Going over this hand post session I feel like I got way lost. Hoping to get some thoughts. 3/5 $600 max bet at Talking Stick.

Effective stacks with the ultimate villain in the hand are about $700. V1 and V2 open limp. V3 makes it $15 on the button. I have 9 9 in the SB. i think this is a pretty clear raise except I know it is highly unlikely based on past actions neither V2 or V3 are folding when they put money in. For that reason and because I’m OOP and it will be hard to play when the inevitable overcards hit the flop, I flat and it goes 4 way to the flop. I don’t love my preflop but I’m much more focused on my post flop play.

Flop ($60) is 910 q
I check and V1 checks. V2 donks $45 into about $60. V3 (the preflop raiser) doesn’t look happy but calls. I tank for a bit and raise to $175. I figure to have the best hand here quite a bit and I think my hand needs a lot of protection on this board. V1 folds. V2 tanks for quite some time looking very pained and then folds. V3 still looking displeased calls pretty quickly. Does anyone think this is a flat for me rather than a raise?

Turn ($450) 8

Not a great card obviously. As I’m riffling my chips trying to figure out what to do, V3 checks out of turn. Dealer asks if I checked and I said no. With that extra information, I did not think V3 had a straight. I thought, based on the flop call, that I still had the best hand and so I bet again, this time for $275. V3 called.

River ($1000) 3

Another crappy card. Hero?

Any thoughts on any of this would be much appreciated.

Thx

V has to call $130 into about $280 OTF? Would have liked quite a bit larger based on how soaking wet the flop is. And yes pre should be a raise.

Preflop is definitely a raise. Sure if the flop comes AKJ it's going to suck. But it might come 223. Even if it's something like 25K or 67J you can still maneuver with a single cbet and hope to take it down. Setmining isnt the end of the world either.

As played, x/r is good but it needs to be bigger. I'd make it at least $200, maybe even $250. Goal being to have an easy jam on the turn.

Turn is just WTFLOL. I guess he didnt make the straight with his turn call, so he has a flush? Pray that he makes an equally bad decision and just checks behind whatever his hand is on the river. For this reason I prefer to check the turn and play bluff catcher. Fish will accidentally turn their hands into bluffs all the time. I've seen players think they're value betting AA on runnouts like this. Next time take the free card & pray for a miracle.

1) are you a certain poster in here under another username? “They never fold so I won’t raise good hands” is basically what you said. Think about why that doesn’t make sense for a second.

Once you remember that if people don’t fold, you can value bet them to death, make it some exploitatively large size like $75 to go or more. You’re making excuses to passively chase.

Rest of the way is okay given live reads. Now check and decide vs a jam.


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You can raise really big pre if you’re worried about going 4 ways. There’s going to be a threshold where the limpers fold; you need to find it. The iso to 15 over 2 limps is not likely to be a monster.

I see people check out of turn with good hands all the time. I would check turn. As played check river for sure, planning to fold to any reasonable bet

X turn. What hands are you getting value from with a bet? QTs would likely have raised the flop, and 99 is blocking other 2-pr combos.

River - w/$235 left, are you going to fold to a bet getting ~6-1? Live read.

This is true, but you can't value own someone by raising if you don't know someone's range. If V3 is an OMC who hasn't raised a hand in 2 hours, then 99 is woefully behind his range, and it's behind a lot of LLSNL raising ranges. That said in a vacuum it's likely a 3 bet, especially with the limpers, but knowing nothing I'm not sure how people can be so certain about 3 betting. Heck, I've played with players who's entire limping range we're behind here.

Sure. But if someone hasn’t played a hand in 2 hours, and suddenly they are raising, we really wouldn’t entertain 3 betting. So it reads much more as “I’m trying to avoid big pots where I may end up in marginal spots”

Yet here we are in a marginal spot anyway. Except with more money in the middle.


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Thanks all. I knew not raising was a mistake and agree my reasoning was pretty weak but in this specific case it actually ended up working out (although I know that’s not the point). Also appreciate the suggestion to raise more on flop. For the turn, I bet because I thought I should charge some of the flush draw + pair combos and also thought there was some small chance of getting value from overpairs.

On the river, I did check and hoped for the best. V quickly checked back and showed AA and MHIG.

wise words.
so many times the hands that get posted here get so super hard to play because we didn't raise pre.
post flop you get to Cbet and you don't fully hate a raise

I have this theory that 3-betting is not nearly as high variance as people think it is. At the very least it tends to make decision making easier and earlier in the hand. In this case we would likely have got 4-bet, and it would have been a trivial fold. If he does a sneaky call of our 3bet, then on the flop he raises our c-bet and we jam.

Yup. Often times the lowest variance play is to just make it more. Variance happens when you let everyone realize equity.


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What you guys are ascribing is to "3bet or cbet to see where you're at". Sounds awful to me. The biggest reason we can 3bet regularly is that even preflop opening raises are completely ****ed up in live play. Players will open raise T6o from utg just to "mix it up". Or because thats their kid's birthday. Or the numbers from a 10k scratch-off ticket they won 5 years ago. Or the winning hand they saw on an episode of WSOP in a bar on mute one night. When we 3bet in live we're almost always doing it for value no matter how wide our range. If I 3bet someone with 76s yah, it's because I put them on 56o.

This is grossly oversimplified.

We aren’t raising to see where we are at. We are raising for value. But we have the ancillary benefit of defining ranges better. And also lowering the SPR. And also sometimes winning the pot immediately (which unless you have KK+ is a nice outcome).


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To see where we're at?

BTW I'm glad you barreled turn. I had originally came up with this wordy analysis of V's bad angleshot here but withdrew it because it went off the deep end. In hindsight now it I can explain it better.

V's angle doesnt do what an angle is supposed to do. Normally you would expect someone to bet out of turn and out of position here, because in doing so they get you to make a play against your own best interest. However on this board it's in your best interest to check to him, which he freely gives you the opportunity for by checking *in position*. He's helping you and hurting himself with his angle, which is why it made no sense so I couldnt quite figure out why he'd do it. (Now we just know he's bad).

It seems like you kinda picked up on that, at least for the fact that he has no reason to think he can get you to check so he must be phenomenally weak which enabled you to value bet. But as you can see I'm 2 paragraph's into an explanation on his "reverse angle shot" or whatever we could call it so I digress.

You don’t think 99 is strong enough to 3b?

For what it’s worth I didn’t think either at the time or after the hand was over that the out of turn check was an angle. It struck me as a nervous response to his knowledge that his previously strong holding was going down the toilet and there was nothing he could do about it (certainly not fold).

One amusing side note. The V who tank folded the flop claims he folded a flopped straight, the second nuts. There is absolutely no way he was telling the truth. I believe he folded a J, which turned a straight but no way he folded the second nuts to one raise on the flop.

Okay let’s put it this way

MP opens. You have QQ on the BTN and you can

1) call and encourage the fishy bb to call
2) 3 bet now

You decide to call. The flop is 663. Check to you, you bet 1/2 pot and the bb calls. Turn is a 9. He checks. Are you super stoked to go for big value here? He has literally every 6 in his preflop defend range.

Now instead you 3 bet MP, bet 1/2 pot on 663 and turn 9. Now, you’re wildly excited to go for value. MP has almost no 6x in his range and you’re only really losing To 99 (or 66/33 if he can have those).

It’s a lot harder to go for big value when you don’t charge them on earlier streets when your hand is likely the best.

So yes, we “see where we are at”. But it’s with a value hand. Like we 3 bet expecting to have the best hand more often than not if our opponent continues. I really don’t see what your issue is.


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if we fail to 3bet 99 to better define ranges just imagine how miniscule our 3bet range then becomes.
a colossally horrible result IMHO.

We also completely define our range.

Like how often does it happen where we open some hand and some OMC or loose passive 3 bets us. We just know they have KK or AA. And we just call with a hand like 77 planning to stack them if we hit the 7 and fold if we don’t.

Also, equity denial is a thing. When you don’t make opponents call bets, you let them realize all of their equity. A7o is a bad hand, but it’s still going to beat 99 30% of the time. It’s valuable to make that hand go away when you’re OOP. Or if you’re against a fish, to make it pay more (because a fish may peel a 4x 3 bet because gamble gamble).

Outside of this exact scenario (opponent has a hand that can value 4 bet us), there’s really not a downside to putting in the 3 bet.


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I agree with 3betting 99 pre, but not to define his range. We know his range. He's a live player. Unless he's an OMC or a crusher we have history with then his range is garbage. It's literally any suited hand, any unsuited connector +1 or more, all ace rags and all pairs, even AA. I am perfectly content to 3bet pre with 99 for value, not to strengthen his calling range. Live players are often *more* apt to call 3bets precisely to try and crack you with a weak hand. I've had players say "you went high so I went low" after felting my AK with 46o on a AT46x runout because they know I "only" play premiums. They think because I play big hands that makes me easy to play against because it's obvious I always have them beat.

In regards to your example HH, honestly I think V could have a 6 in either scenario. In fact I think he's more likely to have 6x in a 3bet pot after calling a cbet than he is in a single raised pot.

It was definitely an angle, it was his way of saying "lets check it down" by giving you free information that you can see the river cheap.

Where is this idea that we 3 bet to strengthen his range coming from? We’re 3 betting for value and to make the hand easier to play postflop


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^ I'm going to preface this with saying I am probably taking a rather pedantic tone and downright getting argumentative for no reason. But I still wish to add the following (emphasis on add. I'm not trying to be combative);

What I'm saying is "you're not wrong" but I find it to be a thought process that is short sighted. We can make any hand easier to play if we raise large enough that only a certain range of hands can call. I just dont like the idea of 3betting 99 to "narrow villains range" because all you're really saying is "i raised big enough that he folded all of his trash and likely will only continue with good hands". We dont want V's playing against us with good hands. We want to raise enough so that we take advantage of their bad hands. If we 3bet 20x his betsize with 99 and he calls, well we damn well have narrowed his range considerably havent we? Now we can avoid getting felted when all the money goes in on the flop.

And I know thats not what you're advocating, but I think in a way it almost subliminally is. Our decision to 3bet 99 is simply based upon a *likely* range of hands, most of which we beat. If we could see his hand we'd certainly adjust our sizing. As such we pick a generic bet size that stands a good chance of being called by worse.