Assuming we are a good play with a well balanced range, if we bet 100% of the time here, and villain folds more than half the time, betting prints money and the cards don't matter.

Therefore, if villain doesn't call half the time, we are a able to exploit him by betting 100% of our range blindly.

That's why villain should be calling half his range, even if he doesn't know it. And it's not hard to justify half his range because half of a typical double flatting range hits this flop and wants to continue. We are letting him make the right play easily without even knowing he's doing it. And because of our exact hand he's never in bad shape.

By checking we allow villain with his A6 of diamonds to think "I can't win this pot without bluffing so I'll jam" and now we can get all the money in (the same outcome) against a wider range of hands (even if this one combo is the only additional bluff villain finds - its still 1 combo wider) which instantly increases our equity.

Imagine if you 5 bet someone, then the board came a22. Would you think they should defend 50% of the time vs a pot sized bet?

Fact is you can't tailor a profitable range in extreme spots to hit every board postflop nor should it be your goal, so sometimes you will under defend and still be playing GTO.

This spot is not exactly like that but strict minimum defense can be dangerous.

Reason being for you to "exploit" them they first have to be making a mistake folding to your range and you have to fade all the other negative possible actions to arrive to that exact board with air.

MDF is applicable when a bettors range is balanced and contains reasonable bluffs. In the OP's hand, from the perspective of the villain, we are assuming hero's range is reasonably balanced (he's a 2p2 poster after all). On a Ten high, front door flush board a 3 betting range contains all types of reasonable bluffs. The flush, 2 overs, backdoor draws, combo draws, etc. Therefore MDF absolutely applies and the villain should be calling with the top half of his range in order to not be exploitable by a bet 100 strategy.


In the scenario you gave, I'm not super familiar with the 5 bet ranges (or the 4 bet call ranges) roughly 200 BBs deep (which is what you need to be to call a 5 bet pot with reasonable sizing and still have a pot sized bet left) because especially live low limit that's not a situation I'm worried about being well studied in. I also doubt live low stakes players have those properly balanced. I'm sure there are supposed to be some 5 bet bluff mixing with hands like KQs, KJs, QQ, maybe even some mid suited connectors at a low frequency - but no live player is doing that. Therefore, to exploit their lack of balance, you would overfold in your scenario. But it's due to your villain's lack of balance, not some flaw in MDF.

Then I will use an example you should be familiar with.

Say 100bb deep utg opens, hj three bets and co four bets to gto sizes, folds to hj who calls.

Flop comes 222 there is hj checks 100% of his range there is 34 in the middle and 85 in stacks

Say Cut off bets half pot, strict adherence to MDF without taking into account previous action/multiway nature of games/rarity of certain boards would have you defending 66% of your range. Instead it is GTO to fold 66% of the time.

Those are with GTO ranges.

Solver isn't folding 66% of the time.



It is continuing slightly less than MDF at 57%. Out of position with money behind this is common because you don't get to fully realize your equity so strictly applying MDF would cause -EV plays.

I prefer the second option and checking AA/KK/AK/AQ and betting QQ/JJ.

This is a much better flop for him so I slow down with missed overs with poor equity.

I think I prefer a jam pre if EP1 has been raising loose. This is a very tough spot when you end up OOP vs 1 caller. You have a ~1 SPR and have to act first. Just seems like you will make too many mistakes (even a GTO Bot makes "mistakes") when you don't hit top pair.

This is a spot where I probably would have raise to the same amount pre if I played the hand, because shoving $420 doesn't seem like an intuitive sizing that would come to mind on the spot, but I'm going to file this away to memory.

Sorry, forgot to mention I was talking about six max. But seems you just agreed with me anyways, that strict adherence to MDF even in common spots is not always gto.

I haven't once advocated for strict adherence to MDF in every situation. I fully understand (and assume that most studying hands away from the table) understand that MDF is important for the purpose of analyzing ranges in situations where opponents ranges are balanced and bluffs exist (as I stated on an earlier post) It is less useful when circumstances prevent you from realizing your equity (i.e. money behind and out of position) as well as when ranges are so compact (like your cold 3 and 4 bet ranges in your example hands) that a reasonable amount of bluffs don't exist.

None of those special cases apply to the original posters hand. Therefore, applying MDF is absolutely reasonable and not a misapplication of MDF as you originally stated and the villain in our hero's hand should absolutely be continuing with 50% of his range vs a shove

Oh really? You have the game solved for the 5x open squeeze vs a cold caller 5 ways? Vs a sizing that is probably not even used?

You don't think 40bb going in pre after 5 way action doesn't mean it's going to be a compact range?

Def a misapplication of MDF.

You still don't even understand why its a misapplication, it's because of how hard it is for hero to have enough bluffs to offset hands that are ahead of villian because hero would have to be using a huge amount of -ev hands preflop and it was very multiway. Villian is protected by everyone else in the pot, same as the example I showed you that you have now ignored. Quite a bit more to think about than just MDF.

It is trivial to see that villian can not and should not call half his range on this board even if we shoved our entire range.

One of his best hands is an underdog to a 100% shove range from hero if hero's range is reasonable.