2/5, 6 handed, $600 effective. Villain has been at the table for 30 minutes and is pretty unknown but has been playing passively.

OTTH

BTN straddle $10, villain limps SB, hero raises LJ $60 9 9 and only villain calls.

Flop ($135): A 7 3. Villain checks, hero bets $45, villain calls.

Turn ($225): 2. X-hero bets $70. I know we value own ourselves here somewhat frequently, but I'm hoping to get value from 88, 7x, and all other pairs with this tiny sizing on the turn and also get us a x-x river (unless it's a 9.) Do you like this kind of a line, or too thin?

solver is playing this turn polarized. its betting over pot with aq+, sets, straight and its bluffs are pocket 4s, pocket 5s, 65s and some qjs qts.

its checking a-j, a-10 pockets ks-8s.


but yeah you bet kind of small you are ahead of some hands can't be that bad.

Seems fine since they are calling flop really wide. I assume fish could have hands like 75s and K3s etc

I'd X mostly, but if betting, I like a min 2/3 PSB to max FE. We also would size large with the nutty parts of our range.

I'm not a fan. If we're that convinced V is such a station I'd rather bet $150. I just dont see an opponent this bad making a distinction between bet sizes if he's gonna look us up with 44 unless you made it obscenely small like 20 bucks.

I like checking behind on the flop and getting value on later streets.

Do You Take These Lines to Try and Maximize Value + Get a X-X River?


yes

this is the one instance where I don't mind the down-bet sizing

I don't know why we'd do this, we're looking to get value. 99 seems like a poor choice for a bluff. We don't have to bet all of our range for the same size - this is live poker. We can go big with the top portion of our value range and small with the bottom portion.

On this texture, seems to me that valuing 99 is extremely thin. Perhaps 88/87s/76s, 12 combos.

Besides AX and the nuttier part of his range, other combos ahead QQ/JJ/TT (total 18) are vulnerable on an A-high board to larger turn sizing.

Like I said, I'm mostly checking.

As always, I don't like the down bet on the flop, but I doubt I ever will. I'm checking the turn. I think going for "value" here is way too thin. He's a passive unknown -- his most likely calling range pre and on the flop is a weak A, which he's not folding on the turn. The idea of a big turn bet for FE seems wiser than a small bet.

Well there's a reason for it. I personally am not familiar with a turn downbet with a hand that has some showdown value like 99 but I think flop downbets are perfectly fine if you are opening around 30%

Check turn and look to either bluff catch or go for one more street of thin value on the river. The primary reason to bet 99 on the flop is to deny equity to his QJ/JT type hands and get a little bit of value from his weak pairs like 7x. It's pointless to bet the turn again because a lot of his air that you bet for protection against on the flop already folded and you're not going to get 3 streets of value from weak pairs, so betting turn just narrows his range to be very Ax-heavy. Look to be a bit more polar on the turn and use a larger size; the bottom of your value range should probably be something like A9.

He's not trying to get 3 streets, just 2, and it's a fair attempt. V called a cbet, that doesnt automatically mean he has Ax, especially since it was a small cbet. Plus it's live and players will chase for trips/2pair.

I don't think that this is a good hand to bet flop or turn with. But an excellent choice to maintain some showdown value in a check, check range. We can check, bet our weak aces for value. And bet, bet, our strong aces, 2p, and a few bluffs.

The problem with betting 99 here is twofold.

1) It depletes our check/call, range of a valuable combo that we really need, as our range is very weak on A high, when we check twice.

2) It means we are vastly over-betting (in frequency) A high flops. Villains will rarely if ever call with worse, and we are just getting destroyed against a passive villain who is limping a wide range that likely includes every combo of Ax. What exactly are we targeting to fold? TT-JJ? Seems slim. If for value, you really think that the 44-66, 88 (24 combos - most of which already folded in reality) outweighs the 120+ combos of Ax this guy likely has?

^ we want villains to widen their calling ranges on Ax flops. Having a check/call range worse than TP is really bad for our image, it opens us up to becoming the fish just stationing off every time because "he cant always have it!"

It’s the opposite. If u are pre flop raiser on uncoordinated ace high flops like this you want bet a lot. You have a lot of aces but you also have a lot of things that missed. And not many good bluff catchers. My bluff catchers would be bad aces. For example 9s kind of a shitty bluff catcher if we check and he bets twice. Like maybe we can look them up every once in a while but we aren’t loving it. If we are behind we only gave two outs to catch up. if we are ahead they have 6 outs to catch up to us a lot of times. I think our a line with 9s on ace high boards is mix 80 percent and 30 percent c bets. And if they call flop pray for a showdown. Maybe bluff catch very small bet

I agree that we want to be betting a lot. But NOT with everything! We need some checks, and since 99's are a WA/WB situation, I still maintain that this should be a check almost 100%.

If we want to exploit by overloading our c-betting range on the flop we can through in every single non pair hand and have a MASSIVE amount of bluffs. For those advocating using weak Ax's in the check back range, I agree we should. But that can't be our entire check back range as it will be too small. After all we will be value betting our strong Ax's OTF, so how many combos of weak Ax's are you 6x'ing preflop anyway?

Like kq, kJ are decent give ups, you block some of his overs. Just try to dink turn. If you brick fold, maybe every once in a while it checks down and you win with king high. Checking 9s is a decent play and solver mixes. I think vs population I would rather bet and get fold. Than navigate turn and river effectively.

It just not the ace high flop for example on the ace 45 flop in that other thread we are supposed to be a lot more cautious . So the ace high uncoordinated flops it’s 2005 yo crank up Gwen stefani solo career and turn the auto c bet key on.

Funny there wasn't a reason for it a year or two ago JK. I know it's a "thing," and I'm sure some players use it well, but a lot just seem to screw up using it and get themselves stuck. I prefer not to use it in "normal" games. Maybe if I played live more in other games I would -- we'll see what happens when everything opens back up.

I do use it in my regular game some, but rarely an actual down bet -- just smaller than normal. My regular game is much bigger than what you guys are used to, though, so it's a bit different. (It's another reason I don't post many hands.)

I wouldnt classify it as "a thing" but more like the evolution of strategy. Downbets should have been executed since the beginning of time but people just never thought about doing it until now. Cbets were always about leveraging FE and otherwise "balance". So people began to exploit cbets by just floating or calling light. Now we know we can exploit their floats and use a small cbet to protect our range. It puts opponents in an awkward spot where they can only bluff catch.

Imagine you have 99 so you feel compelled to call because your opponent is making the "obvious" play to cbet an ace high flop. But he bets $25 into $100. I mean you certainly wouldnt want to raise because if you're wrong you're just torching money. If you're right well your opponent just folds risking very little anyway. You're risking a lot on nothing more than a guess. So you call with 99, but then the turn is a King. Now your opponent can either barrel again for thin value with a hand like KQo or just check for showdown value. His range is uncapped, yours is quite obviously by that point weak aces and small pairs, all of which he can decide to bluff against or get thin value against.

It's really difficult to play against and I think it's a great strategy. My opening range doenst lend itself well to downbetting because I tend to play for big pots with strong premiums and strong draws. I get myself into trouble opening with K9s or A5o.

1st of all we shouldn't be c-betting 100% of the time.
2nd if our V's want to float the c-bet with a marginal hand then we should charge them for it . to give them proper odds for the float makes their play correct and ours a MISTAKE.
3rd when a player constantly c-bets weak then the V now has control of the hand and can see turns and rivers cheap with weak holding's or charge you a premium to get to the river. You have no clue weather they are weak or strong as they could be trapping you with big hands or bluffing you with nothing.

Excellent post sir. This is my basic strategy in my home game, there are several villains that constantly cbet no matter what the flop after a preflop open or 3bet. Print money floating those cbets.

Great posts you and Javi.

javi's and snowman's posts seem very good, but I tend to lean toward snowman's view. I have no idea which is better / more "correct," though.

You can charge them all you want but if they have position on us they can make our life hell trying to do so.

This is true no matter what sizing you use. It's obviously easier for V to call down vs smaller sizings, which is precisely why we want to do it sometimes with strong TP's. Now that he knows we are willing to give him good odds even when our hand is strong he will be disincentivized to keep trying it. It seems awkward at first because standard poker logic says to give your opponent poor odds to draw, but players have adapted to poor odds by simply bluffing us with some frequency. With a downbet we can reduce that edge. If your opponent has middle pair every time you cbet 1/3 pot he'd still be hemorrhaging money.

In live games I doubt most players are going to make such adjustments so realistically you are probably perfectly well suited to cbet large for value 90% of the time with a small fraction of bluffs thrown in so it doesnt become patently obvious every time you check you missed. But against anyone even remotely competent, consider the downbet, at least if you find them constantly sticking around in your pots.