Dynamics: 2/5 NLHE live game at Caesar's in LV. Been at the game ~1.5hrs. Game is slightly above average quality; one clear rec player I've never seen before, a guy I'm familiar with that limps too much and plays hands very weak, one ultra-tight nit not playing hands, another unknown presumably rec player that's been on the tight side but is opening occasionally and seems to be fit-or fold so far. Three other regs that are all playing quality TAG style; one of them has a slightly larger opening frequency but is not involved in this hand.
Villains: SB is quality TAG player about $650 stack. LJ is Sir Weak-limps-a-lot, $400 stack.
Hero: $575 stack in the HJ. My image is I'm playing quality TAG style, opening frequencies appropriate, 3bet frequency appears very low as I've not had the hands/situations in which to 3bet this session. Other attentive TAGs likely aware that I am raising to isolate the weak limper since I have perfect position on him, but my frequencies shouldn't look out of line. Cbet frequencies should look appropriate as well. I haven't had any significant hands go to showdown.

Preflop play: LJ open limps. I raise to 20 to isolate him with KdQd. SB calls. He calls.
Preflop Analysis: I vary my opening sizes on this table from 3x to 5x. Isolating a limper 4x would be the minimum; 5x is more common from me in this spot; I'd say 5x would be about 80% and 4x 20% of the time. I think 5x probably better to help increase chances of successful isolation, I regretted only making it 20 as soon as the 4 red chips hit the felt.
This isn't the primary spot I'm curious about, but weigh in if you have input.

Flop: Qs5s4c (pot 65)
Flop play: Checks to me, I bet 35 (~50% pot), both villains call. No discernible information from either players mannerisms.
Flop Analysis: cbet seems mandatory here. I'd bet 33%, 50%, or 66% generally in this spot. I'm not terribly worried about the equity of overcards coming, heads up vs the fish I'd likely bet small as he is not very sticky so I'm more likely to get value from a call from him for any pairs under the Q with a small bet. But being 3 way and wanting to charge draws, I size up a bit. Open to input here.

Turn: Qs5s4c2h (pot 170)
Turn play: Checks to me. Weighing options I'm feeling a little concerned that it is 3-way instead of heads up, but I feel not giving a free river here is best, and betting for value with the likely best hand makes sense. I bet 120, ~2/3 pot. SB check raises to 315, Sir Limps-weak-a-lot folds. Do you fold, call, or raise? And why? (Also interested in input on my bet decision as well)

Is a 'quality TAG' flattting many of these hands: 63s/A3s/QQ/55/44/Q5s/Q4s/54s, in the SB to an open raise? I don't think so, so if your read is good he doesn't have much. OTOH this is LLSNL and most people suck so I probably fold.

Yeah, A3s/55/44 are reasonable flats if BB isn’t 3betting aggressively and the limper is perceived as weak. That’s more or less what he’s repping.

It's hard to see what villain plays this way that beats you. 55/44 are the most likely but it's hard to see how he gets paid enough to justify the call. The weak fish isn't the aggressor and not likely to invest enough. Hero might but won't always The rest of the hands that beat hero are just bad calls.

That said, without some live read I fold. Pay attention to how often villain is getting aggressive with you or shows bluffs. If villain is trying to target you by bluffing both weak villain and hero out of hands then this becomes a call at some point. Generically though this is a set more then anything, followed by combo draws and straights. You beat only a small part of that range.

turn is a bet fold at 2/5 unless we have rock solid evidence that villain is capable of bluffing with worse.

top pair second kicker three way when we've shown a lot of strength and villain is check raising into us and another

yes yes i'm sure there's a few people who want to run sims and argue that we have to call because villain can be doing this with x and y but I'll stick with Baluga Theorem here.

Welcome to the forum. My compliments on your first post, it is well done with reads and ending at the key decision point.

Against a tough opponent, you might have to call this down or raise AI on the turn. However, there is no indication you're up against a tough opponent. In low stakes, players let you know when they have TP beat. Your opponent is telling you that you are beat. Fold.

25 flop. Comfortable turn check.

Do you c-bet any non-K/Q turns e.g. non-spade 4?

Seems like a pretty ez fold for the same reasons others have given.

With a solid player in the mix, I'd size smaller OTT, maybe $70-75. Though this offers attractive odds to the weaker 3rd player, larger will fold the SB worse hands.

Prob not IP when called twice, readless, and in Vegas. I didn’t even see in the HH that we got ckr until now too, easy fold. I’d just like to take the positional and informational edge to the river - that sounds a bit noisy maybe, but it’s just a 1 street hand for me. Turn 2 is a bad card. The hand is overplayed by OP, sizing too big flop, turn (if betting) obv way too big.

I prob lose $40-$45 in the hand and sometimes rivers are clean, it checks thru, I can call a small bet (maybe). It’s really about being called in TWO spots that creates the get-to-showdown directive for me, that, and just something as simple as high low low low board.

Nice first post. I like 25 pre as well, but whatever.

Flop. Generally 1/2 pot is going to be a poor sizing, especially multiway. You are giving good odds to the draws still and allow them to fold at a correct frequency. I would suggest this flop should be sized up and would use a 2/3 pot as my large bet size.

Turn is 40% check for me when called in two spots. If I bet I bet small. Sizing up on this turn is a LARGE mistake. You place yourself in a gross spot where either villain can put huge pressure on your stack. I would suggest 1/4 to 1/3 pot on turn.

I used the term "quality TAG" just to differentiate from how some folks seem to label "TAG" as a traditionally mostly nitty but will play good hands moderately aggressive but tend to be value-heavy. Obviously just 1 to 2 hours of play isn't enough to really understand villain's strategy fully, but right or wrong I felt this player would be capable of bluffing at more appropriately higher frequencies than a "nitty TAG". When ranging him here any SB flat from a "quality TAG" is a little weird as I'd expect better "quality TAGs" to just 3bet or fold mostly. Ranging him here 55/44 my primary concerns, but believed he could show up with all the suited aces and the small suited connectors here at least with some frequency.

Traditionally this would be my exact line of thinking... but I've been trying not just default-to-a-fold-strategy, be less nitty and more aggressive hoping for a higher BB/hr and accept any variance that comes along with that. Unfortunately in this spot I may have been trying too hard to do that and suffered the consequences. If the fish or the super-nit or the rec players performed such a check raise here, almost definitely this would be a snap-fold.

Your sim comment rings very true. I've started playing more with the solver lately so I ran a few with this scenario as best I could (not a perfect way to model it since it is 3-way until the turn). The line I took was fairly well aligned with the solver strategy, and the key turn spot was mixed - it was about 50% raise, 25% call, 25% fold. Implying that if both myself and opponent are playing perfect GTO then the EV between all these options isn't very different. Of course in the real-world we aren't truly GTO and if I'm following this strategy against a value-heavy reg I'm afraid I'm just punting here.


Thank you for this input and all the similar input concerning sizing-down if betting.
In-game I felt the 2h wasn't a horrid turn card as it only completes A3, and possibly added more semi-bluff turn spots for the villain if he is calling hands like 53s or 43s or A6s. (In retrospect this isn't great logic but it did weigh in at the time)

I took more time with the decision in-game than I usually would, and it ultimately boiled down to me asking myself is this villain capable of semi-bluffing in this spot where my hand is fairly transparent and my only nut-possible combo is exactly QQ? Then If I think he can have A2ss-ATss plus some suited connectors that give him pairs/flushdraws/gutshot combos, then there are more combos of semi-bluff candidates than the 6 combos of 44/55. So, I talked myself into the shove. He snap called, I said "oops" out loud, he smiled and nodded, and shows me As3d. Needless to say his SB flatting range here was wider than I expected, and over the course of the next 3-4 hours he revealed that he was slightly more loose and less aggressive and likely value-heavy than my initial read. Oops. Pretty much confirming the input I've had on this post.

An interesting question for me now: if we pretend this villain was indeed a player that includes these bluffs in his range and would play aggressively here, is there an argument for hero choosing a call instead of a shove? Give him the opportunity to bluff off on the river, and give hero opportunity to fold if an obvious draw completes? Or best just to try to get it in right here and accept you'll be crushed sometimes but other times you'll be making him pay to try to hit the combo draw? (At this stack depth seems like the shove best, but maybe if significantly deeper the flat call better?)

You’re making yourself crazy. He has 1p dead 100% of the time. The 2 is a terrible turn (to bet). Check back 3 ways bc you have the option to do so. You cannot get stacked in this hand w KQ, you get to lose $45 after getting called twice and sometimes you get to win the pot too. On A2345678TJ turns you check and can prob bet some 9x and QK non club turns if you have to, but checking KQ on all turns is also fine. You don’t increase your win rate by piling in stacks blind w bad 1p hands, certainly not here. You just spend hours dodging bullets, fish stomp, own trash regs, get in sets at 2/5 and that’s the only path. You handed some garbage reg your stack on a straightening turn - don’t do that stuff - no one is leveling, ever.

Imho, you might be over-thinking this spot.

Knowing results, the SB call pre is evidence that you over-rated his skills.

That said, multi-way, OOP shouldn't have many bluffs, especially if the weaker player is a station.
If semi-bluffing, flop might be the better spot with the hands mentioned, while turn X/R usually = strength.

GL!

This was my exact thought too. I don't know why nobody else views A3s as a reasonable flat from the SB. A3o is way too loose though for any "quality TAG."

Clearly the solver is starting to become indifferent to your strategy at this point. Which is exactly the opposite of what you want, indicating that you are in a really bad situation. Indifference to your opponents strategy indicates that you are on the wrong end of the decision tree and your opponent is playing optimally when apply GTO principles.

In this situation, clearly you have overcommitted your stack in a multi-way pot. Your solvers solution is likely too optimistic considering population tendency to significantly under bluff and accounting for the multi-way passive dynamic of the game. Seems like you recognize that, so I'm not trying to rub it in, just saying that the real error here was the turn sizing (I actually like a bet on the turn, just not so large as to reach indifference when facing a x/r).

[QUOTE=samo;57352344]Imho, you might be over-thinking this spot.

Knowing results, the SB call pre is evidence that you over-rated his skills.

That said, multi-way, OOP shouldn't have many bluffs, especially if the weaker player is a station.
If semi-bluffing, flop might be the better spot with the hands mentioned, while turn X/R usually = strength./QUOTE]

100% Agree. Probably best lesson/reminder for me in this example is to be more cautious with assumptions about an apparent reg's play without seeing enough real evidence.

100% agree; I effectively punted the remaining 80% of my stack here not weighing population tendencies appropriately versus a villain I was categorizing quite incorrectly.

Sorry to beat this horse even more... but I want to explore the turn sizing more and get more input...

Initially all the advice to size-down seems logical, primarily because it makes me feel less pot-committed to a check raise. But intuitively a small bet or a check seems like I'm giving villain (and the fish) too good of a price to continue with numerous possible draws... and well, it just feels nitty.

I'm working more and more to get familiar with the solver so I went back and modified the sim to see if the solver would agree if I forced it to play villains value-heavy turn checkraise strategy. So I node-locked the OOP player (villain) to play the specific strategy we all think he is more likely to play (as opposed to the solver's original GTO solution). Basically I widened villains SB flatting range, changed his flop play to check raise a percentage of AQ or better on the flop, and check raise some percentage of his nut flush draws and combo draws on the flop. Then on the turn, make all his check-raising near-100% pure value hands like the wheel, sets, and a small percentage of AQ and 2 pair. When I did this, the solvers solution to the turn check raise is a clear 100% fold with KQ (as expected). But, giving the solver a number of bet size options for hero on the turn between check, 33%, 50%, 66%, 100% and 150% pot, the solver chose the 2/3 pot size bet 100% of the time. I concluded that this is likely because villain just has a ton of hands we can value-target here like QJ, QT, Q9, possibly weaker queens or PP's below the Q, and then we are also making villain pay a price that continuing with his draws doesn't just print money by hero betting too small and giving him too good of a price. And since the solver knows any check raise here is pure value from him it is still an easy fold leaving us 80% of our stack.

This makes me lean back toward the larger 2/3 sizing as best vs villains range here, presuming we are right about him under-bluffing and we have the discipline to just auto-muck to a checkraise. Any thoughts/input here?

I'm still getting my feet wet setting up sims properly and drawing usable conclusions from them, so hopefully I'm setting up the scenario reasonably well. Presuming there are other solver experts here that can run this and/or give advice or share thoughts on the conclusions being made here I'd humbly give you my gratitude.

My sOvLrE says don't ever bet 120 w garbage on wheel turns on Q54s in a FR LV 2/5 3 ways and infoless.

Your logic is sound for the 2/3psb with a bet fold line on the turn. But, in practice you will find that many villains will over fold marginal made hands such as PPs below the Q and even some weak Qs to a large turn bet, effectively eliminating the value you are looking for.

Remember you have the solver continuing with a GTO range of x/c still on the turn and villains are likely to be narrower than they should be here.

Denying value to draws should be evaluated across the entirety of the hand, not on a single street. 1/3 size on flop and turn will deny flush draws the odds unless you mindlessly stack off on the river.

Just to be clear solver chooses to bet 65% pot 100% of the time WITH KQ... it of course checks other hands or has a check/bet mixed strategy with some other hands.

I'm aware you're looking to improve, but as you do you cannot think like this while also thinking about 'things a solver does for $800'. Put another way, you either adopt your best emulation of solver-approved play OR you use your intuition and rely on what are, imo, archaic concepts like 'betting for value' and 'likely the best hand' and 'charge draws'.

All you gotta know here (until you really turn into a killer) is...
Open and called twice, SB call is standard for this game and can be AK and JJ and just about every other 'wanna see a flop and make a hand hand' - OK Qxx wheel and sc draw heavy+FD, Q isnt a spade, I have no spade, ck ck, bet a green chip, SB call w station behind, can be anything that connects, station-weak calls can be anything and never putting in money light, likely incapapble of overcalling a set, so Qx and also all draws, but I still just got call, overcalled and I'm at this part of my range and so many turns swing equity away in some case to 0. TURN 2x, ck ck, yeah wheel got there 63s got there, SB slow plays on flop or turn improves are going to blast off versus a bet, station guy easily leads turn w value>KQ, but might check, I can bet small to but a lot of my Ax and paired Ax and FDs that MIGHT have bet flop check here bc called twice, cannot continue v a raise and even call/overcalls are trouble from random 2p and AQ that didnt 3b pre yada yada, I have better bet, bets, this could bet but lean CHECK, riv IP is going to be very very straightforward against limper and SB too

ITS NEVER BET 120, OOH SHOVE HES LEVELING SOLVER CALLS I CALL OH DARN

I realize the most valuable/usable analysis and input on this hand has already been given, but pardon me while I turn this thread into a solver-heavy over analytical poker-geek fest...

Very valid point. I went back and made sure I node-locked the OOP players responses to the 2/3psb on the turn. Basically folding out all PP or other pairs under the Q that didn't have a pair plus a gutshot or OESD, and only having villain continue with pair + draws or good straight draws a percentage of the time. I had villain continue with all the flush draws he may still show up with here. Here's an example of villains turn range and responses to the 2/3psb for one of the sim runs:



All the suited combos he is calling with are specifically the one combo in spades he continued with on the flop. Obviously I make some assumptions here - like villain is continuing some of the time with his flush draws, continuing only some of the time with his worst top-pairs, dumping his worst flush draws, or non-combo draws, and continuing half the time or less with OESD's or pair-plus-gutshot hands.

I then node-locked all villains responses to all flop and turn bet-size optionss (not just the 2/3psb) so I was sure I wasn't allowing a GTO-modeled line for villain. I essentially had him releasing more hands as hero's bets were larger, and continuing with more hands on hero's smaller bets (turn bet sizing options were 33%, 66%, 90%, 147%). Once I ran this, interestingly the solver kept all the flop sizings in it's mixed strategy (flop sizing options were 30%, 50%, 75%, 100%), but preferred the half-pot bet slightly more than the others for KQ, and liked the half-pot cbet a little more in general for the whole range.

For the turn this caused the solver to either bet small or overbet the turn and never check back. (a 33% pot bet or a 147% pot bet) The small bet size was used for all value hands at near 100% (all pairs of Q's and JJ, KK, AA) and it mixed in a few small bets with the flush draws...but mostly it just put in a 150% pot overbet with the remaining 60% of range; presumably since I modeled villain to be over-folding. Solver still folded 100% to the check raise, even after committing such a large overbet on the turn.

I interpreted this to mean that versus a massively over-folding villain just bet small for value on this turn, and overbet everything else. Meaning when you run into the nuts with your overbet that sucks, but it's only like 7% of the time, and the money you make taking the pot down the remainder of the time more than makes up for it.

As interesting as I found the exercise, I wouldn't expect this to be perfectly usable as a regular strategy in a real game; you could likely only overbet the turn so many times before villain adjusts or is just annoyed and calls you light. But it was good to see that once I forced the solver to model the villain as a non-GTO value-heavy check raiser playing a bit too wide preflop and over-folding to pressure, the solver strategy generally matches the intuitive advice given.

I admit that this concept is one I tend to fail to think through in-game. I started playing poker in the era of determining best-actions street-by-street decision-point-by-decision-point; so I get caught just thinking about the pot-odds being laid and the expected equity of the call at that specific point... and in cases like this make me want to size-up. Anyone have any input or links to articles or threads specifically on this topic I could brush up on?