Villain in this hand is a good reg. I don't have a ton of history with him but he seems like a solid TAG, plays smart, can mix in trickiness, etc. I did see him open JTo from EP once so he might be opening wider than a standard TAG. So far this session I have 3bet him twice. He folded once and folded to my flop cbet the other time.

Effective stacks $850
Villain opens to $20 from the HJ, I 3bet to $75, and he calls. My 3bet range here is roughly 99+, ATs+, AQo+, KQo, plus sometimes mixing in some AJo, suited aces, and suited connectors

Flop 886r ($150)
V checks, I bet $50, he calls

Turn 3 ($250)
V checks, I bet $125, he calls (looking back, wish I sized up here)

River J ($500)
V checks with about $600 behind. What is your betting range here?


I ran this spot in pio and discovered a massive leak of mine, interested in seeing others thoughts.

Something like JJ+, 50-60% of AJ. Obviously 88 the very rare time we have it.
I can’t have 66 here ever really.
For bluffs, 7-9s, mixing 99/10’s. Maybe triple barreling a few combos of A-Q.
Curious what is correct for this spot.

Probably QJ+

Not sure if I really have too many bluffs though.

Maybe A6 or 76. But idk. I'm not tripling with air on this board hardly at all.

This is definitely a turn to size up to at least 2/3rd pot with your entire range that wants to bet imo. QJ as a bet makes sense too I think like Spyu says. I don’t think I’d be betting KJ OTR though personally. I probably do bet AJ almost every time in less I pick up on a live tell or something. Agree this is a hard spot to have many river bluffs.

Sounds like both of you think V will be calling very wide on this river allowing for lots of value bets and not much bluffs.

I thought the opposite - that his range was heavily condensed to 88-QQ with the occasional 77 or AK. IMO he's snapping 88 and JJ in my scenario, and probably calling QQ while folding TT or worse.

I'm not exactly sure the best way to attack that range. In game I decided to go with a very tight value range and very tight bluff range, while checking back a bunch. However, after more thought/solver work I think the correct play is to bet (shove) almost our entire range.

Not sure what your inputs look like exactly, but if you shove your entire range I think it would be losing unless the player is pretty bad. Could be and your line is ok.

Wouldn't shove my entire range here, but given my assumption of his range on river (which could be very wrong considering both you and Xtra seem to think he'll call often), maybe we shove entire range except AK (blocks his AK), and hands with a 9 or T (blocks 99/TT).

Assuming turn completed the rainbow...

Jx, 8x and JJ+ for value.

97s, 75s, 54s for bluffs

Should make us decently balanced vs this guy.

Yeah like if I'm bluffing it's just so 77, 99, TT will fold and I'm not confident they will often enough

3-betting those suited gappers and 54s is pretty spewy unless you have a read that villain is opening with trash too often.

Baseline Button vs HJ my standard is something like:

Pure - QQ+, ATo, AKo, AQs+

After that it's pretty mixed but include:

44-JJ, AJo/AQo, Suited Broadways, T9s, J9s, Q9s, A9s, 54s-87s, A3s-A8s.

Most of these are split 50/50 between flat and 3bet except for 44-88 which are almost always flatting and mixing in like 10%.

I think the only suited gappers I have in my 3bet range are T8s and J8s, but that's only in one set up.

If he's opening JTo in EP my guess is his HJ open might be too wide as well.So probably could up the frequency of my mixed range to almost pure for a lot of hands vs this guy.

Since spew mentioned flatting: at 2/5 this might not be as big of an issue but at 1/3 I have no flat range first in after pfr. Rake+promo is so high ($7 combined) that I have a big incentive to just try to take it down pre or just let them take the blinds as the EV of seeing a flop and playing some poker gets hacked down considerably.

That's fair I always forget about the rake tbh.

Just going off OP as he mentioned he has suited connectors in his range.

At the point where villain is so wide that we want to three bet so often as to have 75s in our range why not have all suited Ax, Kx, and Qx for blockers to villains continuing/4-betting range (genuinely curious, I need to improve in 3-bet spots). Keeping to the suited combos will keep ratio of trash to value in better check and as we get deeper these things hit stronger flushes than 75s...

What did your solver work in PIO suggest for this hand?
What surprised you about it?

Pio suggested shoving the river wide (~80%). This includes shoving TT and any jack or better for value, and basically any other holding as a bluff aside from AK and some AQ. 99 and A3s check and take their showdown value.

I think it checks AK and 99 for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

I wasn't necessarily surprised at the results, but it did expose a leak in my game. That leak is that I am way too timid on the river in big pots when I have the option to check for free showdown.

Unlike Spy, I expected villain to fold his 77-TT here if I shoved (maybe calling TT, that one is close). Therefore I checked back with QQ since I was afraid of losing to 88, JJ, A6s, and didn't think I could get him to call with worse very often at all. I decided that I would shove JJ, KK, and AA here since those unblock QQ and I also didn't think I would have a wide bluffing range so I didn't look for a lot of value hands. I would have also shoved if the river were not a J.

After I checked back V showed TT and told me he would probably have called a bet. So obviously this felt terrible and I marked the hand for review.

I think the flaw in my logic on the river is that if I truly believe V will be calling so tight that he effectively only has the nuts, that means I should be bluffing super wide - like any two cards. If that is the case, then QQ immediately becomes a value shove again. All in all, I've learned that I need to be pulling the trigger at a higher frequency in these spots.

Ya, I was going to say in my initial post that V is going to have 77/99/10’s here a very large % of the time. Very rare that you’re beat here with QQ. Definitely better to just ship and let V guess what you had even if he folds.
What does PIO suggest for turn sizing?
I’m guessing that 1/2 pot and 2/3rd pot are fairly similar in EV, but I would assume it prefers the larger sizing here.

Pio prefers sizing up to 2/3 and my half pot bet isn't really an option that is used (although the EV is similar). I should have sized up given the conditions (uncapped vs capped range, my range is much stronger and nuttier). It also sets us up well for a river shove. If I had bet 2/3 on turn and he called, I think I find a shove on the river here no problem.

This smaller turn bet sizing leading to bigger mistakes on the river is absolutely a leak of mine that I’ve been analyzing and working on as well so I appreciate this thread Colombo.
I might have made the same mistake in this spot, and mentally cursed myself immediately after showdown in your shoes.

Why only 1/3 bet on the flop? Seems too small... like you are trying to buy the pot cheap. That keeps his range wide open. Turn bet also too small... as you acknowledged.

The thought I would have in his shoes would be why did you bet so small on river and turn, and the shove/over-bet the river? That's are really polarizing bet, so either you have AA, KK or 88 (13 combos)... or a bluff. If the bluff range is only ever AK then there are already more bluff combos in your range, than nutted ones.

If the flop and turn bets are a bit bigger, then your river shove will be less than pot-sized, and so your perceived range of value hands will be wider, making it harder for him to call with marginal holdings (77, TT etc). Plus your bigger bets will apply more pressure to him throughout the hand - as he should know that a river jam is coming eg...

850 - 75 from pre is 775
50% on flop is $75. Villain now has 700 behind
66% on turn is 200 into a 300 pot. If V calls he has 500 behind.
River pot is 700... and you're going to shove 500.

I don't know much about what Pio does, but can you re-run the calcs and see what it suggests about the flop bet, as this seems to be where the problem starts?

And why not go for a delayed c-bet on this board? Checking flop will stop you from having to commit to a 3-barrel in a marginal spot.

This is a Button vs HJ 3 bet pot. On a dry board like 886r

The 3 bettor will have a distinct range advantage because he will have more and better over pairs. 8x and 88 is about equal and the caller will have more 66.

So at the very top of the range the caller has a very slight advantage, but as you move down the range the 3bettor dominates pretty heavily.

So in this scenario the 3 bettor wants to bet flop at a very high frequency, pretty much 100%.

When you have a range advantage and are also betting a high frequency you prefer a smaller sizing around 1/3 pot. This is because your range doesn't need much protection and it puts the caller's range in a tough spot. It's easier to make a mistake.

The caller can't really raise anything.

By betting big the caller has an easy decision and you are only getting continued by the top of his range. This also leaves you less flexibility on later streets.

What does the solver say about villain's range for calling three streets

I get lost defending against 3-bets as it's so much money and I feel like a station just paying down with TT or JJ.

Ok.... but then wouldn't this logic be even more true for the turn? That Jack has to hit Hero's range much more than Villain's, as Hero will have AJ in his range way more. It seems everyone is arguing that OP should have bet bigger on the turn. Why would you bet bigger here.... surely that will reduce Villain's range for the same reason as on the flop?

To put it another way - I think your point is absolutely valid, if we look at the flop c-bet in a vacuum. But this hand is about 3 barrel bluffing. And this bet sizing doesn't set Hero up for credible turn and river bets.

The turn card changes nothing so the ranges that were there on the flop are very similar on the turn with the OOP player's range being slightly more narrow. So sizing up doesn't make as much sense.

The river J improves the 3 bettor more often than OOP.
As he will have KJo, AJo that OOP should not have from PF and also OOP isn't calling 2 streets with stuff like QJs, JTs, KJs, AJs.

So it benefits the 3 bettor to size up both for his value range and bluff range.This puts hands like TT/99 in a difficult spot and in a position to make a mistake. Which is ultimately what you're trying to accomplish with your bet sizings.