+1 first and +10 last part.
Thread post makes me question OPs current skills, making pre more of a fold.

While I advocated betting Turn ITT, I am also cool w the stop and go of check Turn and call or bet river.


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Villain does both. He has opened 2/3 times per orbit the last 4ish orbits and has also defended bb/sb in 2 and 3 way situations. When you say "with odds", although there havent been any showdowns, it seems as clear as it can be w/o them that if I had to guess, I would assume that he calls too much, but i could be wrong.

To go more in depth about villain the best i can, I havent seen any showdowns but villain defends bb vs tagish raisers from all positions and has c/f multiple times. Not only that but his friends that he is here with pretty much do the same thing. All to different degrees but generally they all seem to call too often and just play pretty weakly and passively calling very wide with all types of hands. In this spot I thought that having position + higher certainty Co is folding+ knowing v has a wide weak range that will be folding often+ my clean image would be enough. Granted, I do not have tons of live experience and do not consider myself to play at a very high level but this still seemed like a good spot to squeeze.

I don't know if they are good or bad, but it's actually very in vogue since 2015 to play much looser in bb than in any position in tough games due to pot odds. This doesn't quite translate directly to live (where multiway, tighter ranges, and sometimes larger sizes affect things) but when someone less experienced makes a comment about a european reggy looking guy flatting too much "in the blinds" (please be specific if it's sb or bb, the vpip in those 2 spots should be VERY different) and c/fing lots on flops, I would generally guess it's more likely the european has a better preflop game than the person critisizing his game.

Calling in the bb a bunch and c/fing a bunch is, mathematically, correct. Of course depends on how much "a bunch" is, but certainly higher frequency than lots of old school wisdom dictates.

This is extra true if it's a time game, fwiw.

Thats the thing though. I am not asking what you would do if you were me. I am asking what you would do in this position if you were you. I don't understand why you are saying, "knowing OP's skill level I would fold pre" type of comments. Knowing my skill level it probably is easier and maybe better to fold pre but thats not really what I am asking.

That may be true. It isnt a timed game. I am absolutely probably too tight oop because i generally just avoid spots that I don't understand and view them as being difficult to be profitable on the surface unless I am deeper or villains are bad or unless i get a good read to believe otherwise. Villain better be better than me because if he is calling as much as he does w/o a high level of skill it looks to me like he is burning money.

Depth doesn't actually make playing weaker hands OOP better.

I 3bet A8o in the situation described quite rarely, and never without more specific information that what you supplied.

Alright so I should definitely be folding then.

Depth doesnt? Can you explain?

Hero checks back ott. River Jc.
Board is 2c4s5dAhJc. V bets 425. Hero?

425 into 560?

sorry but I would fold. The ace is totally in your range and he (a weakish player) still bet a pretty high bet.

I wouldn't be surprised if he setmined. Not to mention the 4card straight on the board. Remember, there's not reason for him to think you 3bet light to begin with.

If we folded the winner, good for him.

The pot is $610. I would call. We need to be good 30% of the time (425/(425+425+610)). Depending on how many combos of 67 he opens from the HJ could make this a slam dunk call or a closer one.

The Jack is a bad card for us because it's in his raise/call pre, x/c flop, bet river range but that is only 3 combos. I would also discount the flopped sets by at least 1/3 for not x/r the flop. I would also discount 33 by 2-3 combos for the same reason (if he's even raising every combo of 22+ pre).

So that leaves ~9-12 combos of sets/straights (which could be discounted further with more reads) and a handful of combos of AK that beat us and 4-16 combos of 76 + X combos of PP's villain decides to turn into a bluff based on our turn check. I'm also not sure he bets that large with AK on the river which further polarizes his river to too few value combos for his presumed loose opening range.

Call and expect to be good >30% of the time.

its 425 into 615 pre rake i think

not much difference. I would still fold to a weak player. We have no info if he can bluff and he's been pretty straight up so far, playing fit or fold and being passive right?

I don't really understand the read. He's a loose opener that simultaneously plays fit-or-fold and just x/f's flops? But he's also passive and x/f's when he calls raises? The whole read seems pretty contradictory.

That would sway my river decision closer to a fold, but this all goes back to my first post regarding preflop and not having a good enough read on our villain's tendencies to justify a 3! here just because the "spot" looked good in a vacuum.

This (except the pot size)

Does he call a river jam without a straight here?

River is a pretty obvious call IMO but I still don't like that we 3b pre because of {reasons} and somehow none of the info that made this spot too good to 3b has translated into any kind of ranging.

Calling because we need to call ~40% OTR and any ace we can have is obviously part of that when we often have 99-KK and some air and probably barrel AK AQ for value OTT.

Quite the opposite - I would consider betting this particular turn a pretty routine and natural action given a 3b range is perceived to be pretty Ax heavy and much of it might also cbet flop. Checking such a turn for value to induce seems far more V tendency dependent to me than betting turn. It would seem to require more info like Vs overfold turn/overbluff riv frequencies so that ck-bluff catching surpasses all the benefits of betting turn.

In addition to AK/Q (hands V likely has less of) hero should have plenty of A2-A5 here much of which would often bet bet.

Also, betting riv is pretty thin readless once called twice. Riv goes ck ck pretty often.

As I alluded to earlier, checking turn leaves you in no mans land. You really have no idea if V has taken the bait and is overbet bluffing, betting better for fat value, or punishing a perceived underrep by sizing up (though he bet too little)

Turns out you are most likely spot on about him being much better than me. Turns out he's a reg who puts in tons of hours. Starting to get vibes that he crushes.

He was playing fit fold when he was defending his blind.

When you're deeper, having a playable hand that are more likely to make hands that are strong enough to compete when the pot becomes big is important. If you play offsuit poorly connected hands, you're just very very very rarely going to end up with hands that can get in huge numbers of bbs, or that are good enough to semi bluff in those spots.

Why are good hands good? Because they have good hot cold equity? No. Many "trashy hands" that you should avoid playing unless OTB or vs very loose players actually have decent hot cold equity vs even a decent range, especially when you usually get 2:1 on your money and only need 33% or so. What makes those hands bad is their lack of playability. And what increases the significance of playability? Depth! If you're short, you don't really give a **** about your hand as long as it is likely to be the best hand right now, since you don't have to worry about reverse implied odds.

A hand like QJo KTo K9o etc, have good top pair value, and beat a lot of "good hands" like 78s A2s and so on when you're shallow (though not hugely so; good hands are generally decent in most spots), but once you get super deep, these hands are only good played as bluff catchers making pot odds calls. You're just not going to get many spots to be value betting these hands. If your range is filled with hands that can't value check raise or have strong enough draws (combo draws, pairs that can turn extra equity), you're left with a range that just... doesn't ever raise. Of course you can still call down vs someone who bluffs too much, but a player who is good and bluffs in an intelligent way and doesn't overdo it, would then be able to control the size of the pot as well, and it makes it much easier for people to thin value bet if you just... can't check raise them.



With the river decision, I feel that the most notable point is that our hand looks a lot like it can be an A given our line, and that people probably think people don't like folding a turned top pair for one bet especially when the 4 straight is not likely. I feel like while there are mathy answers, in practice it really just boils down to whether the villain would bluff here or not, and what hands he'd do that with. If he takes pairs into bluffs here (some always, and some never), then you've got your answer, depending on the frequency. Of course as noted, how they play other strong hands also have an effect.

Would be useful to note if they could have A2-A5s themselves pre. Those are actually pretty reasonable hands. I am sure some people peel other Ax themselves especially with bdfd on the flop. They beat stuff like KJ KQ that we might 3bet after all.

About the defend blind and c/f a lot thing.

Remember very often the bb is getting pot odds, and potentially implied odds from people who are overzealous and cbet too much, if they have a good strategy against that (c/r a bunch, knows how to OOP float or peel light), and those things alone could make it okay to call in the bb, and just c/f a lot of unfavorable flop.

As an example, if he calls 2bbs to contest a 6.5bb pot, he only needs to win the pot about 1/3 of the time immediately to make it okay. Now if you add in the fact that the PFR cbets way too much let's say 100% of air, that means he gets a free 4-5bb every time he has a hand to c/c. Granted, he also has to doge that person's equity, but at the same time, he might also have equity when the villain doesn't have air. It's too complicated to really do the math without a solver, but what I am saying is that most good regs (especially online reg) now believe that a single raised pot strategy that's passive on the flop (with lots of c/fing), and peels relatively wide in the bb, is super standard.

Thanks for the explanation

I guess my disconnect here is "what's the point?" If I'm looking at this as a readless H vs. V spot, then I believe V is going to fold to a turn bet >75% of the time because H should have AK and maybe some bluffs. But given it's the first 3! I would think you generally give the guy a little more credit until you observe him further.

So generally we just take down the pot when we are ahead and get x/r when we are behind and lose the size of our bet.

I'm not checking the turn to induce, I'm checking the turn because I think it has a higher EV than betting the turn. I'm checking the turn because I am committed to showdown and willing to call a river bet (possibly a little larger than I would have bet on the turn) or make a small bet myself. I think what we "lose" by calling a bigger river bet when behind than we would have lost by b/f the turn we more than make up for when V is actually bluffing the river *AND* when he x/c a small river bet with an inferior hand.

Maybe I am missing something but I just don't see the value in a turn bet in a WA/WB scenario when we can ensure our self of seeing showdown by not folding the river.

Going back to my readless point in first paragraph, I don't think we need to worry about our perceived range (A2-A5) on our first go-round and should generally operate under the assumptions that most live players 3! too tight and thus our range is pretty tight (AA-QQ/AK) until V has a better reason to think otherwise. Maybe you are saying 3! frequencies are so much higher at 5/10 (which I have observed) that V just *HAS* to give Hero a wider 3! range OTB, but even still, if we don't think V is often calling a turn bet then why bet? We can extract more value on the river.

Further, we've already put 20% of effective stacks in. Any bet we make on the turn is going to be pot-committing and potentially leaves us in even worse no-man's land if villain decides to x/r 76, especially with the 4 liner out there now. Bet/folding the best hand on the turn is the biggest mistake we can make.

Image is better for getting call downs--and a clean image can be over-rated. If you're going to use a clean image, you need to really, really, sell it on a board where your story makes sense and you have strong physicalplaystyle tells that your opponent isn't married to his hand (harder to do heads up). If you're green at live poker, you probably never have enough info to pull that off reliably with ATC.

As to your question of A8o. It isn't in my raising range, it isn't in my 3b range. I will call raises with it vs. maniacs who are running over a table and I will limp it. Otherwise I pitch it to a raise and wait for a new spot.
Reasons:
1) Maniac Raise Call: I'm prepping for check/calling 2 streets with A high, assuming unimproved (likely turn/river).
2) Limping: Fish are RIO with ATC. You'd be amazed how many BB you can win the 1/30 times you hit 2pair+ vs an OMC with 1 pair
3) Folding vs all other raises: Everybody and their brother raises AQ/AK. Everyone basically should. Almost every live player ever raises those hands. Many guys Raise/Call3! with AJo and LAGiers guys with A9s+. Many people don't raise/call with KJo+, so your being dominated by a huge part of everyones raising range (even worse when they are tight).
A8o is hard to hit flops that are unseen in ways that other people will love their hand and spew to you (e.g. having 2 pair on an 8 high board vs TT-KK).
A8o doesn't play well in bloated pots: except vs maniacs and people with obvi bluff spots, I'm not trying to A-high call down in a 3bet pot as the Preflop aggressor IP vs an OOP float(which is an incredibly likely set-up if he calls your 3ball, calls your likely c-bet, and you whiff 3 streets)--the term for that is lighting money on fire


In general, if you want to squeeze, be in a spot with multiple villains already in the hand. e.g. limp EP with a hand like 57s or 66. Have a LAG raise to 3-5bb and 2 OMCs call (you can now remove AA/KK from their hands). Now limp+re-raise over the top and watch the folds come. Again, you want some ability to have at least basic live tells on the people in and out of the hand before doing this (e.g. how much is the initial raiser selling weakness or paying attention to the callers. How fast are the OMCs calling, etc).

I'm definitely not the guy to quantify the EV of all hands that bet, bet vs bet, ck, so I won't argue that you might be right that ck>barrel. Ironically, your comment upthread where you had included KJ/KQ as "worthless" hands that might do better by betting actually makes me think that those hands actually should check given pair equity/high card has at least some value and aren't necessarily doing better as bets against a sticker V.

Anyways, before my feeble brain turns to mush, just a brief response to your last comments: I think you're way overestimating the frequency V will ck-r this particular turn (it's really very hard to have straights/sets in a 3b pot on 245 especially when we hold an A) and too quickly dismissing how often he might ck-c one more street with a should-be-strong range that isn't necessarily an easy ck-f on such a light-ranked board. Maybe I'm leveling too hard, but I still view this as a value bet opportunity against an unknown... Perhaps he's a station who just auto ck-c turn w 66-QQ, or perhaps he's a wizard who is incentivized to bluff catch more often w 66-QQ because of the massive perceived FE hero has betting the Ax turn. To boot, I really generally want to avoid making it to SD as a caller in a 3b pot IP given that's exactly what OOP tries so hard to avoid in bigger/better games.

Did ya shove?