Hi 2p2 - been reading the forums for the past couple of years and finally decided to start posting to work on my game. Not the most exciting first post/hand here, but oh well:


Hero UTG+1 $450
V1 UTG $350

V1 is a bit on tilt; has gotten sucked out on by a big whale who is in the BB right now. V1 is somewhere in between a TAG/LAG. Hero 3! V1 about 15 minutes ago from the button where V1 opened from the CO and reluctantly folded. V1 is somewhat competent it seems but nothing great.

Hero should be viewed as competent/TAG as a few regs have commented on Heros play (no idea why they did that) and called him competent.

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Preflop:
V1 opens to $15 from UTG (standard opening size)
H has JJ UTG+1 and decides to 3! to $45.
-Calling seems to invite a huge multiway pot which wouldnt be terrible since if we spike a set we will likely be top set and our hand is underrepped. But I still opted to make this play and iso V1. I also believe V1 opens UTG wide enough for me to feel fine 3! JJ for value

Folds around to V1 who makes the call quickly


Flop (~$90): KdQdTh
V1 checks
Hero checks
-Getting x/r here would put us in a very tough spot; our hand has equity vs hands that beat us and even have us crushed; we are also ahead a lot and so we have decent SDV.


Turn (~$90): KdQdTh 9c
V1 checks
Hero bets $50
-Obviously a good card as we are now ahead of a lot of hands. V1 checking twice on this board makes his range look quite weak to me. I bet just over 1/2 PSB for value. What range can we reasonably expect V1 to raise here with? Does he have a turn x/r range?



River (~$190): KdQdTh9c Kh
V1 checks
Hero?



Value bet? Small? Big? Again x/r here would suck but not sure what V would be repping at that point. Got to think he leads turn with a hand like KQ/KT/TT/QQ. Would like feedback on all streets, thanks.

Preflop is fine. I'd sometimes call here and sometimes 3-bet depending on how wide I thought V1 was. The closer I am to the BTN, the more likely I am to flat. Sizing seems right to me.

Agreed with flop check back. Hard to get worse to call (except maybe Adxd) and hard to get better to fold (AQ has a gutshot and he's not folding any K he'd call a 3-bet with).

Agreed with turn bet too. Could go a bit bigger. If V x/r I'd just get it in.

I'm betting river for $125 or so, hoping to get a call from Kx. Calling a shove. Hard to imagine he can beat the K-high straight here given he's yet to take any aggressive action, and the check flop, check/call turn, check shove river line always strikes me as a player who's gotten to the river and realizes he can only win by bluffing.

I think I'd rather flat JJ here and play it like I would a medium pair. I'm happy to play multiway, it's not going to win us a large pot a fair % of the time. Plus you're rarely going to get enough action from his UTG range, where you're happy. If he's a smarter regular, you're going to get flatted by QQ+ a good %.

Most don't flat their AA though, since you 3-bet UTG+1, your weight goes to the more tight side, but who knows.

Either way, 3b! aint bad, just not my go to play here in such EP. Too much things behind us can happen along with I'm not sure how we're going to ever extract a ton of value.

Bet/fold river.

If he comes over the top, it's never AK. It's KK/QQ/TT

I bet $80-90. I don't hate bigger, the weaker the player you think he is.

FWIW, to most people your hand is face up. What do you have that checks flop and bets the KQT9 board. I'm happy to check to you on all river with my sets. To either let you bluff, or own yourself. Aces?

Thanks for the response. I have the same line of thinking and preflop agreed both seem ok but vs a seemingly tilting villain with a relatively wider range, I prefer 3!.

With the river bet, the problem is what Kx can we get value from? AK he might be 4! sometimes but of course he can sometimes flat. Although we might expect AK to bet turn? He's not total fish/tilting so hard where he is opening hands like K9/K8 imo; that leaves hands like KQs KTs and KJs; none of which I can really target as value hands.

Hands to get value from on the river leave: AA (obviously unlikely), AK (possible but unlikely to me), AQ (would be closer to a hero call for him on the river), a counterfeited QTs? All seem unlikely.

Thoughts?




@Dochrohan if you're not 3! JJ vs a semi-LAG + tilting villain here, then when are you? Sure if he's a good solid player then yes there are ROI and so forth... but he's not a good solid player. I can see him opening SC here.

JJ seems to have too much value vs this profile.

In my experience, a somewhat comepetent player, may seem tilted, but unless you have true merit, which you do not mention, after they lose their stack once, they tend to change to a slightly tighter style. I don't expect a huge UTG range, but 3b! here is not terrible, it's never going to be bad vs described V. It's profitable, if your read is he does raise SC from up, of course you 3b!.

I never hate the 3b! unless he's a nit. Generally 3b! JJ from UTG+1 is what I hate doing. MP is when it's nearing snap.

I just think you should and could vs some start to mix in the flat of JJ. It's never anticipated that you flat JJ there by a lot of people and you can do quite well in a multiway pot with it.

But if you are dead set he's tilting and opening wide, snap 3b! JJ here and take his stack when he hits something he likes.

As played, I like how the whole hand was played. It's a good check flop, would be super dumb to bet, betting turn is where your first real situation comes up, but I bet here all day for value, it sucks, but hey we need to start getting some money.

River is actually closer, but I still bet/fold. Maybe tilts AQ call and calls AK.

If you get c/r, I do understand you thinking you can call it off, but realistically, no, you can't.

You don't think he flats AA pre-flop vs an UTG+1 3b! do you? He's tilted, I doubt he's getting fancy, he probably thinks it's time to get your stack vs your "KK".

So you're starting to narrow his range to KK/KQs/QQ/TT, this is nearing never ever AJ land. if he's really steamed, KQo.

Let's be real, your hand is face up, it's pretty damn suicide to jam this river vs most when you think they have a straight as most do not tend to have a fold button. So unless he's sick, I rarely doubt it's a bluff. It's almost he always has it.

Bet fold $80-$90, call it a day.

I'd just flat preflop. V1 has already shown he can fold hands to a 3bet, so not much point turning a hand this strong into a bluff. Plus, some respect has to be given to an UTG open; if we get 4bet we'll probably have to fold (although sometimes we fold the best hand to AK/etc., and not being able to see a flop where we flop a set 1/8 times sucks especially having put in decent money already). Plus no considerable dead money in the pot (i.e. I'd be much more for a 3bet vs an open and some calls). Plus, if others do come in behind us, then we play nittier and might just nutmine. Plus lottsa people still to possibly wake up with monsters behind us.

I also check back the flop. We literally beat nothing that raise/calls preflop except for something like 99-, and those hands probably won't get too out-of-line OOP considering our check back often looks nuttish on this board. Would also hate to get check/raised off our draw.

I'm also betting the turn.

Does this guy ever bluff/raise? There's actually very few hands we can get value from, apart from the most obvious AK; other than that, pretty much every other hand boated up or got counterfeited. I'm guessing I would make a small bet/fold to target basically just AK (so long as he's not capable of reading weakness into a small bet and playing back at it), perhaps even a "same bet". But it he's the kinda guy to sigh fold AK on the turn on this board, it might be pretty thin and I don't think a check back is horrible.

ETA: The more I think about it, the more I might check the river back. It seems to me we're targetting far too narrow a range (basically AK or a very trickily played AA), those hands don't even pay off a decent percentage of the time, those hands don't even make the river most times (no?), and risking folding a big pot to a random spazz move seems rather questionable. Meh?

GcluelessNLnoobG

im not sure i implied that i think we can call off a river x/r... i think if we get x/r'd on the river were pretty done. if i thought we could call off an x/r then it would be a pretty easy decision to bet it, but im not sure it is.

i understand your thinking and agree for the most part, but you make it sound like villain has to be tilting SUPER hard + opening SUPER wide for us to justify the 3!... imo if this villain is tiling a bit + opening a bit wide then I think a JJ 3! iso here is completely fine. note i never said/implied villain was solid/competent.

i'm sure he flats AA/KK sometimes here, but so what?

I'm not narrowing his range to KK/KQ/QQ/TT/KTs, I was just trying to point out how many hands beat us and how few hands there are to realistically get value from on the river.





regarding pre-flop;

a) we aren't sure what he folded to my 3! last time; he could have been opening pretty wide from the CO

b) just because he folded to a 3-bet before, why does that mean 3! here == turning our hand into a bluff? if he is opening wide enough + isn't viewed as a solid player, it is for value, not as a bluff.


fwiw I can completely get on board with flatting preflop; i'm just playing devil's advocate here

From Vs POV you only reasonably have a value range of JJ or 99 if you go check/bet/bet. With such a small perceived range, I can see Villain hero-calling wide here. I also don't think he's bluff-raising very often, so bet/fold 1/3 pot seems good. Do you have Jd?

3 bet all day every day. It's 2/3 NL. You can even make it 4x here for more fold equity and a bigger pot against a weak tilted calling range. If he 4-bet shoves, call, you have the 4th best hand in the game and are more probably up against AK types hands where you have a long term equity edge. If he wakes up with AA, KK, QQ, it's a cooler, forget it and move on.

Some problems here are that your opponent probably blocks your straight drawing range with Ax AND his Ax range can easily hit this flop, which means there is probably no fold equity when you bet. Also, trash hands might tilt raise your CBET. 1/3rd pot cbet and checking seem like both valid plays, but I like checking more.

2 checks from villian here is polarizing, either he's nutted/close to nuts or he's extraordinarly weak. But you made 2nd nuts and you block the nuts of AJ with JJ. You can bet more here, $70 sounds perfect IMO. Tilted weak calling ranges will call all day long.

The hands you are worried about are AJ, KK, KQ, KT, K9, QQ, TT, and 99. The action that has occurred does not signify he has any of that range. You weren't raised on any street. He open checks every street. Weakness, weakness, weakness. Bet for value against his weak calling range, $100-$150-all in. All are valid options, and I like shoving the most against a tilter. Bask in the glory.

I think just checkback the river, villain has such a narrow range that can look you up

Aa, ak, aq and is villain even calling those

Even if its not clear villain will turn hands we beat into bluff hero also needs to be worried about getting jammed off his hand by the same straight

also not really a fan of the turn sizing, if we want to bet small we can accomplish about the same with 35-40, if we prefer larger we can bet up to potsize but I'd go at least 65

looks like people generally lean toward flatting pre-flop. im really not sure if i agree still - at least almost everyone can advocate for both, but im really not sure how flatting preflop here is better than 3!.

flop is a consensus.

turn is a consensus.

river - in the end, hero thought about it for about 30-45 seconds and just checked back.






river bet seems super thin; targeting such a small range and getting x/r sucks.

anyway thanks for the feedback all.

What hands can you have on the river as a bluff? You need to be 3betting really wide to even have a bluff here at all, if he is remotely capable he knows that and will never call river.

Given he called with a queen on the turn he might have called river as well as no bluffs (that you can't have) improve on the river.

River is a pretty trivial b/f. He has plenty of Ak/Aq in his range that outweighs the Fh combos. Something like $120. Fold to a jam (you beat nothing and never a bluff)

I think at first glance betting river seems thin but that's only if you assume V would check his entire range on river. In reality most ppl lead river with boats worried that Hero will check back too much. So with that in mind I think river can be a vbet of $125.

Does anyone know how hard it is to flop an OESD with JJ with the 3 cards being a different suit?
Any 4 kings * 3 queens * 2 tens = 24 + 24 ways to flop QT9 + 24 ways to flop T98 + 24 ways to flop Broadway = 96
[19600 flop - 96]\19600 flops = 203.17:1 to flop a rainbow OESD, or Broadway, with JJ.

If V holds an ace, he has an 8% chance of catching a J by the River for Broadway & we have a 28% chance of getting a str8 by the River, with little worry about a flush [~5.5%].

There is no way I check this Flop. I 3! pre-flop. A flopped set is going to charge an ace to try & catch 1 of 4 jacks going into the Turn.

I would think V would have to be holding KK [3 combos] KQ [9 combos] to think he is the Boss & maybe TT [3 combos].

AK/AQ will probably call a 3/4 pot size bet, but if an offsuit 2 comes, is he calling again to another 3/4 pot size bet? That would be player dependent, however, if he just calls the Flop bet with an ace, we have 28% equity & can check behind OTT if he checks. If, we don't think he is capable of mucking.

He would have to be an aggressive player for me to check that flop. Someone willing to play back at me OOP. That fits the description of a seasoned Grinder, or a Whale, or a drunk Fish, or a Gamboly type player.

The later 3 are probably going to bet the Turn when that 9 comes, trying to 'rep' the nutz when it's too late.

You only have 1 way to win the pot after checking the Flop: Have the best hand.

How many players do you know flat your 3! pre with KK? I don't know many. They are 'tough' players.
How many players you know are going to call you with QQ, believing you don't have a str8 draw due to your 3/4 pot bet OTF? It will be hard for him to fold, as he only has to worry 'in his mind' about KK [3 combos].

Won't he want to 'milk' his QQ set vs. your TT or AA?

If you are a tight player & 4! QQ pre vs. 1V, you will come across the day when you see him fold QQ face up.
You will see the day when he folds an ace OTF vs, your raise [with KK] when an ace flops - he's telling you he now 'knows' you must have a bigger kicker with your ace.

Of course, the 'soft, Nit it Up' approach of checking the Flop will win you money in the long run with much lower variance, but you will have to have the best hand OTR.

"The supreme art of war is to subdue your enemy without fighting."
"“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”
“To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Zune, every hand you are attempting to get to fold aren't going to fold to the first two barrels because they are either (a) a monster (two pair or set) or (b) a pair with a draw. Are you prepared to fire 3 streets against a very narrow range of hands that could possibly fold (which is like basically UI AQ or *possibly* AK)?

In the game of mistakes, my guess is that him checking his monsters / hands he is never folding allowing us to take free cards to outdraw him far outweigh the rare mistake he makes by folding the bottom of his range that happens to be ahead of us.

GimoG