Gonna try this one more time.

Your logic isn't entirely sound, nor entirely consistent.

Deciding that he's bad because he's young and preppy, or that he's tilted because he just got stacked isn't logically sound. Those are guesses, or assumptions. We should only make those determinations based on observing how he actually plays.

It's not logically consistent to assume he's bad, and then decide what hands he does or doesn't have in his range, because of what he should or shouldn't be doing with those hands. That's implicitly saying that he's playing the way you think he should play, which is your view of what's "correct" in his position. If he's bad, he may not be doing what's correct.

If you determine that he's bad, bad enough to be doing things he shouldn't be doing, then that might push you more towards calling down here, if you believe he's double-barreling with air in a spot that is generally going to be under-bluffed. But even if that's what he's doing - a good player might find that line, with total air, when you take the line you took here.

Even if he is in fact bad, the fact remains that this isn't a great spot to bluff-catch, with your hand, because many of his turn bluffs get there on the river, and some of his bluffs actually beat your hand.

It's okay to hero-call and be wrong if your logic for calling is sound and consistent. It's okay to fold and be wrong, if logic supports it. Here, the logic supports folding, not calling. Your assumptions and guesses are all that support calling, not folding.

In hindsight, AFTER you saw him show JTo, it does appear that he was doing something he shouldn't do, perhaps because he's bad, or he's tilted, or both. But you didn't have enough evidence to support those assumptions before making your decision.

Everyone agrees you should fold here. You did fold. Instead of regretting it, you should be happy about it, because at the time, with the information you had available, it was the most logically sound decision. Not guaranteed to be right all the time, but more likely to be right than wrong, a large majority of the time, yet still "wrong" sometimes, in the results-oriented sense of right or wrong being determined by the result, rather than the relative probabilities of all possible outcomes.

FWIW, there aren't many "high level players" at 1/3. The best are generally just better than average. A high-level player would probably take a different line than the one you did, by betting flop or turn, or take the same line, and understand why folding the river is correct, when we check-call flop and turn.

Hope that helps. If not, good luck.

In the past year, I've played 1/2 or 1/3 in at least 9 different cardrooms around the country, and I could probably count on one hand the number of totally off-the-wall bluffs I've seen in large pots.

Well, this isn't a large pot. It's a 60 dollar bet. I'm not facing a triple barrel shove or river check/raise for a ton of money. Otherwise, I kind of agree with you. I can't count them on one hand, but they're definitely less common at the low stakes, though I usually see at least one per session.

They're factors worth taking into account.

Of course it's logically consistent. Bad players tend to make common mistakes, and it's not totally random. And again, I don't think he's doing what I think is "correct." If I thought he was a good player, I'd put him on a different range.

For example, if I thought he was playing "correctly" I would never put him on JT/QJ, and I might give him credit for AQ/AJ.

What Doc is saying is that your act of "taking [them] into account" is going to lead you to erroneous conclusions, since you're trying to predict poker behavior on factors that don't lead to reliable predictions about poker behavior.

That seems silly. Poker is a game of incomplete information. Whenever you're facing a bet on the river, you're either guessing or presuming what the other player has. The more information you have, the better your presumption, but you still never know for sure. If a player...

a) falls into a particular demographic that usually plays a certain way

b) just got stacked and seems tilted

c) has made comments and played a couple hands that give you an idea he's a weak player

...why wouldn't you take these into consideration? Sure, you might end up making the wrong play because of it, but more often than not this kind of information will help you make a better decision. It's just math and probability.

The way we take them into account is to use them as decision factors when we've already used sound and consistent logic and still have a close decision. They're small-weighted factors we use at the end, not big-weighted factors we use at the start, or after the fact, to rationalize a decision one way or the other.

We don't start with "young and preppy = bad". We start with what makes the most sense logically, then consider if he might be bad, because we may have seen others who look like him, who proved they were bad with how they played.

It flat out isn't logically consistent to assume he's bad, and then remove hands from his range by saying it doesn't make sense for him to have those hands. If he's bad, then he can have those hands, even if they don't make sense.

For example:

That's just ONE example, one of many, of inconsistent logic that you've demonstrated throughout the thread. If he's bad, then he could do something that "doesn't really make sense".

Ipso-facto, he could bet 60 with Ax, no matter how many times you say he can't have Ax here, for whatever reason.

Absolutely, which is why, if your read is right, and he's bad, he could have a lot of hands you're taking out of his range.

Wrong.

With bad players, it often is totally random, at least inasmuch as what they're doing doesn't make logical sense, and isn't theoretically sound, yet they may think what they're doing makes perfect sense, and encountering an opponent like that, doing something dumb, is entirely random.

You scratch your head when he bets turn, he reads that as a weakness tell, and blasts off on the river. Totally random, when your head just happened to itch.

You're removing hands from his range, by saying those hands don't make sense. That is implicitly assuming that you think he's not doing something that doesn't make sense, which is to say, he's playing correctly, by default, because he's not playing incorrectly, which isn't consistent with saying he's bad, because bad players play incorrectly.

And yet, at various times in this thread, you were putting him on "a flush or nothing" (post 5), not Ax (post 7), but also possibly maybe AK/AQ (post 7), not a flopped set (7), not 6x (7), possibly A6 (7), 87/97 and "some air" (7), stabbing with JT on the turn, but maybe not barreling with JT on the river (7), only A6 or flushes for value (post 10), no bluffs you lose to (10), no 53 or 88 (10), a lot of T9, J9, JT, QT, etc (10), probably not an ace (post 11), some bluffs you lose to (11), some Ax (post 13), but also probably not Ax or 6x (13), never a straight (13), or almost never a set or a straight (post 15), probably not 6x (15), but definitely possibly A6 (15), probably not 5x (15), Ax on the turn but not on the river (15), no random PP's like 99/88 (15), maybe 98/97/87 and every SC and S1G between T8 and QJ (15), and finally, total air (15).

My friend, in those six posts, all you demonstrated is that you don't know if he's playing correctly or not, and therefore don't know what range to give him, because you waffle back and forth between deciding that he might be doing something he shouldn't because he's bad and deciding that he's not doing that because it doesn't make sense.

I mean, he can't have no Ax and also have some Ax. He can't have a flush or nothing, but also have A6. He can't have no 6x but also maybe have some 6x. He can't have no straights or sets but also possibly have some sets or straights, even if only rarely. He can't have no 88 or 99 but maybe 98/97/87, and a lot of T9, J9, JT, and QT. He can't have some 5x but never 53.

You're all over the map. You have no idea what he has. He's terrible because he's young and preppy, and tilted because he just got stacked, and he can have all these hands, while also somehow have none of those hands, but maybe have some of those hands, sometimes.

You can't logically support any of it with observations about how he actually plays. All you know is he's young, preppy, and just got stacked within his first 20 minutes at the table, when he got it in QQ vs AK, and lost. The rest is just you flailing about, trying to distract from the real problem here, by making yourself sound smart, and him sound dumb.

And the real problem is - you didn't bet flop or turn, when action checked to you twice, opening the door for him to bluff you out of your shoes, with total air, because when you checked to him twice, he can literally take this line with any two cards, and your best course of action is to fold your weak pair that didn't improve to a straight.

That's the truth. Accept it, learn from it, and improve.

Or not.

PS / forgot a few - he can't have a ton of total nonsense air-ball bluffs, yet never over-value Ax on the river, and never bet 6x on the turn.

You can't say his $60 bet on the river is "big" (post 5), too big to be Ax, but then turn around and suggest it isn't that big, if it's a bluff (post 28).

He can't be polarized to a super-nutted hand or nothing (post 7), because his bet is big relative to the pot, but also somehow making a routine bluff for a trivial amount (because that could then also be some wider, merged range of value).

It can't be a nonsense bluff you see all the time (post 25), yet completely baffle you, enough to warrant so much debate (entire thread).

You get the idea.

We already went through this. In a 3-way pot, I played the hand pretty standard. I could have bet the flop but didn't, and I explained why I didn't bet the turn (applicable versus pretty much any player). It wasn't a big-weighted factor from the start which should be obvious (though the read should be kept in mind), but I also wouldn't say it should only be a small-weighted factor at the end. The type of player one is up against can, and often should, play a major role in decisions.

I did start out with what makes the most sense, logically (maybe the flop check was bad. IDK). However, if I regularly play against college kids in a charity game that tend to fit a certain player profile, then yeah, I'm going to use that to my advantage. Could he have Ax? Well, yeah, obviously. Is it likely? No. Most players, even if they're not good, are smart enough to see that the flush and trip sixes got there.

No, it's not saying he's playing correctly by default. Bad players still take lines that make sense from their perspective, and I have to put myself in his shoes. Yes, he's going to do stuff that "doesn't make sense" (i.e., is bad), but you're basically arguing that he has any two cards here, and that just isn't the case. Even players that only kind of know what they're doing don't just do "whatever." The way you're arguing, it's like he's just as likely to have K2 as 47 as AK as TT. It's as if trying to put him on a range is pointless because "we just don't know."

Why not? Because he's bad he makes equally bad decisions regardless of the situation?

I didn't say that.

So many threads are "Should I have called this 200bb shove on the river?" or "Can I fold a set of queens here?" For me, those can be kind of boring, and spots like these are sometimes more interesting.

It was a big bet relative to the size of the pot (60 dollars into 70). It isn't big relative to the stakes. It's only 20bbs.

If you carefully read those posts—about whether or not these hands are in hands in his range—you'd see that they're dependent the street and action. I didn't contradict myself once. I came into this thread with his range already broken down by street and remained consistent throughout the thread.