This hand is taken from David Sklansky's new book: "Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em: Help Them Give You Their Money"

Page 196:

We are UTG in a $1-$3 Game with $200 and look down at KK. We raise $12. Only the Big Blind calls and the flop comes:

Q96

BB checks to us and we cbet $25 (100% pot) and BB calls.

Turn is 2

Our stack is now $163 and the pot is $70 ($75 minus rake)

BB Donk Leads $110.

This is your opponent's range on the turn:



What should Hero do vs this Overbet Donk lead and why?

The first thing we should do is buy in for the maximum.

unless BB is a 90 year old man, his most likely holding is AQ with the As. why is that not in the range?

A 4x UTG open folding around to the BB isn't all that common at 1/3 (although not massively unusual).

That range seems way off for what you'd expect to see in a 1/3 live game. Very, very few players are going to call a pot sized bet with middle pair and then instantly turn it into a bluff when the flush card hits; you just arentngoibg to see much of this from JTo either. (I presume the K2s is a typo as well as nobody's calling flop with K2s and if they are then they're passive enough to make this an instafold). We are assuming that sets and two pair check the turn? (Reasonable)

I would fold this comfortably but the range I assign here would look very different to the one above

His exact range isn't relevant to the concept that is being discussed. It's an equity vs equity concept.

I'm showing you the equities so you don't have to worry about his range.

I'm a bear of very small brain, so you'll have to tell me which bits of the hand to pay attention to and which to ignore. Are positions relevant? Action so far? Our hand? You can't put a situation in and say none of it matters. If this is a question in isolation then just state the isolated material that matters.

If the problem is that we have 46% equity facing pot odds of X then the exact range will be relevant. If we jam pot odds will be extremely tasty for the opponent but we've got to decide whether there is any action that doesn't lead to stacks going in...otherwise it's just a basic (all in) pot odds vs equity question, if we are just supposed to ignore everything else.

We have 43.76% equity vs a Donk bet of $110 into a $70 pot and we are $163 effective.

This is all that matters.

If the range is off, the equities are off too. Why even list the range if you just want talk about equity? It's just clutter and begs the question.

So much of it depends on villain's tendencies and player type.

Default is loose/passive and very straightforward. There is a huge portion of the live population that just always has a flush here or a better than 1 pair hand that now bets out of fear of giving us a free river that could be a spade.

Making the assumption that this is one of those players by default it is an easy fold.

It's just an equity question. We know what our opponent has so the tendencies don't matter.

The ranges here are too illustrate a concept.

You have to put a range in to get equities.

I fixed it for you. There you go. Now answer the question.

We know what he has?

We know he has 56.24% equity vs our KK and he Donk bet $110 into a $70 pot and we have $163 effective.

We don't know his exact hand.

So it's 163 to win 233 after our shove and his call? Do it.

Ok I see. Well we have enough equity then. We'd roughly need 37% and we have 43%. If we jam we would need about 41% and have 43%. I guess if we call and then fold only on spade rivers maybe that would be best even though its kind of weird.

Hopefully my math is right, please let me know if I'm wrong...

Our equity is above our stack-off threshold for the SPR, and we can probably assume villain will call a turn shove with his full range due to pot commitment/odds. That would make shoving +EV over folding.

The only thing that comes to mind is the possibility of calling being more +EV, due to us being able to make clairvoyant decisions on the river, as in freerolling for the remaining $53 we have behind. This may involve folding to shoves on a certain collection of rivers, perhaps shoves on nearly any river if we can guarantee he shoves only with better. Some of these assumptions are similar to bedrock Live & Low Stakes NL assumptions, such as big bets mean big hands, big river bets/raises are nutted, yada yada yada.

Do we now what part of his range he'll call a shove with?

Generally, if we thought he has 56.24% equity, then if we fold, our EV is zero, if we call and the hand somehow ended now, our EV is .4376x290-110, or +$16.90. If we shove and he always calls, its .4376x396-163, or +$10.29.

So in a vacuum, the call is better, but realistically, if he ever folds, the shove is better (unlikely at these stack sizes), and if might fold river sometimes and save our last $53, calling would be better if we knew we were never folding a winner.

The example would work a lot better with deeper stacks, IMO, and I don't think the authors make a convincing argument that there's much in his range that could fold river. Real players aren't taking this line with JsTx or Tx8s basically ever.

No this isn't correct.

I contacted David and Mason and hopefully they will respond in this thread.

Yeah, I left out the money already in the pot in scenario 2. It's already fixed above. Literally noticed as I hit send, but apparently edited too slowly.

FWIW, I think against the average 1/3 player, we're never a slight dog here, imo. This is basically always AsQx (where X pairs the board) or a small flush/set that is afraid we have one big spade, with a small chance of As9x or and even smaller on of AxQs.

So you think this is rarely JsTx/Ts8x like in the book?

The book advocates jamming turn over calling because hands we have beat may give up OTR so we lose EV. I think that is probably a good assumption given how little money is left.

It depends on the V, LDO, but very few are taking this line HU against an EP raiser with T8o. JsTx is probably in many ranges. But even if we give him all those combos and a couple combos of Ts8x, I don't think there's any way we're getting to where we are a slight dog against his range. I see more spazz in his range than combo draws.

Given the exact situation as presented I think shove is best. To continue here hero has to think villain has a fair number of draws and hero should get their money in now. I think the situation is pretty unlikely. In reality you will be facing more made hands and fewer draws and folding would probably best.
This is a situation where knowing your villain is important. There are a few that could be on outright bluffs when the scare card hits and I'm getting my money in. There are ones that always have a flush or set and folding is trivial. Against an unknown I expect their range has to be weighted towards made hands and it doesn't take many for the best play to be fold because hero has no redraws against a flush and little chance against set/two pair.

I agree I would fold in game as well but I think shoving is the best line with the equities as they are presented.

What are you doing here with KKx?