8 handed live cash 2/5

CU Opr to 10 -
Hero (stack 550) (8h9h) call from the BU -
bb also call 3 handed to the flop

Pot ~30 (depending on rake)
Flop 4h8d9d checks to the Hero - Hero Bet 20 and bb villain (stack 700) raise to 65€ - CO fold it is HU - Hero call

Pot: ~155
turn qd - villain bet 165 Hero ??

Could someone explain the correct line for Hero here

Ummm... gii otf? The board is draw heavy and you block most sets.

Turn - might the worst possible card, so w/o reads I'd fold.

Flop - could be a 3B at some freq, and a flat other times.

Pre - after a CU min-open, I'd 3B almost always.

Welcome to the LLSNL forum, OP.

Do you really mean GTO (minimax), or do you want the actual highest EV line? Also, don't give results and please optimize your post for readability in the future. I'll edit for you.

You'll also want to give what reads you have on your Vs and how they likely see you.

Pre could be a flat or a 3-bet.

Flop is a shove, IMO. You'll be facing a semi-bluff almost always. You block most sets and they would likely c/r bigger on a board that wet. Expect to see mostly combo-draws, but not all SD+FD, many will be just one of the two and thinking their overcards are also outs.

AP, I agree that Qd is the nut worst turn card and would fold. He prob doesn't have a SF here, or he'd likely bet less, but he almost certainly has a straight or a flush.

Flopping 2P is the kiss of death for me and as often as I lose with it, I still have to fight a sense of pot entitlement that comes with top 2.

AP, I like a flop 3! because there is such a small chance he has 44, 88, or 99. His flop raise could be, probably is, a semi bluff FD and you let him take the lead with a much weaker hand than yours. I don't see mention of this in poker literature, but he has effectively stolen most of the benefit of your position. If you call his turn, he's sure to bet the river in front of you and you've got another tough fold or call decision.

However, back up. The CO min raised pre, and as I have sometimes reluctantly and painfully learned, calling with mid suited cards is not long term EV+. You should have raised pre to about €30 - 35. If the BB or CO bombed you at that point, you could fold and be out a lot less than you might lose AP. If either calls, you have better defined their hands and you have created a pot where your c-bet might be sufficiently large that the BB doesn't feel he can semibluff raise with something like a non flush SD. As hard as you hit that board, you still hold a very vulnerable hand.

I play with a couple of folks that donk bet every turn that makes a straight or flush; winning them a lot of pots. So I often don't credit them with the made hand. But since they will bet the river as well, I either give up or raise if I don't think I can call the river bet to come. It makes for some painful losses or happy wins. That's poker. But without an aggro read of that sort on this player, I would probably fold the turn AP.

We have the easiest combo to shove on the flop. If we're never shoving flop we make it super easy for V to semi-bluff us here since we either just fold or call. I like trapping with a set a lot more than 2p. Shove all our combos of 2p and pair plus flush draws here.

The GTO answer is to fold pre or low frequency 3 bet. This isn’t a flat pre. Any answer I give past this point isn’t GTO because I would be working with a fictional range.

If we arrive with a typical non-GTO live reg range on the flop, this is probably the worst hand we are required to peel with but it’s borderline. I would fold though.

Based off the pre-flop sims I have (which allow for multiple open sizes, 3B sizes and flats from all positions), 89s is a low frequency call in this spot (roughly 15%), with us folding most of the time (about 55%), and 3Bing to between 6 and 7.5BB the rest of the time (about 30%).

As such, the call pre-flop is OK, assuming it's not your main play here.

When we get to the flop, if we are multi-way on pretty much all board textures, from the limited amount of multi-way post-flop sims we have available (MonkerSolver and Simple 3-way, as well as PokerSnowie), the favoured sizings tend to be around 1/4 pot. The reason for this is that the burden of defending against bets is shared amongst all of the other players, and as such they can fold much more often without being exploited. As such, a sizing of either 5 or 10 on the flop would be better. By betting 20, our opponents are able to choose to only continue with strong hands/draws without being exploited.

When we get raised on this board, I'm not too familiar with solver-based flop 3B strategies multi-way, however if I were to guess I'd imagine solvers would be mixing this holding between calling and 3Bing at some frequency on this board. Due to the highly dynamic nature of the board, having board coverage on a variety of runouts is quite important, and as such there will be very few (if any) hands that are pure 3Bs on the flop.

If we assign the BB the range from the same pre-flop, they will have a lot of flushdraws, A2s-A9s, K2s-K9s, Q3s-Q9s, and all suited connectors, 1 gappers and 2 gappers from 24s to 96s. As such they will have a load of flushdraws in their range, all of which should raise the flop at some frequency (exact frequencies will be combo dependent).

It's worth noting that no suited broadways should be in the BB range, as those should be 3B pre at a pretty much 100% frequency facing this action. They will also have 22-99 at a very high frequency here for all sets, as well as all 98s. They have a very small % of 84s and 98o for more 2P combos, but we block those quite heavily.

The other hands which are in BB's range that would be presumable check-raises here are JTo, QTo and QJo, all of which are in the pre-flop range at a high frequency in this configuration.

Given this breakdown of the BB check-raising range, this turn connects with basically all of their bluffs, and shifts the equities quite significantly into their favour. Additionally, our pre-flop range is already quite condensed, and we should have combos of all sets, combos of all JTs straights and A8s-AJs, KTs and JTs flushes. Besides the T9s-A9s top-pair hands, 98s is near the bottom of our flop calling range on this turn, and as such we should be able to fold pretty comfortably here.

I've attached images from the sims of the pre-flop ranges with frequencies for both hero and BB to assist.
BB range:


Hero range:

Great work/analysis. My only question is if those sims factor in rake.

Designed for either 200z or 500z rake, can't remember, so it's 5% up to either 0.6BB or 1.375BB. Admittedly lower than live, which means that our best adjustment to higher raked live games is to reduce our flatting range and increase our 3B frequency with our mid-high strength hands assuming we're still interested in playing a theoretically sound, difficult to exploit strategy.

grunch btw

Flop:

GTO: We have some range interaction on this board but consider we will 3bet 88, 99, and 98s (or mostly folding 98s depending on rake structure) all at decent freq, and consider that this board the BTN cold call range actually has some hands that totally whiff (which is rare for a BTN cold caller!) like Axs, and broadways no straight draw. So overall board isn't that good for us, and we could be facing a x/r from CO (or totally uncapped BB) who likely is checking close to his entire range on this texture.

All things considered, the main reason we want to bet the flop, and the majority type of hands that want to bet the flop, are hands that benefit from protection, from folding out overcards; therefore, I think our preferred sizing on the flop is definitely a smaller sizing like 1/4 or 1/3 and I don't think the EV gain of a larger size is worth the complication of range splitting on such an early street! So GTO wise a smaller sizing is likely betterfor our range.

After we face the x/r by BB after we already bet 66% I think we basically just want to call with any part of our range that wants to continue. The board is dynamic and we don't want to give up our positional advantage by letting the BB simply jam good combo draws and sets/2p.

Exploitative: Man we have top 2 on a wet board 3ways where often villain's continuing ranges will be inelastic. If anything, I'm potting or overbetting this flop; I doubt CO folds an overpair ever and not to mention BB can have TONNES of draws and even worse 2pair. Also, as far as our "nutted" hands go on this flop, 98s is the most vulnerable! So bet bigger!

After we face the x/r after we bet 66% I think calling is still likely also correct (assuming we play turns and rivers well) otherwise another option is just to jam it in his face! I'd rather call 99 here and jam 98s if I had to choose one to do each action!

Turn:

Easy fold GTO wise and exploitative It's just the worst card - or at least close to - the worst card for your exact hand. AND he potted it. Very easy fold!

No read on villain? Like at all?

+1

but with regards to GTO play OP, which is not as relevant here in this hand multi-way esp after the cold call pre, listen to BadReg and Jarrettman.

If he provided any sort of useful advice ITT I'd agree but all he said was to fold pre... which isn't necessarily true and depends a lot on rake structure (especially facing only a minraise from CO). If, for example OP is playing in time raked games (aka unraked)- like the 2/5 are where I used to play - then 98s is a very reasonable call pre in this spot.

I actually just meant in general as BadReg plays mid-hs live.

Obv cold calling wide otb vs. a min raise is cool.

Love your 500z vids man, keep it up! I wasn't aware of them until recently until I asked for other's opinions about them in my thread. You deserve a lot more subs my friend.