Hey all, appreciate your help in this hand, and what the optimal line would have been.


V: clean cut late 20s caucasian male. Play tight and plays somewhat aggressive. Not too sure about his bluff tendencies since only I only sat at this table for 45min. has ~650
H: late 20s Asian male. Don't think I have too much of an image yet, played a few hands and won without showdown after betting. has ~1200.

OTTH:

Hero looks down at JdJs in UTG +2 and opens to 15 (standard size at this table), HJ calls, V in CO calls, BB calls.

Flop comes Jc 7s 4s. (61)

BB checks, hero bets 40, HJ folds, V calls, BB folds.

Turn 5h (141)

Hero bets 75, V raises to 175.

Hero????

I just shove here. He has made straights sometimes which sucks but he also has 77/44 in his value range as well as hands like 75cc/dd A5ss etc.

Should only be behind 4 combos of 68s and he'll happily stack off a lot of hands you have crushed. He could also be doing this with a few random combo draws (A3ss for example) so I think shoving is prob best.

If you aren't checking flop with this, what good hands are you checking with?

J7s4s doesn't hit your EP range well, you almost always have one pair when you want to put money in. Villains behind often have draws when they call, and so deep def. calling 86/85 and probably any lower pair to hit two pair (admittedly this is good for you, with this hand). Esp. with you blocking two jacks.
Planning to x/r. If we do bet we should go bigger or smaller, like 1/3 pot or near pot.

As played to turn I probably check/raise, villain has lots of two pair or pair + open ender ... sometimes run into it though.

As played to raise, I guess shove ... kind of sucks now though if villain calls, feels like the least worst option instead of a good one. We are hoping villain calls it off with 2 pair a lot. If we had more reads that villain will bluff missed rivers or fire again with two pair on blanks then call planning to call a bunch of rivers might be better, possibly better anyway (would def. call with position). Just don't fold, I guess.

So V did the classic "100 on top" move which is always strength. Gutshots are 100% in his range, as are spade draws that improved, so maybe A5ss? I feel like calling is the smart play however in my prime I'd always 3bet here unsure if it was tilt or value and always come out ahead, so part of me wants to say just shove and reload if you're wrong.

BTW i dont think you really have much reads under an hour so dont worry about who seems tight or loose yet.

He could be thinking you should never have more than a 1 pair hand here (outside of having top set) since you raised from ep. So he could be using broad texture to try and push you off of QQ, KK, KJ, QJ, type of hands. More likely he has a gut shot + pair type of hand or a pair and a FD as well has inferior sets. 100% this is a spot to re raise/ put him all in. if he has 63 or 68 god bless him.

I limp in but that's me. Although being much deeper like we are at least we create an SPR that is still very manageable even when we go multiway (which is a pretty standard result).

I probably PSB the flop. Basically just going to target hands that can continue (strong ones and draws) because it is unlikely much else will on this board.

I go larger on the turn. ~1/2 PSB offering ~3:1 OOP is too small, imo.

I'd ship it facing the raise. Lotta action killers on the river. Little worried that we're not up against a set as those mostly would have raised the flop. But there are still some two pair / mega draws. And we have outs if behind.

GcluelessNLnoobG

This guy gets it.

Tough spot. V has ~400 behind. H shove offers 2-1 on call.

Pros/cons to shoving: Shoving does allows him to play perfectly; but, calling forces H to fade a lot of rivers - all spades, 2,3,8 and even T or 6 because V can be double-gutted now with 98s.

V is so wide that we are a bit paralyzed unless we shove turn. V has position and we're not certain to get the rest of the money in because we can't confidently shove the river half the time - our set becomes a classy bluff-catcher.

V's raise suggests he has turned more equity. So I think that compresses him to 66, 54s, 9s8s and NFDs with wheels: A2s, A3s and maybe A6s if he is looser than we think. However, this amounts to just 9 combos that could call our shove.

I suppose I would call in position but oop I think shove is preferable given the board.

OOP I'm jamming here (86s might be the only hand we're beat by, but we still win vs other sets and 2pair hands like J5s). In position I would probably call hoping he fires the river, but if not I can then bet where as if we flat now, we have to hope he bets the river unless we lead out but in these spots when they pick up draws plus a pair type hands we have a better shot getting stacks in now as opposed to later.

I would go smaller on the flop since you have the board crushed. It’s tough for anyone to have anything. I would go $25 but he called $40 and you have top set so w/e.

3 bet shove turn all day. If he has the straight then nh.

CALL wtf. Let’s see a river. Tf everyone wants to just jam in 500 more, what the hell does that even do but lose money? Insane.

Limp and then start bet shoving 200bb without the nuts, ok dude.

With respect, because I really value your comments....what River, other than a J or a paired board, do you want to see here out of position? This V is so wide we have to fade half the deck to GII confidently. I agree that we should call in position but oop it seems so much tougher.

Shove offers V 2-1 so he maybe lays down all his non-NFDs and SDs which I think is good maybe.

This might come across as obvious, but before I "worry" about the river, I am already worrying about the turn before it even comes because 'half the deck' is going to change the nuts and I'm deep. The deeper you get, the more having a nut draw (including top boat as a drawing hand) is important esp when OOP and super-especially in a 1/3 game where 200bb stackoffs on J745s boards are not going to be light in most cases.

I'm trying to convey that my approach when flopping top set 4 ways isn't "let's stack off in a hurry" whatsoever, it's very much about making the max while playing max-defense at the same time (<-this is the secret to crushing btw, dodging bullets). So to bring this back to current, the last thing I am going to do once a nut changing turn hits is think like this...

...Instead, (and I'm not advocating for a turn check although the case can be made when you consider your whole range, position, depth) we make a bet that is +EV, but when now raised, is there any clarity that shoving 2x pot-ish is a slam dunk? Is it even +EV? Again, not even talking about range play, just this hand in a vacuum which is fine for the game being played. Best play? Call.

I hope above isn't too noisy, but the whole concept here is that I just got raised on a nut changer deep, and, for all I know there are still 32 full frequency combos of better hands available to him. He very well may overcall 63o pre we just don't know his state of mind, but if we rip in 500, we're gonna know in a hurry AND the flipside we also create max FE for his overplayed 2p, and some sets against which we have stacking equity on good rivers - Are you raise-calling off 2p? Nooooope, neither is he. So, CALL 100, and NOW we can "worry" about the river. If its a J or a paired board, sure nice, we can overboat him and sometimes lose to quads, great spot. We can decide to bet big or check or bet small on that card, all have viability. On flush cards, 4 liners, and many of the other cards, we can check and decide. If he is willing to put in 500 with on those cards, well, he is either vastly overplaying a made hand (he might be) or just simply already had beat or improved (a lot of the time) so we can check fold to a greedy bet size. If you want to ckc 500, that's allowed probably, but I promise that check calling $500 bets in a 1/3 game without the nuts is generally going to be a losing play.

It's 420 more, about a psb...if you flat the turn are you checking it to him otr or leading out?

See above, ik you wrote this prior to the post. I just have no discomfort with whatever the river is - I have no entitlement to the pot just because I flopped to set, if he semi-bluffed me ott, good for him, not easy in this game, and he still has to get there and STILL has to get me to check call bad rivers for top set, also not easy.

"420 more" is actually a lot in a live 1/3 game most times ya know? Like, the whole relative-to-pot thing really doesn't matter, we are facing a max-aggressive/max-strength action in a spot where the times we call turn, we still keep in the hands we are crushing+the semi bluffs to which we are ahead/getting a great price to call (for those that worry about that stuff), and retain equity at a fair price for the hands that have us crushed. Keeping in the small sets, 2p hands, and forcing him to make tough decisions on board pairing rivers are options that we leave ourselves when calling the 100 with all that play behind.

It would be very hard to check river on a board pairing in this game, we want to make money so betting small v shoving is debatable. I'd prob roll out 150 and maybe get shoved on by boats anyway, called by straights, and board pairing flush cards, who knows. Again, I HAVE check folds too otr it's all about relative hand strength.

He has no 2pair ott. He has combo draws and sets, hands that are never folding, gii.

I’ll gladly stack off with top set 200bigs deep on this board. Purely exploitative, I dunno what bluffs we balance this with. So theoretically flat, exploitatively shove

Lol, wut? Cuz, yeah, I'm going to play an SPR ~10 pot exactly the same as I would a SPR ~30?

GnicereadG

@ Amanaplan

I'm more-or-less with others. If we call, we're going to have less than a PSB left with a bunch of hand/action killers, so I don't really see the point.

ETA: Against 2nd best hands that are willing to get it in now (he's never folding a set on the turn, right?), then we should do that before the action killers. Fair enough regarding losing 2 pairs, against them a call is probably better, although also decent chance some of those check behind on a bunch of rivers. We punish semi-bluffs for being to aggro by jamming it down their throat and not letting them realize their equity. Against straights, whatever; are we check/folding blank rivers with < PSB left?

GcluelessNLnoobG

Do you honest ckc psb otr bc of pot odds?

and yea I know you don’t play the same w spr differences, so, maybe now since you’re bet jamming JJ in a lower spr 400bb pot you might realize that limping and flopping top set to win a small pot or not stack off means your strategy has a massive massive paradox at its core.

Ok so far, I think the raise on the flop is ok, and you get 4 callers. When the flop comes, it’s a pretty good board for you hitting the top set, but also potentially dangerous given the draws on the board that might be more likely in the villain’s range (e.g., 56s, other spade cards). I think the bet sizing here is fine, about ¾ pot multiway to charge people to continue with smaller number of people in the pot.

When you bet and the CO calls, I’m likely putting them on straight draw (56s), flush draw, pocket pairs like 1010, 99, 88, 66 and below maybe but I might assume they would fold to such a large bet size multiway. Overpair seems very unlikely b/c I think the villain would likely 3-bet QQ+ preflop. 77 and 44 also seem unlikely because I do think a good number of people would be raising in this spot for value, especially when it’s got this board texture.

The turn is kind of a tough card, since there are some straights that can complete like 86s, but I do feel like that’s not a hand that most ppl in CO would be calling when faced with an open raise from UTG +2. Here I think betting for value is fine because I still think it was quite likely up until this point that you had the strongest hand, but I do think a sneaky check in this spot once in a while might not be a bad idea just to induce the opponent to bet and potentially see what they have since you’re OOP.

Now this raise to 175 feels like an odd one to me, because it’s basically a bit higher than a min raise, so it doesn’t feel very strong here. Maybe they finally decided to raise a set that they might’ve hit on the flop, or maybe they are bluffing their draws, and trying to see if they could get you to fold. You only need to be right 36% of the time in this spot, so I think you’re getting a good price with the top set here. I think here either calling or re-raising (potentially jamming him) him again is an option since you’re OOP and you take that advantage away. I don’t think I’m going to be folding in this spot.

No way man, this is a classic Postflop Minraise of Death, hallmark move by a fish with a big hand trying to milk you for all its worth. Problem is he definitely doesnt put hero on a set, and fish will often overvalue their own trap hands so the real question is does he think 2pair or some combo draw is suddenly the nuts or not. We beat all of his wannabe nutted hands and lose to the straight. Given that this is live and you simply dont get the volume to make big folds and need to take your value where you can find it I'm ok with a shove.

Flop size is too big IMO. Range-wise I would assume something around 1/2 would be better, and hand wise we block top pair out (which is what we want them to have when we have the big value hand)

As played, I think we can flat here and he’ll probably stick the rest in himself on river.

Question for those advocating to flat turn (jdr and amana I think):

If we just call, I guess the plan is to check all rivers. Are you at all concerned about villain checking back worse sets and two pairs on the 19 river cards that bring a 4-liner or a flush?

There are a lot of bad river cards (nearly half the deck!) and I’m a bit concerned that if we just call we don’t get all of villains chips all of the time we have him coolered. Whereas if we jam on turn, we always get all of villains chips when we cooler him.

This trouble is partly due to playing out of position. If we were in position we would always have the option to put the rest of the money in if V checks to us on the river.