Ok, so last night in a 1/1 live cash game I got involved in the following hand.
I have since been driven crazy trying to do a full range analysis on the hand to determine if my play is actually good.

Assumptions:
- We are playing against an unknown player
- We don't want to play exploitively, let's work towards a GTO strategy.


I'm not going to post my exact hand, however what I feel my range would be trying to be as unbiased as possible.

The below definitely shows some holes in my strategy / thinking. This is how I would of played / do play and not what I believe the/a solution is.

I'm in the SB with a stack of 550, villain is in the LJ starting with 270. Straddle of 2 is on.


PREFLOP
Villain opens for 8, HJ + CO call, folds to me in the SB.

With a multiway pot, I think calling lot's of hands here even in the SB is ok, bluff raising hands like A5s becomes less appealing because there's a good chance of flush over flushing someone when it comes in a multiway pot.

Call Range:
87s+
T8s+, J8s, Q9s, K9s (these maybe too loose?)
Suited Broadway
AJ+
A2s+
KJo
KQo
22+ (set mine any pair seems reasonable)

Raising Range:
AK, AQ
JJ+
Some TT (say 3 combos)

Given a 3bet here would need to be a large sizing AND we're out of position to everyone that we want don't want to be 3betting too wide a range and I think a linear 3 betting strategy is better than a polarised strategy here.

So assuming the above and my maths is correct, some stats:
We have 242 combos of hands that continue, 59 of which raise. Giving us ~25% 3bet when continuing.

Not sure what would be a good number here....


Moving on with the hand, we go ahead and raise to 50 (a large size due to OOP), villain in LJ calls.

FLOP
Flop comes 763

C-bet
TT, JJ, QQ, KK/AA (without diamond), AK, AQ, AK/AQ (with diamond(s))
thoughts on betting for value and protection with TT-QQ but keeping some value in the check range by keeping the KK/AA with diamonds (not as worried when a flush comes in).
Adding AK/AQ combinations with back door flush draws for barrelling opportunities .

Check
This leaves a check range of
AA/KK with a (check continue)
AK/AQ no BDFD (check decide on size).


The above range gives a cbet % of ~63% (does that seem reasonable?)
Do I need to strengthen the check range more here? Should I be c-betting as wide as AK/AQ with BDFD?

Due to stack to pot ratio and the size of the pot with my particular hand I opted for a c-bet of 50 matching preflop sizing. Villain calls. Pot's at 220 with 170 left to play for.

TURN
J

Check-Call
AdKd, AdQd, QQd, TTd (6.5 combos)

Check-Fold
AsKs, AsQs, TT(without ) (3.5 combos)

All in
AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK(with ), AQ(with ) (24 combos)


If checked and facing an all-in bet, the above range has me calling ~66% of the time which seems reasonable getting ~2.3/1

I'm shoving ~70% of hands (is this too much?)

Of shoves, I'm bluffing with 50% (my math has it as 43% ideal if offering 2.3/1 ?) and value shoving the other 50%

Of the shove-bluffs, I have equity with at least a back door flush draw and two overs.

I shoved the river and got called.

I'll reveal later what exact hand I and the villain had but I am very interested to see people's opinions on the above analysis. Is it crazy? Is it reasonable? Am I thinking about the game in the correct way?

I'm aware I've not spoke about the villains range during this analysis, although that is important, I believe perfect my own range is important if aiming for that GTO strategic way of playing.

Cheers if you got this far, interested in feedback.

I'm gonna preface my entire post by saying:
^^This is just a silly mindset at live 1-1 nl.

Having said that, imo a solid mathematical understanding of the game is the foundation behind a good exploitative strategy, so here are my 2 cents....

Preflop: If you are gonna use this bigger sizing, we can 3bet a much wider range cause theoretically we are gonna get more folds. I'd happily 3bet 99+, suited broadways, AT+, KTo+ and some medium SC vs a LJ open+callers. It's a prime squeeze spot and massively +EV to just put pressure on with ~20-25% of total hands.

I'd also remove some of the weaker gapped hands from the calling range, equity realisation oop in a multiway pot just sucks.

I like the sizing in general, but if you are gonna nit it up with your 3bets, you might want to go smaller, 35-40ish.

Flop: In general we should be checking this flop often, and bet mostly hands that either don't have enough SDV but block his continuing range, so hands like AK/AQ with 1 , value hands that need protection like TT-JJ, mostly without diamonds, and misses with some overs/backdoor equity like AQss. X/jam with QQ+/AKdd/AQdd and x/fold AK/AQ high without added equity. The latter is probably too tight from a GTO perspective and you might have to call off some Ahighs as well to be completely unexploitable.

In reality, i'm cbetting a lot of my hands here, including almost all my pure misses.

Turn: Having a x/calling range at this SPR seems bad (what is V's bluffing range?), i'd just jam any pair and any hand with a diamond, and x/fold A highs without one.

Clearly, you should be shoving with slightly less combo's in that case, which would mean that we should x/fold QQ sometimes here(?!), but i wouldn't worry about it since people overfold anyway.



FWIW, if you insert this whole hand into PIO, it will almost certainly say that you should bet flop with ~100% of your range and bet turn with any , but that's mostly because your preflop range is so tight and valueheavy in this spot.

Needs stack sizes. If stacks are short most of that calling range has to go, set mining is likely the only calling hands with stacks < $100. Would need to be very deep before calling with the weak end of that range. Always chuck J8s, Q9s, K9s.

$50 seem really big. It depends on the situation but $50 seems likely to risk committing you to the pot if you see a flop.

In a normal situation against competent opponents something a bit over 60% is generally right. After your big preflop raise it isn't likely to be anything near a normal situation.

An unknown opponent should make you slightly less interested in making a c-bet. Vastly more important in this case is that the likely very low SPR means you have less reason to c-bet air and have no reason to hold back any value hands. Villain either hit the pot hard enough to play for stacks or they didn't. You generally can't induce bluffs or get villains to call off weak the way you can when SPR is high.

Many thanks for your input.

Yes I agree, and in reality I am playing the player however trying to analyse hands in a fundamental way as I want to play the best I can and not just settle on beating these low stakes games.

I thought a bigger sizing requires a tighter range? It feels like we're going to be in awkward situations so often if we're squeezing a large amount.
In these games particularly, it only takes someone seeing you raise a few times before fighting back / calling very wide so I'm struggling to see how being this LAG works?


Yes, for sure I'm calling too much here, need more discipline.

Would the smaller bet on the flop not keep in a wider V range?
Went with check calling the nutted hands which don't need protecting because there's only 1 bet left and we can always shove river if it checks through

Cheers for the response

Villain started with 270, I cover