plan 1: bet like $120 and get folds 75+% of the time.
plan 2: profit

Let's take three flops and three likely scenarios:

Flop: AT3

Hero bets $120, V calls. Giving up now or still barreling?
Hero bets $120, V min-raises. Now what?
Hero bets $120, V shoves all-in. Calling off?


Flop: K33

Hero bets $120, V calls. Giving up now or still barreling?
Hero bets $120, V min-raises. Now what?
Hero bets $120, V shoves all-in. Calling off?

Flop: 529

Hero bets $120, V calls. Giving up now or still barreling?
Hero bets $120, V min-raises. Now what?
Hero bets $120, V shoves all-in. Calling off?


I would say that all three options suck in every scenario, except maybe V just calling the third hand, but even then there's a lot of turn and river cards you don't like. Maybe you can convince me otherwise.

I'm with wj on this one. Any flop that doesn't contain an 8 kinda sucks being OOP to a guy that might get crazy postflop, and it is likely to get a whole lot worse on the turn if we're still involved in the hand. I don't even feel that pumped about stacking off on a 7 high flop.

Gthelowvariancerouteisalsosometimesthemostprofitab leone,imoG

you're omitting the most likely scenario in every case:

we bet and villain folds.

the OP describes villain as opening wide, but the hands he describes that villain won were ones where he flopped big hands or draws. OP also describes hero as borderline nitty.

I don't expect villain to be overly bluffy especially on dry A-hi type boards, nor do I expect him to have a strong enough PF calling range to actually hit these boards enough to dissuade us from cbetting and possibly even firing another barrel.

my view is that when we do get action on flops we hate, we're usually behind and can shut down without making any FTOP errors. on the other hand, turning a hand as strong as 88 into a set mine when we have clearly the best hand is leaving a lot of value on the table.

I don't know how you can ever expect to win against a player when you essentially advocate playing scared.

I don't think we have to stack off on 7 hi flops just bc we 3b. we're super deep here.

the low variance route is also often the least profitable one.

With this logic you should be 3b the entire top 50% of hands since they are ahead of V's range. We still have to play postflop poker and will be OOP and hate most flops in a huge pot. You can't assume you're behind when V calls one flop bet on a board with draws or where he could have a smaller pair, but you also don't want to be stacking off with two outs either. Calling is not playing scared, that's just ridiculous.

If we 3bet here, we don't end up being very deep at all. A "normalish" 3x of $60 will create about a $130 HU pot having just $665 left, so an SPR of ~5 (not exactly a lot of wiggle room postflop).

Alternatively, we can see a flop for less than 3% of our stack, where 1/8th of the time we'll flop a monster and can then decide to play for stacks with a bunch of crazies (where it sounds like a lotta money is being tossed around).

ETA: Having said that, I will admit that I probably don't even have a 3bet range here this deep (unless I feel Villain will call a raise to $120 when I have AA). But in my defence, I suck at deepstack.

GimoG

It's not impossible to play 88 OOP without initiative. The problem here is not that villain bet, it's that villain bet over pot on a 653 rainbow board. His range crushes us. Even if he has a pair and a straight draw like 54 then we are just in a coin flip.

The shorter we are the better it is to play 88 aggressively. However, in this spot we are over 200bbs deep. It's definitely better to pot control here.

88 isn't just a top 50% hand, it's a top 10% hand. I would advocate 3b as wide as a 15% frequency against a LAG of villain's description, which I would weight toward value given the likelihood that villain is going to rarely fold. that makes 88 a great hand to put in the 3b range.

you also discount the value of shutting the EP limpers out of the pot. by 3b we clean up a lot of equity, giving us a larger share of a larger pot, which also sounds good.

we can also c/c flops we like for pot control, figuring to pick off bluffs. but again, most of the time our play picks up about 30BB worth of dead money and is immediately +EV.

you also ignore that playing the SB as raise/fold against LAGs is a more GTO approach (ie pokersnowie does it).

but yes, to answer your question, sometimes we will 3b and cbet and lose. and sometimes we will even lose to a worse hand. but most of the time we will pick up dead money from a really weak range, which to me is winning at poker fundamental #1 or 1a.

that deep 3betting oop with 88 ag Laggy villains is spew. I'm happy 3 betting broadways or SCs which have good post flop equity. 3betting 88 turns a hidden gem of a hand into a bluff.

As played the over bet on flop means folding is the better play.

I don't think it's an equity issue as much as it is a "playability" issue. 88 may be a top 10% hand but very few flops help you outside of 8xx. Your out of position vs an extremely loose aggro player. The problem is we won't get to showdown enough and realize the equity that 88 has(its not limit-holdem). Take broadway hands or suited connectors, these are much easier to play in the sense that we can flop good top pairs, turn draws etc etc, semibluff opportunities. 88 is extremely hard to improve and if hes going to call and float and steal pots in position post flop I have a hard time believing 3! to be plus ev.. Outside of flopping a set, most of the time we to a flop we are
- slightly ahead or
-way behind

this combined with being out of position vs a crazy lag button clicker makes 3betting and inflating the pot seem unattractive.

If he folded to the three bet with any decent frequency then we are picking up dead money enough, but it sounds like he is clicking buttons and our 3bet will not have any fold equity. One of the most important things is how light he will peel when we c-bet and we just don't know this.

Also what if he 4bets, now what? how on earth do you know if your ahead of his range or not.

having to fold in 3b pots sucks, especially if you're the 3bettor. the possibility of having to fold on a future street is not enough reason to avoid a +EV preflop raise. you can just as easily 3b AK and end up cbetting and c/f turn.

let's be clear of what we mean by "playability". on a majority of flops we will have the best hand, and villain will have between 2-6 outs. we will be OOP. I personally think this spot has a lot of playability, and is profitable.

yes, the hand will be relatively harder to play than AA or KK. playing difficult hands in the easiest possible way is also a good thing to do a lot of the time. I'm also not arguing that flatting 88 is bad. simply that raiseEV > callEV in this spot.

sometimes increasing the size of the pot in order to collect the dead money on a future street is a really good idea. the fact that our 3b has no FE means we get to c-bet a hand that's going to be strong against his range and will likely result in collecting more dead money.

I think it's important to specify what kind of player we really think our villain is. obv this is pretty hard to do without being able to observe his play more directly, but my interpretation is that he's raising a stupid range, but also hitting the board and getting max value. he seems to me like an aggrofish who's spewing PF and getting lucky. maybe he's running huge bluffs or something, but the OP implies that when he wins pots postflop it's mostly with value hands. it doesn't say he shoved the turn and binked a 2 outer or something for his stack. nor does it say he was making tons of big plays and getting guys to make big laydowns. this stuff all could be true, but I'm basing my interpretation just on what it does say and players of the same type I have encountered.

I don't think we should necessarily be that worried about wild button-clicking in a 3bet pot when we've played noticeably tight. if anything we can actually give some credit to his big bets. the hand posted is further evidence of that.

that said, I appear to expect a bit more fit/fold play postflop than some of those who disagree with my point of view. however, if he really is just a wild button clicker, it's important to make some bigger calls too.

I am willing to concede his ability to sometimes bluff me off the best hand post-flop, and in exchange I expect to win with cbets a lot because his opening range is going to completely brick the flop a lot of the time. when we hit an 8, it's going to be a lot easier to get 200+ BB in the pot, and there are going to be a lot of good call down boards too.

I have personally found there to be a lot of value in being able to navigate these sort of spots with mid pairs, and have found similar villains all too willing to spew in spots where hands like 88 weren't an overpair or better but were pretty clearly good.

I'm not giving him credit for a light 4bet unless I've seen it a couple times before, and there's no indication of that in the OP, so maybe I'm completely offbase. OP describes hero as noticeably tight, so I doubt there's been a lot of 3b/folding from him in the past, and generally I just don't think it's wise to give opponents credit for being able to light 4b at 1/3 without really good info. even if he is prone to 4b more than usual, how often is really doing it?

so I don't mind pitching it to a raise, since I have so much equity when called.

draw your own conclusions. I just find that those high midpairs 88-TT/JJ really increase in value against LAG wide openers.

88 is much more 'playable' as a one pair hand in a 3-bet pot heads-up against a villain whose range we still crush than in a single-raised, multiway pot.

I'm a noob, and this discussion has been very enlightening for me, but everyone keeps saying "this guy, this laggy villain, this spewtard" etc. etc. Has the OP seen the villain call a 3! and show down yet? We know he raises 74o and T3s, but what does he call reraises with? What if his 3! calling range is actually a lot tighter than we think it is?

I think if we actually establish some 3! call ranges for the villain, we have a better idea of where 88 stands. I think most of the time, you 3! and everyone folds. When he calls, let's say he has 22+, 54s+, all suited broadways excluding AK (he will 4!) and then maybe AJo+. We can throw in some off-suit connectors if we want, like j9o or 67o.

So now you go to the flop and it’s like KJ9. What’s he folding if you cbet? 22-88, connectors that don’t straighten out this board. MAYBE he folds AJ if we’re lucky. Any other combination of broadways is a pair and a straight draw or better, and he’s calling with the intention of committing, I think.

Let’s say the flop is exactly what it is, 653. What’s he calling if you cbet (you want him to call, right?)? 22 (maybe) - 88 probably. If he has 77+, he might even raise you, and then you don’t know if you’re beaten?

So, I suck at poker, and I’m sure there’s a way to figure out your hand against his range against all flops and figure out how often he folds to cbets and all of that. But you guys do all of that and then teach me, because I don’t know.

My point is, everyone is calling this dude an aggro spew monkey, but I think that his 3! calling range is tighter than we think it is. And we’re oop. Against an aggro spew monkey.

This made me laugh.

Those always 3!betting for value, what sizing are we going for here?

+1

in this case I start at $75 and go as big as I think he'll call with a wide range. $100 is probably the max, and it's prob a bit too big.

while he may not call the 3b with 74o, I think he's calling with 80-90ish% of his range just because he's running hot, up big, and in position. also the fact that he goes 7x PF tells me that he probably doesn't want to fold to a 3b.

I'm pretty comfortable bet/folding the flop as played in a 3b pot. if we're putting him on a lot of connectors/low pairs, etc. I also think he's going to call here with overpairs at least half the time if not a majority (he doesn't want to blow us off PF). so raising this flop shows a lot of strength, and while he probably will just put us on AK and decided to suicide bluff sometimes, I don't think his bluff frequency is going to be large enough to make a b/c profitable.

also I'm more than happy for him to fold all his missed broadways and suited aces and whatnot that probably have ~30% equity on the flop and from a combination perspective make up the majority of his range. as for other worse hands, I think he can call with A4-A7 and will probably also sometimes just call with 97 and 87.

I don't really like playing the what if the flop is ... game because there are literally thousands of flop permutations and cherry-picking one or two to prove a point misses the mark altogether.

KJ9 is close between a bet and c/f, though I would probably fire in this spot since we rep this board better than him and he's going to fold tons of his nonsense that turned into underpairs and 2 unders and whatnot. but this is one of the nut worst flops for 88. I've run enough ranges that I would estimate we still have around 40% equity on this flop against his expected PFR/call range (prob 25-30% of hands), and the main way to realize that equity is to take it down against the big chunk of his range that hates the flop more than we do.

there are also plenty of flops that are going to be good for 88, and we will have a chance to play a situation where we expect to make better decisions than our opponent.

You don't think your overestimating your foldequity postflop here? He may only connect with 25-30% hands, but that doesn't mean he won't continue and make our life hell in position. 79 etc, can raise or fload ace high flops simply because he will apply max pressure to fold out high pocket pairs etc etc. He is so wide that he can rep anything and its impossible to know if it hits him or not. He doesn't appear to me to be a fit/fold player. We have no reads about how sticky he is in 3bet pots yet, wouldn't you wan't to be more polarized 3betting range in this instance? Like your basically saying 3bet, c-bet and print money but we can do this with any garbage hand. Show me the proof that he will fold 75% of flops and is straightforward and easy to hand read vs out of position?

Is this "generaly speaking" a one and done c-bet hoping he plays straight up?. Lets say he flats incredibly wide, and reps straight draws/flush draws on connecting turns or if hero shows weakness? Can you outline a profitable turn plan in this instance giving maybe some example. Surely blindy double barrelling any board seems spewy no? Check call marginal turn runouts and evaluate/hope to get to showdown or he doesn't outdraw us somehow on the river and just hang on in the end or what?


I see some merit here however, the plan on runouts where he shoes resistence and how to play turn/river in bloated pot does not seem great. It's more attractive to call here also because we know there are two limpers behind who will also call giving us better odds and building a bigger for if/when we hit. And we are keeping in bad passive players who may be stations and pay us of and/or aggrotard cbets and we stack him. If it were just folded to him in co,hj,button and folds to hero in the blinds in this instance I like 3! better for value.

Glad someone appreciates my humor.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using 2+2 Forums

first I'm not giving him as much credit as you in terms of his ability to read board textures, cross-referencing them with my likely OOP 3b range, and deciding which portions of his range to play as bluffs and which scare cards to represent. it's a bit of cognitive dissonance to say he's opening 74o from UTG and also making these sorts of advanced plays at the table.

so I guess I do expect more straight-forward play, and I think that's a generally fair expectation of 1/3 players. this guy is most likely a losing poker player, and most players (losing ones especially) don't know how to play 3b pots and tend to get a lot less aggressive on turns and rivers when they've just been calling and have a weak hand or draw.

I think I'm more likely to bet A/K hi flops and barrel rainbow boards with overs. I'm also more likely to c/c to induce on paired and dry boards, though I sometimes lead flop and shutdown and that induces a lot of bluffs because they just want to put you on AK so much.

if we're worried that villain is going to call our flop bet too much, what that means is that we expect him to call a weaker range OTF which will likely include hands that don't beat 88. on Q 7 4, perhaps he also calls with all of his 7s for example, but he might be just as interested as us in getting to showdown and not bombing. in that case, we exponentially increase our EV by the 3b/cbet line, though I'm not counting on him even calling that light to find profit. again, if we do think he's going to be making lots of plays, that means that the correct counter-strategy is to call down/goto showdown more often, even in spots where a call-down is generally -EV but vs his continuing range is +EV. however, there would need to be more history with the villain before you could start to determine those spots more precisely.

we're definitely going to be folding 88 more than KK, and that doesn't make the hand unprofitable.

Thanks again everyone! I am really happy I posted this hand, the response and line views from all of you have been more than helpful. This V is a weekend reg and I will certainly run into him again and will record more hands. After this hand, he made similar moves when he popped 2pr boards. Just massive overbets so others would fold their draws and of course overpairs.