1/3 NLHE 9 handed

V - Good young player. See him in the room sometimes. He's a thinking player and understands position and odds and so on. He's no wizard but he's a good player. A little too passive and call-happy as most are. He is stuck 2 BIs tonight and I've taken 1.5 of those BIs. One hand where I was bluffing with a weak PP on a scary runout and he hero'd with A-high and I won. V's been getting a bit tilted and opening wider and playing more hands, especially IP. He's been seen opening 85s over 3 limps and T9o over multiple limps. But normally plays a tighter more ABC game. 400$. CO.

H - Has been winning but mostly just getting lucky on variance. KK over QQ AI pre type thing. Has been battling V and in a good mood. Covers. MP.

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UTG straddles, folds to H in MP who sees A J and opens 20, V calls IP and we go HU OOP.

Flop 45 - 8 6 3

H cbets 15, V calls

Turn 75 - T (not sure what to think here when I hold both a and , advice appreciated what you would do if you had A J for instance)

H barrels 40, V thinks awhile and calls, seems uncomfortable

River 155 - 4

Hero?

Assuming you believe your read that he is "call happy" this is a player that calls too often. That means unless your bluff beats some of his calling range bluffs are negative ev.

Is he calling a lot and losing a lot at showdown? If so, I would give up. He is tilted and stationy. If he has a fold button then I would jam. These things are hard to gauge.

I hate giving up in these spots because they can be very profitable, but I think we should recognize sometimes it is not going to work often enough. I had a similar hand today that went where I went bet, check, bet IP as 3bettor, turn also brought a 2 tone board and I had the front door NFD blocker which came in on the river. It went half pot, check turn, checks to me on river, and I go 150% pot. Villain was an unknown rec, but it didn't take long fir him to call off 450 with KT for flopped top pair, good kicker, no flush blocker.

Most of the time making this play with the nutflush blocker works though. It just stings when it doesn't.

If you didn't plan on firing diamonds on the river, would you ever half pot the turn?

id check turn but as played im guessing shove river is the most EV play

I really think you should check flop. Think that is the best play in general and especially against this opponent.

As played, I would be cool with betting big on the river.

Betting large on river as played, but very awkward line.

I don't like the flop or turn bet. Flop sizing in particular doesn't accomplish very much.

Ok let me articulate a bit better. He's not a drooler. He's not a station. He's not calling ATC like some idiot. He's a good player. But almost everyone (including me) in the room call too often instead of raising/folding. That's what I mean when I say he calls a little too much.

Ex hand:

MP ABC opens, V calls in SB, BB 3-bets, MP folds, V calls again in SB. HU to a scary runout like Kd-Qd-Jc-Jh-5d and V had ATdd.

He sometimes cc's 3-bets OOP or what have you. I don't mean he's calling with A4o pre.

Hold your horses. You're 400 effective to start. We've got 325 back... you're jamming 325 into 155 OTR?

My thought was "what would I do with an overpair here?" and the answer I came up with was "I would check river when front door diamonds come in".

I think the problem here is that he's tilted and probably calling wide pre and this flop would hit him at least a little. So I would probably not have been so aggressive post flop here. If he was winning and not tilted that's a different story. AP with the 4d hitting the river I would check fold this. If it were an offsuit 4 than maybe I can see making a big bet on the river to try and buy it.

Pre seems fine although sizing is still _big_.


Flop: Hero checks, like maybe even range check.

Turn: No, stop. Go back and check flop then check again on turn. Probably checking now anyway, but it's now almost guaranteed to go x/b/f so we lose ...
A big problem is that all the connected crap everyone overcalls (T9/98/87/76) kind of has to call because they have a pair and a gutter. So if you bet you kind of have to assume you'll be firing the river. People can also find raises with them sometimes, and there's enough 97s it's not like you can happily call KK unless they are bluffing almost all the time.

River: This is a crappy river, are you really betting KK here? Maybe exploitive $50 river bet gets one pairs to fold enough of the time but instead of trying that ... get in a time machine and go back to the flop and check.

What would you do with suited Axdd? I think jamming might be a bit excessive, and might trigger his hero-call impulse you mentioned in your reads. "Why would he do that, doesn't he want me to call, yadda yadda."

155 pot, 325 back. Let's go 130-140 or so. Value_y. Make V continue the hesitant talking in his head, that you alluded to in your read on this turn. It sounds like he's thinking, "Damnit, he has it again? They always have it! Why am I here?" Etc.

Jamming just looks so bluffy, and if you are, like a GREAT way for Stuck Guy to get back to even.

It has to work a lot, at 1.5x pot you need more than 50% folds to break even.
You also need to control it somehow because you'll often have way more combos of nut flush blocker than nut flushes.
You also need to shove 1.5x pot on the river, with nut flushes.

Would generally recommend you be seen doing the later before you try the former.

Well sometimes he will fold out weaker hands on the turn that still beat us, like 55. Having the Ad makes it less likely he has a hand that will continue like AdQd that may have floated the flop. So the value isn't 100% in barreling river when diamonds hit. But that should be in your arsenal.

Hell yes. You want that MFer to fold, don't you?

Yeah. People fold A LOT. I am speaking from experience.

And you are sort of right about not bluffing all of our combos. But the reality is you can be totally unbalanced if people overfold. And yes, we should overbet our flushes a lot. The nice thing about overbetting is you don't have to get called super often when you have value to profit, and you won't get called super often, so it tends to work well with the right bluffs.

If you wanted to get super exploitative you could bet different sizes with bluff and value if against unknown villains. If against people you play with a lot who are observant, you may need to be more balanced.

Check-call flop. Make a delayed c-bet on turn if the flop checks through.

AP, after double-barreling, whether or not we should empty the clip on the river depends on why we think V seemed uncomfortable on the turn.

Was it because he has 55, 77, or 99, and doesn't like the way the board is running out, or because he has a diamond draw, and he's wondering if it's even going to be good?

If he's stuck and being sticky, he'll probably call down with 99 or 77 with a diamond, and I don't imagine he called turn with a diamond draw, just to fold to a bet on the river, especially not when he's stuck.

I think I'd check here, and if he bets small, MAYBE we put in a check-raise, but otherwise, just check-fold.

I don't mind the small flop bet, there are plenty of good barrel cards. The Ts isn't one of them, so checking turn seems far superior, but now we got to the river like this bluffing seems very +EV

Such as

PSA: would help me greatly if people could explain the reasoning behind their chosen action as opposed to something glib like "check flop no really" or "delay cbet this all day" .. unless your reason is "solver told me so" it would be nice to learn and understand.

Result:

I will try and expand on why you should check this flop. I won't pretend to be an expert but I did double-check an approximation of this spot on GTOWizard and confirmed that you should check range here.

This is a board that your range misses a lot. If you input your range and IP's range into an equity calculator, his range is stronger than yours on this board. That's because his range is a lot of pocket pairs and suited cards. Your range has a lot of offsuit big cards that whiff (AJo, KQo, etc).

Even if IP is not a particularly well-studied player, he will intuitively know that this is a relatively safe flop for him. He will float you with gutshots and backdoor draws. He will not fold his low pocket pairs against you. He will feel emboldened to raise his draws.

If the board was KQ4r, you could cbet your AJo and know that IP will not be able to do these things. He will have to fold a hand like 55.

When you have a strong hand or draw here, you can expect that IP will stab often when you check to him because this is a good board for him. He may stab with a hand like 55 for example. That allows you to get a checkraise in with your value and big bluffs.

Fair enough.

Start with a check on the flop. Why? Three reasons.

1. At low stakes, people tend to c-bet at WAY too high a frequency. When most of the player pool is c-betting too much, they're also calling c-bets too much. This creates bloated pots and situations where we feel like we're going to have to double and triple barrel with our bluffs, against opponents who tend to call down way too wide, even facing a bet-bet-bet line.

2. We're OOP. Checking most of our range as the PFR when we're OOP protects our checking range, and gets value from V's who tend to stab at pots whenever action gets checked to them. Checking gives us the flexibility to choose a check-fold, check-call, or check-raise response. Making a delayed c-bet on turn or check-raising the flop are often preferable to c-betting the flop from OOP. Our delayed c-bets will look weaker and get more calls than our flop c-bets.

3. We basically whiffed on this flop. All we have is two overs and a backdoor flush draw. This board doesn't favor our pre-flop raising range, but does favor our opponents' calling ranges, so we don't have a nut advantage here. Instead, I'd take a check-call line, and make a delayed c-bet if the flop checks through.

As you can see in my post above, I was giving him 99, 77, and 55 - middling pocket pairs that would set-mine pre, but flopped a BDISSD, and would likely call a flop c-bet, especially if they have a diamond. He could also just have a straight draw, a flush draw, or a combo-draw.

All of those hands are going to be unsure about calling your turn bet. But on the river, we're sort of in no-man's land. The 4d completes the flush draw and brings in 75 and 52 (if he's getting here with 52). We're going to have some flush draws here, but otherwise, this isn't a good run-out for our range as the PFR.

If he called with a draw, it wasn't to fold on the river. The question is - was he on a draw, or was he holding on with some middling PP, and will he fold his PP's if we barrel off?

We happen to have the Ad, which seems like the card we'd want if we're going to barrel off. But if he's not folding his flushes, and maybe not his straights, then we're just trying to fold out his PP's, and I would think at least some of those would have folded the turn. Maybe he calls turn with all his 99, 2/3 of the 77 with a diamond or spade, and half his 55 with a d or s.

If we think he's calling a river bet with all his 99, half his 77, and 1/3 of his 55, plus all his flushes and most of his straights, our bluff isn't getting through often enough to make it profitable, so I just check. Checking becomes automatic if V is sticky enough to call turn with all his PP's, and mandatory if he calls the river with 77 or better.

I said I MIGHT check-raise occasionally, if V bets small on the river, probably indicating a marginal hand strength.

My reasoning is that almost all the hands that would call our river bet but bet the river if we check are most likely going to fold to a check-raise, and we have the nut-blocker. If there's enough stack depth left, and V seems capable of folding all his PP's, all his straights, and even some of his flushes, a check-raise bluff is going to be +EV, even against sticky opponents, unless they simply don't have a fold button once they bet the river.

ok thanks guys ^^