Overnight game. BTN is some tournament donk who loved getting into raising wars when deep, esp. flop checkraises with air. He was definitely capable of adjusting: while 6-handed he had been isolating the fish constantly preflop until I started reraising him in position, after which he immediately took to limping. SB appears to be a hyper-aggressive unknown who bought in for full (250 BB), sat down 4-handed and started reraising almost every orbit once down to 3-handed. I was card dead 6-handed, then picked up a series of hands 3-handed, mostly versus SB, so I'm not sure how I'm perceived. In an earlier hand, while 6-handed, I isolated the button versus his limp and a fish's overlimp, he called, check-called a flop of J T 2, led a 5 turn for 4/5 pot, and led again for 1/2 pot on a 7 river, with 3 4. As me, what would your range be in each of the following hands?


Hand 1

Preflop: ($15)
BTN ($7,777) raises to $30, SB ($2,727) reraises to $145, Hero ($2,300) reraises to $410, BTN folds, SB calls $270

Flop: ($850) 9 A K
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($850) J
SB bets $600, Hero calls $600

River: ($2,050) Q
SB folds


Hand 2

Preflop: ($15)
BTN ($6,789) raises to $30, SB ($3,210) reraises to $145, Hero ($2,800) reraises to $410, BTN reraises to $900, SB folds, Hero calls

Flop: ($1,945) Q T 5
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($1,945) 7
Hero bets $1,900 all-in

Correction: SB reraised to $135 in each hand, as there is no way my reraise would be under triple.

Clarification: This quote concerned the BTN opponent in the present hands. Also, Hand 2 occurred after Hand 1.

Any constructive feedback on bet sizes would be appreciated.

Stack sizes are very precise. Are asking what hands you should be cold 4-betting here?

Assuming this thread is real, I think you should actually play pretty tight passive from both the sb and the bb in this lineup. Either way, your range should be considerably stronger the second time you make it 410.

Why are the stacks in strange numerical numbers when it's 5/10? Unless you performed currency conversion then you should just round it off to nearly increment of 10 for sake of discussion. You then ask about our ranges, but we are not YOU, so obviously we would either not take the same lines you did, or have different ranges to yours anyway..

Lastly, if this is a live game, since you're in Indonesia and afaik they don't really have casino games there so where was this game? Yes it matters a lot.. for eg. when you say "tournament donk", a Japanese/Chinese/Korean tourney player who's capable of adjusting is usually not a donk at all... as opposed to Filipino/Aussie/SE Asian.

1: Probably checking flop quite a bit with AA/AK vs this guy. With 99 or KK I would bet flop 100% though. By the river, my range is probably AA AK AQ AJ QQ JJ KQ KT and some random Ax hands I may have decided to cold 4-bet.

2: I wouldn't be flatting that cold 5-bet with many non-premium hands even with the current dynamic. He probably has TT+ AK at least 75% of the time. The only reason you would want to flat anything at all is because your AQs/KQs type stuff kind of wants to flat, but I suspect you would be better off just jamming your entire continuing range. I guess if you want you can flat a KQs AQs AKs QQ JJ type range and jam AKo AA KK TT.

Liberties were obviously taken with precise stack size amounts, but in all other respects, these hands are real.

Above all: Thoughts about splitting preflop facing the initial reraise (i.e. do we have a cold flatting range)? Renton seems to disapprove.

1: Our postflop instincts were very similar, except for AK. Is AK a check for the same reasons as AA? Doesn't that unbalance continuation betting ranges slightly too much?

2: Several questions. What do we expect an all-in preflop to be called by? Also, when we do flat Renton's range, can't Villain polarize across three streets on almost every texture?

It was a general descriptor. Somebody whose main meat and potatoes is MTT play will, at this level, tend to be a cash game donk.

Haha, I don't doubt at all that any extreme short-stack player would struggle to play well deep. Certainly going the other way is no easy adjustment.

I don't think we want much of a flatting 3 range from the bb here. But we also don't want much of a 3 betting range ourselves from either sb or bb. We are going to profit in this lineup by playing relatively tight and passive in the first two spots (with the exception of 4 betting vs flatting in the bb) and playing the opposite of that on the button.

I also don't think you need to be very balanced or protected with your cbets against these two unknowns. It just seems so hard to me to get a reasonable sample in one live session. And so I think that beyond the basic stuff that comes up a lot like pf sizing or whatever, you can pretty much just play each hand in a vacuum. Like you know what you are doing is unbalanced and exploitable, but you also know you are the only one who really knows what you are doing. And then if a few hands get turned over that imply a specific exploitable pattern, you just adjust one way or another the next time that spot comes up.

5 bet ranges in live poker seem to be insanely polarized. I also prefer to ship anything I'm continuing with, given we only will have a psb behind out of position if we flat.

I'm not quite sure what your advocating here. Are you labelling them unknowns and calling on some population exploit that you aren't making explicit? Or are you saying that I should adapt to the handful of hours of live play that I've had versus BTN and half an hour I've had versus SB by playing tight and passive from the blinds?

Again, I'm having trouble with the logic of this. Why is foreknowledge of my strategy a prerequisite to villains happening to make plays that exploit it?

Why would we ship anything over a polarized range?

I'm the worst. I spotted the obvious tell and I proceeded anyways. Gl.

Hypothetically if villain's range is 90% bluff and 10% nuts and hero has air it would make sense.