I wonder if you had called and shoved a blank turn if he would have called? Probably, but maybe not.

Interesting on the player watching. That seems like a lot of work, but it could be kind of fun. At lower levels, I just give people general descriptions (loose, passive, tight, maniac, etc.) after I have watched them play for a while, but I do get an idea from their general "look" or "vibe" in the beginning, which I think is very important. That seems kind of like what you are doing. Of course, at these levels, betting patterns seem to be the most important tell -- I wish I relied on that more sometimes instead of letting other factors blind me.

Yeah, this. That's why the preflop raise should be bigger. If the pot is $200 and the villain has $500 left, there's a small chance they'll raise that with AJo instead of just calling you on the flop.

If the pot is $250 and they have only $300 left or something, you can definitely put them on AJo.

In your case ATs he has 100%, but AJ I'm not sure.

FWIW, some of the hands you're putting into his range are impossible, because they include Td or 8d, which are on board.

A bigger raise pre probably olds out a lot of ATo, A8s, and T8s when the BTN straddle is on.

I know this isn't how we're supposed to construct ranges in game, but in a spot like this, when a V does something fairly unusual, I tend to think it means one thing, rather than possibly meaning a bunch of different things. Here, if I took more than 10-20 seconds to think about it, I think I'd put him squarely on some low-middling AXdd, and not give him every 2P/set or draw.

If that's my read, I can do the math in my head - he's got 12 outs to make a flush or 2P, we'll be a slight favorite, and I don't mind just getting it in on the flop. Alternatively, I could see making an argument for jamming any non-diamond turn, at the risk we're letting him catch one of three cards that will pair his kicker.

Even if we give him all the 2P/sets and sensible draw combos, it's basically a coin flip. We might create some FE by jamming, and just auto-profit when he folds. If we flat call, there's a good chance he'll be betting big on the turn, and we'll have to fold, even if it's a brick, if we're giving him every 2P/set.

Jamming flop prevents a scenario where we make a bad fold on the turn. Like if the turn is another T or 8 and we think he might have boated up, or it's a Q, J, 7, or 6 and we think he made a straight, or the turn is the Kd, and we think he made a flush, when the river would be another A or K, and we'd boat up.

If we call off the 125 on the flop, we'll have invested 29.5% of our starting stack in the pot. Making a bad fold on the turn would just be a disaster. The fact that he snap called with the worst hand, and just got lucky, seems to validate our jam. We got it in as a 55% favorite.

ETA - interesting hand. Thanks for posting.

Do you think he would still call 40 pre? Like I said, 30 after a straddle from EP is just a pot sweetener. Otherwise the hand was pretty standard.

Yes, that's exploitable. But bet/folding flop is also exploitable. So we're essentially discussing which exploitable line is better to take here. If the opponent is weak, he might check back the turn for pot control simply because he's scared of something and not value betting properly.

If this guy is a tight OMC who suddenly wakes up and raises, usually continuing to blast the turn, then you can just fold on the flop.

If this guy is a showdown monkey who tends to raise the flop with AJ, AQ, and then shut down the action, going to x-x until the river, then calling the flop is best.

These are two exploitable lines where you can make the most money if you have specific reads on your opponents.

But if you don't have reads and decide to just jam the flop, you will never make much EV here. As you can see, the maximum you can expect is 51%.

About the live reads, I think staring at you and looking to the side are unreliable tells.

Staring at you can be too many things. Most importantly, staring at you in a particular way can be the beginning of a ego war, and I donÂ’t like ego wars at all.

ThereÂ’s a lot of insecure/low self-esteem poker players, and when they raise you and wanna start a ego war, they have strong hands and willing to put chips in. So itÂ’s kind of becoming an ego boost for them, aka, I have strong hand =~ I am good at the poker and everything else in life =~ I will win this handÂ… so now it becomes a two way win for him, heÂ’s winning the hand, and he gets a little kick out of you.

But the reality is he had a strong hand all along, so whatever m, it doesnÂ’t mean much of anything about his ego.

But that’s only one of the stare, there’s also the probing stare that’s weak where he “analyses” you to fold or call cards to come.

The staring to the side is the most unconscious bias, and therefore the one IÂ’d take into account the most. Staring to the side is usually boredom, or carelessness; so overall, generally weak; but Ive seen guys looking to the side with strong hands so it doesnÂ’t mean that much.

The easiest read here is the raise, its on the low side, could be a draw, a weak hand, a guy ****ing with you. I would certainly label that player as way below s tier.

Its a good thing to remember the J4 of Robbi vs the 98s of garret there as an exemple. garret is pro, robbi is not the most experienced player.

Garret bluff 10k on the turn, Robbi rebluff to 20k, Garret rerebluff raise allin. ThatÂ’s just the mark of someone who played a lot of poker, that 20k raise is bs. ThatÂ’s why garret raise to, he doesnÂ’t feel with his poker experience that robbi is actually strong there, because itÂ’s small, mostly, and the particular spot feels it could be bluffy.

Garret move is generally a good one there. I also went to the same conclusion as him having played poker a lot.

The antics after that hands are something else, just talking about before garret goes all out ****** ego butthurt I lost to jack high and that makes you a cheater *cries*


So yeah uhmm, not the best spot with AK but the stare to the side + small raise, plus top tol with a flawlessly played preflop where villain doesnÂ’t represent AA ever, probably going with it there, or playing passive and hoping he doesnÂ’t set milk me to an all in situation. With the possible draws n the board, abd the small raise, and the stare ti the side, and your strong hand, and the play that blocks some of his strong non-9% lucky hand; it looks overall like a winning hand.

Hoping V is weak and will check back a value hand on the turn doesn't strike me as the best basis for making a decision here. I'd think it's at least as likely, if not more likely, that he spaz-jams the turn when we flat call, with all his better hands, and some of his worse hands.

When V takes this small raise sizing on the flop, my thinking in-game would be that he's hoping we'll flat call flop and check to him on the turn, allowing him to take a free card if he doesn't improve, or continue barreling if he does, or perhaps betting big / jamming whether he does or doesn't, to put us in the blender. All options are on the table for him.

If we flat call, it really compresses our range, making our hand almost face-up, and allows V to play perfectly on future streets. Like, let's put ourselves in V's spot, with AXdd, and hero jams turn when it's the Kc, or some apparent brick. We (V) can just insta-fold. If hero checks turn, we (V) can check-back or barrel / jam.

If we flat, and then check to V on the turn, I'm expecting V to either check back with his draws and fold to a bet on the river when he doesn't improve, or jam with any 2P, any set, any AXdd, and a lot of his combo-draws, knowing he'll be putting us in the blender.

That first scenario - checking back turn and folding river unimproved, puts a cap on hero's EV, making it certain we'll never win more than what's currently in the pot.

As we're considering our options on the flop, we should really just be thinking about whether or not we're calling off or folding if V barrels / jams turns, and if we're willing to give V a free river card by checking. If we're folding to a turn barrel on any card that isn't an offsuit K or A, we should just fold now, and save our money. If we're thinking about jamming on a brick, K or A, we should just jam now, because we're not getting any more money out of V when we jam turn.

Flat calling makes sense if we're planning to check-call turn, no matter what the turn card is, even knowing the turn will be a draw-completing card, a board-pairing card, or another K about 2/3 of the time, and the run-out will almost never be completely clean (brick-brick).

If we're committing to calling down the whole way, and assuming V won't call a value bet on turn or river with a worse hand, we need to consider how many run-outs complete a draw, pair the board, or give us top 2 or trips. Even ignoring runner-runner scenarios, it's 32 cards. It's a virtual certainty that the run-out will never allow us to bet our hand for value and get called by worse.

But jamming now denies equity from whatever part of V's range folds, and guarantees we see all five cards, preventing us from ever making a bad fold, and prevents V from capping his risk.

To me, this boils down to a choice between jamming now, possibly giving up some EV when V folds or being in a coin flip when he calls, versus folding what's possibly (if not likely) the best hand now, versus committing ourselves to just calling down the rest of the way, letting V off the hook when he doesn't improve to a better hand, versus making a bad-call on flop / bad-fold on turn.

With those as our choices, jamming now seems like the highest EV play.

I only see one problem with jamming. We have a 51% equity against AT+ and draws. If he doesn't raise with AJo or has only a few combos of those, then we are 25-30% against his range. Against A4, we are 56%, and this is probably the best we hope to see here.

AJ is at the bottom of his made hand range.

But I agree, jamming is not the end of the world.

I agree with you 100%. It seems that lately in hand reviews I see people want to avoid jamming with good but vulnerable hands a lot because "what worse hand calls".

But that's not always the most important consideration. If we jam and deny villain all his draw equity that is a huge win. We sometimes run into sets and what not but denying equity is a huge thing, especially oop like this, where we have the scenario where we check turn and he checks back like you said. We dont always want to check call and let villain bluff and realize so much equity. Taking the pot down now is a great result.

You're not really denying equity from combo draws.

Not if its a really strong combo draw no, but it does prevent you from making a bad fold later on, and when hes got something like a gutter+fd, or just an open ender or naked flush draw and we make him fold it thats a good result.

Jamming flop denies equity from whatever part of V's range folds, but also denies equity by preventing V from being able to bluff us off our hand on the turn, and prevents him from realizing his equity cheaply, in scenarios where we flat call flop, and the turn checks through.

He's not repping much for value when he takes this oddly small sizing, with the BTN left to act. I wouldn't put 2P+ in his range. Not sure I'd even put ATs into his range. I'd basically be giving him J9dd, 97dd, and every AXdd combo from A2 up to A9, and maybe occasionally AJ/AQ. Against that range, I think we're a slight favorite.

But If we want to give him ATss, A8ss, three combos of T8s, six combos of bottom and middle set, every combo of AXdd from A2 to AQ, J9dd, and 97dd, we're probably slightly behind that range. I'm okay with that. It's no different than flipping with AK vs a PP.

What I'm not okay with is investing 30% of our stack, knowing there's 23 cards we're going to hate seeing on the turn or river, and knowing that we won't be getting any more money out of V after we call, reducing our implied odds to zero.

Like, what's our plan if we call? Jam on a brick? V will just fold, unless he has us beat. So we can flat call and flip a coin that we'll win on the turn, or we can jam and flip a coin now.

This sizing is indicative of a high equity draw. A hand like AT or 88 would smash it larger.

A lot of his draws are flipping with us. We have three attractive options: Jam now, call and donk jam safe turns, or call and check all turns. I assume the EV of each is not that far apart. I probably just jam and hope I’m on the good side of the flip.

Sorry if this has been said I didn’t read all the replies.

All true and also: jam now and you won’t make an error on the turn or river (like folding).

Yes, this. The ultimate bottom line.

If we give V every combo of 2P, bottom or middle sets, and every likely draw, it's only 50-50 the turn card will be safe for us. Even if we think he's got AXdd, every turn that isn't an A or K might make him 2P, and we'll never know until after we jam and he folds or snaps us off, when we'll be scooping a smaller pot or drawing dead to 3 outs.

Even if we think we're a slight underdog to a wider range that includes every 2P, bottom/middle set, and all the likely draws, we should be willing to get it in on the flop, if it means never making a bad fold on a later street.

"What worse hand calls" is a question we should ask before we bet thin for value. To prove that, consider asking it if we had the stone nuts. Of course we'd still bet, hoping to get called by worse.

If we want to ask it here, fine. I can think of some worse hands that call - any AXdd, A9, J9dd, 97dd, maybe some AQo. If V is out of his mind, the list could be longer.

If we had a less vulnerable hand, and / or the board texture was such that we could narrow V's range more, it might make more sense to wait and jam turn on a safe card. But in this hand, we really don't know what the safe cards are, when there are 23 cards that will complete a draw, another 8 that will pair the board, and any card other than an A or K might make 2P for AXdd.

If we're up against a set, there are no safe turns. If we're up against AT/A8, we're dead to a K. If we're up against a draw or AXdd, there are literally only 4 completely safe cards for us - the last two aces and a non-diamond king - but guaranteed V folds everything we beat if we jam on one of those four cards.

I doubt V is folding very often when he takes this line. Even if he never folds, jamming is still better than calling.