2/5, 6 handed, $700 effective with both villains. LJ is a loose passive fish but has shown he has a fold button post flop and seems to have raised the flop every time he's flopped 2p+. SB seems to be passive and in between the traditional tight passive and loose passive, leaning slightly more towards loose passive - he too has shown to have a fold button post flop. Hero has a TAG image if either villain is paying attention.

OTTH

LJ open limps, loose passive limps HJ, loose passive limps CO, hero raises $35 OTB J T (bottom of my raising range) and SB + LJ call.

Flop ($120): 9 6 2. X to hero who bets $40 and both call. I feel like they're going to miss this board a lot and I can barrel any over card, any 8, and any spade ott. If we get x-r, oh well, we have J high.

Turn ($240): A. X to hero who bets $160. I'm giving up if called, but this completes the rainbow so we don't have to worry about pair + FD continuing, they should be super wide given the small flop sizing, and even a flop overpair shouldn't feel great about calling this size.

This is probably fine at some frequency. Would rather have JT to unblock any BDFD's that would call flop and now fold turn.

This is a spot where you don't have many natural bluffs and JT is bottom of range so I could see it sliding into your bluffing range.

Are you raising hands like T8s, 78s in this spot preflop? If so you can probably just use those as your bluffing candidates.

Edit: I'd also guess this turn isn't a high-frequency bet spot for you since most Ax probably want to check back the flop and so the A isn't necessarily good for your range here.

You need to tell us your flop strategy - you shouldn't be 1/3 ranging here on a 9 high board since most of your broadways lose a lot of backdoor equity.

9 high boards play much different than T high boards.

Secondly - the turn card is better for your opponent's in the 1/3 mixed game tree. Since they should be calling some Ax OTF + we X back a lot of Ace x.

Sizing wise - we are betting too big. We want to bet small - medium sizing to continue value betting TT-KK.

I'm not raising T8s or 87s pre, this is the bottom of my raising range.

I would say I'm betting everything otf that has at least a BDFD versus these particular opponents.

I am 100% betting smaller if I had TT-KK or Ax. No, balanced sizing doesn't matter in this spot.

If we use this logic we can justify any sizing and any play at any part of the game tree.

You usually want equity in some form when barreling the turn. Whether it is bottom pair/gutshot/FD or whatever - you need something.

We have nothing so it's a check.

I don’t think people think through their down betting ranges on flops and just do it now cause it’s the cool kid thing to do.

Do you down bet all flops when you bet? Does it matter how many people are in pot?

What hands do we have that want to bluff this turn that also have equity?

That's a really great question I didn't think about initially.

If we use OP's range and don't iso hands like T8s/87s/54s (which you should at equilibrium at some frequency) then we have zero hands that want to bluff OTT with equity.

That is probably proof that our flop range isn't constructed properly, since we have no turn bluffs on an Ace turn that doesn't bring a BDFD.

It's a very unique spot but illustrates the problem with our preflop/flop play.

A solver would never bet 1/3 here - it would bet big like 75% or even 100%/120%

The reason is because we want to put all of Villain's pairs in tough zero EV spots. We don't want to give a hand like 55/A4s/gutshots/Ace highs easy continues, so 1/3 sizing doesn't make sense for a sizing on this board texture.

Another benefit of betting big on this board is we get to almost 100% X turn on an Ace. Our opponent's flop calls will benefit more on an Ace turn than ours because he will have more A9s/A6s/A2s type hands and we will X back hands like AK/AQ OTF so when an Ace peels the turn we do a ton of checking.

We obviously have more 99-KK that doesn't want to put money in the pot. But we got our value OTF by betting huge.

Interesting spot in that if we bet 1/3 OTF we are way to value heavy OTT - but if we use bigger sizing OTF then the turn becomes a natural check and we can play our range much better OTR.

I downbet almost exclusively because people respond very poorly. People play way too wide of ranges pre flop and HU we can print pretty much versus the entire population by auto downbetting HU, and there are a decent amount of boards that are profitable to 1/3 3 ways. People way overfold and sometimes people spaz out with air because they read it as weakness.

It's silly to try and play theoretically correct at any street (including pre flop because open sizes are much larger than online) in live poker because of how far off the game is from GTO.

I rarely down bet or bet 1/3 pot, but I understand why some people do it. I am OK with it here. They will fold a lot and float with a few hands that you can blow them off on the turn. If they raise the flop, you can just fold.

I like the turn bet, too. Could be a little smaller to get the same result, but it looks exactly like you have AK - AJ, and they can't continue with much.

Betting small on the flop is fine. lol at the guy above who says a solver would pot the flop multiway.
Your combo selection for bluffing turn seems fine because you don't have that many natural bluffs with equity, Colombo is right though that when the board is rainbow its probably slightly better to bet JTdd in order to unblock backdoor flush draws that bricked the turn and have to fold. You['re probably overbluffing if you bet all JTs combos on the turn.
Also, you should bet smaller on the turn, maybe around 1/2 pot, because its multiway, the board is really dry so its not a priority to pile the money in right away, and both villains are potentially still uncapped since they can slowplay sets on the flop or improve to two-pair with hands like A9, A6, etc. On turns that were more of a brick it would be better to use a large sizing.

If you want to exploit, the way to do it here is to bet big on flop

I don't think it's necessary to have some equity on every spot. And this doesn't prove we constructed our range poorly on the flop, because there's no range we can construct that will give us equity on an A turn, unless you count some weak As as bluffs.

IMO, the fact we are three way on the turn which means our opponents' ranges are even stronger than on the flop counsels for playing snug.

If I were looking for a bluff in this spot, i would be looking for something that blocks my opponents' calling range and unblocks their folding range. KQ-KJ blocks strong Axs. If you think they raise those, then JT makes more sense.

A bluff on the turn should be targeting most weak draws like 8T, 67, QJ most of them you beat, but you are also denying their equity; I don't think you can fold any weak 2x or 6x because most of them have become two pair. A pair of 9s will have to think about it, but I think most people will call.

All in all I think a smaller bet size will be more efficient, but my preference would be for a turn check. I am open to changing my mind. I am fine with the flop.

Grunch:

Pre- is just fine. I open probably slightly wider than this tbh, but certainly JTs is a fine open. I like the standard pot sized bet.

Flop: Fine, as you can barrel a large number of turns. If you are interested in balance this is a spot that I will check back with some frequency as I find that including all low card combos w/ only back door draws is too many bluffs. This flop misses you hard, and you maintain range advantage (barely), but certainly lack the nut advantage. Betting small is good, but I would be cautious about over including too many hands in this betting range as it is optimistic that both villains fold.

Turn: Definitely like the bet. But I disagree with giving up on all rivers. I think that this is a spot where you can credibly get that third barrel in on boards where the river is an A,K, or Q. Possibly a low blank as well depending on villains actions.

Oops just saw that its not heads up on the turn. If it was blast away. Getting called two ways its too easy for one to have Ax or even 2p with the A. I give up 3-ways on the turn. Definitely blasting favorable rivers if heads up though.

You're right in that it isn't necessary to have equity OTT to barrel, but one thing we can learn from solvers is that in most situations - our turn barreling range does have some way of making the best hand by the river.

Exception's to this rule:

COvsBB KT3r board - 8o OTT - we barrel A2s OTT
COvsBB J42tt board - Ko OTT - we barrel Q6s OTT

There's other ones as well but you'll notice the common theme with these two hands is that we can bluff some broadway rivers.

So we can bluff a J or Queen river with A2s on the first hand, and we can bluff a T or Ace river with the Q6s hand.

JTs doesn't have any properties like that - so it is a 100% check.

Of course we can just say we are exploiting population and pretend to know what that looks like.

Then we can do whatever we want.

Easy game.

Am I misinterpreting this, or are you insinuating that it's hard to know how to exploit the LLSNL population?

I could be wrong, but what I think he’s suggesting is that it’s still good to have solid theoretical reasons/logic for why we’re playing the way we are. Also that using “population exploits” as justification for any/every play is a slippery slope.

But I dunno. I find it hard to read these threads when it’s ironically often the best input that gets ripped on the hardest. It’s a different kind of slippery slope to engage.

You're not wrong

Except JTs does have those properties? The T becomes a straight blocker on rivers that are a 5, 7, or 8

Not on a 5 river. 7 or 8 yes.

But we need to go back to preflop.

OP doesn't have T8s/T7s in his range which makes the turn a check.

I'm not saying this is correct, hence the thread, but the logic for barreling the turn here is that their ranges are very wide and that they'll overfold versus a barrel. Surely this has theoretical reasons - 1) their ranges are wider pre flop, on the flop, and on the turn than GTO (obviously as there's no limping/limp-calling from LJ, no calling from SB), 2) they aren't going to defend as frequently as they should with their given ranges

The thing is, and I'm sure you're aware of this, is that if someone were to come in and play pure GTO hold 'em for a million hours live and then another guy played max exploit hold 'em for a million hours live, the guy exploiting the population is going to win significantly more money than the guy playing pure GTO.

Of course there are merits to learning GTO even if you're exclusively playing LLSNL, and it shouldn't hurt (though it could if you don't understand why you should be deviating.)

That is only in theory. In practice the GTO guy will crush the exploit guy.

The reason is because most of the exploits are done with a tenuous grasp of the GTO concept they are deviating from.

It sounds to be like you are trying to justify a turn barrel without any data points. I have solver outputs with very good starting ranges as my evidence.

You could have a point if you studied online players pools on soft sites (which play very similar to live games) and broke down the data -then realized players fold at an especially high frequency on B-B-B lines where even betting with air turns into an EV+ situation (very unlikely).

But without data to back up why you are doing something - it just turns into spew.

I hope it worked out.

That's not true. One obvious example as to why the guy exploiting the population to the maximum will win more than the pure GTO guy is the river x-r. This is basically never a bluff, might be a bluff less than 1% of the time, so the exploit guy will just auto fold his non nutted hands, but the GTO guy will be defending many more hands and just burning money.

The funny thing is that I never said it was correct, and I said that's why I made the thread. I just gave my reasoning behind why I did.

The solver ranges you are using do not even come close to the ranges that exist in live hold 'em, especially when LJ and SB's range flat out don't exist pre flop in theory.

He's not saying that. He's saying that if you know GTO, you also know how to exploit to the max.

Also, my understanding is that the solver produces outputs depending on the ranges you give him. The solver doesn't care if someone limped called.

Last, but not least, while there's a GTO approach that says you play everything as a raise or a reraise pre, I think there are GTO solutions that allow for calls PF.

I don't think you understood my post.

Also - there are SB calling ranges at GTO. The only reason there aren't at lower stakes is for rake considerations.