At this depth, not raising flop with his 3s4s type hands makes sense. That lets him do things like this. He could also have delayed with stronger made hands. That assumes he is a strong thinking player though.

Sent from my SM-G900P using 2+2 Forums

Some argument could be made for flatting $15 pre with KK OOP and deep. Its equity will hold up quite a bit even when 3 ways and it doesn't improve very frequently. If 3betting, I'd go slightly larger than pot ($60 or so).

OP, what bluffs do you have in your 3b range here? What's the bottom of your 3b for value range? Knowing these would be very helpful. I mean, do you ever have middle set here? Top set? Bluffs?

I'd recommend betting your entire range smaller on this flop. You're WA/WB (very likely ahead) and V's likely drawing to 5 outs or less, sometimes 12 outs with AXss. Betting $40 here instead of $80 creates the appearance of less dead money and may disincline V to bluff raise and thus play his range more truthfully. You'll potentially get more peels from 77-99. It also makes your potential errors smaller in relation to your stack size. Basically, I see no point in blowing up this pot with one pair, OOP, against a seemingly competent V. This, of course, is all contingent upon you having a somewhat balanced 3b range when deep. FYI, I like 3b with T9s in a spot like this more than I like it with KK.

As played, on the turn you're in a pickle. It just comes down to your perception of V. If he is bluffing and you flat his raise, will he continue bluffing the river unimproved? With what hands will he be raising for value? Are there any worse hands raising for value against your perceived range AT? What semi bluffs does he have, if any, that call flop and raise small on the turn?

Against most people, this is just a fold because no one bluffs often enough to try to catch them in a huge pot.

Preflop: I think flatting is fine, if I 3b I'm bombing it to $65-70 though, you probably get flatted almost always unless V has a trash RIO hand like KTo or something.

Flop: Against a competent player I'm going around half pot maybe a little bigger with my entire range this deep. I would expect V to raise with a set or unlikely 2p since there is a FD on board.

Turn: I kind of want to lead for $10 and 3b if V raises...if turn is a total blank I don't hate going broke vs V's range of mostly top pair/77-99/JJ/draws. If he flopped a set well that sucks for us, but that's the risk of playing 3b pots OOP with big pairs. If V flats the turn we know we have the best hand going to the river and can decide from there.

As played I'm tempted to stuff it here, very weird raise size from V with a value hand, I would expect even 2p or a set to go more like $315 to force you into a shove-or-fold spot most of the time. This seems more like a raise designed to get you to check the river and allow him to bluff shove or check back rather than facing a third barrel with a hand like Axss that turned a pair or gutterball, or allow him to dictate size of the river bet when he gets there. So yeah, all in.

Preflop: I'm flatting. 3betting is just going to most likely turn our hand face up, deep, OOP to a competent player; the SPR would be a non-horrendous 10, although Villain can still make us play for stacks. If we flat, we keep both our ranges wide, create a huge SPR where we have lots of room to move, etc. This will probably invite the limper along, but this ain't a horrendous result.

GjustcatchinguponthisweekendsthreadsG

On the flop:

Well, looks like I'm the only one who likes flatting preflop. (ETA: ok, looks like a couple of others do to, I've been grunching this whole hand)

BTW: What does Villain think of us? I mean, is he putting us on exactly what we have here a large percentage of the time? Is this a good thing postflop or a bad thing?

Anyhoo, SPR is 9 on the flop. The Villain can enable us to play for stacks if he wants with 3 streets worth of betting. He can also put us in a hugely tough situation by raising any street or draw. I would probably check the flop and go from there.

GoutofstepwiththeforumG

On the turn:

Bottom line for me is that we can't play for stacks with just a face up overpair giving Villains insanely good preflop odds (27+:1), so I'd fold the turn as played.

Gmightaswellturnedourcardsfaceuponthetable,imoG

Call and GII on the river.

I don´t think he has a flush draw. No need to shove and let worse pairs off the hook. It´s hard for most people to fold if they never get raised in a hand.

Were you attempting to induce a spaz with your turn sizing?

I wouldn't say I was attempting to induce spazz, but I recognized it could be a byproduct of a 1/2 PSB.

One of the thoughts I had in real time was:

"Can we turn this into a high variance range vs. range battle? We can prevent our self from being bluffed off the best hand if we simply decide to go with our hand on favorable runouts regardless of the action."

Now I certainly don't want to get in the habit of playing 300 BB pots with the 2nd nut one pair hand, but I wonder if someone more experienced than I can explain if that is a valid concept or not: Just Do It

Play your hand in a way that extracts max value while being cognizant of the fact that your line is high beaming "BIG PAIR," and therefore, being willing to call it off if you are semi bluff or bluff raised and negating V's ability to win with a 2nd best hand IP.

I don't know if that qualifies as Level 4 or not but the way I see it:

Level 1: What do I have? (KK)
Level 2: What do I think V has? (strong PP, flush draw, pair + draw and sometimes a set)
Level 3: What do I think V thinks I have? (AA-KK)
Level 4: What do I think V thinks I think he has if/when he raises me? (a set)

And since the value combos we beat outnumber the value combos we are losing to, we should just go with it? wj94 said to go all-in, but does that let us get the most value from the bluffing portion of his range? Won't shoving just fold out better and get called by worse?

It's a mistake to count all hands as equally possible. You already sensibly discounted AA. You also have to consider how likely the raise on the turn is with various hands. Min raises in general are pretty villain specific and this turn raise even more so. It could be anything from an air bluff to the nuts.

You have to consider how much of his range is bluffing vs how much is draws (vs how many hands already have you beat) and factor in how often he will continue with his bluffs on the river. If you think you are ahead and he won't continue his bluff on the river there is no reason to let the draws continue cheaply. If villain isn't likely to be drawing but will shove bluff the river if he is bluffing, then letting villain continue is better. If villain is probing and is done with the hand if you call, then there is no reason to let him continue cheaply. If villain is trying to suck you in with the nuts then even folding could be the best move.

You are in one of those situations where you have a better then average but nowhere near lock hand. The right play on the turn is more about ranging your opponent and judging his play style then a mathematical calculation of pot size and equity.

Great post, Quad. Definitely didn't consider all of those things, though I think subconsciously I discounted a lot of the drawing hands as I don't think many of them make it to the flop and maybe only A5s would play that way on the turn. If I had to ballpark it, I would estimate something like 2/3 bluffs/value hands I am ahead of vs. 1/3 hands I am behind.

Effective stacks: $950

Pot: $260

Flop: T 6 2

Turn: 5

Hero bets $125
V min-raises to $250
Hero calls $250

Pot: $760 ($570 behind)

River: 9

Hero checks
V bets $350
Hero?

Mmm hmm. So, you thought he would value bet all his overpairs and bluff occasionally. Only question left to answer is whether we are ahead >50% when called.

AA - 3 combos (discounted by half)
QQ - 6 combos
JJ - 6 combos
TT - 3 combos
66 - 3 combos

I would include 22
87
Never AT,KT, type hands?

Feels weird to not ship it in, but kind of obvious call if he doesn't have AT,KT, etc in his range..

I think the more interesting question is whether we should be open shipping this river ourselves vs checking. I'd be concerned he wouldn't value bet JJ-QQ if we check. After we call his turn mini raise he has to be thinking we have an overpair or missed spades. JJ is not a good value bet here. Most V's don't even value bet Queens here. The more I talk to myself the more I start to justify folding the river...but that is just too silly.

I think I prefer open shoving this river to check/calling. So read/villain dependent.

V who has been playing snug all night would not risk his entire stack on a bluff in a 3bet pot.

I think Villain has AA or a set here 100% of the time. I don't think we can discount AA since the other opponent folded pre-flop.

We hold the K of spades so we know villain does not have AKss. The only way villain has spades here is if he called the 3bet with AQss or AJss.

I doubt V calls the 3bet with 87ss, but even if he did I don't think V would ever minraise the turn with 87ss. He would either call or make a bet with much higher fold equity, like jamming all in. Same can be said for AQss or AJss. Hes never min-raising here with those hands.

If we are calling the turn, we should just shove all in for value because V is never raising the turn and then shutting down on the river when we check. We might as well get value from spade draws that we think our opponent could have or from QQ or JJ.

In these type of spots where you usually have the best hand but you could be crushed, I would opt to always size-up to prevent ambiguous situations. You're still going to get looked up just as often because you can be percieved more often as having air, and you can more comftorably bet/fold because you don't have to level yourself into wondering whether or not you believe V is minraising because our bet looks like a blocker bet.

In response to your "just do it" - that is sometimes the approach I take against certain V's, as with a leveling war comes high variance because you're going to simply be forced to GII lighter knowing he's doing the same. Since you have already shown a bluff there's easily a dynamic for him to be calling you down light thinking you could have air. That being said, it doesn't always mean he's going to also be raising you light in this spot trying to protect his equity. He could possibly be thinking he's raising AT for value (I don't know if I'd go that far though)

I'm really curious for hand results. I do want to comment that I love V's min-raise. I've said it before that I think the min-raise is an underutilized tool for extracting value and (almost contradictory) for bluffing without risking as much/while not losing f/e. You were thinking about folding Kings here to the min-raise and a lot of others ITT thought the same thing. It's so rare it is confusing.

The thought processes in this thread have been very interesting and educational. The anticipating is killing me though... what happened? Was the V spazzing? Overvalued pair? Was it a deceptive hand played perfectly?

If that is really correct then the river is an easy call and you could make a case for raising. I suspect your numbers are optimistic and I would actually be trying to decide between calling and folding against most opponents. If hero has been having a leveling war with this villain and villain does have bluffs in his range I probably make this call.

Effective stacks: $950

Pot: $760 ($570 behind)

Flop: T 6 2

Turn: 5

River: 9

Hero checks
V bets $350
Hero calls $350



M-Lo, do you wanna add any of your own insight/thought processes? It's pretty rare to get a hand on here with both people involved so I think it'd be beneficial to hear the other side of the coin and what you were thinking, ranging me on, representing, etc.

I thought your turn raise was good, but just too small. Similarly for the river bet. I think the stack sizes might have been too small to run a larger turn raise and river shove to force me out. I think the only way I fold this hand is if you shove the turn.

When I get home from work and on my comp I'd love to do a little write up. Although I lost (donked) the hand, it had a pretty strong positive impact on me.

+1. This would be super interesting.

interesting hand ..

I think both of you played it well.

Villain made some mistakes though.. isolating with A6s, raising turn on a blank and not shipping OTR.

I don`t really like the 3bet. Which seems to be the standard in this spot. Heros hand is so face up here .. I would rather just call pre flop and play a small pot.

Unless special circumstances, isn't attempting to isolate a single EP limper on the Button with any hand we're considering playing standard?

GcluelessisolationnoobG

Yeah, I think A6s is a great hand to iso OTB against a single limper. Against multiple limpers, an easy limp to overflush someone.

A6s isolation button raise over a limper is pretty standard. Villain had a solid image so it's not like he would be perceived as getting out of line. I had seen him make slightly larger raises before (~$20), so the only thing betraying his weakness may be a minor sizing tell of not wanting to commit too many chips with Ace-rag. He can probably comment on that later.

For KM, anything less than 500BB is moderately deep.

wj94 crushes it again.