Ash- what was AG impression of your play at the table? Did she think you were aggro post-flop? From her line I doubt she would have that many hands better than yours except maybe like 78clubs. Though people take weird lines at 1/2 so who knows. You would think though that she would have jammed trips on the flop with that wet board, with a str8 on the blank turn unless she thought one of the two of you would bet why would she give a free card to the flush with a made hand. Maybe some Tx hands trying to get to cheap showdown, but everything else you are beating. So unless the villains are thinking that since you took the betting lead on the flop that you will fire again on the turn allowing them to c/shove the turn, why would they give a free card?

Im still scared money and would check back and re-eval.

Also by only calling the flop it keeps the pot more manageable, while RF may bet 70, from his blocking bet sized flop bet he prob does more of the same on a blank turn keeping the pot smaller. Also RF betting 70 would set off some bells in my head.

If both villains are on draws, and hero is a pokergod, then hero would recognize both villains are on draws and bet for value.

i dont have much to add, it seems a lot of people do not like an aggressive line against RF.

we can:
A) fold preflop to the limp/rr, as mentioned Ash dont know RF's limp/rr range.
B) take a passive line against RF and draw to the nut flush possibly, hopefully for cheap
C) get some folds

I prefer getting folds in this spot simply because all these discussions about the hand seem to imply that our semibluff raise is actually extreme thin value raise, meaning our equity is the majority in the pot. however, when we talk about semi-bluffing, the arguments made suggest we're behind the range. its one or the other, we cant both be good when we value raise but bad when we semi-bluff. im not quoting because im being lazy, but go back and read some of the posts re: range discussion and whether or not our flop raise is for value or a semi-bluff.

to me im semi-bluffing flop if checked to on turn im firing. if RF were to have bet on turn, im seriously reevaluating because at that point it means our FE is more often than not gone. RF is not betting into us twice like that without a monster. could he be checking turn with a monster? maybe.

i dont want a showdown w/ 2ndPTK against his possible range. I dont think we're ahead at showdown often enough. That said, i dont think he's necessarily sandbagging AA. he's obviously willing to get his money in, so i feel like we'd have a bit more action on the flop vs AA/KK. but im willing to be wrong here. if he shows up w/ AA/KK, he leveled me.

dealing with the top of RF range on the flop: we probably wont get a fold out of AA/KK. but AA combos are less since we have an A thereby making KK more likely but still not excluding QQ, JJ, and TP+kicker combos.

This leaves all his draws filling out the middle and bottom. How are we getting multi street value out of draws? i seriously doubt we can from both AG or RF, which is why im thinking we're better of trying to get some folds outta these folks rather than see a river. i'm not seeing 2nd pair getting 3 streets of value and winning at showdown, not often enough for it to be our profitable line. Maybe this is an isolated situation where that is the case, but in this situation more often than not, it aint happening.

The turn only serves to dramatically reduce our equity in my opinion. If RF has just a flush draw, he might stack off still as seen previously. But im not convinced flush draws make up the majority of his range. Therefore, im still looking for a fold.

All of this said, there's 2 ways to play this hand - fast and aggressive hoping to capitalize on FE, or try to get to a cheap showdown.

I can see an argument why fast and aggressive aint gonna work. That said, we shouldve disappeared on the flop. If thats the case, my initial play of raising (which our hero did) is ****ing awful and spewy against these villains. Maybe its because i havent played 1/2 in a while and i'm overestimating FE against fishy villains. Most of the player pool im used to seeing can still find a fold on this turn with the action going as it went.

So to me on this turn as played: betting > checking. Effectively we're shoving against stack sizes with this pot size.

Going for pot control is absurd, so checking shouldnt even be an option. Checking means "lets hope we hit an A or 9". It also means folding to most river bets unless we we plan on reading souls. it also allows any draws that we might actually be ahead of to get there for free.

1 more thing: RF and AG should be able to put us on an overpair and maaaaaybe give us credit for a set. if we've been aggro enough PF we should be viewed as capable of raising a wide range in this spot meaning two pair hands, or sets.

So basically on the turn, we're ****ed if they never fold as that would mean we're beat more often than not. Which means we misplayed the flop and should have have folded.

RF and AG both check the turn? (after RF underbets the flop after a wierd back raise min 3 bet pre?)
if they play str8 forward, then you have the nuts. they would be betting any hand that beats you.
With the right image, I could see getting paid off by AK here.
It's spots like this where post flop skills, and your reads come into play as far as how to proceed with the hand. I find that players at this level play too SF and play their hands face up. If that's the case here, then take advantage of it. Still, I don't like raising the turn, either> It's a bloated pot, and a raise just sets up a negative freeroll. then again, this depends on your image, and history with Vill.
raising as a 'process of elimination' play, ie. 'I don't know what else to do, so i raise', demonstrates muddled thinking, and is a fundementally poor play IMO.
I think playing passivly in this spot is ok, but also not what i'd call optimal play.
Preflop may have been a mistake, so i think the goal here is to compound that mistake further as little as possible.
a lot of talk goes on about planning your hand, and not playing one street at a time, and I think this hand shows why we want to do these things. we have to set ourselves up to play optimally, with every decision, and PF decisions are the most crucial.
the best players are able to extract big value with marginal holdings, and navigate well in marginal spots, but it's important to remember that it's not just done on autopilot, with any random marginal spot where you are calling off. there is a method to the madness. like you don't just go to the casino and decide you'll lag it up today, without accessing the game conditions. you don't decide to run a big semi-bluff JUST because you have a good draw to semi-bluff with, on autopilot.

the decisions that need to made in this hand at this point really come down to what your read is on vill; without a read it's a call, and cheap showdown

i kind of feel like this is a lot of generalities and some true statements, but nothing specifically dealing with this hand right here. can you be more specific?

also, there was no action on turn - its been checked to us.

There's enough money in the pot on the turn if we have the best hand.
I'm assuming RF and AG are not aggro enough to punish us for passive play, so it's realistic to get to showdown with what is looking more and more like the best hand. If vills are drawing, let them, thier implied odds are not good anyways. It's a classic WA/WB situation, so no point in bloating the pot any further. It's pretty much bluff catching mode on the river if RF takes another weak stab at it, or maybe even a value bet on a blank river looking to get paid off by AK high, but this is only going to happen if your image is really bluffy. I'm assuming small pairs are out of his range,

i would be more inclined to take this line if we didnt raise flop and get 2 callers though. how big of a river bet are we willing to call if it bricks?

just wanna qualify this statement that we effed up "get to a showdown cheap", which i mentioned in a prior post as well.

I'm feeling less certain about our FE as it seems majority agree RF isnt going anywhere. I thought about this some more and its probably beause the definition of "fish" that i am seeing more of lately are no the definition of "fish" at a typical 1/2. so thats my fault on a poor generalization. against typical 2/5 weak tight fish im going for FE. At 1/2 against "lol i haz cards and i lurve the river" im more often folding the flop.

Taking the call flop line only sets us up for having to call future betting when there's tons of turn cards that suck for us. We also have no ability to narrow RF's range and can still only put AG on a come-along draw.

I really detest that line. i'm not saying we are raising for information though. I'm raising because I want to rep the story we started telling preflop. If we dont wanna raise, then we should fold. I find it hard to believe we arrive at a showdown with 2nd pair on the flop and get value from AK/AQ etc and still dodge whatever the hell AG has.

Furthermore, if we flat flop and turn bricks and there's another weak lead, are we making a move or flatting that too? Say we flat and river is a club now someone shoves/bets big. Sweet, we just did a whole lot of weak passive here and bled money.

If this were HU, i dont mind a call down against RF. What complicates this is the AG. This means our pot equity is being stolen since there is another range of hands in the pot, which means another equity stake.

Did anyone poker stove this? What do they come up with on the flop and/or turn? Maybe i'm being too liberal with my range assignments but if we dont know RF's limp/rr range, it should be pretty damn broad. But unfortunately we have another player with a somewhat tighter range also in the pot eating up equity. This is the suck.

That said, if we want to entertain winning this pot, i really dont see 2nd pair winning at showdown in a 3bet PF pot, ya dig? And the more i think about that, the more im drawn to the conclusion that raising flop is a bad idea and folding is better.

However, if we arent folding, then i wanna drive the wagon, not ride it.

Cliff notes: Folding Flop > Raising Flop + effective jam on turn > calling down with 2nd pair in a 3bet PF pot.

This question furthered my thoughts about folding flop. RF is not folding a whole whole lot. If we jam on turn, maybe he folds out some weaker top pair hands and middle pairs and maybe some weaker draws. So perhaps he lets go of Jacks + any weak TP type hand.

Equity wise - he never folds a majority of hands that beat us. (stuff thats way ahead of us by 4:1 say), but he sometimes folds a few hands that beat us (weak TP hands) but are still ahead around 4:1 ish (KT), he folds weaker draws (gut shots + flush like 75s which shouldnt be big in his range at this point anyway) where he's a dog 1.5:1. He probably sometimes folds draws to the nuts or close to it and never folds combo draw stuff (stuff that we're ~ 2:1 dog against or Axcc that he's a a little better than a 2:1 dog).

But because he's loose PF and loose post flop, im not really going to say its impossible for him to have something like J8s here but obviously less likely than him having something like JJ say.

That said, if we have any way of winning this pot, its more through FE than showdown.

i'm willing to even change my assessment and say going for folds is just as bad as calling down with our bluff catcher, which is only good against a small portion of RF's range.

Okay time to get caught up. I'm gonna break my response up in a few posts so its not just one huge block of text.

This is a fundamentally flawed approach against the rich fishy villain. He will pay you off with with so much worse. Waiting for the nuts against this villain type is criminal.

Your thought process just doesn't follow. Of course you don't expect the RF to fold much, that's why your value betting range widens. Just because your value betting 2nd pair doesn't mean its "sick" either. Hero is taking the next logical step and playing good poker. If villains calling range is wider than normal, then value bet wider than normal. And if AG comes along/or RF 3bets, then that's just variance.

I don't see how this is an advanced play, but the more I think about it you are right in a sense. I probably see about 99% of live players miss a ton of value against these villain types and just call to get to a cheap showdown or fold. If hero is betting for value (not raising the flop as a bluff/semi-bluff) then its the most +EV line in this spot IMO.

And just because this is a higher variance play doesn't mean its bad or less optimal. Playing against these types of villains is usually higher variance than playing against people that fold all the time. +EV lines are sometimes higher variance; its a reality of poker. Getting Aces AI preflop is +EV but sometimes you will lose. So just find a way to cope with the variance, if you want to play optimal poker. This discussion should be what line is more +EV and not whether its high variance. If you want to reduce variance then just sit at a table full of nits.

What? Why would you try to bluff a rich fish/station? Your betting for value against these villains types. This is one of the last guys you want to run a huge bluff on, especially given hero's image. I think people need to think more about the type of villain their up against. I'm baffled why someone would try to bluff a rich fish, especially when he shown a least a little aggression.


The top of his range is so unlikely given his bet sizing OTF. If he lead small with an overpair/set on this board then you just got leveled by a fish, and fish are some of the last guys on the planet that are going to level you in this spot.

You aren't necessarily betting 3 streets of value against his range. 2 streets (flop and turn) seem very easy to do given his range.

The turn doesn't reduce your equity against that range when your ahead more often than not.

Its the most +EV line IMO given the action preflop and OTF.

Now that's just being results oriented. In this particular hand we could be up against the top of both villians ranges or towards the middle or bottom. OP final result of the hand shouldn't really matter for the theoretical discussion.

Oops, you just posted this after I responded to one of your previous posts. Even given your two definitions, I'm still raising both villain types given their OTF bet sizing.

Don't waste your time telling stories to stationy fish. They will still call even if you tell stories like Shakespeare.

I'm too tired to stove it right now (plus I don't think we have even agreed on a possible range yet), but this is the point at where the discussion needs to be. Figure out your equity against RF's range. After that it gets really complicated given AGs cold call. In addition to range analysis, this is where reads or physical tells come into play with your turn decision. I think OP mentioned a few.

when were results given? i never saw them.

donkey - thanks for the breakdown, i like it a lot.

So you think flop raise is fine. but what is plan on turn/river? are you advocating turn bet? because of effective stacks we basically can jam turn because anything less means pot on river will be huge in comparison to any bets, unless RF is hero calling us down with whiffed AK/AQ say and AG misses draw or is simply on a lower pair.

If both RF and AG are both on just draws and maybe some pair + draw type hands and some overcards, our equity is 38% on OTF and 51% on the turn.

Adding only JJ and QQ to RF range it changes to: 35% OTF and 46% on the turn.

in both these instances we're ahead of both RF and AG.

So lets add some sandbag nut hands (just flopped sets, no 2 pairs) for RF and AG since RF is going to misplay a flopped set say not including 99 for either:
OTF we're now at 31%. Giving AG a much tighter range than RF tending towards stronger draws also puts AG as having the highest equity stake with RF having a roughly a 1% edge.


Add TPTK ATo and ATs, or, more realistically, because of combinatorics since we hold an A, KTo KTs to RF obviously brings us to even worse figures.

That said, we're only getting 2 streets of value in this super glorified situation where both AG and RF hardly have a good piece of the board. Maybe RF wont be convinced if we write like Shakespeare however I feel like we're rewriting Candide.

I can see RF betting weakly with made hands "to keep us in" and spazzing with weak hands "to push us out". maybe that's a bad assessment of a 1/2 rich fish.

Why are we so optimistic about the situation though? This board hits RF more often since his range is fairly wide. Or at least i believe its still fairly wide.

The only evidence to the contrary is if we take the weak flop lead as weakness in the most literal fashion. All of which points to saying we have 0 FE, and we are not value betting but value cutting ourselves.

I'm not sure how to respond to you because I feel like you didn't really read/understand my post(s).

Well, maybe that's unfair. Maybe I didn't do a good enough job of explaining what I think hero has done wrong, and how I would played the hand.

My points are very simple:

Hero has MPTK, and villain is never folding a hand worse than MPTK that is in his range. Therefore if the raise to $70 was done with the intention of bluffing it was wrong because the purpose of bluffing is to fold out worse.

Hence the only way the raise OTF could be correct is if it was done for value. Hero can only be ahead of draws in AG's $70 calling range, and over-cards/draws in RF's range. Thus, to make this value raise, hero must have a fairly sick read on both of these villains, and both of their ranges, and KNOW they are both drawing. This is only possible if hero is a poker god.

Note: This doesn't mean raising is correct. Actually I think raising is incorrect.

Very simple, and perfectly logical. I'm not sure how anyone could disagree with the above. If a poster does disagree with the above (that thinks bluff raising in this spot is actually good) they should ask themselves exactly what part of the rich fish's range the rich fish will fold OTF when hero raises to $70 that is worse than MPTK.

As far as you disagreeing with me when I said, "Wait for the nuts and they will pay you off."

Obviously I don't advocate waiting for the exact nuts. Of course, I wouldn't fold AA on a K72 board. That is crazy.

The point I am making is simple. A player's object should be to win 30-50 buyins so they can move to the next level. A player can win 30-50 buyins at $1-2 by simply waiting for good hands, and value towning them.

Sorry, I misread that specific comment. I didn't realize you were talking hypothetically. I'll comment on the rest tomorrow. Got to get some sleep.

A rich fish is never folding pocket jacks when they are an over-pair. Especially if he thinks hero is trying to bully the table.

A rich fish is also never folding a ten here, if his other card was good enough to 3-bet PF. Especially if he thinks hero is trying to bully the table.

We do not want villain to fold a worse hand. So we do not want him to fold middle pair. Betting villain off middle pair is wrong.

We also don't want villain to fold his draws. We want to charge him the maximum he is willing to call with his draw. Betting villain of his draw is wrong, especially if he is a rich fish willing to over pay for his draw.

Look. Raising the flop to $70 is wrong if it is done with the intention of bluffing.

To do it for value would only be correct if hero KNEW his villains were drawing.

The hand hasn't been played correctly.

???

We don't need FE to Value bet, we just need RF and AG to have enough hands in their calling range that we beat compared to hands that beat us for it to be a value bet.

only thing I disagree with Princess about is that RF prob folds his weaker Tx (no fd obv) type hands, where his min-3bet was more of a pot sweetener than a real re-raise so he could be doing it with suited gappers or even non suited gappers if he really is RF.

Could you offer the proper line of play from PF to turn?

And if villains range includes over pairs, top pair type hands (i.e. KT but not so much TPTK since we have an A), pocket pairs (i would toss in a flopped set but not all possible flopped sets) and draws, what is our equity vs that range with 2nd pair TK?

And then add a range of draws mid pairs w/ a gut, combo draws and maybe a flopped set for AG and let me know what our equity is now with both villains.

I'm pretty sure these #s will show its almost impossible for us to be value betting unless we take out all hands that beat us, which is rather optimistic.

Therefore, how are winning this hand? Do we win with a showdown? I dont think we have been able to narrow the ranges of villains enough to say this with much confidence.

Unless i am misunderstanding you, you're advocating a call down or some kind of VB scenario? But you've mentioned multiple times charging the draws since they never fold but dont like the raise OTF, so i think you're saying we should be flatting flop and leading turn (or turn + river)?

Basically, i need you to please outline what you suggest we should have done.

thats not what i'm saying. what i was getting at by that point was raising flop and leading turn is bad because we have zero fold equity. but against the apparent ranges, we're still not making any VBs with 2nd pair TK except in the fantastically optimistic scenario that both RF and AG are on pure draws wherein they are a dog to us but will call down any bets made from turn to river.

but i am disagreeing with these ranges saying they're bloated hypotheticals because they must still contain a pretty fair amount of hands that beat us (all those hands in their ranges that they dont fold that arent draws) and by the inclusion of them, we're not value betting when we're actually behind.

i originally advocated fast and aggressive in order to find a fold because these ranges include more than just draws, however i have since come to see that this is severely sub-optimal play given the action.

Which then leads me to conclude that we should be folding on the flop if on any given turn card (including the actual turn which was a brick) we are still unable to narrow these ranges enough to make betting for value possible if all we're doing is having every hand in villains ranges call/raise. In other words, on the river we are ahead of air (missed draws in range) but behind everything else, hardly an optimal VB situation.

Given the action to the turn, I want to think about villains likely holdings:
AG - Pre-flop called standard raise from bullying hero, called minraise with unfoldable pot odds. On T96 twotone flop, check- called a bet and a raise. Checked turn.
Likely holdings IMO, in order:
1) A draw - I'd say 60%
2) A flopped monster slowplayed (78 or a set, less likely 2pr with T9) - 30%
3) A weak made hand - anything from 67s to JJ - 10%

RF - Pre-flop min 3bet, weak lead/call on flop, checked turn. Weird line could be anything, since nothing makes sense. The min-3bet weak lead smacks of a big hand
1) Overpairs being tricky, AA-JJ, AA-KK more likely (21 combos)
2) AK/AQ being stubborn (22 combos excluding AcKc and AcQc which are in 4) below)
3) Flopped monster being tricky (TT, 99, 78s) (10 combos)
4) AcKc-AcJc/Ac9c with draw plus overs/draw plus pair (4 combos)

Also, with three in the pot and weird action, I would not expect either of these players to bluff the river with a busted draw very often. I don't expect either to fold TPTK or better here - maybe AG will lay down JJ or KT/AT, but not RF.

Can we expect better hands to fold to a bet? Unlikely to very unlikely

Can we expect worse hands to call a bet? Also unlikely to very unlikely

Do we need to bet to charge the draws? The chance of both being on a draw is only around 27% on my read. Whereas the chance of running into an overpair or hidden monster from one or the other villain is around 65%.

Based on this, I am checking behind the turn and c/f any decent bet on the river (regardless of river card)

Thanks for the clarification, it was late last night when I made my post so I may have misread your earlier post. Also I'm not advocating putting more money into the pot unless we have to either. Villains would have to be bad to call a river VB with anything worse, unless they think OP is a spewtard.

As for ranges I would more heavily weight them to draws and weak one pair hands, as who wants to give a free river card on a soaking wet board with a made hand. However, at one/ two you can't discount villain trying to "trap" with a monster hand. another reason I'm checking back turn, some villians only think on level 1 and might be thinking "I haz set, I slowplay". Actually, even though I don't think Ash was viewed as such, if OP was viewed as super aggro post-flop I could see AG or RF having a set or straight here, waiting for OP to continue his betting on the turn in order to get the money in on the turn with a set or a straight.

Ok, some of this is tldr, so I apologize if this has already been brought up. I think RF line on flop is very polarizing: he made a small bet because: A) he has two overs and now, after 3 betting pre, isn't sure what to do, or B) he has a monster, like 1010 and doesn't want anybody to fold. THEN, he checks on the turn, seems to me the two overs is most likely. It is really hard to think he is checking here with a hand that has us beat. At this point, you could bet for value or check for pot control and call almost any non broadway river card.

Lots of people debating if we are value-betting/semi-bluffing/terrible, no ranges.

Someone's PokerStove results go here: