So, obviously depends on the ranges/runout ... but here we have a 3bet pot on:

J32 T 8

...so what hands like the flop and the river, but are scared of the T turn?
Like AdKd/AdQd/AdTd/KdQd/TT/JT all love that turn (although we block Qd), any Q9/97 (lol 3bets) hand loves the turn.
Ad5d/Ad4d/JJ/33/22 probably don't care about the turn.

So now we need a story where V decides he wants to x/r turn or maybe even x/c turn letting H bluff, but decides to go for big value on the river?

Any AA/KK checks turn because the T but now is fine betting big when the 8 and diamonds hit? Nah.


About the only thing that makes some sense is some flush draw like 7d6d or Ad9d that doesn't want to bluff turn, and roughly 666 combos of flopped nothing that wants a fold after they 3bet and was giving up turn but now the river looks "scary" so why not bluff again.

Appreciate that explanation.

You mentioned a competent player possibly taking this line. Are those the missed c/r scenarios?

Is it really that unlikely that someone might take this line with unpaired hands that don't want to barrel and have to fold to a raise, but don't mind check-calling turn, with a plan to check-fold river if they don't improve?

Couldn't hero have JJ, TT, or JT here, and raise turn for value and protection?

This isn't to argue against your point. I'm trying to figure out if I'm misplaying turns by under-bluffing and missing obvious value bets.

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A rough guess is that the more competent the player the smaller the range of bluffs on the river.
Maybe check a wider range of good draw hands on the turn.
Would also expect different sizes on the flop and river, though. Eg. KKd and esp. AAd is very far in front of H's range on the flop.

Yes, V can have some flush draws that check turn ... but you have to be disciplined to have enough on the river because that T looks like a great card to fire again, if you have even non diamond KQ.
And also disciplined enough not to bluff too much on the river.


I guess my main point is that it's easy to see:

1. I 3bet pre. so I should cbet J32 for the folds.
2. I have no equity and was called on flop, so stop bluffing.
3. This board looks very scary for one pair hands now, so I bluff.

...but it takes more effort to then think about value hands want to do that, and/or alter your turn ranges so that you have more value hands.

I think hero can have all of those by turn (but less so after checking back), and I think it's reasonable for V to check say KK!d because of that ... and if the river is 3 then KK might well bet/check/bet ... but not on the 8 river, even after hero checks back turn.

I appreciate you being patient enough to explain all this. Thank you.

This may be a severe over-simplification of what you're saying. After reading this and thinking about it for a while, this is what I think the takeaways are:

1 - There aren't that many hands a good player would 3B from the BB pre, and then go bet-check-bet on this run-out. But if a good player does take this line, it's for value way more often than with a bluff, so QQ is mostly just a fold against a good V.

2 - A bad player could take this bet-check-bet line with all sorts of nonsense, so QQ is mostly just a call against a bad V.

3 - All the other sort-of-decent players (like this V) might end up here with a mix of made hands that should have bet turn but didn't, or bluffs that shouldn't be but are, so calling or folding is dependent on reads and having / not having the Qd.

Possibly stupid question - if theory says we're not supposed to triple barrel with our missed draws, is it wrong to take a bet-check-bet line with a wider range of draws, rather than a bet-bet-check line, if only to save bets when we miss? Is that the point you were making about better players having a wider range of good draws that check turn?

Like, you mentioned A9dd and 76dd, but (leaving aside the fact V 3B pre from the BB in this hand) what about ATdd, QTdd, and 87dd - hands that are either drawing to the nuts, or have some showdown value plus equity to improve, or which have a lot of equity but aren't low enough in our range to turn into a bluff?

I've been doing that recently, taking a bet-check-bet line with a lot of my draws, but probably balancing too much by taking the same line with value. Not sure what the implications are for the river, but if feels like I'm losing value on both the turn and the river by going bet-check-bet.

I'm just wondering if it would be better to just go bet-bet-bet for value and bet-check-bet with draws, as exploitable as that seems.

the takeaways here aren't right. otr oop is supposed to be (value)betting jx for this sizing so you'd be making a huge mistake by folding

fwiw villains bluff is fine / good if he doesn't block the bdfd

if you dont spend some time with solvers you're going to be absolutely lost in these spots vs anyone reasonable (not fish). in the time it takes to write 10 paragraphs or whatever can just look at the solution lol

Hero iso raised 5x over a limper on the button, that is very different from a normal button open that opens Q2s. On top of that, we are almost 200bb deep.

The same GTO charts would also have villain jamming A4s pre when facing a 4bet at 100bb. But even if villain is cool enough to 3bet A4s, there is absolutely no way he is 3betting as much as he should from the BB vs the button. There is no way we are 4betting as much as we should from the button, and villain knows that. We can play situation much more like if it was an EP open facing a BB 3bet. I agree I still like 4betting in this spot, but I don't think just calling a villain that can be aggressive is a huge mistake.

Same argument for checking vs betting turn. In reality, they probably have similar EV. Sometimes you get value to call when you bet. Sometimes you get bluffs to fold and prevent them from bluffing river, which happened in this hand. Overall, they are probably similar EV actions that I wouldn't get too hung up on.

I didn't suggest a fold. I actually suggested 4B'ing pre, c-betting flop, and barreling turn.

AP, I suggested we call, with the observation that V gets here with some stronger hands after we check-back turn, but having the Qd in our hand helps.

My specific question was about bet-check-bet lines, based on Illiterat's comment that they were mostly full of air.

Unless my reading comprehension is much worse than it once was, his subsequent comments seemed to align with my takeaways - the bet-check-bet line is mostly value / rarely bluffs from a good player, mostly bluffs / rarely value from bad players, and some sub-optimal mix from everyone in between.

Maybe V's play is solver-approved, but most low stakes players aren't playing anywhere close to equilibrium. I think Illiterat's point is just that - this guy isn't a great player making a GTO-approved bluff because he unblocks the bdfd, he's a bad player making an airball bluff with a fairly transparent bet-check-bet line from OOP.

Candidly, your comments aren't always constructive, and often include needless personal jabs. Not sure why that is, but feel free to put me on your ignore list if it'll help.

ok but you literally wrote this which is what i was responding to. "1 - There aren't that many hands a good player would 3B from the BB pre, and then go bet-check-bet on this run-out. But if a good player does take this line, it's for value way more often than with a bluff, so QQ is mostly just a fold against a good V."

im honestly indifferent to you. me saying that you're wrong about a spot / concept isn't a personal attack

I saw the results, but I was going to post snap call. Have not read discussion, but I think the hand was played well and you got the max value.

Reading comments: 4betting pre is OK, but it just let's him fold worse or he 5bets and we fold. We have position. I don't mind a bet on the turn, but if he x/raises you, it would suck, so the check back is fine. You can mix it up in future, of course.

Yes, anyone you play at 1-2 to 2-5 has memorized all solver charts for preflop and most flops.


FWIW I put this in GTO wizard at 200bb...

Pre (lol sizings):
H opens 2.5x on BTN
BB 3bets to 12bb with A4s, most of the time.
H 67.5% call with QQ (I was a little surprised it was this high for robots)

Flop:
BB mixes 4 bet sizes (75%, 50%, 33%, 20%) although checks the most with 31% for diamonds and 36% for the others.
BTN vs. 50% calls QQ pure

Turn:
BB mixes again, thought mostly 75%/50% when betting, checks missed flop BNFD 93%; NFD 9% and the other two 50%
BTN almost pure 75% pot bet with mix of 50% (depends on both suits) with QQ (16% check with one of the queens blocking BDFD and not blocking FD and 0.6% check when blocking both FD and BDFD -- 0% check with other combos. including H's).
FWIW if H bets 75% or 50% pot V folds A5s/A4s 100%.

River:
BB Checking 55% of the time, but does mix half 61% pot bet and roughly quarter each of 36%/10% pot bets
BTN pure call (for the QQ that gets here, which doesn't include H's hand) vs. 61%


Not sure much of that is helpful, my guess is very little.
Also while, yes, robot V is betting 61% pot some of the time with the parts of AJs that make it to the river ... half of that range is AdJd. J9s is only bet for 61% with diamonds, and the only other significant Jx is JJ. So the implication that the "solved solution" needed to call QQ because Jx is betting is a bad take.

And is it just random that robot as H chooses 16% check back turn with but 0% check with ... or some genius we can't know (as with many other solver output points).

im talking about writing out essays of conjecture on forums vs just looking at the solver solution. i think most winning players at 2/5 have looked at pre flop charts but maybe thats a bad assumption.

re the sim you need to be careful what you're looking at. yes at the start of the hand you're nearly 200 bb deep but the spr postflop is going to look more like 100 - 150 (it's spr 5). this is relevant because the deeper you get in terms of spr, the more likely ip is to check back qq. take a look at 100 / 150 / 200 bb solutions with the same pre range and watch it go from 0 -> 50% x back ott (sb vs co 3b nl500 rake). also bb vs btn ranges i think are going to be too loose for what's going on here. its unlikely hero isos a limper with the same range he opens when its folded to him for obvious reasons and bb also probably misses alot of the polar 3bets in general and may just play this similarly to sb vs lp and not have a calling range given how large the iso is.

i mean can look at the solve and be like "is this helpful probably not?" but there seem to be a good amount of actionable insights that people in this thread have posted the opposite of. understanding turn at this spr is fine to bet / go with QQ seems to be a good one and how that changes but not binarily as we get deeper, also people were talking about sending a christmas card to villain for bluffing the river with an approved combo (and how we dont want to block bdfd type hands because that will block ip's folds), river sizing is an interesting one too thats very spr dependent (at 100 bb you're seeing oop have 2 maybe 3 sizes - jam, 60% and block whereas when u get deeper the jam size dissapears completely and it becomes more of a block / 60% and his jx shift from 60% to block) type thing. think its pretty interesting sim too bc if u look at flop strategy for oop its not a range cbet but i think most people will err on the side of betting too much with the combos that we do very well targetting with a bet ott - weaker jx, some tx stuff, and i think oop will check too much Jx ott (and Tx depending on if you're looking at 100bb). even if you just look at pre ranges, in your sim oop is never 3betting AJo whereas i think it's going to get 3b here >80% of the time given the context described in op. idk i think theres alot of useful stuff to get out of looking at the solver as opposed to people just guessing and coming to concensus based on basically nothing. its even fine to look at it and be like nah this isnt right, but i think its pretty tough to decide hey this person over or under bluffs here if you don't know what equilibrium actually looks like.