This is not my hand, but instead from a youtube video. The host puts out a daily video about grinding low stakes poker in Vegas. He comments after the hand about how it was difficult to get max value from the hand....I do not want give away the results, but instead would like to know thoughts about the decisions that were made.

I have been playing poker for several years and just realized that my game is not about poker, but instead exploitation. All I hear about these days is GTO and would love to learn more.

Hero is a tight passive OMC type but probably only in mid-30's. He wants to give the impression that he is a pro-poker player by dress and table antics. Hero has ~$700

Villain is described as an aggressive Asian woman. That is winning $14-1500.

OTTH

Villain raises from late position to $15 and hero wakes up in small blind with QQ and raises to $50.00. Do we like this raise this deep oop? Is this a r/f? and if so is a call optimal?

Flop ($100) is around J 7 3r and hero leads for $75.00 and villain and basically clicks it to $155. Thoughts? what if V raises to $300? what is the plan if V just flats again?

Turn ($410) is Q. Hero checks and V bets $110. Hero raises to $310 and has about $200 behind. V calls.

River ($1030) is K. Hero ships dark and is called.......

Hero claims that he would have played hand differently if Q does not turn, but goes on to say he would have called 100 on turn and 100 on river......so he is a better player because he would have lost less.

I feel many mistakes were made here. Please share thoughts on each street.

Preflop raise is fine against an aggressive opponent. Villain can be raising nearly anything when opening from LP and hero should be OK with just taking this down preflop. Flatting and trying to play QQ OOP is likely to be very hard. Raise/fold depends on villain but is probably right.

Flop leads is bigger then it needs to be on a dry flop. The flop near min raise is worrying but unless villains min raise range is nothing but monsters I wouldn't fold flop. Giving up after that if hero doesn't improve is really about reading villain and how much they bluff. Turn is fine if hero is confident villain is going to bet again after flop raise. If flop is more once and done then hero should lead turn.

River is not a card hero wants but hero has already shipped. With $200 left that is a sensible move, hero is never folding and it can get called wider by sticky opponents.

This guys vlogs? What a surprise.

OTTH

pre: I think sizing is fine, $45 would work too. Generally, I would r/f if facing a 4bet. Would change with reads. Is V aggressive and loose?

flop: Very read dependent. Aggressive Asian woman isn't much to go on, other than maybe we can slow play when flopping big. If we can't narrow her range from showdowns or a clear pattern similar flop aggression (ex: she raised 6 out of 9 flop c-bets), I'd lay this down & wait for a better opportunity. We enter turn with 29% of our stack invested & odds are great we won't go through two more streets of checks.

turn: Luck be a lady tonight We decide to get trappy... fine. As stated, it's likely she'll bet again... and she does, though much smaller than we'd like. Either way, I think a flat here could work for a simple 3/5PS AI OTR. Not to say, I don't like a c/r here, but I think anything other than sets might get a bit weary.

River: as played, duh...

PF I like the raise size, flop I'd go slightly smaller , prob $65ish. I don't mind calling the flop raise because it doesn't cap our range, but we probably have to continue call down turn/river bet villain dependent.

Turn: agreed she didn't bet as big as you'd want, tank raise to $310 is fine

River: ship it


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For some reason I knew it was going to be this hand before I even opened the thread.

I thought once he spiked the Q on the turn that the hand pretty much played itself. The river is trivial after most of the money went in OTT, but our hero definitely benefited from a V that was willing to stack off 350bb with 1p. The river's "whatever" as she's committed on the turn, but when holding AA in a 3! pot, having JQK on board is an almost worst case scenario for her hand.

Exploitation is the name of the game when you are playing Vs who make a lot of mistakes. GTO is a defensive strategy for when you are more worried about trying to keep Vs from exploiting you than you are about exploiting them. To learn more, try this thread.

As for the hand, I like the 3-bet pre. Playing QQ OOP this deep without initiative would make extracting very difficult. It would likely be a 3b/fold, as live 4-bet ranges are so ridic tight.

Once V flats, I'm putting her on a range of AK (all combos) JJ-QQ (all combos, 88-TT/KK (half the combos, the low ones for set mining, and KK because it sometimes 4-bets) 22-77/AA (a quarter of the combos, for the same reasons)

Flop lead is standard, imo. Get that value. The small raise is very concerning, but I'm not folding an overpair yet. We lose to about 10 combos of her PF range, but this could also be almost any of the pairs/AK in her range putting us "putting us on AK." I also call here, but against many Vs I may be done putting money in the pot unimproved.

If she'd made it 300, I would almost certainly have folded, as it looks like she's trying to get stacks in OTT, and there is very little turning PPs into a bluff in her rage to go that big. If she flats, I'm likely taking turn off for pot control and may bet river depending on run-out and action.

Once a miracle Q comes OTT, the hand plays itself.

Being this deep against an aggressive player who will have position on us, I think I just call preflop. She has complete junk here so often that she'll fold to our OMC image 3bet a lot, and if we get 4bet this deep things start sucking. My plan would be to win some bets off here by passively checking/calling some streets (obviously things get dicier on A/K flops).

Being that we are so deep, our preflop raise actually gave her 20+ implied odds to setmine against us, in position, with an SPR of 6.5 (i.e. trivial to get stacks in postflop). Plus we have an OMC image and we have exactly what we're repping. Kinda gross result, imo. With that in mind, I probably would just check the flop. We risk her taking a free card an a A/K binking, but otherwise we are more likely to make money against her by having her doing the betting than us.

Unless there has been some history going on between us, I just fold to the raise. We 3bet out of the blinds, bet the flop, all with an OMC image, and yet got raised on the flop.

On the turn my guess is that she actually has a monster (hence why I don't make it to the turn), so I'd probably just donk 1/2 PSB in case she can check those behind on this scary board to setup an easy river shove. Setting up a check/raise just allows her to get away from her monsters in cooler situations.

I wouldn't have shipped dark, but river ship is the only part of the hand that I like (and find obvious).

ETA: Ha, not one person voted for any of my lines.

GoutofstepwiththeforumG