That too. But even in spots where it's closer. If we think we're good any % of the time, gotta ship it in there. Easily $100 missed value here.

Very nice post!

this isn't how value betting works my aussie friend

Not exactly though. I hope we can have a debate once in a while without it sounding like Im arguing because Im not. I agree a river shove is best. But lets put some rough math to it.

The board is Qh7s3s8h7d (I said river was 7h, but the river didnt bring a flush so lets call it the 7d)

This villain is a pretty standard 2/5 player. Weak passive but not stupid and not terrible. Just avg...meaning he probably loses a bit. Based on that read and based on him limp/calling in EP what is his range with the way the hand was played?

I'll throw out some estimates

Flush draw or something like 56s maybe 40%
A weaker Q 30%
AQ 5%
KQ 5%
Middle pp like 99 maybe 5%
77 or 33 maybe 5% since he didnt crai on the turn.
Something like 76 maybe 5%.
AA/KK maybe 5%

We could debate that nobody would play AA/KK this way but we've all seen it. Hes probably going to shove the river if he hits a 7 so maybe he has a 7 less than 5% of the time. Im just trying to come up with something semi reasonable.

Using my estimates
FD or 56 (40%)...folds to river shove
Weaker Q (35%)...I win an extra $100 when he calls. He may only call 80% of the time.
AQ (5%) I lose an extra $100
KQ (5%)...break even
Middle pair (5%)...he might call 50% of the time since hes in so deep and wants to put me on AK
A Set (5%)...I lose an extra $100
AA/KK (5%)..I lose an extra $100

According to these estimates, I lost $15.50 by checking the river back.

If we say he can never play a set/ AA / KK this way and adjust the other percentages accordingly then I lost $37.50

I def agree shoving river is best. Im just saying I didnt lose $100 in value. I lost more like ~$30 in value.

I'm pretty sure you know what I mean. I'm saying we can jam really thin because they're handcuffed to calling.

Yeah ofc rangewise it's never 100

@mike why do you prefer to make up arbitrary range weightings vs using actual combos?

yes ofc the difference in ev between checking river and jamming river is never going to be $100; but it will absolutely be positive (aka checking back loses us money)

they also can't call with A high if you don't bet and give them the chance to

well sure but we still have to be ahead of >50% of their calling range (which we absolutely are here).

I was just pointing out that saying "if we are ahead any % of the time we have to jam" is incorrect. (i'm aware you most likely just phrased it incorrectly i'm sure you understand what a value-bet is lol)

but yes, when they will be getting 5:1 on the river they are going to be calling even wider than normal (which is what i think you were trying to say haha)

Yeah obviously I mean it's $100 the times he has worse Qx. In reality it's prob closer to $30 lost in equity rangewise.
Don't think that many people are bluffing that size with ace high often enough to make checking better than jamming. I

Ive never studied combo math. I dont know how many combos of certain hands there are. That stuff gives me a headache. I have a friend that will text me a hand and say "he has X combos of KJ and X combos of FDs..blah blah blah". It makes my eyes glaze over. I do know from experience and seeing hands like this over and over and over, the approx odds of someone having certain hands. In other words I just use intuition to determine how often a guy shows up with a certain hand. I dont think putting exact numbers on it helps all that much. In a game of imperfect info where you might call a big bet with TP in one hand and turbo muck it in another, I think exact math is overrated. Just my opinion.

@meale we are in position so checking is always better than jamming - i meant some people will call off their last $100 with the missed nfd a non 0% there in v's spot

@mike how can making decisions more accurate possibly be overrated? especially considering we are analyzing this hand off the table so you can take as much time as you want. counting combos is actually pretty simple.

OK, can you give me an "idiots guide to combos" that wont give me a headache?

Just google some basic combinatorics stuff. I think you should be able to do some basic combinatorics during a hand when you get a tough decision, just to help you visualise ranges better. But definitely useful for offtable stuff.

see: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...-math-1697310/

Simplest of examples: how many combos of QJ does villain have on the river assuming he limp/calls all QJ combos.

We have a queen in our hand, there is a queen on the board, 2 queens left
No jacks in our hand or on the board, 4 jacks left

4x2=8

Villain has 8 possible combos of QJ

Proof:
1. QdJd
2. QdJh
3. QdJs
4. QdJc
5. QsJd
6. QsJh
7. QsJs
8. QsJc

OK, but how does that really help?

There's also 8 combos of QT. Assuming he wont play any other Qx hands, that's 16 combos that Im ahead of.

There's 8 combos of AQ that I'm losing to. Maybe we discount the AQs 60% since he may raise preflop 60% of the time with AQ in EP?

So he has 16 Qx combos I beat and 3 Qx combos that I lose to. a bit more than 5:1 ratio. In my post where I used intuition to estimate percentages of hands he could have, I said 30% weaker Qs and 5% better Qs. That's almost the same ratio I just came up with using actual math.

Im not sure how many flush draw combos he could play this way, but arent we getting right back to somewhere near my approx numbers?

Im just saying that after years and years of playing and seeing these situations so many times, that my experience and intuition fairly closely matches the actual math.

In game using approximations/intuition is totally fine and what i do most of the time as well - i only actually count specific combos in close spots/when ranges are very narrow. It doesn't mean you shouldn't know how to do it though.

I actually think the range you came up with was reasonable; i wasn't trying to say it was totally off at all, i just don't see why you would use arbitrary %s when doing off the table work when you can count combos.

yes, range-work is always going to come down to assumptions and trying to approximate villain tendencies. there is no "correct" answer. but if you play around with a reasonable range for villain in this spot you will pretty quickly come to the conclusion that shoving is +ev

Agreed. Its easy to just check back on the river when you know he wont be calling very often anyway and some of that time you'll lose, but its still the right play.

this strategy has already been around, it's very useful against certain opponents and works great if it's done right. For example you flop air and your the original raiser. The pots 100. You bet 25, get called. ott you bet 40 into 150 and get called. So at this point you should be able to narrow his range down to a weak one pair hand or draw. Then you shove 395 into 230 right down his throat otr, He will say "take it you win".

Obv there are times when we need to give up (especially if raised ldo) and there are cards that will stop us.

Yeah, I didnt mean that I invented it.

Its been done to me a couple times by very good players and I couldnt figure out what the hell they had and surrendered to a pot sized turn bet when I think I was ahead a good portion of the time and didnt want to face that river all in. So I started mixing it in to my game and with great success so far.

Im not sure about that turn sizing you mentioned though. When I use this, Ive been betting the flop really small and pounding the turn. I think most people will raise a tiny flop bet for value if they have a good hand especially if there's a FD on the flop for fear that I have the FD and Im trying to set a cheap price. So when they dont raise the flop their hand tends to be weak and they fold to a full pot bet on the turn.

I'd really still only do it on dry textures. But it is the LLSNL meta to bet way too small in relation to the pot - but that's just because recs don't know what they're doing.

I posted a couple hands and an actual poker discussion broke out. Im not sure how to act

Nikachu has been doing it for ages, ANL has discussed it - there are a ton of top shelf players that use this technique. Some think that it works great on wet boards v weaker type players. Cuz when u flop air with zero equity if they are not trying to pile chips in their hand is defined as Mr. playbig2000 stated, and when u stuff it in their face when the river bricks they sigh fold

This really bugs me. I'm guessing you didn't count the combos.

Obviously hyperbole...

er no... i am just discounting almost every single hand that beats us based off of the combined pre/flop/turn/river actions by v