I like how you picked the spot then, and what you put weight on. But i dont like doing it with a weak hand as 78 off. If you are gonna 3 bet that light, chances are good that you are gonna overdo it.

Also if the guy is calling alot of 3 bets, that makes us want hands with more playability- not less. If the guy is opening alot AND folding alot when facing 3 bet, i could see the argument of going with almost any two because you gonna generate so many folds pre.

But when the guy is sticky and peels the 3 bets we want to pick hands with good equity/good playability post.

Thanks for the kind words as well, DEK.

Anyways, I agree with Petrucci about 3 bet buffing a fit/fold opponent. We also have more incentive to as more dead money emerges. I would also add the category of player that will station the 3 bets and then will play fit/fold post flop.

I disagree about using offsuit broadways as your starting point for 3 bet bluff candidates. In theory we just want to be folding hands like ATo/KJo IP, except in cases of BTN v CO. I would just use a linear range, which makes the lines a bit blurred as to whether we're bluffing or value 3 betting...Essentially I have next to zero flats from every position besides BTN and BB.

Suited broadways, suited wheel A's, and pairs work best; the later in position you and the opener are, the wider you go. For example, HJ v LJ in theory you 3 bet partials of 66-TT, all JJ+, all AQo+, partials of A4s, all A5s, all ATs+, KTs+, and QJs, and partials of KQo. However, CO v HJ you 3 bet partials of 55-99, all TT+, partials of A3s-A4s, all A5s, partials of A9s, all ATs+ and KTs+, partials of QTs, all QJs, partials of AJo, all AQo, and all KQo. Note: every hand that isn't mentioned is a fold in theory.

CORRECTION: V1 was not an OMC. I misused that term. I understand why there was shock I would 3B an OMC. I don't know how else to say it, for about the 12th time, I was wrong. I get it. He was loose passive. Regardless, he's out of the hand after the flop.

Also something a few of you misunderstood, when I tanked on flop to V3's bet, it was not because I didn't know what to do, I was trying to convince V3 I didn't know what to do. One of my poker sayings is that I never lost money because I paused to think. I did want to take the time to process all the possible hands V3 might play. I put him on 3 kinds of hands:
1. Big Ace - this is the most likely and he has no idea how far behind he is. If I call, he'll bet again because he thinks he's ahead of my JJ-KK type hand. If I raise, he might think his Ax is behind my AK of even AA.
2. I do consider he might have played something like QJ but he's tighter than that. The A on the board also reduces his diamond hands. While I decide it's unlikely he called my rare 3B of $65 with a diamond draw, his bet sizes do smell of a flush value bet. If I'm wrong, a raise costs me, if I'm right, a call probably gets a river bet out of him.
3. He has air and bluffed to what appears to be my fear of the ace. If that is the case, he gives up if I raise and he might fire a third barrel if I call.

In the moment a call seemed best in all 3 cases. I might be wrong, but I did have a thought process. I had called his $100 flop bet; I called his $150 turn bet.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The River

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A772T

The river has no potential to change the hand, IMO. I'm fairly certain he didn't bet the flop and turn with TT.

H - checks and gets the expected response.
V3 - Bets $250 into a $717 pot. He has <$250 behind.

Do I fold, call, or push him all in? I will tell you that this decision was why I posted this hand.

Allin

Yeah, shove

No one ever folds until you have it. Then suddenly everyone is laying down top pair by the turn. That’s clearly how our live opponents play, right?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

OK, I posted this hand for two reasons

1. someone commented in another thread that people only post losing hands. Well, not this time. I won the hand, but I lost my cajones when V3 bet the river.

2. I've got to get over my River City Blues and maybe a little public abuse might help. I was so sure he had a big ace I called his flop and turn with confidence. I had induced his every action just as planned. But his river bet, which I had expected all along, suddenly made my knees weak. I started to doubt my read. Having written this hand out, I can't see why I went chicken guano in the moment. I should have pushed all in.

I got to thinking I'm about to end my poker day and where I would stand if I lost the hand after a shove. This is a terrible weakness in my game. I know I've left way more on the table by not value betting the river than I have lost due to bad read value bets.

He instantly showed an ace but left his kicker covered. I, with great relief, stupidly and instantly flipped up my winner. So I never found out what his kicker was to give me an indicator of how likely he would have called an all in. Clearly he didn't have AK.

He was sure I had an ace when I called the river and pleaded with the table to understand his thought process. For the next several hands he kept asking players and the dealer to agree that he couldn't possibly have known I had 3B pre with such a poor hand.

I finished the next orbit and went home aggravated with myself that I had left almost $250 sitting on the table without even trying to reach out and grab it.

That’s pretty unlikely. I don’t mind your 3b but bet the flop. Also not sure why he can’t have AK.

If you mean it is unlikely V1 would have donked the flop, I can only tell you that is based on about 5 hours observation of the specific player, not a theoretical player.

If you mean V1 could have AK, it is immaterial because he folded after V3's bet and before my action.

If you mean V3 could have AK, yeah, maybe. Based on his emotional comments after the hand, when I called his river bet he definitely thought we would be in an Ax kicker war. So it looked like he had some fear of being out kicked, thus no AK. I could be wrong and he was thinking he was going to slow rolled me, but I didn't see any sort of that characteristic in him.

I think you played it fine postflop but I don’t see why you would have bothered 3betting this hand to begin with.

I also could have gotten behind a bet on the flop or a lead on the turn or river.

I think calling the river was correct. You didn't leave any money on the table.

If you shove, it's almost impossible for anything worse than a flush to call. And while you're probably right that he doesn't have many flushes or boats in his range, he does have a few. So since you're only getting called by worse, raising is throwing money away.

Yet another reason you should have c-bet the flop.

In my mind, the only two pre options are fold or 3B. A call with 78o is almost always going to have to be a fit or fold hand. It took me a long time to realize I was losing more than I was winning chasing fit or fold type hands, but now I'm a believer.

Based in part on some abuse I took around here, I wanted to analyze my calling hands. Over a few sessions I did some counting and kept notes on my phone. Playing fairly tight ranges but a little open bluffing when I saw good opportunities, I am winning about 75-80% of my opens because most of the people I play with have a fit or fold mentality. My c-bets after a 3B are taking down the pot around 75% of the time.

I won only between 10 - 15% of the hands that I called with a plan of pure fit or fold and maybe 20% if you include bluffs or semi bluffs. The fit or fold wins were not big enough to compensate for all the folds.

Caveat: it was a small sample size and I couldn't take sufficient notes on the fly to categorize in enough detail to make this scientifically valid, but it is a good indicator for me and my style of play. YMMV

So 78o is not a hand I'm looking for to do a bluff 3B, but with a nitty table image, 2 players I've already proven I can push around, $30 in the pot I can probably take down, only one decent player after me on BU, and the blinds are more interested in the football game than their cards, it looked like a good opportunity.

Sorry, but responding to other people - post flop is a huge leak and I really don't see how one can argue that this post flop line is optimal. Also, that's not true that the only hands that call a river crai are flushes; you're leaving so much on the table @ LLSNL with that mentality.

Also, one more thing, which I just mentioned in the "1/2 Live Can I ever fold here" thread to you...I wouldn't be looking for hands to cold call raises with, except when in the BB or BTN. I used to do this all of the time, and after getting a lot of experience online I noticed how much money this burns. Now, online plays so much differently than live, but there is a lot of merit to this strategy. I would try implementing exclusively a 3 bet or fold strategy from UTG +1 to CO and SB, and since you're still learning some of the fundamentals of LLSNL I would just err on the side of folding if you're unsure between whether to 3 bet or fold pre.

I realize you are talking to me, but I'm unclear what point you are addressing. Was it my last post in this thread where I said 78o was a 3B (under precise conditions) or fold? Or are you still on my OP where I didn't bet the flop? or something else? Your comment about "crai" seems to be responding to a different poster because I thought I made clear I think I made a $250 mistake by not crai. Yeah, he had just bet $250 into a flush board, if I crai, he's got less than $250 to call into a pot that is now almost $1500 and he thinks there is a good chance his Ax is better than my Ax.

First part was responding to other posters, second part was when you were referring to analyzing your calling hands

On a paired board with a potential flush, my experience is that you're not going to get paid off by very many AK-AQ type hands here. You're way, way more likely to get called by better than to be called by worse. You must be playing in some very soft games.

I would agree with you more often than not, that you won't get paid, but I might have gotten paid with this hand and I didn't give V3 an opportunity to make a bad call.

I had a good read on V3 and I didn't take a shot at getting the rest of his stack. If I was beat by a flush, I was going to be beat by that flush whether I bet or not. So really it was just a <$250 bet as to whether my read was right or not.

But of course, it's so easy to say that now, away from the table, with no money at risk. It wasn't easy in the moment.

Pre is a fold, but you aren't likely to be losing that much over the long term by playing junky hands like this in this particular spot.

The flop is a clear cbet with lots of hands we can get value from. However, since we didn't cbet, I'd consider making a polarizing raise. Villains will have a hard time putting us on trips here.

If that's true, then the river is not a raise.

I''m sorry, no disrespect intended, but I haven't read enough of your posts to have a judgment on how much value I should place on your advice. So I'll ask you the same thing I asked Petrucci, if you wouldn't 3B bluff there, do you ever 3B bluff and if so, when and why?

All of you who said bet the flop might just be correct in that a smallish bet could very well have been raised by V3 and we would have a greater chance to GII. OTOH, if I called his flop raise, he might have feared the flush turn and shut down completely. If I reraised his flop raise, he might have feared I had the 3rd and 4th A and folded. It's hard to say.

As I've thought about this hand over the last few days, one argument that can be made for me to flop bet is that with that board and those players, I'm 100% certain to c-bet that flop with anything except for AA and 7x. Any legit 3B pre hand such as 88+ or AXsu has to c-bet there in the hopes of ending the hand.

If I was playing in my reg game where everyone knows me well and about half of them are very aware players, I would most likely have c-bet. Against a table of unknown, very casual, rec players, I still think the flop check made me money.

Regardless, the pre 3B nor the flop check were my biggest mistakes in the hand; failing to raise the river was.

Actually, my statement is incorrect. Slightly misspoke. Just have to be good 50% of the time when our raise is called.