I don't get to the river (I folded to the turn check/raise), but as played, I think I just check behind everything. I can't think of too many hands that check/raise the turn that pay us off; some Jx diamond draw? QT (really?). But I'm weak like that.

GcluelessNLnoobG

You are incorrect and are not properly adjusting to live play, I'm not trying to be insulting but its the truth. The value you are losing from somebody calling a 1/3 PSB instead of a 1/2 to 2/3 PSB on this board texture from a passive player is huge.

Your mistakes on the flop and turn are large enough that the turn call/river are basically "I hit myself into a sand trap how do I get out of here" questions.

Basically your play is the difference between a 5 bb/hr winrate and a 10 bb/hr winrate.

against draws, sure. but against Jx and hands less than QT I disagree.

either that or everyone here plays in live games where players call any bet with any hand strength, in which case, sure, fire for $75 on the turn...

So what are you getting value from with a 1/3 psb that isn't calling a 1/2 psb? TT?

I mean if AJ is calling 18 he is definitely calling 25 and if he is calling 26 on the turn he only needs to be calling 35 to 40 a small % of the time less often to justify it. Furthermore, the majority of the combos of his hands that we are getting value from are the 12 combos of KT and the 16 combos of T9 that a passive player likely shows up with at 1/2 so make him pay for it.

It is better to bomb the flop/turn then check the river than go for 3 streets here AINEC.

I agree that ideal bet sizing should take all of these factors into account. However one of the big disadvantages of live play over online is that you are rarely going to play enough hands with villains to properly evaluate all of these tendencies with much precision. I think that's why people are advocating bigger betsizing... I think most of us can agree that a small bet (a) is more likely to induce a bluff raise (or a value raise with a weaker hand) than a bigger bet and (b) is more likely to help us extract value from draws that won't pay off a river bet if they brick the river.

so the 40 combos of draws (I'll be generous and add the full 16 combos of KT and T9, and add a few bdfd) heavily outweigh the 12 combos of AJ, 12 combos of KJ, 12 combos of JT, 12 combos of J9 etc, 8 combos of QT, 8 combos of Q9, etc etc etc?

your bomb flop/turn + check river is very valid if you think most of his range is draws and/or he'd be inelastic with worse Q and Jx hands. I don't make those assumptions here and given my assumptions (of attacking the bulk of worse Q and Jx hands) i think 3 streets (albeit not 2/3PSB+ sizes) is more valuable...even though I do miss value against the draw part of range.

In the amount they will actually call, yes. I mean a passive villain who is calling 2 streets with AJ/KJ for your bets can be milked for more and while we are likely betting out J9/JT I really really doubt there is much blood to get out of these turnips for 2 streets and definitely not 3. Furthermore if he is calling two streets with AJ/KJ/J9 for your bets he is most certainly calling more with QT/Q9.

I mean if your read is right bombing away on the flop/turn only folds out the very bottom of his range which you more than make up for value with the rest of your hands. Now you can milk the river with a ridiculous bet (like betting 35 on the turn and 40 on the river) to get value from QT/Q9/KJ/AJ that just doesn't believe you but this is entirely read dependent.

In a box (assuming I wasn't ch/rd on the turn) I'd bet 25 on the flop

Turn (pot is 87)

I'd bet 45

on the river the pot is 177

Assuming he ch/calls with AQ 100% of the time we need him to call with > 12 combos of worse hands and we can fire out a 50 dollar bet if you think he is going to call with Q9 and ch behind if you think he will fold.

Also ch/r the turn is like 100% the nuts in my experience and I never see it is as "raise for information" on the turn. The flop is a different issue entirely.

checking all. we have the added value of forcing V to turn up his hand which is probably roughly equal to having a 15% chance of getting another $30-35 out of him or w/e and no risk of another c/r

After various deliberation, if the intention was to call for SD value, wouldn't it make sense to raise the turn around the same size of the river bet that we are planning to call?

Unless of course we still think that villain is bluffing and would bluff another street?

I value bet all four because I put him on AK

TBH, I'm checking behind the river only because I am not confident in my understanding of optimal play in this spot at the river.

Great hand Split and great discussion bros, going to spend some good time analyzing all the discussion here tomorrow. Right now time to drink some La Gunitas IPA and chill by the pool.

Imo, this is a simple matter of ranging.

What hands can V have based on the line he took?

of course I could be wrong but I can't see V having two pair or a set on turn because the turn bet isn't big enough and gives 6:1 odds. Imo, V's turn raise is a direct result of our weakness and thus we induced villain to raise with either a draw or weaker holding.

Draws that could do that? AJ, KJ, JT, J9, J8, T9, KT,

Another possibility is that V just has a weak hand and is taking a stab at raising to win right there: QT, Q9, AJ, J8, J9, JT, KJ

My normal line in this spot would be to bet/fold all options. However, BECAUSE we've conveyed so much weakness on every street, we've incentivized V to c/r a helluva lot more than he normally would have. Thus, that uncertainty and ambiguity trashes a normally effective bet/fold.

Thus, we have to either check back or bet/call.

a.) what do you do on a 2h? bet/call 1/2 pot
b.) what do you do on a 3d? Check back
c.) what do you do on a 9c? Check back
d.) what do you do on a Js? Check back

It's funny seeing people say call/re-evaluate river.

There are a finite number of rivers that will come. Plan for all of them.
There are a finite number of actions villain will take when that river happens. Plan for all of them.

Do your thinking now. You'll save money.

Dogfish head 60 minute IPA is an excellent choice for merging your IPA range.

Check behind the diamond, the nine and the jack for sure. You could probably bet the 2, but I'd probably check it back, too.

Some comments on the thread:

1. Some of you need to keep in mind that there are other reasons to post a hand history than seeking advice. I don't want to speak for split authoritatively, but if I had played this hand against this villain, I probably would have thought, "hmm, this hand teaches important lessons about who we should target with creative plays and dealing with unexpected reactions to them. I should post it."

2. Some of you need to keep in mind that game conditions vary widely across the country. Mad props to rizeagainst, whose response to my post about having seen a zillion check raises was "wow, we play in very different games." for what it's worth, where I play, probably fewer than one passive player in ten would call $50 on the turn here with KT or AJ. if I bet $50 here, the most likely result would be that the villain would tank, look at his cards, flip over the jack, and fold. I see that waaaaaaaay more often than I ever see a call by a draw or second pair. Elsewhere in the country, hell, maybe even elsewhere in Vegas, it might be different.

If I down size to $45, I'd probably get a few more calls, as $50 does seem to be a psychological benchmark for people. My standard bet on the turn would probably be $40, which is not much more than half pot.

3. Props also to 11T. His statement that you can fold more confidently when your big bet gets raised than when you bet smaller is not only worth it's weight in gold for what it explicitly says, but it also implies a solid theory of when to bet smaller.

4. As split said, bombing the turn here so you can confidently fold if raised is a TERRIBLE plan. Bombing the pot because you think he will call $50 with a wide range of hands we beat is fine, of course.

5. Standard bet sizing is standard because it is USUALLY best. Not because it is always best. One of the things this thread should have us thinking about is whether this hand was a good/ bad/ decent hand to deviate from standard play.

The re-evaluation you do on the river is basically whether to stick to the plan. Say I come up with a plan to call and fold to a river bet if an ace falls, an ace falls, and the villain leads for $25--do I stick to my plan?

The semantics of 2+2 jargon may have led you to make an unfair criticism. Pretty much everybody on 2+2 knows that just calling here with spittle streaming down our chin, visions of pie dancing in our head and a "golly, gee, let's see what happens on the river," mentality is sub-optimal.

hey skinny PM me sometime lemme know how the grindin is going in SF. i remember you came on here about a year ago with a plan. curious how it panned out.

i agree that making our decision easier if we get raised shouldn't really be a factor in determining our bet sizing. that said, i'm rarely betting less than half the pot in a small pot on the turn. there's just too much value missed in live play. and also, if we do decide to bet really small, we now have to factor in the fact that we will likely be raised by a lighter range due to our bet sizing (in most cases). not necessarily a way lighter range, but somewhat lighter on average. an extreme example is when someone bets $5 into a $30 pot and another player has TPWK. they will often raise specifically because the $5 bet is so small, where they would never otherwise raise with TPWK.

it's true we rarely induce much by betting small in live play (meaning, villian rarely just bluffs all his folding range because we bet small) but villains' raising ranges certainly change when we bet really small.

interesting physical tell. almost never a strong hand. in my head this would weight his range towards top pair and possibly a turned flush draw, some other medium-SDV hands.

i think i'm checking back any card except a king OTR. we don't get called by worse much.

I'm surprised at the level of confidence that people are putting into split's read as the basis for a recommended turn fold. I'm not saying it is wrong--I've played against a lot of passive players that I don't think are capable of raising the turn without a big hand here. But split's only played against villain for a couple of hours. With only 60 hands against villain, I am going to always assume a pretty big margin of error for my reads and so not deviate too much from GTO play. So while I take rizeagainst's point about not assuming the villain is thinking as deeply into the hand as you are, I also think you should give him at least a 15-20% chance of doing so. You might still fold here, but it does seem awfully close to me.

Yeah, plus, split's read can becdead on, but a non-standard line like split's can induce even a passive player to step out of character. I don't think it is terribly close--we have to call the turn c/r.

I haven't been posting in this thread because usually other people have been saying what I would have said. But I found the debate over the turn bet sizing and planning to be interesting enough that I went ahead and actually did some math (as opposed to using my intuition to get a ballpark estimate). Full disclosure: my intuition in this hand told me that the bigger turn bet followed by a river check behind would be a better play than betting small on the turn and then going for a third street of value on the river.

To simplify the math, let's say that the "small bet" is a 1/3 pot bet offering 4:1 pot odds, and the "big bet" is a 2/3 pot bet offering 5:2 pot odds.

Now, let's say that *Split*'s assumptions are basically correct, as follows: if we make the small bet, villain calls with a range that includes decent (8+ out) draws, as well as some Qx and Jx hands, but if we make the big bet, villain folds the Jx hands.

For the small bet, I gave Villain the following range:

KT, T9, AK, AT, T8, 98, 54, QT, AJ, KJ, JT, J9. (So far I'm not considering hands that already have us beat.)

Against this range, we have an equity edge of about 85.5% to 14.5%--we are just under a 7:1 favorite. So if this entire range calls us getting 4:1 odds, we theoretically ought to profit.

There are 3 problems here that I see:

1) If we make the small bet, we'll probably want to get a third street of value on the river. That means we open ourselves up to losing one or more bets when we are outdrawn. If this is the range that calls us on the turn, we will still profit from the call as long as we don't lose 3 times our bet on the river.

2) I didn't include hands that beat us, such as AQ, slowplayed QJ and 44, and 64 that just made 2 pair. By betting small, we could level ourselves into calling if those hands raise us (or, we just fold and lose our bet 100% of the time). That slashes the profitability of this play, but by how much, I can't be sure (it depends on things like bet sizing and how stubborn we are). EDIT: This could be a wash when we consider that sometimes we really do get a third street of value from a worse hand.

3) We don't know that the assumption that Jx calls us is correct. It's possible that this villain folds Jx to any bet and sizing doesn't matter. If that's the case, then the range of hands we beat that call the turn could look like this:

KT, T9, AK, AT, T8, 98, 54, QT, AJ, KJ, JT, J9

Against this range, our equity edge is about 81.5% to 18.5%--we've dropped from a 7:1 favorite to roughly a 4.5:1 favorite. If we are offering 4:1 odds, then we just barely profit on the call, and the bet is unprofitable if we give any implied odds on the river. If we mistakenly assume that a wider range is calling the turn, and we go for a third street of value on a lot of rivers, that makes this small bet sizing wrong in retrospect.

If we take this narrower range of draws and offer 5:2 pot odds and check behind most rivers, though, that's definitely profitable--we offer worse pot odds, plus we aren't offering implied odds to any hand that checks to us if we always check behind. (Plus we can more confidently fold to a raise--while I agree that this should not be the deciding factor in sizing, I do think it can be useful as a small factor.)

So it seems like it matters a great deal whether we can count on Villain to call a small bet on the turn with Jx, but not a big one. If Villain calls both sizes with Jx, betting bigger is obviously better. If Villain folds Jx to both bet sizes, betting bigger is obviously better. Only if Villain will call a small turn bet with Jx, but fold to a big one, is it possible for the small sizing to be correct. (The bigger bet may still net more profit just by virtue of being bigger. But this post is long enough already...)

I think one possible reason for my intuition that I want to make the bigger bet here is that rarely do I know my Villains well enough to know whether these very specific conditions for a small bet to be good are being met.

EDITED TO ADD: Welcome to the forum *Split*; I hope you stick around.

Given the line taken by split. It seems pretty nitty to fold. I wouldn't fold taking that line. I would have already determine that I'm b/c. But split had no plan to call the raise.

As far as the call reevaluate line people are disagreeing with. Its not for the masses. Its when ranges are not clear. Bart always recommends call reevaluate rivers vs aggressive players. Its not optimal vs a passive opponent. Classic example of leveling yourself. When you decide to take a line like this it has to be optimal to b/c against any villain. Hero had no intention of b/c he took 90 seconds to make a call. Poor planning on his part.

Have not heard of it. Will check the liquor store tomorrow when we re-up on the courage juice. Thanks.

Semi Buzzed PM sent.

Great points. Something I need to apply to my game a lot more. Thank you.

I had no intention of calling a raise to $80, no

I didn't take 90 seconds because I was confused about how to handle the c/minR (i was calling the second I saw it), rather because I was thinking about how cool of a spot the river would be and wanted to think about each logical river type (the ones I listed in the last hand post)...

(hint, Mpethy was correct that this hand was posted because I wanted to discuss a different bet size in what would be an otherwise standard spot. while many people disagree with my bet size (and even I don't think it's optimal...I rushed it in real-time), it still created a good conversation and some excellent work by a variety of posters. overall, i consider this thread a success, and hopefully others do too)

Good PAHWM almost by definition require non-standard lines. Otherwise, it is nearly impossible to get through 3 streets of decisions.

I would interpret the villain's reaction to the call as simple frustration that he doesn't understand what your hand holding could be. You're not playing by the standard script. That said, rather than turning him into a level 2 player, I think you've caused him to fall back to a level 1 player. He doesn't know what he's up against and is going to fall back to a passive player and decide based on your bet size how strong you are. A check in the dark is a TV move, but not really bad on the river on his part if confused. On the river, you should be fairly accurate to the strength of your holding. He gets to act last. Obviously, he doesn't have a monster.

As played. I don't see a weaker hand calling if the board improves for a draw or second pair. 2h might get a small bet called to see what you had. A raise after you call the first raise is going to be a better hand than yours. The size should be about 1/3 pot, because that's where your other bets were located. If you bet big, he folds everything you beat. He only folds AQ that you don't.

I still think this is FPS for LLSNL. I don't think a river bet gets called with worse enough to make up for the lost equity on the flop and turn in most circumstances.

This is excellently put. Calling or folding is often much less elastic than we think it is. Thus my comment about fat value.

I know *split*'s sizing was made for a reason, I just think it's FPS against this V. It seem more optimal against a level 2 thinker, and less so against one or 3.

Edit: Damnit, venice10 ninja'd me with the same points...