1/3 NLHE, 9 handed.

V - Young asian guy. Plays a lot and is pretty good. Winning player at 1/3, probably not at 2/5. He's one of the more competent players in the room. He understands concepts and can read the board. Makes bluffs. 3-bets pre. Etc etc. That said, he's no wizard. He calls too wide pre and sometimes too wide post. He doesn't (imo) value position enough, I've seen him open UTG with KJo, A8s, A2s etc etc. So he gets a bit splashy. Maybe because he doesn't give the other (worse) players enough credit, idk. Most people never 3-bet him so he gets away with this stuff. He tries to trap with his premiums and you'll find out OTR. I've seen him x/r river with air this session. He was bluffed earlier in a big pot but has since gained it back and is up again so seemingly not tilted. Covers. BB.

H - 550$ eff. stack. BTN. Has been active and is up a bit at this point from 400$ starting. Having fun. Been battling V. 3-betting eachother pre. I 4-bet him OOP earlier with A4s (LJ vs BTN) because I thought he was just raising my opens way too often, he tank folded. Otherwise we've been having fun raising and reraising each other with me taking money off him for the most part. I tried to bluff x/r him on a 9c-5h-5s-2c turn with A8cc when it went 3-ways to the flop with an LP fish, flop checked through (I'm preflop aggressor), turn 2c, I check fish checks V bets I x/r fish folds V calls, river bricks like a 3d and I go 2/3rds pot and he raises me AI, I snap fold.

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One limp to me on BTN with Q Q, I open to 15, folds to V in BB who raises to 50, limper folds, I just call (?) - (his 3-betting range here is lots of AXs, 88+, KQo/s, QJs)

Flop 100 (500 back) - J 3 2

V bets 60, I call

Turn 220 (440 back) - T

V checks, I check

River 220 (440 back) - 8

V bets 160, Hero?

I'd probably just adjust and start playing some straight forward lines for awhile vs this guy.

Seems like a great spot to 4bet pre and play a bigger pot IP.

I'd probably just bet the turn myself, but I think checking for deception is fine too.

I think river is close between call and jam. His line and sizings don't feel that strong, but maybe just play it safe and call.

Why is opening A8s splashy? That’s a pure open for me for board coverage UTG9. I even sometimes open K8s a low proportion of the time. I agree with KJo. A2s isn’t an egregious open even though it isn’t in my range UTG9.

PRE: QQ is a pure 4-bet BTN vs BB.
FLOP As played, I agree with the call. Villain is uncapped here and I think you raising allows him to play pretty well against you.
TURN: I would bet $110. Why give him a free card on this board texture when you have an overpair? Is he really checking AA/KK/JJ/TT/JTs at a high frequency on this board where flush draw and OESD is possible. Your BTN 3b calling range is filled with suited broadways which love this turn. I would go half pot to set up a river shove on a clean river.
RIVER: As played you have to just call since you underrepped your hand on the turn. If you are checking turn here you cannot fold this river for this sizing. He is probably betting worse for value when you check back here.


Why not 4-bet pre with QQ? I understand getting cute and trappy with AA/KK on the button with deep but a A/K high flop is going to come 40.1% of the time which puts your queens in a tough spot in a 3 bet pot.

Raising over a limp is quite different to a straight open from the button (a rare situation in low stakes live poker). 4betting is fine in the iso'd pot, but just calling is also alright. Given the smallish 3bet size I would still be inclined to 4bet more often than not.

I would definitely bet the turn...what was your thinking with the check?

River seems a straightforward call. Opponent is unlikely to call with worse and unlikely to fold better.

OP was referring to villain’s UTG opening range not the BTN raise over single limp range (regarding my comment about A8s). Agree regarding the opening range over a limp is different but how much do you adjust to a single limper? I don’t adjust too much personally. What is the 4-bet range if not raising QQ? BTN vs BB is a wider configuration. I can see mixing EP vs BB with QQ when facing a 3 bet given the tighter configuration but I think just flatting QQ is suboptimal here. Villain has been 3 betting regularly so it isn’t like BB is 3-betting a nitty range.

what does checking the turn with QQ do for you that you can't accomplish with Jx?

put another way, you can't be checking the turn for balance because solver is balanced and doesn't check QQ. you don't really balance by slowplaying your vulnerable nut hands (hand is good enough to b/c it off but needs protection). so if you're checking you want to be very clear about what you're exploiting and how otherwise you're just leaking a small amount of ev (ev of turn bet vs x is very close) but ending up with huge imbalances you're not going to be aware of in all of your nodes. it can be fine to not be balanced but you want that to be because of conscious choice.

think this is a pure call after checking the turn.

jamming seems too thin. Is he really calling an AI jam on river with a AJ/KJ type hands when the obvious front door gets there? I know you guys have 'battled' but it's 1/3. I'm not really convinced he's leveling himself into calling with worse there.

But generally I agree - 4-bet pre (maybe not a pure 4-bet but heavily weighted there). I think I bet turns here.

Also - despite the history you've described, the more I think about this, the more it just feels like a AJ/KJ hand that a random 1/3 player is trying to figure out how to split pot control and getting value.

I guess I felt like if I bet and got x/r I would have to fold. And it would induce a high enough frequency of river bluffs that I could call off thus making it the highest EV. Not sure if that's faulty thinking?

4B pre. Keep control of the betting. C-bet flop. Barrel turn. If he hasn't folded yet, check-back river.

As-played, with the Qd in our hand, it's close, because he gets here with a lot of better hands, but I think we have to call.

Result (don't let this bias you):

You should get his address, so you can send him a Christmas card.

hand is strong enough to b/c. you cant really battle the guy and then do this with value hands or you're going to be weighted towards air and / or not be putting in enough money when you have a good hand.

if you use your free hand of the day on gtowizard on like co open bb 3b at either 100 or 150 bb deep (i think this will be a decent simulation of the spot but maybe co open vs sb 3bet is more of what you're going to see here in practice range wise) you'll get a feel for how the spot is supposed to play. my guess is you're way too polarized / passive on the turn and under valuing the stregnth of QQ / jx type hands in this spot vs his entire range. your aim isn't to pot control here, if he has you beat you are going to get stacked.

This is the GTO BTN response to BB 3-bet. QQ is pure 4-bet.


Above is CO response to BB 3-bet. I will use this since this is the late position that actually mixes QQ.


Other assumptions: 100bb and NL50 rake structure. I have a Premium subscription so I could look at other stuff, but these are the defaults I study to develop my own heuristics and to better understand theory.

FLOP Strategies


Villain's Flop strategy


Hero's response to 66% bet size

Turn Strategies



Hero's strategy to turn check


QdQs is a pure bet. It mostly uses 33% but bets 66% at a lower frequency. It never checks back versus villain check.

Yes but button straight opening range is absolutely enormous...are people really isoraising suited Queen-rag and J9o over a limp cos button? Button open range when folded to and button open over a limper are worlds apart. I would have thought BB is going to adapt somewhat (and if they don't adapt then they're probably 3betting too tight anyhow)

I'm absolutely not saying don't 4bet, far from it, but I do think the presence of the limper makes a massive difference

It honestly depends how bad the limper is and their position. I will generally shave off the fringe offsuit hands so I won’t open my K9o,Q9o, J9o. I generally don’t overlimp just one limper I still raise or fold.

I am not a very good player overall but I do feel comfortable playing in position versus someone who regularly open limps.

With that said, multiplenlimpers is a very different adjustment for me personally. I raise a strong linear range and will overlimp with hands to flop well multiway like suited connectors and A8-2s if the SB/BB are passive.

i think its fine to just open one position tighter over the limper than you would otherwise and go from there (is why i said i think itll look like bb or sb vs co iso)

I think that is a good strategy too. I think the sims I copied above work well enough for this hand.

Are we playing GTO preflop at 1/3?

I mean I try to stay to stick closely to GTO preflop ranges personally but usually raise pure some of the fringe/mixed suited connectors and pocket pairs for that specific position. I try not to play too wide considering the rake plus jackpot drop is pretty substantial.

I mean it is all about one’s own personal goals. I am trying to move up stakes where they play much more fundamentally sound poker at $2/5 and $5/10 at my local casinos. GTO definitely not the most profitable play especially at $1/3. But I am using my time at $1/3 to “practice” some of the strategies I am developing from studying GTO wizard.

Why are you trying to balance against droolers at 1/3 live?

This seems pretty bad, and IME almost everyone's x/r range on the turn is _heavily_ weighted to flush draws.
Imagine you have A5s and flop comes 955r and you check, then everyone checks behind. Then on turn a random brick 2 hits for a BDFD and you... check? Nah.


As to the QQ on BTN hand, you probably want to bet 4betting this if you are doing it with A4s ... that's part of balance too.

AP with the Qd raising the flop is probably best (and it doesn't need to be big, but also don't fold).

Then bet turn (again, doesn't need to be huge ... any high equity draws keep firing).

River bet/check/bet lines are also full of random nothing here unless V is competent. But the calling range for your raise is probably bad, so just call.


The big exploit V can/should do is just not fire the river and take his free 10-15% equity as his turn prize.

Would you mind expanding on this a bit?

Not too long ago, I'm pretty sure I was double and triple-barreling too much, when I should have been checking more turns.

More recently, I've been checking more after c-betting the flop, when the turn card seems better for my opponent's range, or for pot-control / deception, and to give my opponent a chance to bluff at it. Not entirely sure, but I think I might be checking too many turns now, in spots where I should probably just keep betting for value and protection.

When V takes this bet-check-bet line, how are you typically interpreting that?