Not much else to say. Seems like a pretty standard flop fold.

Fold.

We are getting a hair over 2.5:1. We need 28% to call. Against that tight range you provided we are under 24% seeing 2 cards but likely will face another bet so we are 11% ish to the turn.

If we are going to rep hearts against a 2p/set heavy range we need the board to not pair. The 20%ish chance of turning the bluffable flush card that villain likely doesn't fold to ott with boat outs is largely negated by his redraw outs.

So I don't see that as adding a ton of phantom equity.

Lastly our implied odds. Given his range we prob get a turn bet called a fair amount of the 8% or so of the time when we bink our gutter ball if he has 2p/sets.

Any of the reasons we think bluffing hearts might have validity are essentially arguments against our implied odds.

The rest of our equity includes lots of ROI spots where even when ahead it may be tough to know where we are. We do have position but I'm not sure we can extract enough while avoiding RIO to justify the call.

Excellent spot to fold given the range provided.

Yep. Next hand, pls

Tried to get to most of them. Some overlap so didn't quote everyone.

He's done it with AJo twice and another two times he didn't have to show as the table folded. He's on his third short buy-in that I've seen but he seems to enjoy putting pressure on people for $300 a pop.

Yah the two recs folding was very surprising as they had been limp/calling pretty much every time there was a raise after them.

To clarify, the biz owner is a reg that should be sophisticated enough to see the front door flush getting there. Whether he sigh calls or gives us credit is a bit more opaque.

Your argument was very convincing.

Some good points in here. I have spent the last few months thinking about backdoor draws, front door phantom outs and how they all fit together into the EV puzzle. How do we measure the value of a free card in relation to the flop bet if it gets us to the river. Should we only rep the hearts on the river if we pick up our backdoor diamond on the turn, etc.

It's an area I don't see explored enough so if anyone knows of good reading material out there relating to the subject, feel free to post a link here. I think it's also one of those areas that doesn't have a clearly defined right/wrong black/white decision tree.

He can't have everything though. If he has a K, he can't have a set. If he has a set, he may still call a small value bet on a K turn/river. We shouldn't have (m)any Tx in our range except QT and T9.

The T outs are all dirty as far as I'm concerned. But we should be able to use our positional and skill advantage to our benefit to navigate the situations where a J or paired river backdoor diamond flush. I expect this villain to play extremely face up, so if the board pairs and he comes out bombing the turn or river, it's not a very difficult fold. Likewise, if he check/raises a J or paired river diamond (unlikely for this villain type), it also becomes a trivial fold.

Situations only become RIO when you allow them to be. FWIW, we can have KT here.

Yes we have position but If you call here you have to get future value for it to be a profitable call. There are very few outs that do not carry some rio. So really you can't continue without some risk of rio on this flop with this hand especially given the range you assign. That doesn't mean we will get stacked. But not getting stacked doesn't mean we didn't experience rio.

My issue is that we have at most 9 cards to improve, so fewer than 20% of the turns get us there and we have to make up another $100 or so every time we hit turn to break even. Other than the K, none of our outs are to the nuts, and when we do hit a K the straight is very obvious. So it's hard to do really well when we hit, and if we're folding when he x/r on a paired board we have to make up even more value on other hands.

Effectively avoiding RIO doesn't mean eliminating it, and also cuts into our IO.

This kind of builds off some of my previous responses, but after I read your post I ran an equity calc using the two hands we could have/rep here: JT and QT (or T9 if villain has the Q).

Our actual hand: JT




Our phantom hands: QT or T9






A composite of: JT and QT




A composite of: JT, QT and T9




So using the information at hand, how can we formulate our strategy moving forward? If we look at implied odds, I would group them like this:

Highest implied odds: Backdoor flush
2nd highest implied odds: Trip Jacks
3rd highest implied odds: K
Zero/least implied odds: Frontdoor flush

Now we still don't know whether villain has one pair, two pair or a set. But his turn sizing or lack thereof based on the turn card should give us more information to decide whether we want to continue or not. By limping pre and not blowing up the pot, we are now in a situation where we can see a turn card with 92% of effective stacks remaining and a positional advantage where villain has narrowed his range far more than we have. While he is uncapped to sets, we can have any number of hands that all have great equity versus his range.

So now that it's pretty clear that I continued in the hand, the question becomes should we call or raise here? And should our decision be influenced by our actual hand or the composite grouping I listed above?

The QT and T9 hands have pretty great equity versus the tight range assigned which could lead credence to a flop raise, though the likelihood of him folding on the flop is probably small and we really want to see the turn and river for as cheap as possible. Calling gives us the most future flexibility, while raising gives us a chance to win the hand now but increases the likelihood we will have to put in a large bet OTT or give up if no heart or king comes and hope for a river J or K.

* Side note: By choosing to continue in this hand I am making it clear that we need to be willing to consider how to use 's to achieve folds from villain some % of the time. Villain is capable of thinking on Level 2 so we can incorporate Level 3 into our strategy.

We L/C pre so there are more TX in your range than you think: AT/KT/QT/JT/T9. Don't have to necessarily be hearts, instead pair/GS combos.

You need to count the combos that will fold turn when the fdfd hits to estimate FE ott. Multiply that by the 20% frequency of non board pairing hearts (and whatever other phantom nut turns) and add to your actual equity for an estimate.

A better way would be to add as a branch in an EV tree calc. Because equity doesn't equal EV here.

The hard part is turn bluff sizing. If he has the set as and top 2 pr heavy range you assign are you going to try and get folds ott or otr? That sizing choice obv impacts the fold equity and changes the EV. So composite equity won't tell the story as well as EV calcs probably.

Edit: I agree that regardless of whether you choose to continue or not here the exercise is valuable.

Lol @ folding. Flop is a call

gutter+bdfd+bottom pair+deep w/ postion on a dynamic board where we have many strong draws in our range.

V is going to be in a nightmare-ish spot on a lot of turn cards especially if he's cbetting too much

Ya. Unless we can bluff him out OTT or OTR/later in the hand which seems sooo unlikely in this spot i'm just done with it.

I'd raise pre as well. I mean we could benefit from a better SPR if we raise JTs and some short villain calls but i mean it plays way better then 68s or 89s etc... it's not a bad hand to raise in this spot as well as some suited wheel aces maybe.

If V is good enough to understand his AK/AJ is possibly beat here (don't think he can fold a set or AQ unless board runs out insane) then a call puts us in a good spot on the turn.

We don't necessarily raise KT on the flop.

Turn action is gonna give us a good read on Vs holdings.

And still have position to rep hearts.

So we are discounting Hero's assigned range then? Cuz that changes things.

Ug. A lot of bad things can happen here that would be disguised as a good thing. Any improvement besides the K could spell trouble. I do like being IP with the ability to bluff the heart. As such, while I don't hate a fold, I don't hate a float-call either.

I think the trick to proceeding here is to do so with caution. Most improved hands will just be bluff-catchers.

At least that's what I think I think.

GS, BDFD, bottom pair.... these are runner runner semibluff hands that need good amount of FE.

Good luck getting V to fold in this kind of spot.

Floating the flop in order to rep hearts in a later street is a disaster IMO. V has the Kh in his range, as well as sets/2 pairs that you will need to double barrel off, and that's even if you are lucky enough to get a heart on the turn. Also even if V is capable of folding to a flush, he may ultimately not do so. I doubt seriously he folds sets 100% of the time a three flush hits.

Raise JTs all day every day, I dont care how short or deep anyone is at the table, this is just automatic blind raise from the CO vs anybody short of some spastic maniac on tilt shoving every hand preflop.

When you raise hands like this you can cbet flops like this. Getting it in for $200 with top pair is not going to be a disaster either. Just last night some lady raises KK and shoves $300 on an ace high flop. Her reasoning? She was mad that an ace hit and wrecked her kings, cuz ya'know how an ace always hits when you raise KK right? So she just jammed out of tilt. People will do the same **** with 88/99/TT on dry boards that just have a Jack. When you call they'll write it off as bad luck that they ran into a better hand, so no worries there.

As played, I guess you can call because **** it why not right? Fish have a shocking inability to lay down monsters even on terrible board textures. I cant tell you how many 2 pair and sets I've seen snap call for stacks on a 4-to-a-straight board because "goddamnit what am I supposed to do, go around folding 2 pair all the time?!"

So yeah I can see you getting paid when a king hits because if that King in any way improves their hand they're going all the way with it. At no point would I really try to bluff though, because you lost your initiative preflop and you cant rep a big hand on this kind of board because you limped. It'd be one thing if the board was A82 or something but even if they dont possess a strong hand now, we know they probably possess a draw of some sort and you should know by now that live players never fold any sort of draw ever.

+1. Villain is likely to bet again and unlikely to dump a solid holding if bluffed, judging by the previous hh. You need to consider the value of calling to see only the turn. I think the flop smashes villain's early position opening range into 4 limpers. This is far too risky (likely unprofitable) spot to call. You paid your 1 BB to bink and missed. Time to fold.

There are a few problems with the equity estimates. One is the obvious that it measures seeing two cards instead of only the turn. You need to factor in the cost of a turn bet as well. The second is if a heart does hit the turn for you to bluff, villain will likely have the equity or IO to call a turn bet/raise with the range you assigned him, either to hit a boat or perhaps he has a single premium heart. Finally, I think villain's range estimate is too conservative and you have to factor in RIO hands like AT, AJ-QJs. You can't eliminate KTs either. Your best out is the K. That could very well be a split and offers weak IO since the 4-straight is so obvious.

I applaud the effort to search for a winning scenario. This is at best a razor thin spot to continue and at worst pure spew.

Sorry if this sounds like a smart ass response because I dont mean it to be...

I wonder how many more hands like this are included in your very long very deep losing streak? Poker doesnt have to be this hard. You are self imposing massive variance. You are obviously very intelligent and a deep thinker, but you are making poker much more difficult than it needs to with hands like this. Especially at these stakes.

I'm usually a big fan of going for the straight draw while using a phantom flush draw as bluff outs and posted a thread where it was my plan about a month ago. However, I don't like it here for several reasons:

1. You only have 4 straight outs, rather than 8. Better play with the OESD.
2. Your straight puts a 4 to a straight on the board, which significantly cuts your IO. I usually like this play because a two card straight has nice IO, while the flush draw you're using to bluff is pretty obvious, but that's not the case here.
3. I don't see anything in your read of V to suggest he can necessarily fold TPTK when the straight comes.
4. The range for V you did post is very strong. If he has AA, QQ, AK and AQ then that's 3 combos of AA, 3 combos of QQ, 12 combos of AK and 9 combos of AQ, so 12 combos of TPTK and 15 combos of top-two and sets. Even if I thought V could fold TPTK on a flush card, I'm not eager to try to get him to fold top-two or a set. 20% of the time a flush card hits the turn, but more than half of those times V holds top-two or better and we're trying to bluff him off it.

grunch (preflop)

I would almost always raise this in my games, but given table conditions/dynamic, I like a limp behind here.

JTs is a great hand to isolate against a fish, but with the likelihood of multiway action or a limp/raise, or a 3-bet from the blinds, I would rather limp here and play a smaller pot with a good multiway hand.

Grunch (flop)

I would fold. We have a possibly tilted rec villain with deep pockets, but how many cards are we really happy to see here? all of our outs and backdoor outs make a board that is going to be tough for our villain to continue on, even if he is tilty. If I thought we could rep hearts if they came in, I would lean closer to a call, but repping a turned heart is probably going to take 2 large bullets that may or may not work, and if the heart comes on the river, we may not be able to get him off his hand with 1 bet.

So we need this guy to:
bet-f/ck-f on 2h (fold to barrels)
bet-c/ck-c on Ks (call barrels)
?
Sounds dreamy.

Id likely have a bluff frequency of 0 against this guy and do just fine, like against 99% of 2-5 Vs.

Really good point.
Sure, OP isn't stacking off on KA, JQ, or even dd runouts necessarily, but when facing bets in this spot, it's rift with rio, even against Vs likely all-too-narrow assigned range.

JTdd barely even qualifies as a semibluff as raising/betting it at any point likely doesn't improve EV given it has no natural outs (other than running a royal)... In essence, you have a naked gutter here. Fold.

I meant to respond to this one earlier, but one of the tangents I was hoping to discuss was ROI in % terms versus $ EV. Now there is no question that raising JTs probably results in a higher $ EV in the long-run, but I have a feeling the ROI % is higher by overlimping. This is an area where mpethybridge could likely chime in with his access to online databases.

Perhaps in live poker we should only focus on absolute $ EV rather than % ROI because we don't see enough hands. I think this is essence of people talking about "higher variance vs. lower variance."

Say we raise it up to our standard 4x + 1 BB per limper ($35) and only the three limpers call (fairly normal expected outcome at this table). We now have SPR's of 3.3x vs. V2, 6.9x vs. V3 and 2.3x vs. V4 with J-high and a significantly weakened benefit of position due to the now much shallower stacks.

If we are going to raise JTs for bingo sake, why not raise any of our small PP's 22-55 here? If the essence is "hit a big hand, then get paid" then I would think we want to hit our hands as cheaply as possible and worry about getting stacks in later. More often than not, raising JTs here will result in us stacking off vs. V2 and V4 with a weak top pair or a draw, and some of those times we will not be offered a favorable price and will have to fold our draws.

There's no doubt raising JTs here will be +EV in the long-term, but does that make it optimal? If a lot of its value will come from raising pre -> c-betting the flop 2 or 3 way, aren't there a slew of better candidate hands we can use for that purpose when isolating the fish than J high?

I look at JTs as a speculative drawing hand. Upping the aggression factor just because seems like borderline spew when weighed against the potential ROI of seeing cheap flops in position.

yeah I understand your point but in essence you would rather play fit or fold hoping to clean everyone out with a SF (or similar) which won't happen that often (hardly ever); which also opens up the possibility that someone else behind you raises then you have to throw away a good hand unless you have more callers where it would be profitable to limp/call.

If you agree that raising will be more +EV over the long run, that is what all of our decisions should be based on anyway, right?