mdelore: I'm getting 8:1 on the call, and I have 4:1 in raw equity. Furthermore the hand has great postflop playability, which means that most of the time I will either flop a monster and be able to take an aggressive line (and negate my positional disadvantage) or I will flop nothing and easily fold. For that reason I would rather have 8Ts versus ATo in early position, even though ATo has more raw equity against the table's range

Just ignore the fold pre comments.

Completing SB here is completely fine.


I really prefer a C/R on this flop with this hand. We are okay piling money OTF with this hand and we are just soooo often gonna get called in multiple places when we lead flop.

Turn is really just a sigh C/F vs 2 players OOP. We could continue against some obnoxiously small sizings but in this spot OOP when the board pairs we should just dump it. We're so rarely going to get paid when we hit our flush (probably get paid on straights), but beting OOP river is just gonna check though so often that it's really just fine to dump on the turn.

Really don't like the river lead, I don't think we would lead 78 here (we shouldn't even have 78 unless it's 78cc) Our line just looks completely unbelievable to anyone with some problem solving ability.

"Fit or fold" applies to PPs, not suited one-gappers. In fact, most of your "good" flops are going to be middle pair, gutshots, or flush draws, all of which will require you to put in more money with hands that are rarely drawing to the nuts.

Consequently, I have no problem completing with a hand like T8s, in order to possibly flop a genuine "monster," but I'm not calling a straddle/raise with it in the sb.

I'm never folding 8c10c pre there for so little.

I totally agree with bigdaddycope, I butchered the hand on the river and probably also the turn.

The posters advocating to fold 8cTc for 8:1 pot odds are part of what makes this forum so tedious at times. These comments are based in the intellectually uncurious position that the Hero has poor postflop skills and an inability to navigate OOP.

Or to the contrary, too many people think too highly of their own abilities and always feel that they can overcome the disadvantage of terrible position. In most cases, they don't. I don't think it's too terrible to limp from the SB here but I mostly advocate a fold because in my own experience I play in games where straddlers are relentless in attacking and raising when they do so. Maybe that's not common in a lot of other games.

I also referenced the river as a bad spot to lead/bluff , as it's likely only folding out the bottom parts of Vs range. Now that results have been posted it appears that's exactly what happened, as the bluff folded out 9x and supposedly only because the V had another player still to act behind him. It's really not a credible line, offering a good price against an uncapped V.

I think “Fold Pre” would be a great name for a band!


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... then again maybe nobody would go to their gigs or buy their music in fear they would be too tedious and boring no matter how theoretically sound their compositions are.


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Hmmm. I'm not really sure if I like bluffing the 5. Definitely a lot of cards I like bluffing but this isn't a great run out to bluff. I feel like the off suit 6 is the nut worst card in the deck for us and the 5 is just as bad. Seems to reduce folding equity by a lot and all the full boats get there, river completes the straight to 78 and people can get pretty stubborn with top pair when they don't see a flush come in. A good player can easily call this run out with a q

I also think I prefer re raising the flop and it's possible folding the turn is better than calling

On the other hand it's possible we should bluff every river. It depends on how good the opponents are but our line here looks exactly like a whiffed club draw to a good player imho and their ranges seem too strong. Maybe just give up here is best on river

Just a terrible run out for us imo

It's worthwhile to lay out all the assumptions in detail:

Positional structure is H --> V1 --> V2.

We know V2 has a lot of air in his river range. This is because of the following precise read (stated essentially in my OP): V2 does not slowplay his big hands -- he bets/raises big when he has 2-pair, trips, or greater. Therefore, V2 has no 6x hands, and no boats in his river range. His river range consists primarily of Qx, JT, 78 (which got there), and all possible combos of busted club draws.

I did not mention this read in OP, but I do not have any reason to suspect that V2 is a calling station -- his poor play is really only due to his tendencies to stack off with good, non-nutted, hands and the fact that he always buys in to this game super-deep (for 3k at the minimum). We can only expect him to have QT,Q9, or Q8 in this scenario (he raises QJ+ preflop), and I think he folds QT or Q8 at least some of the time.

Based on the above reads, we can expect V2 to fold >70% of his river range.


The further point, which is evidenced by the results of this hand, is that V1 is sandwiched between two players. It is reasonable for him to assume that both players either have draws or are trapping, and he has to be worried about being beat in either spot. We can expect a bluff to fold out the bottom of his range here -- this would be Ax, and 9x. I have no idea whether we could expect him to fold his Qx.

I think the question as to whether this may be a profitable bluff boils down to V1s tendencies, as he is the unpredictable variable in the equation. We need the bluff to work >30% of the time -- if we can we get V1 to fold 50% of his range in this spot, it is guaranteed to be a solid spot to bluff. If that's the case, by basic probability we know BOTH V1 and V2 will fold at least 50% * 70% = 35% of the time.

Of course, none of this was going through my mind at the table -- I just made an idiotic play that luckily worked out for me. Still, I think this is an interesting spot which presents an opportunity for a creative bluff.

Bolded may be true when IP. From the SB, it doesn't apply nearly as much.

BTW, I don't like your bluff. You rep only 87 as a value hand and not all the combos either (given you led the flop). I think your river bet gets called way more than 1x in 3.5.

Or maybe the purpose of this forum should be for us to have interesting discussions about hands rather than berating OPs for their preflop hand selection. A few posters, who I won't name, have the tendency to be incredibly condescending in too many of their replies.

It's true that a small portion of the HHs posted to 2+2 include very marginal preflop decisions (or possibly -EV). As long the preflop play is +EV, I think it is worthwhile to discuss how to realize that positive expectation -- i.e., discuss the post-flop play. I really don't see the value of the barrage of "fold pre" comments whenever the OP opens a marginal hand UTG.

Math seems about right but the red 5 is just such a bad card to bluff. I just don't think I would fold Qx as the bb here. It's a great bluff catch spot imo

Jennifer Lawrence okay gif