Reads: Middle aged guy who seems fairly TAG. He bought in for 500, got wittled down to like 100, then doubled up twice after 3-bet shoving pre: first time with AA second time with 10-10. He hasn't shown any unusual hands except one: He called an UTG open in the BB from a very very LAG player who was running over the table. Flop was 10 8 3 2 spades. He bet and was called. Turn was a blank spade, he bet pretty large and was called again. River was lower than a ten and a non-spade but completed a straight draw or two. He bet like 1/2 to 2/3 pot and was called again. He showed K10o which was good.

My image: Before villain sat down, it was pretty wild. But since villain sat down, I haven't been nearly as active due to being card dead pre.

Action: Folds to me and I make it 20 with A9 and 5 players left to act. Normally this hand is slightly below my opening standards but 2 of the 5 players to my left were very tight passive players and I had a decent read on most players behind me.

4 players call including V in the BB. Effective stacks are ~750 against him.

Flop: 996. Pot is ~100. I bet 75 and only V calls.

Turn: 9962. He check/calls 175.

River: 99628. Pot is ~600 and there's ~500 left in stacks.

Villain leads for 200. Hero?

Also sizing comments on any street welcome. Also, should I be sizing my bets to try to get all in? Given how many players are in the pot and that stacks are pretty deep, is my hand still strong enough to bet flop and turn and value shove river? Note that for my river value shove to be +EV, it must be the best hand over 50% of the time when called, but it's possible some of these tight players may make a tank fold with 9-X where x is a pretty low kicker (J or Q or lower). Of course those tank folds with weak 9-X are also the reason why I'd make sure I bluff the right amount with the same bet/bet/bet line.

Some notes on my range: I would not arrive at the river with an over pair with this line. Especially with the big overpairs, I'd bet only the flop or turn: With AA-KK I'd probably check flop bet turn. With QQ-1010 I'd probably bet flop check turn. I'd bet both flop and turn with the few 9-X hands I could have (J9s, 109s, 98s), 66, 87s, some overcards that have backdoor flush draws, and 67s.

i think theres enough value to shove here

Flop is good. I mean, we could even bet a touch smaller, but it's mostly whatever.
His range is pretty inelastic, so whatever for sizing.

Turn I might actually go bigger.
He has a 9 here like always (or sigh 66 is obv possible...)
So we can get away with $225 - $250 here I think pretty often.

Seeing him go for 3 streets with KT makes me think that he will overvalue hands.
So I prolly shove.

Pretty easy shove.


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His calling range Pre-flop doesn't seem wild based on description so I will give him credit and rule out 96s. 98s he has though, even 98o is possible. There's only one combo btw of 96s. But really what we're fearing is 66 and nothing else. 88 too.

Given that:

• Stacks are 150BB.
• The combos that beat us are far less than the combos that we beat.
• The line, although weird, actually makes sense for 77+, and a 9x.
  • So conclusion: We go for value.

Pre-Flop: Fine, though I'd prob bet 25 if it wasn't a hard game.

Flop: Fine, you can afford to be less. If pot is 100, you can bet 65-70 here. 60 or 55 even. But standard 70-75 is possibly still best, depends what villain's calling tendencies are.

Turn: This deep, I keep building pot, so 160-180.

River: You can check back for damage/pot control. But overall, it's probably correct to shove here. Bets sizing in big pots typically rep what they are right? 200 is not repping monster strength. It's either A) Middling/Good Strengh B) A level to induce. C) He's an idiot with no plan/idea. So shove. I don't think you'll see 88, he'd check or shove. 66+ and 9x it was what I'm expecting.


To note: I'm calling river with Q9 or less for sure.


Clear-brain afterthought: Not shoving is basically MUTB suffocating us from max value.

Fist pump shove. Sucks that V made an underfull.

You were shoving if he checked - so jam, he's still calling all his 9xs hands. His lead does not mean FH, just standard value line from a tagfish targeting your obvious OP which of course you never have but he doesn't know that.

The question you need to ask is how he plays a hand like J9 or Q9. Does he fold it preflop? Does he check-raise the flop or turn? Does he lead out on one of those streets? Does he check the river to you? The more 9x hands that you can eliminate from his range because he would do those actions instead of what he did, the less attractive raising becomes.

I'd call, I'm not seeing a ton of value in raising vs a true tag, aside from t9, and they might even fold that to a raise if hero isn't known to bluff

If villain has some leaky tendencies (like not getting away from overpairs here multiway) shove looks better, also because he might now have more worse 9s

easy shove. V most likely has 78 and thinks that he is blocker betting for value against most of your range.

the faster you shove the more likely he is to call.

so a tag will call with 78? I doubt it. only if OP is known to bluff or tag is tilting or smth.

This was the exact hand I put villain on. I see this kind of play all the time where they make some stupid 'blocker bet' like this on the river, then half the time, they sigh call the raise because they realise how pot-committed they are and they start to suspect that you're just exploiting their blocker bet.

From his perspective, it's only 300 more to win 1500 and you could have the same hand as him. So I'm definitely shoving here. If he happens to have a boat or straight then good on him. He's going to call with worse more often than he calls with hands that have you beat, so it's worth value shoving this.

I'd probably flat the river if I had T9, but anything J9 or better I'm shoving here.

So if his range is 9-X or 66, then here's the 9-X hands he can probably have:

A9, K9s, Q9s, J9s, 109s, 98s, 97s, 96s. Total combos of 9-X = 5 I tie, 5 I beat, and 2 I lose to. Combos of 66 = 3.

So I chop 33% of the time, have him beat 33% of the time, and lose 33% of the time.

My EV of flatting against this range is .33(300) + .33(800) - .33(200) = +$300.

If he calls his turn range to a river jam, then my EV of jamming =

.33(300) + .33(1100) - .33(500) = +$298.

So against a range of A9s, A9o, K9s, Q9s, J9s, 109s, 98s, 97s, 96s, 66 it doesn't matter whether we call or shove, both have an EV of +300. If he will fold the 9-xs I beat to the shove though (very unlikely but good to check the EV), our EV of shoving is:

.33(300) + .33(800) - .33(500) = +$201.

What do all those saying shove river say to the above? Do you think he has 9-X offsuit combos in his range too? In the above I gave him only A9o.

If he does have 9-Xo combos in his range, doesn't that actually not change anything for EV? We increase 9-X combo by a multiple of 4 (i.e. he goes from having 1 combo of K9s to 4 total combos of K9), increasing the 9-X that we beat by the same amount as the 9-X we lose to.

You're sort of there, but not quite.

A few corrections though:

We actually only tie 3 combos because there are only 3 combos of A9s left.
So we are (3/13)*$300 + (5/13)*$800 - (5/13)*$200
But it doesn't change our equity by definition. We could add as many chop combos as we want and still get the same number.

But beyond that, if we add in all the off suit combos it isn't a straight 4:1 increase of all combos.
There are only 3 combos total of 98 and 96, and there are no extra combos of 66 so the increase in combos we lose to will be smaller. Assuming he plays all 9x we now have:

Tie: 3x A9.
Lose: 3x 98, 3x 96, 3x 66.
Win: 4x K9, 4k Q9, 4x J9, 4x T9, 4x 97.
And we'd get
(3/32)*$300 + (20/32)*1100 - (9/32)*$500 = $575.

A pretty healthy increase.

Another interesting question we should ask is:
If he plays all 9x combos, how high can X be when he folds for us to still make a profit?
Since we know that he will call with all 98/96/66, and all his A9 combos don't matter (since we chop with them) then he only needs to call with 9 combos of other 9x that we beat.

In this case 4x K9, 4x Q9 and J9s, and he can fold out the rest when we shove and we break even with calling. So I still like shoving.

Oh and you're suffering from rounding error in your shove EV calculation.
This is easy to think about from a theoretical stand point. When our winning frequency is exactly even to our losing frequency it doesn't matter how much money we put in.
But you can also check it by rounding less (or by just saying it's equal to 1/3*(300 + 1100 - 500) = $300.

Good catch for A9. Both offsuit and suited, yo're right there's only 3 combos left not 5.

About giving him offsuit combos of 9-X, I was talking about only this group (not pocket 6s) increasing by a factor of 4. But you're right about 96 and 98. These would increase by a factor of 3.

About him needing to call with only 9 combos of hands we beat, if he calls w/ exactly 9 combos then the EV of shoving is still the same as calling.

He'd have to call with 10+ combos of hands we beat for shoving to start to dominate calling.

It seems extremely close anyway between calling and shoving and there's probably not much of a difference.

Anyway, results: I call and he shows 66 for the boat.

I agree with these nitpicky sizing changes.

Bit smaller on the flop, your bet was the top of the range I would use so use it if you think this villain is good for top of range sizing.

On the turn, villain isn't going to call a gutshot any longer so they'll either get sticky with overpairs or they won't. In which case this is a perfect spot to stretch your sizing range to it's maximum. How big is too big here? I'd say 225 is the absolute highest you would want to go. $200 seems pretty solid which is $25 higher than you went, which is not a negligible difference. IMO $250 is just a bad feeling for me I don't like that big.

I mean I will leave further range analysis to someone else...

My gut here is that shoving is not a fist pump.

I am obviously going to either snap call or shove...I am extremely happy to call.

The question is of course should we shove?

It doesn't "feel right" to me. Maybe I'm a nit and I'm afraid that I run into a boat because I run bad and it's kind of my life.

But that is psychological nonsense I realize...

Hmmmm..

I think my true gut reaction is that this specific sizing villain used wasn't planned at all - I can't put into the blocker bet category and it definitely looks to be a value bet in my eyes.

I would probably just call this bet, honestly. 98 is a real possibility, 88 probably not, 66 is pretty much a w/e...

I think something like a 910 or 9J is going to block bet a bit smaller...

So in conclusion...I am in camp don't shove..but definitely sighing as I "just call"...

Against a guy who played KT the way you described, Im never not pushing all in on the river here.

Some excellent analysis ITT. The EV calculations are spot on so in a pure vacuum shoving is probably best. But you are playing live poker so it's not a pure vacuum which I think can sometimes get lost on this board. There can be things that move decision away form the theoretical optimal play. Don't worry I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of things like game flow and your perception of Villains emotion state because that is really impossible to discuss in any kind of meaningful way with people who weren't there or having hindsight bias.

But what I do want to ask is what is your setting and who is the villain in relationship to your setting? I ask that because I play poker in two very different settings often enough that I appreciate the difference and I have to factor that into my decision making. I play in a casino setting where a majority of players at the table won't qualify as regulars and so I know my sample size against them will never be relevant enough to get beyond basic reads and theoretical hand ranging. Against these players shoving is the correct play. I also play in an underground game where literally almost everyone is going to be a regular and I am going to constantly doing battle against them, there can definitely be value that I will later be able to exploit from seeing there hand. In this exact situation in my underground game I would really want an answer to what that $200 river lead is and I would probably pay a little bit of +EV in this spot to get it.