossible for him to have AsXx on this river with this line. Maybe it's because he's decided just to get exploitative here with his sets, straights and flushes and he's trying to make it a bit easier for you call with your KX?

However, as played it really looks quite likely that you could have the flush here. You would surely have raised turn with your sets so you can't have many of them. You'd have folded turn with your air and weakest pairs including some of your KJs/KTs perhaps.

Maybe you'd have raised turn with TPTK and AA but I suspect V realises you'll be reluctant to do that given you're 160bb effective and thus liable to become committed with 1-pair vs his 2-pair+ for a relatively large stack.

I expect he thinks you're reluctant to flat turn with just a 7X for only OESD when he could already have 87 and you'd be racing the FD, with which in all likelihood he is already ahead of you with high-card or by pairing the board. Basically his big turn lead tightens up your range considerably and he must know this.

So I think V puts you on a mixture of strong pairs and flushes on this river. If he thought you were wide preflop he has to think you've got close to equal numbers of flushes as strong 1pair. If he thinks you were tight preflop (more likely) he thinks you have more AA/AK/KQ than flushes.

Therefore I think you have to fold the river here because I don't think he'll bet less than 2-pair for value and even that's looking a bit dodgy for him if you were loose preflop. You face a call for 140 to win 350 so only need to be right 40% but if he thinks 1/3rd to half your range is flushes and rest is strong pairs I think he really never bets this river with any of (I presume) the small number of KQs hands he gets here with.

So although the solver says to flat when you have a high spade I think you're still losing too often to call. At most I'd call when I hold AxKs because that really will decrease the number of flushes he has with this line quite a lot. But even then you're mostly just bluff catching against villain's busted OESDs because he still isn't betting KQs/KTs on this river with much frequency at all.

Now alternatively if he flatted you preflop with his QQ+ AK as well as his other pairs and a few speculative suited hands it adds AA/KK and AK to his river betting range. Obviously that's 4 more combos that beat you and 6 where you chop. Without doing the tedious maths I'm going to guess that the low likelihood of this line preflop means these low combo counts make little difference to the final analysis and I'd still fold even if I thought V capable of this.

Thanks for the feedback. I agree with most of what you wrote. I don’t think he is leading many one pair hands without a draw to go with them. Leading Kx would be a little strange and it didn’t factor into the range I gave him, maybe some KsXs.

I don’t think he expects me to raise AK/AA on the turn. A few minutes ago I bet 962r 3 ways, rec called, and then rec donked a 5 turn and 3 river into me and I just called turn and river and I tabled KK. Rec showed Q8o. If we really want to go down the levelling rabbit hole this should make V more likely to lead bluffs and draws since by not raising I let him realize his equity cheaply.

I wouldn’t expect him to flat QQ+ AK very often as he 3 bets frequently and I haven’t seen him trap those hands.

One thing of note is the narrower his value range the more we should be calling. If he’s not betting two pair that would be a reason for us to call.

I would fold this 100% of the time (until I see him do this and get called by someone else and have a hand weaker than AK)

Yeah true - unless he's aware and balancing his turn leads and river bets accordingly in which case it makes little difference he's got a narrow value range. That would obviously manifest itself as you very rarely seeing him lead turns of course, which is what you report.

I guess the fact he is probably near certain you won't raise AA/AK on this turn means he deffo won't be betting hands you beat on the river. So you're right - your decision revolves around whether you will catch enough bluffs to make calling +EV.

With that in mind; what bluffs can he actually have? Assuming V was attempting to construct a balanced turn leading range while leaving enough strong hands in his turn checking range surely it has to be the case that he doesn't have a surplus of bluffs on the river considering the flush comes?

His turn semibluff leads are likely FDs and 7X. Is there any reason villain would prioritise OESDs over FDs in his turn leading range? I suppose he'd have all 77 in his preflop range and maybe some 76s so that's 6 to 9 combos that are tempted to play this way and maybe he doesn't get to the turn with as many FDs. Also he may feel that leading a decent FD is foolish in case you do raise him while an OESD isn't as strong so he's happier to use it to balance his leads with 2-pair+?

If he has 9 combos of 77/76s on the river, only a few XYss and 6 sets he's prepared to bet for value he could make a mistake and be slightly overbluffing here but it would be pretty close.

If we're expecting to play a ton against this guy I'd be more tempted to call so I get a handle on what he's leading but since it's a rare occurrence I'm not interested if I'm rarely playing this guy.

Also if for some reason you know you don't show up here with many flushes AND you are raising all your sets on the turn I think you've got to call at least some AK because AA/KJs probably are too few combos to defend and you'll get run over - but again this lead appears a rare occurrence so I don't mind overfolding initially.

It's a surprisingly complex spot and not an easy decision once you start thinking about it. Clearly I'm prone to overthink though lol! It's interesting MikeStarr's immediately for the fold and I'm highly tempted to put faith in his experience here.

Grunch:

What bluffs does he have? Two combos each of 75/85 suited (even if he calls pre all the time with these hands). Reasonably can assume he'd peel with all his Ax of spades pre.

Also reasonable to think he'd donk turn when he picks up spades (and all his big value) to get some folds from better aces or get value from Kx.

River sizing looks super value heavy. You'd expect bricked draws to bomb it as Kx shouldn't fold to this sizing (but again, what bluffs does he have?!). Its possible if V is a thinking, good player there's gonna be some frequency of him running a bluff with the nut blocker and under bluff the river. I don't think that frequency is very high IME.

The price is too good and people at 2/5 (even "pros") do weird ish sometimes. I call but I dont expect to be good all that often. That said, I could easily be convinced this is a fold in spite of the good odds. V's line is super strong, we look strong in this configuration, there are very few bluffs villain can have, and the river sizing is begging for a call.

Results: hero calls. V shows A4ss for pair+FD on turn and flush on river.

I’m curious what he’s doing with that hand on offsuit bricks.

This is close, can't think of many bluffs and we don't have in our hand. One minor suggestion, I have been incorporating checking on the boards like these on the flop. Very few really float this kind of flop at this levels, if you bet and hard to get three streets of value. Otherwise, as played, I grunch and call to see his hand.

If river is an offsuit blank his A4ss beats some of your busted flush draws but loses to your KX, pair+OESDs and pair+FDs. He's blocking a few combos of your AK and AA and it doesn't look like you have 2-pair+ so he could opt to bluff it given so little showdown value.

However he's obviously also blocking lots of your FDs so he's putting you on KX a lot here and although he blocks AK your KJ made 2pair on river and is not folding.

Also without the flush coming in you're only afraid of his sets and 2-pair so he's going to be unable to bluff very often or with a lot of success. I mean he can't expect you'll find AK/KQ much in that scenario, KJ can't fold and what other KX do you have from UTG+1?

I'd guess he has to X/fold A4ss on a blank river.

For value he's only got 6 combos of sets and 3 combos 65s and 3 combos 87s and then only if he leads all combos of 2pair+ on the turn. Therefore he doesn't need more than 5 combos of bluffs absolute maximum.

I'm really not sure which are his best hands to bluff on a blank river.

Devnull,

I think betting full range for a smallish sizing or checking some kings and some pairs like TT-QQ is solid. I think if I’m going to check some Kx I’m probably better off checking some AK but mostly worse kings that can’t go for three streets on a bricked runout. AK is such a monster hand on this flop, I’m only going to have 12-15 better combos of hands, it feels iffy to not bet. If I can’t go three streets with AK on brick runouts that probably means I should just be overbluffing.

This is based on your read that V understands balance, GTO etc. This is a great board to check against observant opponents. Good players are mostly folding here, not going to draw to a gut shot here and if they have middle or low pair like in this case, we still have two streets to get value. Also, depending on the turn, I would raise, if they bet.

Otherwise, agree with your strategy.

He should be check/folding river bricks unless he thinks you're A) regularly betting 77-QQ on the flop, and B) he is confident he can get mostly folds on the river.

If he thinks you're competent its probably suicide to bluff river unless he is able to overbet bluff AND overbet for value.

I would adjust how you are classifying players. This line is not indicative of a "Pro". V won close to the minimum taking this line...xr'ing turn and bombing most rivers seems much better...especially if you have TAG image that can fold TP OTR

His line isn’t bad but his sizings are.

Don’t raise turn.

I don't see donk leading turn as an optimal line...and I don't follow the logic, especially at LLSNL.

As the bb, what are we trying to accomplish by donking turn with p+nfd? We might have the best hand and we block combos of pfr barreling off...

It’s hard to explain without going beyond the scope of this forum but high level utg1 range vs bb defend range that particular turn improves bb equity more than utg1. Bb defends all 78s,45s,56s,55 plus lots of other silly things and donking turns where the oop player’s equity improves is something solvers revolutionized a few years ago.

I'm guessing on total bricks (which are basically just offsuit 9/T because any other card puts a one liner, flush or more two pair in your range), he mostly just gives up, being that his hand has undesirable removal and minuscule SDV. He also probably gives up on a K, 6 or 5 as well.

It’s a pretty good card for him range vs range. When I saw the turn card I actually thought to myself that there is a good chance he’s going to lead out.

It’s questionable if +1 is going to even have 65s/78s/44 and shouldn’t really have 45s. BB has a lot of two pair combos, 55, and straights that will want to lead here and he has plenty of high equity bluffs. He has plenty of incentive to bet these hands as well as I might look to check back this turn with a decent amount of my range.

If I’m cbetting almost full range on this board, I’m going to have a lot of trouble defending enough turns and rivers on this texture. It’s also a board where I’m not going to have a ton of hands to raise him for value so his donk is somewhat protected.

Welcome back!

I don't fold top pair to young GTO guys because they try too hard. 5 years ago this was a trivial fold on the river vs live 2/5 pros.

@Avarita what dont you like about his sizing? do you feel like he should just be bombing river with both value and bluffs?

I'm happily calling the river. If it was a rec or a tight nit, it could be a snap fold. And there's no reason to raise anywhere post flop (it's just over playing the hand).