Snap.

If villain has 16 combos of KJ he's got 9 of AT (could even discount him folding some on flop) and 9 of AQ.

Line screams KJ but whatta ya gonna do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Apparently make a strategy thread that’s probably just a bad beat post. This is probably just a clear call and I was being too results oriented.

Some people dont play two pair overly aggressive. Some people don’t float flop with middle pair top kicker. There are certainly arguments to make an exploitative fold on the river.

I try not to make it a habit of folding sets. With a better read on villain or a larger bet I might.

No, its not. You are thinking about the right things, you are thinking about them the right way, and folding here would be fine.

+1 to this.

I think its fairly optimistic/borderline wishful thinking to believe were up against two pair here a big portion of the time.

Most non fish/non whale villains would either 1) just flat our turnbet with 2 pair (be afraid of running into sets or straight themself), or 2) slow down on the river if their turnraise gets called hoping to showdown their 2 pair.

Both the nutted turnraise after hero fired two decent sized shells at this pot combined with the follow up rivershove is quite alarming, and skews villain big time against KJ in my opinion.

Unless i have any reason to believe villain is fish/noob/drooler/aggrotard whatever, i am making an exploitative fold on the river unimproved.

That would be pretty horrible imo. Sure, I would expect to lose here a decent amount of the time, since yes KJ is the most logical combo we're up against, but I see no reason whatsoever to believe I'm not gonna win three out of ten times, with AT and AQ being very much in the mix for villain (AQ is by no means a standard 3bet hand for these guys). Why on earth is it "borderline wishful thinking" to believe villain can have two pair? Why would you think he wouldn't raise those hands, especially on such a drawy board? (Yes, you gave your reasons above, but I'm just not buying them.)

Please do not fold against villains who are described like this one. You're gonna need much more solid reads to do so.

What sucks about this hand is that there is no way the villain has Hero on a set of 6s. Therefore, two pair hands are in play. I don't think it is a horrible mistake to either fold or call against an unknown LLSNL villain.

For me, I'd call. Given the way I look and how I play, I want villains to know that I can raise 66 in late position. The only truly horrible mistake would be to fold and show the table you were able to fold a set to pressure.

Look, i am fronting my opinion based on my experience through 8-9 years of playing livepoker- several thousand hours in different locations, including around 800 hours in Vegas poker rooms over several trips.

I am a player that focuses on patterns and correlations, things i see over and over again- then observe what i see and try to see patterns over time over a big sample. And i cant even count how often ive seen players snap this rivershove with a set, only to get shown the obvious KJ. In these kind of spots its ridicilous how often you get shown KJ (again from a non drooler/non aggrotard), or a bigger set that you didnt see coming from that matter.

If your playerpool is different (and it might be i dont know, i dont play where you do), and you routinely get shown a 2 pair hand from villain with this line- then sure you snapcall the river knowing that you beat his range. Or if youre up against a noob or whale that overvalues all kind of hands: snapcall. If none of those premises is there, i would consider folding.

All i am saying is what is my experience, and what i observe in the games i regurarly play and have played over many years.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be mean, but lately you're more and more coming across as some sort of self-appointed poker authority who looks down from his ivory tower and thinks he knows it all because he's seen it all. You seem to think you know exactly where you stand at all times, based on your vast amount of experience, and thus you seem to have developed a tendency to deal in absolutes. Again, I'm not trying to be an a-hole and I genuinely apologize if I seem one, but I feel the tone of your posts has changed quite a lot over the last month or couple of months or so. As if you solved the game or something.

I just don't feel your last post contains any real arguments to be honest. "Trust me, son, I know what I'm talking about" doesn't count.

Youre entitled to your opinion of both me and my posts, so dont feel the need to apologize. We all go through different chapters in poker/life, wich also might influences our posts and how they come across.

I didnt mean it sarcastic that our playerpools/game conditions might differs, that was sincere.It might be that this is indeed a snapcall in your regular game or casino, and that your opponents have other tendencies/patterns than mine.

If you dont think my opinion based on my experience counts, thats up to you and as mentioned youre in your own right to believe that.

I would suggest not thinking about your odds in this way. The truth is that when you’re getting 2.5:1 it’s going to be a really close spot most of the time. Saying need to win 3 out of 10 is misleading to yourself just how close it is.

Maybe a better way would be “out of ten total trials, 3 of them need to be wins” which is saying the same thing but sort of highlights the magnitude.

Really though I think it’s simpler to think in odds.

I’m going to abc pot odds here for those who don’t use them.



Villain bet $220 into $322.

Simplify it to $540 total pot, $220 to call.

540:220

Keep it simple and think in terms of “units”. $220 becomes our unit.

~2.5 units go into the $540. 1 unit goes into $220

In units (or reduced, however it is clearer)

2.5:1

Which is saying for each 2.5 trials we lose, we need to win 1. or out of 3.5 total trials, we need to win 1

-220 -220 -110 : +540

I think bolded is a much better way of thinking through these spots, as it shows us literally what needs to happen when we decide to call.

What op did here was really good. Most here say something like “is a set good here” and the advice is reduced to everyone’s subjective guessing. Instead OP said “does villain have enough AQ here”, which is exactly how to think through these spots.

Now, what he did here was show how to back into a calling range. What everyone needs to realize is that when you are trying to force tie to a range so you can make a breakeven call, it’s going to be a close spot.

The second thing that no one realizes is that it is ok to make bad folds. Everyone is totally fine making bad calls. Saying things like “well he could be bluffing” but no one likes folding even though it is the same exact action “well he could just have it here”

Sometimes you will fold and he'll show AQ. Sometimes you’ll call and he’ll show KJ. These are both the same action, making a decision based on a range and getting shown a part of that range vs your decision in this exact hand.

Thinking it’s a standard calldown and folding is horrendous shows a lack of understanding of what’s going on. It’s going to be close either way, and more often than not you are better off with a fold in spots where villains tell you they have it.

When you get good at folding, realizing you are folding the best hand sometimes, you will start winning more (or losing less)

I'm just shouting into an empty room again but trying to make big folds in spots where your opponent would not ever fold a set is just adding complexity to a spot where a call simply cannot be bad. If v would always call it's a breakeven spot even if you're not good 1 out of 3.5 times. If you fold you'll never know if it was a good play, if you call you know that at the least it cannot be a bad play. Personally hero folding my way to a profit is not how I play the game, sometimes you just call and take your beat, and move on. Sometimes you're the guy with 66, sometimes you're the guy with KJ.

Thats a lazy very non optimal way of looking at it things, i am just gonna put it that way.

Its not about making huge "herofolds" in order to profit, youre missing the point completely.

I will tell you a secret. Good winning players with stellar handle on ranges, population tendencies and the whole package makes these kind of folds if the situation/villain/line calls for it, and most importantly they dont doubt their decision. Because they have seen it a million times. They can smell the nutz from villains body language or the way he pounds his stack confidently in the middle. Even if its a small percentage the fold might be wrong against the actual hand villain have, as Ava pointed out thats not a problem at all because its likely gonna be correct against villains range and the frequenzy of the different hand combos. For example KJ will shove rivers 100 percent of the time, but two pair combos wont. The thing iis over time its gonna make you more profitable in the game, and also reduces your possible negative variance/downswings experiences related stress (wich makes alot of players go broke and out of the game).

FWIW, I actually think it's a shove on the turn and not a calldown. I do think folding is bad, though. Maybe I was overstating it a bit with the word "horrible", but I just like to exaggerate now and then. I did say I expect to be beat a decent amount of the time, but just not enough times to justify a fold. I'm certainly no stranger to making exploitative folds myself (no winning live player is), but in this case too many villains also feel they "have it" with AQ and even AT. And most of the time they're right.

I'm wondering, are you guys folding a set of aces as well? Since we don't even block aces up then. Let's say we have two black aces, so the ace of hearts is still in play. We do beat other sets, but how many sets are we really putting into his range?

I'll put it this way, a villain has to be quite bad if you can range him to essentially a single hand and make horribly 'exploitive' folds. Like really, really bad. But these opponents exist. And I put 'exploitive' in quotes because yes they are non-standard, generally massively -EV folds, but in actuality we are exploiting villain!

Unless you read him as that, you can't fold here for this price. A lighter example than OPs post, but I am sure everyone has encountered this. You're on the BB and you check 69o in a limped pot. Flop comes 663r. You bet and passive fish raises. I snapfold and he shows 33 and grins. "Wow, nice hand man". Now OPs hand is not on the same level at all....but all the same

Lol yeah, those are classics. Those have become standard folds to me, and close to 100 percent the guy shows me i made the correct fold. Like they is so proud of making a nutted hand,so they go like "see, i had the goods- i aint messing with you buddy". Yeah, thanks for the reminder Its almost ******ed proof at this point. Bet until you meet resistance, if you get raised the guy told you he got bigger trips/boat (because sure people never bluffraise or raise light at any frequenzy, or go with the raiseline if they aint nutted).

I would actually love to play in games where i didnt have to make folds from the top of my range like all the freaking time. Sometimes when i am grinding lot of hours it can frustrate the hell out of me to be honest. Like a world where i could comfortable 4 bet pile it in for a 100 beebers pre with hands like 1010 and JJ against other opponents than lagtards and maniacs, knowing that the guy could 3 bet me with all AQ/AK combos,maybe 88-99 or some weaker KJ or KQ stuff. But no, i get reminded everytime i play that this is just a dream and folding strong second best hands is our bread and butter at LLSNL.

What’s your cutoff for calling these raises? Asking because I had a similar hand at 2/5 today where I flopped trip 4s in the blind with K4o on 446r multiway, led out $20 into $25 and got raised by MP fish to $75, being $500 effective didn’t know what the best play was.

Pretty condescending reply.

Make an argument that calling is long term -EV given that 1/2 the time we're playing 66 on this board and the other half we're playing KJ. I'll wait. Calling this spot does not matter, it does not affect your long term winrate in a negative way. 66 is the best non-nut hand to call with in this spot.

This is why it's important to have a deep bankroll, I think the general recommendations are much too low as far as # of buy ins. If you have a proper roll you can flick it in and call with this hand and not worry about it.

I do agree with your general idea that you can calculate your equity vs a range, but the range may be more slanted toward the strong hands. You can say you have whatever equity vs whatever range and blurt out what equilab says your equity is, but these stats are usually incorrect because certain hands are simply more likely to be in the range than others. This range is KJ heavy, I don't disagree.

To the OP, this is the classic thread where you just took a beat and couldn't have really done anything much differently. Jam/call turn is the one spot to argue for in this hand, jamming is slightly better because if he has A10 and a Q hits the river the action gets killed, but it's not a huge issue. Do not get into situations where you fold your entire range vs relatively unknown opponents. You'll be surprised at the sort of trash people will turn over in these spots. I urge you to think about it yourself and not just listen to the people ITT who speak in a convincing tones but are offering poor recommendations, imo.

So I still don't get why we are giving villain all KJ combos. A few will fold KJ preflop, a few will fold to a slight overbet OTF, and a few will raise it OTF. Quite a few will raise the SFD and BDFD combos in particular.

I'm guessing 12 to 13 KJ combos OTT. If we take 13 KJ combos finding 4 of anything we beat is sufficient. Let's say he arrives OTT with 7 AQ and 5 AT combos. If he then jams these one time in three OTR we have 4 combos AQ/AT.

Of course he may never jam 2p or this particular guy may always do it, but we want to know not his tendencies specifically so much as how unknowns tend to behave in this spot. If on average they arrive OTT with 12/19 2p and ship these hands one time in three then we can call.

I mean it would be better to know every person's specific tendencies but rarely are our reads that good, so we find ourselves looking at the population tendencies of all MAWGs (or w/e)

Just wanted to chime in on this Shai. Its like, we can go back and forth and guess the exact amount of KJ combos compared to AQ/A10 combos. But the main point as i see it is that once you see a certain action, certain line on certain boards go down (like this scenario as a prime example)- that fact alone skyrockets the likelyhood that youre up against KJ. If fits perfectly into how middle aged guys/OMC kind of villains are playing. Passive lowest risk as possible line until they hit the stones, then choose insane unbalanced sizings in an attempt to get paid (like they are never in a million years choosing this milky turnsizing with like a flushdraw or a non nutted made hand+ following up with a shove on the river, but obviously doesent have the self awareness to realize these things).

Another example of this principle is the constant argument of blockers, like when we 3 bet with AK and get 4 bet, then the classic argument is that we have blockers to the KK/AA combos so its less likely were up against those hands. Wich is focusing on the wrong things, people instead makes these excuses in order to continue on in the hand with AK. As soon as you get 4 bet in LLSNL, the likelyhood of you being up against KK/AA gets through the roof and people can talk about blockers all they want. Just because the insanely unbalanced game/tendencies/frequenzies the majority of our opponents have.

You're basically intuitively applying Bayes Theorem. I can't find the pipe symbol on my phone so I'm using ! in place to mean "given"

P(KJ ! line taken) = P(line taken ! KJ) P(KJ) / P(line taken)

Which is fine and logical. The probability he has KJ goes up if he rarely takes this line without KJ or if he very often takes this line with KJ.

But giving him all KJ combos is still problematic because in order for that to happen he is never folding preflop, never folding on the flop and never raising on the flop (note I'm looking at his range from POV of the turn or river).

However if he never takes this line with 2p it doesn't matter how many KJ combos he had because P(line taken) drops dramatically and we are always losing even if he only calls KJs preflop.