Villain is one of the biggest whales at the cardhouse. Young, asian male who frequently gambles and calls wide. I remember a month ago he was making huge bluffs with nothing constantly, but it seems like he's less aggressive now but still plays way too many hands. He has a huge stack of $5,000 now. Not sure how he accumulated these as I just sat down an hour ago. Villain knows Hero and probably views him as pretty tight that mostly shows down premiums.

The UTG straddle is on for 20, and about 1/2 the table is doing either $10 or $20 straddles. The game is very splashy and everyone except me is $2k deep. I am about $1050 to start the hand.

Villain in UTG + 1 calls. 2 more callers. I look at KK in the SB. I make it $150. Only Villain calls.

Villain limps the majority of range and is probably not balanced.

Flop ($370). T98

Hero bets $200
Villain insta jams all in.
Hero ?

Some potential live tells: It was strange because after I bet, I didn't even notice he said all in. It was like he basically said it the millisecond I placed the chips in. He looked pretty comfortable, smiling and saying "fold, if you fold I show one...." Honestly, I'm not one to place too much emphasis on live reads and normally just use it as a tipping point if I'm on the fence of my overall strategy.

I bet flop because while Villain definitely has range advantage (I would say all 2 pair and sets and straights), he will also have hands like JT-AT, A9s, A8s, A7s, AJs, 97s, 87s, J9s, Q9s, KQo... In my mind these hands seemed like a lot more combos than his nutted hands, so I decided to bet to get value, deny equity, and rip safe turns. Facing a jam though, I was pretty clueless on how to proceed against this villain.

What are your guys' thoughts?

So if this is an accurate range against him (and really only you can know), then you obviously have to call getting over 2-1. Smells mostly like a pair+str8 draw type hand to me (like JT or 87) more than a made hand, especially since he shoved instantly over your bet.

starting hand with 50 BB

once we bet $200 on flop we put in %30 of stack

I can't fold after putting in %30 of my stack he can have a pair plus draw or random wired hands.

(geeze this game plays big)

Well we cant fold so only option is call.

Otf i like a x/jam

call, nh. This is why you bring multiple bullets to the poker room

Looks like you are under rolled for this game if you are debating a fold here.

Should be a pretty easy call.

You will lose this hand a lot and probably feel silly when you're up against some ******ed 2 pair or straight but you will win it enough and he will show up with random trash like the above mentioned hands enough that you can't fold.

Buy in more

+1

Not a fan of c-betting this board. Stacks are shallow you can GII over turn and river if need be and board doesn't get worse than it already is.

His range is so wide that we just can't be scared to be outflopped not even on this board. Meanwhile an A,Q,J,7 or 6 all make the board significantly worse for us and possibly for him as well if we want to get paid off.
Meanwhile he has a bunch of 1 pair hands, and the majority of his range has at least a gutshot, so he should be calling really wide here also.

Checking seems like a major mistake.

We arent scared of being outflopped.

His betting range is wayyyy wider than his calling range. All betting does is condensing his continuing range to the point where he should be the equity favorite, folding out his bluffs/airballs and folding out his stabs

snap. gg

OTF, depending on how aggro he is (does he have a check back range here?), we can c/r or lead.

good sizing pre.

if you're rolled for it and they let you, buy in deeper.

I'm shot-taking right now so I don't feel that comfortable buying in for more than 200BB at a time, but this game is so good that once I have a comfortable bankroll I will probably be buying in for at least 300BB.

I see a lot of people advocating for check jam. In general, when do we like to c-bet our QQ/KK/AA in these 3 bet pots OOP, when do we elect to check call, or check jam? I can imagine some factors are:

- We check when the board favors the calling range of villain (like this one does).
- We check when villain is bluff heavy and has a lot of middling hands/air that he will bet. (on this board, AT,JT,87s for example).
- We check jam instead of check call when stacks are shallow.

Am I missing something else?

On 1098 I kind of like a check with my entire range. You'll have plenty of check/give up hands, sure, but this is not the board that you want to mess with when you have air. This is the nightmare flop to see as an oop 3 better, because even though you're likely ahead with a hand like AA, your opponent likely has a lot of equity, and will be difficult to range while he's just calling bets. If it checks through, whatever, bet brick turn & river. It's a much better situation than bet/bet/check river and face a big bet/jam just as a general scenario.

Edit: It's the sort of spot where you don't really have to check/shove, you can check/bet enough to just commit him, which really sucks if he has a hand like an open ender. In a general sense it's always better to be in situations where you're the one putting someone in, rather than trying to decide whether or not to call when someone shoves on you.

Are you essentially saying when villain's betting range wider than calling range, we should look to check call or check jam in order to induce bluffs? In this particular example, is the wider betting range a function more based on the exact board (T98) or villains spewy nature? Both? Would you check jam this board readless still?

Looks like a snap as described.

Something like that, although that’s not an absolute or exactly what’s happening.

Basically if you bet here and he folds, he’s folding out all his garbage and hands that have low equity or even zero equity vs your hand. He continues with good hands, which in total should be at least 50% equity vs your range and i wouldnt be surprised if his continuing range otf vs your cbet is higher than 50%. I could check pokerstove but im on my phone atm.

Let’s say you check. He still has all the trash cards in his range, and he will bet them at a decently high freq (even if he is loose passive let’s give him like 15-35% bet frequency with air like AQ, SCs, Ax, KJs, KQs, or even hands like 44-88). Most of that range would fold vs your cbet but now he is making a mistake by assuming you have nothing here when you check (which is very commonly true vs most players, they have AK or AQ that is checking to give up).

Okay now his “good” range i described earlier like sets two pairs straights Re going to bet anyway if we check. So we lose the same amount vs his value hands, but now we also made money off his bluffs. We kept ranges wider.

We also make money off bluff catchers more if we check. Let’s say he has 44-88. They are hardly calling 2 barrels, let alone 3. If we check and he checks back and we get two blanks ott/otr, we are almost always getting paid. How do i know? It happened to me all the time back then, and people esp live hate folding vs lines that make no sense and they “put you on AK”. Ive seen people even snap call 22/bottom pair in these scenarios otr.

This also creates a metagame where you’re tougher to play against since when you check it doesnt mean you are weak, people are less inclined to bluff you and you can realize more free equity in future hands out of fear of you “trapping.” Overall, your opponent will always make more mistakes vs you if you are checking some overpairs here. Just think about it. Everyone should be betting their overpairs here as a “standard” right? Even dumb fish should realize this at some decent frequency, and definitely decent/BE regs knkw this and make less mistakes vs you than say if you check

Wrt vs unknown i just x/c otf and going with the hand on most turns if they bet again, donk jamming river on a blank if they check. Vs this splashy player i am snap x/jamming. Also, just because you check doesnt mean our opponent is going to default bet flop jam turn at 100% freq and put us in an insanely tough spot 100% of the time. I imagine it’s more like 20-30%. Therr are other decision branches that can be made that can gain us a lot of EV

Yea, higher betting frequency is due to the nature of the board as well as him being splashy. Just imagine a A73ss board and a 1098ss board 3-way pot, BB checks you check CO action on BTN. Which board is BTN more likely to bluff with air and/or bet thinner?

This makes a lot of sense. Now, my question is, it seems like on the flop someone's betting range will always be wider than their calling range. Unless they are literally extremely passive who will never bluff, why do we sometimes c-bet if it just narrows their range down to hands that have good equity against us? Why not check 100% of the time to keep ranges wide? Is one of the main reasons if we have a 3 street value hand, checking allows opponent to check back and keep pot smaller?

usually the reverse. player and board texture dependent.

we mostly c-bet because
a) sometimes we fold out better (direct immediate benefit to us)
b) even when we're ahead, it's good for us to take down pots without showdowns when we whiff. to understand why, consider how hands would play out if we always checked it through when we whiff. our opponents are then able to fully realize their equity by seeing further streets for free, and only put money in when they make a hand, essentially playing perfectly against us.
c) balance. if we only continue flops when we hit, our hand is always face up. this also opens us up to correct bluffs, essentially flipping the scenario and allowing our opponents to easily win with inferior holdings.

there are some other factors for c-betting but these are some core ones.

The $20 straddle is going to make this game play enormous. I know a lot of posters on here would still say this is a 200bb effective pot, but I happen to disagree with that. I mean let's face it, you raised a few innocent limpers to $150 … that's not a 2-5 game anymore. Even players who only care about the money amount of their decisions should quickly realize that pots are growing very huge very quickly due to the pf raise/3-bet sizes adjusting to the straddles. Consider your 1k stack in this spot to be ~50bb's.


I like a flop c/r, but betting is just fine. Your decision is as simple as assigning villain a range and seeing if you have enough equity to call. Does villain raise or open limp hands that would make a set here? What about QJ? His preflop tendencies will help you a great deal in assigning him a reasonably accurate range otf.


It's $700 to win a pot of $2165, so you only need 32% equity to break even on your call. Even if villain can have all sets and all combos of QJ here(which I doubt because he'd prob raise pre with TT/99, QJs) he can surely have several exotic hands that pump up your equity enough to make the call.

I don´t think you necessarily have to buy in deeper. You actually get some advantages playing short.

You do have to have a few buy ins on you though everytime you play a game like that.

truly good short stackers are like unicorns. there are certainly inherent advantages when short stacking a deep/action game in particular. i generally assume anyone posting on here isn't aware of them/using a winning short stack strat.

i also think most sophisticated winning players are going to have a higher winrate playing deep. exception is very good players who have a level of self-awareness where they've discovered they just don't like and/or aren't suited for full stack play, and enjoy the dynamic of short stacking.

99% of the time people are sitting short because either (a) they're underrolled for the game or (b) they're thinking about the game poorly (for example in terms of booking wins or losses or how many buy-ins down or up they are). or both.

best scenarios for short stacking are jacked up games higher up that you're shot taking in IMO.