A lot of pages discussing a situation that hero shouldn't ever be in. Preflop is such an auto 3ball that it's similar to hero checking JJ in the bb after a bunch of limps and then wondering how to play it otf.

PokahBlows and sknight: I think that if we 3-bet pre this pot will be hard to play post, just like it's hard to play OOP on the flop here. What is our postflop plan if we 3-bet pre, and V1 and V2 call, and the flop is AJ7r? What about QJ7r? What about 742 two-tone? J85 two-tone?

The advantage of just calling pre is to be able to let it go easy if we miss the flop, get some money when we hit the flop, and possibly get a lot when we hit strongly. When we 3-bet pre, I assume we want everyone to just fold, but I don't know how much fold equity we have against V1, and once V1 calls, V2 might be priced in. Not to mention when we 3bet pre and V1 shoves his pair of nines and we have to fold. This hand is nicely playable post, but doesn't seem to be strong enough for a 3bet against a gambly sticky opponent IMO.

Ooops... replied on the wrong page, didn't see previous post so my reply is repetitive, but I would also like to hear from the 3-bettors.

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Regarding 3-betting... I would agree if preflop positions and action were different (e.g. iso-raise and buy position), but look again at the original post:

V1 spewtard opens to 25, CO calls (no info on him), V2 good player on BTN calls, Hero in SB... ?

To me this as an easy call, it likely gives us relative position on the flop, and we get to use V1's money (his likely cbet) to find out for free how much CO and V2 like their hand.

But I'm certainly open to changing my mind, I may be too flop-happy in general.

What would be a good 3-bet alternative, i.e. preflop sizing/goals, and flop plan?

Fair enough. I don't think the results change that much if we consider the ranges you suggest. Here are two possible revised ranges for his call on the flop (i.e. after he calls V1's cbet but before we raise):

JJ-88,44,AQs-AJs,KJs,QTs+,JTs,T9s,98s,87s,AQo-AJo,KJo,QJo,JTo,T9o
or
JJ-88,44,AJs,KJs,QTs+,JTs,T9s,98s,87s,KJo,QJo,JTo,T9o

In both cases the math stays reasonably close to what I had before. For example, for the first range, the equity for the "c/r flop - shove turn" line becomes 12$ rather than 22$ (as before, this is when we assume villains play optimally vs us; otherwise we are more +EV than this). The second range is even better for us.

Also, fair enough. I finally went over your Cardrunners EV simulation. I agree with people ITT that your assumptions about V1 might be somewhat too loose (or maybe are not, I don't know). But I don't think it matters much. As we see from my math, even if V1 is tighter, it's still good to check/raise. Of course, I didn't rule out that it could be even better to flat-call, but I think I argued in the other posts why I think flatting is bad. So, we know that a check/raise is good both if V1 is on the tight side, and on the loose side; we're happy either way. I agree with you 100% that if V2 shows interest we should more or less check-fold. (Although if we improve to two pairs or trips I'm not going to lay it down, but that might be my stationy tendencies). Against V1 you claim we should call a shove. I was uncomfortable with that, but definitely see where your argument comes from. Let's say it like this: against V1's range, folding too much is probably pricier than calling too much, so calling a shove can't be too much of a mistake.

Therefore, I conclude that IMO the best line is to check/raise the flop, call a shove by V1, fold to any action from V2, and if we get to the turn, shove vs V1, and check-fold vs V2.

FWIW... a modified CREV simulation, still with Hero doing a checkraise, addressing some of the concerns about my assumptions being too optimistic for spewy V1.



Spewy V1 tightens up on flop cbets (he did get 3 callers after all) and only cbets if he caught a good flop, which I defined as: Sets, overpairs, 2pr, top pair, middle pair, PP>middle pair, pairing any other holecard. He gives up with all his AX and KX combos that whiffed, and any PP less than 88.

When Hero raises, V1 reshoves much tighter, i.e. sets, overpairs, top pair, middle pair, and OESD. He no longer continues with gutshots, hopeless pocket pairs, and bottom pairs. I kept in middle pairs, all of which have either a backdoor draw or an overcard.


Good V2 floats with the same range, but when Hero checkraises and V1 shoves, he continues 3-handed only with monsters and monster draws (i.e. sets and T9s), and folds TP.

If V1 folds, he shoves into Hero with his monsters and OESD draws, as well as TPTK, and we fold. In reality, I think he may flat OESD and fold TPTK, so we may fare better, but I'm using this as a worst-case.


So... compared to the previous simulation, we now we have V1 cbetting only 51% of his hands instead of 100% and being much tighter on his reshoves. V2 is slightly tighter when V1 reshoves but just as loose reshoving HU vs Hero.

I believe this scenario has quite conservative assumptions given the description of Villains in OP.


Here are the interesting changes from the previous simulation:

• Spewy V1 is -$5 EV reacting after Hero checkraises (he was -$42 EV before).
  
  
• V2 button is +$92 EV facing a V1 reshove (he lost $10 by laying down TPTK) and +$87 EV when he reshoves vs Hero HU (about the same as before)
  
  
• Hero is +$127 on the checkraise (he was +$155 before).

Note that V1 cannot really tighten up any further on his reshoves once he's bloated the pot -- if he does it starts to be worse for him than folding! And he's here to gamble, not reduce variance.

Hero's profit drops from the first simulation, but is still making a highly profitable play, and on balance is risking less than his opponents to make that profit.


Conclusion:

Even with V1 spewing much less, I believe the EV on the check-raise line is so high that a flat-call OOP strategy would have a very hard time comparing favorably.

And of course check-raise is much easier to play intelligently than flatting and facing multiple opponents on multiple streets and out of position.

BTW, the main reason I'm spending so much time on this is to convince myself of the checkraise merits... my default play in similar spots is often to call/reevaluate, but that may be because it's "comfortable", not because it's good poker. So I'm trying to bolster my courage to pull the EV trigger in the future.

Would still like to hear from the preflop 3-bettor advocates and maybe I can simulate that line in CREV as well.

Pre squeeze you main target is to scoop the pot right there. You know original raisor is likely weak, and if other did not isolate him they are unlikely to be strong too, add to this that 3-bets look strong live and big 3-bets from the blinds look even stronger (unless you do it too often).

It is importnant big enough that villains don't feel they have good ods. Yesterday guy sucked out on me w/57s after I raised just $8+$25 into $25 pot ($200 deep) "It was only pot more, so much dead money - I was priced in with ATC"(c).

Our main hope is not to get called, but if we do we can:
bet-fold on a good c-bet flop that we miss
give up on a bad flop
actualy hit the flop

Third point is why KJo is not the best hand to squeeze with - your ain't always quite sure where are you at when you hit and you don't flop good draws.

In a given example Hero makes $130ish and hopes to get 3 folds pre.
If any one 4-bets we fold.
If we are called we reevaluate their ranges and see the flop. Good knews is that total-gamble-mode spewtards flat-call-3bet range can be wide and everyone elses is tight, (unless we do this move too often and we don't as we are super tight).

I'm not good at math but my instincts say this move should be proffitable if we open muck if not connected to a flop.

Have you done a simulation of a c/c line to compare?

Actually, I think a good reason to squeeze with KJ is that when you flop top pair, you are often good. The key here is to have some idea about your opponents- if they are the kind of players who will call a 3bet with a premium hand, then KJ might not be such a great squeeze hand. However, if they are likely to 4bet you with QQ+, then you are almost never dominated when you flop a hand.

My problem with this is that V1 is gambly, so very well might call any non-gigantic 3bet with most of his range. Furthermore, after V1 calls, I'm not sure how much we can expect V2 to fold, since his main target is still in the pot and he has position. Presumably, he should fold most of his range, but I don't know how he plays, and OP said he was loose IIRC.

The c/c line is very hard to simulate: too many variables, too many possible actions. I don't think anyone can really simulate it. Part of the problem isthat villains' ranges are very wide after we c/c, contrary to what happens after we c/r. (This is partly what makes c/r so appealing to some of us.)

This is a really good point in favor of squeezing. When we hit postflop is definitely the good scenario, and we'd have optimal SPR for stacking off (around 2). My problem is that after someone calls, we miss most of the time, and find ourselves OOP in a low-SPR pot against a gambly unpredictable opponent. How big will we cbet? Will he fold worse hands? Will he fold pocket pairs if the flop is not A- of K-high? I don't know how this guy plays, but I feel that whatever our post-flop plan is for this situation, when we miss we'd either be playing our hand too face-up, allowing him to make us fold the best hand, or we'd be playing our hand to aggressively, bluffing into the abyss. If V1 would be fit/fold postflop, then by all means, squeeze. But since I don't know how V1 will act, I feel uncomfortable creating this low-SPR situation. I wouldn't squeeze here pre without solid value.

But I'm conflicted myself. Would I avoid squeezing with AKs here? Never. And I don't see the difference between KJs and AKs vs villains' wide ranges. If anything, 3-betting KJs here is at least as good as 3-betting AKs, since it makes the hand easier to play exactly for the reasons that Jeff specifies. The only real reason is that AKs reacts much better to a shove than KJs. But we don't expect to be shoved on often, so this is not so important. So, if I'm 3betting AKs, I need to explain to myself why I'm not 3betting KJs, and I honestly don't know. What do I do with AKs post if V1 calls? Again, this is not easy, but that wouldn't stop me from 3betting it (though maybe it should).

What stops you from making it big?

Gambly-shambly, I've recenlty got caught squeezing 5 people with j9s from a BB for $35 by a gambling guy who called pre with K5o from a stack of $105, I've shoved into him on a KJ7 board. Does this mean I was wrong at any point? If he calls wide and bad it is his troubles, not ours.

Nothing, I guess. It will make our squeeze more expensive in case things go wrong, but I guess that doesn't happen that often. I personally am not comfortable raising to more than 120$ pre-flop here, but my discomfort doesn't mean it's not the right play to raise to, I dunno, 170$? How much do you suggest?

But... vs described "spewtard" V1, what's to stop him from simply shoving wide preflop, rather than calling wide, and then we have to fold?

Even if he's only shoving a "better" hand than us, it seems we are burning EV when we have a hand that flops well vs much of his potential shoving range (e.g. mid pairs, AX).

Our hand is also KJs, not KJo, so we aren't as adverse to taking a flop multiway. Sometimes we hit a big draw and want customers.


I'd be happy to try to simulate a preflop 3-bet, though, if you (or anyone) wants to give me an idea of bet sizing, Villains' call/shove ranges, and the plan if we make it to the flop HU or multiway. It shouldn't be too hard to simulate the preflop EV if we can simplify the post-flop decisions, ideally ending all decision making on the flop.

The obvious next step -- trying to compare a preflop 3-bet EV to a preflop flat EV -- could get very complicated. Obviously in the preflop flat simulations that I already did we knew we had hit the flop and we knew what Villains' initial flop actions were. Generalizing that might be nearly impossible.

But... might still be interesting to see what the preflop 3-bet EV is as a starting point. Maybe it's so big that it's likely to be the best approach, or so small that it's not much better than folding.

No... I might be convinced to, if you have a turn plan that's easily implemented. Keep in mind we will be first to act 3-handed. Do we always check/reevaluate?

If so, then maybe we react with the "Three way" turn play assumptions in my my post #144, do those look good to you?

I could give it a shot and see if the effort exceeds my curiosity.

Well, let's keep it simple. I'm a bit skeptical on these simulations; however, it can't hurt.

So let's assume:

-V1 bets his entire range on the flop
-V2 calls with 50% of his range on the flop (including floating with air)
-We always check the turn and river
-V1 continues to bet 50% of his hands on the turn- all made hands plus a few bluffs.
-V2 only calls with top pair or better hands on the turn and will raise two pair or better. He folds everything else and doesn't make any moves (after having seen us call on the flop, which shows we have a made hand)
-V2 will tak a stab with 25% of his range if checked to on the turn.
-We fold turn if V1 bets and V2 calls
-We call if V1 checks and V2 bets
-we call if V1 bets and V2 folds
-V1 three barrels everything he bets the turn with
-V2 bets river if checked to and has two pair or better.
-We stack off against V1 on the river, but not V2.

Does this sound reasonable? It's not totally accurate, but I think close enough.

Ok... I'll go back to the first simulation I did and revise that to match your line.

A couple clarifications:

1. For V2 I have already reduced his range -- due to his preflop and flop calls -- to TT-77,44,AJs,A8s,A4s,KQs,QJs-QTs,JTs,T9s,76s This includes weak draws and floats. So I will use that as his "50%", ok?
   
   
2. Using V2 range above, when V2 "takes a stab" with 25% of his range at the turn, what do you mean by that? Presumably he is value betting 2pr+ if checked to, so do you want him to bluff 25% of his missed floats and draws? Or does he check behind with draws.
   
   
3. Pot will be 270 coming into turn. What turn bet size should I assume for V1/V2?

I think there are a few other gaps in the possible actions but I'll plug those with common sense and give it a try.

FWIW -- first stab at a flat-call simulation using approximately Jeff's rules, the above assumptions, and a 150 turn bet size (and sometimes 150 river bet size if turn checked around)...

Hero EV at flop call: +$16

That was a dismal failure, so I tweaked it so Hero plays better on turn/river, paying off less when he can't be ahead based on my Villain betting assumptions, and shoving on his best turns (spikes another Jack).

Most importantly, I added correct play for the times where Hero picks up a flushdraw, and sometimes hits a flush and gets paid by a set/straight. This is an important part of Hero's EV when we see river more often. With all that...

Hero EV at flop call: +$71

This is still less than half the EV of checkraising using similar villain betting/stackoff ranges, in particular V1 betting 100% of his range.

I suspect Hero's EV drops further if turn bet sizes are larger because he can't chase backdoor flushes profitably.

It would also drop further if V1 barrels less lightly (currently have him barrelling his TP+ hands as well as some pair/draw hands) and it would also drop further if V2 weights his turn bets more heavily towards value (V2 sometimes bets his airballs/draws).

And perhaps most importantly... Hero's EV drops further if he gets stubborn at river. If Hero can't fold two-pair or trip Jacks at river when V2 shoves, he gets owned. That's going to be a hard fold to make when the pot is big.


Regardless, the conclusion seems to be... checkraise, and it's not even close. Around 2x the EV, and much simpler to play.

It was interesting looking through the CREV tree and seeing the EV at various decision points for various Villains... and in general, there are very few instances where anyone is making a -EV decision at any point (though some make much more +EV decisions than others). This is the effect of a bloated, muddy pot with not-huge bet sizes. Everybody bumbles along to the river and everyone is correct to do so after the initial mistakes have been made. Just like Limit Holdem, eeeew.


If anyone has CREV and wants the .stx file to double-check my work or to play with further, PM me. A screen shot would span about 4 high-def monitors so I didn't bother trying to post one.

ROFLMAO. Best comment of the thread. There's some serious tag-line potential here.

Will give a more intelligent reply later.

Interesting. That's a pretty significant difference.

I know you probably said this earlier, but to keep is succicnt, on the c/r line, how much of the value is derived from our cards? That is, if you give hero no pair and no draw, what does the calculation tell us?

Primary factor is how light V1 cbets, and how light he shoves.

In a previous post regarding the first simulation I did, where V1 reshoves light...

38% win the dead money uncontested
38% call V1 shove
24% fold when V2 gets involved

So if we were instead to raise/fold an airball, we win only 38% of the time. The dead money is $215. Our raise is $155.

EV = 0.38 * 215 - 0.38 * 155 - 0.24 * 155 = -29.90

So checkraising air is -$30 EV.

Testing that in CREV, giving Hero a range of 72o and checkraise the flop (and obviously fold to any action) results in an EV of -$29, so that agrees.


So if Villain will shove fairly wide, we need to have a hand that can call, not an airball. Note that we don't actually need to be ahead of V1's shove range -- we can take the worst of it due to the dead money (including the 155 we have just contributed).


In fact, as a point of interest I re-did the first simulation to have V1 cbetting 100% but he fools us by nitting it up and stacking off only with hands that currently beat us (TPTK+)... we are still +$79 EV to checkraise, and that is still (barely) better EV than in the check/call simulation I did. Our profit now comes from his frequent folding, because when we call we are crushed.

Of course if we knew Villain was LAG in his betting but very tight in his reshoving, then we could checkraise/fold our KJs, and that would increase our EV to +$98.

But then again... if we knew that about Villain we could checkraise/fold 72o and show a profit of +$85 EV!

(The difference between checkraise/folding KJs and 72o is due to the blockers that KJs has, i.e. we're less likely to run into TPTK, top set, or KK, so villain folds more often).

LOL dude its like you have never played live before. people go all in pre w/ nothing and call w/ nothing all the time. last time i went to casino i saw a raise into like 5 people pre like 35$ or something 1/2 blinds, another re-raised to like 90$, first raiser went AI for effective of like 300$, 2nd raiser called. the original raiser had i think 106o and caller had 37o. original raiser won w/ 10 high. most times i go to casino there are like 5 people at the table playing this way.

you need to go back and read villain description. villain for sure calls w/ any draws jx and mid pairs, even bot pairs.

LOL super funny comments in this thread, this is best thread ever. n chalupa i love all the simulations you're running super interesting to look into, like the ones also where you're comparing value of shoving w/ air as well. so good. love this thread. looooooooooooooooooooooooove it

this really is the best thread on 2+2 i dunno who said that lol but totally is. and what a good spot to analyze for real

rofl lmao love it

Yes, this is true poker poetry. Poker Existentialistic angst. Like L'Étranger of the poker world. chalupa's quote should be featured somewhere. Pure truth.