For me, at least.

All of these happened late on Day 2. We're down to about 160 players out of 3900 or so.

Hand 1: I'm in the sb with 41bbs. Villain is in the bb with 113bbs. I had been playing with him for several hours and having him on my direct left wasn't very fun. He was very aggressive and capable and better than me. I think he views me as weak/passive and a rec. I had been very card dead for awhile, but he didn't know that.

Anyway, OTTH:

Folds to me and I open K9 to 3.5bbs. He calls.

Flop: 2 7 9.

I bet 3.88bbs, he calls.

Turn: J

I check, he checks.

River: 10

I bet 3.71bbs, he raises to 13.03bbs.

Hand 2: I have 55bbs in the bb. Villain (different one, but also aggressive, capable, better than me) is the button with 44bbs.

Folds to him, he minraises, and I defend Q6.

Flop 9JQ

I check, he bets 3bbs, I call.

Turn: 7

I check, he bets 8bbs. I call.

River: 5

I check, he bets 25bbs, leaving about 5bbs behind.

Hand 3: There are about 90 players left. I just moved tables and have about 68bbs. I'm on the button. Villain (44bbs) opens 2.2bbs from UTG +1 (we're 7-handed). I 3! to 6.8bbs. Folds back to Villain who goes all-in.

What range are you calling with here?

I'd appreciate advice on any and all streets for the first two hands.

Hand 1 - you opened yourself up to this by doing a small river bet to let him know his 2 or 7 isn't good. With that said I would probably call it as played - most of his 8x bets the turn (86,J8,T8,etc) so it's sort of hard to have an 8 that checks the turn back.

Hand 2 - not really a great run out for him to be bluffing, I'd just fold the river without more info.

OP, in hand #2...I think it is optimal to check-raise this flop or you're going to get blown off the hand by aggro players, leaving you having to make hero calls without much to go by. I suspect that is what happened here.

Your position and that flop wouldn't make me feel safe with Q6, although you may likely be ahead. 99+ is in the button's opening range. So is J9s+...So lots of combinations beat Q6.

If you're going to put in 8 more BBs on the turn, I think using those 8 BBs or less to check-raise would be better value. Your calling down is really only with the hope that the player checks down with you. Check-raising increases the likelihood of the button checking it down with you.

I'm interested in your thought process.

What kind of info would be useful to you? Unfortunately I don't use a HUD or anything, but I had been playing with him for several hours so maybe I can provide something else. My general read was in the description of the hand.

Thanks for the feedback on Hand 1.

Thanks for the feedback on Hand 2! A flop CR would definitely get him off his total bluffs, but wouldn't it leave us in an awkward spot on a lot of turns? Assume he calls our flop checkraise, and the turn comes as it did. How would you proceed given our stack depths?

And I'll share my thoughts and results in a bit. I'm hoping a few other good players come in and share their thoughts.

If either of you guys had thoughts on Hand 3 please share them

Hand 1 - Betting river for value is way too thin. Do you actually expect to get called by a worse 9x or a 7? You definitely open yourself up for this raise. But you can comfortably fold since this is probably the worse value hand you have here, I hope...


Hand 2 - Gross spot. My guess is a solver says call, but its going to be close to 0EV.
C/ring the flop with this hand is pretty bad IMO. Ill run it PIO later to see if Im right. If villain is turning total air on the flop into turn and river bluffs then def call with TP here.

Hand 3 - Something like TT+, AK as a baseline.

Thanks for the feedback. What would advocate doing on Hand 1 at the river? Check/call or check/fold? Are there any other streets on that hand you would’ve played differently? To answer your question, yes I thought I could get value from a worse hand at the time. Def a blocker bet. I also think my King is relevant.

I’d also be interested in what a solver says in both hands! Maybe someone with one will be interested enough to run it.

Solver does in fact fold this hand most of the time. Q8 and QT are pure calls, probably because they block more straight draws. We have enough 2 pair by the river so we can fold our worst top pairs.

On the flop its mostly a call, with the rare c/r mixed in.

Thanks for running that ledn

So I made the weak lead, definitely thinking I’d get raised a ton of the time. I thought he could call with weaker hands, or that he’d turn them, and other hands into bluffs.

At the end of the day my reasoning was close to yours. I couldn’t find a lot of 8s in his range that would get to the river this way. He could definitely have KQ, but his sizing didn’t seem right for that (i.e. KQ would’ve raised bigger). I didn’t think he’d be raising with anything other than a straight, and I had a king which helped.

I called and he had AQss.

I wish you would’ve come back and given your thoghts on how to proceed if we checkraise this flop, get called, and see this turn.

Anyway, as for the hand, by the river I think he’s representing a veeerrry narrow range. If I’m in his shoes with AA, I’m not sure I’d feel that comfortable betting much for value. I definitely have the nuts in my range, along with several two pair combos.

I called expecting to see 1010, but he had 910.

As for hand 3. I was the guy that opened and shoved. I ended up busting with my QQ vs AK to the guy that ended up in 2nd. In my head I was wondering if I would’ve been better off just calling and seeing a safe flop, but after a couple of days I think I made the correct play since I think he’s calling with 1010/JJ (maaaaybe 99?) and I want to blow him off his A5s type hands that are garbage but have equity.

1 - pf it’s ok but you better be mixing w this hand. You need to have an rng to try and play well in these sb situations. You’re supposed to mix literally every option at some frequency w this hand and it’s just impossible to play well here if you don’t have a rng. (As well as some kind of idea what your optimal frequencies look like pf here) - I guess the highest frequency play is limp. But opening to 3.5 is fine sometimes.
As played otf your sizing i don’t think it’s a “thing” like ppl say these days. The half pot just gets floated and there’s a lot of bad cards ott. I don’t study that much anymore but I’d guess your supposed to probably go for the big size with most of your betting range. Like 100% ish - maybe as much as 125%
Anyways the river bet it’s awful - it’s a pure check and your straights bet bigger so the oop player can start ****ing with you a lot here and you’ll cost yourself ev. Cool that you induced and guessed right but at equilibrium it’s a pure x w this hand or like bet 1bb could might be a thing but I don’t like to get into nodes where I don’t know tf is going on so I’ll just simplify my life and check.

2. Standard and River it’s a pretty easy fold The q is good obv but the 6 doesn’t do much it’s like probably one of your worst kickers for blocking affects/bluff catching. I’d fold and feel fine about it.

Check raising the q6 is pretty much never a thing. MAYBE PIO gonna say @ equilibrium we get to check raise some sliver of q6 but this flop is very strong for the ip range so you don’t x/r when you have a big range disadvantage DUCY

Hand 3 ranges in this spot are narrower to get it in. Qq still is fine but probably the worst hand to go with besides ak

Open-folding K9o from the sb seems too weak to me.

Perhaps starting with a check/call line would’ve been better. I’d be interested if that sizing is accurate. I was thinking this opponent would float quite a bit of his range, even to a big bet. I was concerned about how to proceed on a lot of turns if I start bloating the pot on the flop. I realize you’re not suggesting a bet, necessarily, but that was my reasoning with my sizing. Maybe it’s another reason for a check to start.

Thanks for the feedback.

Except for fold Jesus Christ I don’t even know why I waste my time when that’s the only thing you think about after that whole post is errr duh never folding pre. Figured it would be obvious that you don’t open fold ��*♂️

I don’t know why you’re so aggro dude. You said ‘every option’ when I guess you meant two options (call/raise) so I legit thought you meant fold also.

And that’s not the only thing I thought about. I mentioned something else in my exact post. You also posted after I had already given my thoughts about the hands. As for hand 2, I agree we don’t want to CR, but I’ve said that. And I agree our kicker is weak but I think he’s representing such a nutted hand in such a big spot that he’s bluffing more often than normal. I said that stuff already.

Edit: to be clear, I really appreciate your feedback and I apologize if it came across as if I didn’t

H1 Much bigger flop, not too much to be afraid of on [972]r and your combo probably almost always good.

Either barreling turn half pot or checking, can't go wrong either way.

River is exactly the right idea vs a range that's mostly worse 9x and 7x-. I think his raise size is silly because I don't think he can raise worse than nutted stuff for value. It's a good bet targeting Q9,96,95s,94s,93s,A7,K7,Q7,66,55,44,33

You've obviously got 8s, you've got random Jx that stabbed flop and turned a pair. You've got TT. You've got 2pr. You should expect to be using a lot of different sizings to attack his river range.

The corollary of that is, you rep a very specific and easy to identify part of your range when you take this sizing in particular, and generally you do not rep very strong. 9x is kinda the top of your range for the small-sizing delay.

I personally think I'd have done a good job as IP finding bluffs here, raising a lot of my 2x and 7x but I would always be raising all-in. Why ever not value 8x to the max? His sizing makes no sense unless he really expects you to spew in some direction--either too tight or too loose.

I think it's equally annoying to fold and see 2x or 7x vs losing the extra 10bb so I'd probably mix my decision and it's probably close to breakeven anyway if V is doing his job correctly. But hey that sizing may just be totally nutted in which case bet-f is pretty neat.

You almost surely occupy too much of the 9x rank and file to just scurry away from it 100% of the time when raised. You'd need some justification if you decide to never call here.



H2 you can start folding OTT. You're never beating any of his value once he barrels for that sizing. Having a straight draw/straight blocker is generally a lot more important than having top pair.

Folding river for that same reason--he should show up with a lot of straights so blocking them is really important.


H3 Calling QQ+,AKs and flipping a coin with JJ,TT. Personally would 4b KK and a tiny bit of QQ and always 4b shipping AK. Vs you in game I'd find folds vs the 3b at least some TT-,ATs,KJs,QJs,AQo etc, and once in a while I'd make it 14bb with AA,A4s,A5s,AJs,AQs,AKs,KQs,KJs

Also, I could buy some arguments to fold QQ in H3, thus going as tight as KK,AA,AKs.

I def thought my hand was good, but my concern was villain floating me very wide. In addition to any pair, I think he floats overs w back door draws (A8s w bdfd, KJ, KQ, J10, AJ, A10, etc.) and I didn’t want to bloat the pot OOP. I’m not saying that’s the correct strategy, but against an aggro villain who I think views me as weak, I was treading carefully).

Im glad there’s at least one guy who didn’t hate my river lead. I knew I’d have to make some uncomfortable call downs, but it was for value.

I had done this weak lead a few times before this. Once I folded to a raise, once I was just called by 3rd pair (I had trips) and now this one. I tried to mix it up and did occasionally weak lead top of my range. Generally, I agree with your read tho.

I kinda mentioned my thought process before but I agree with all this. His sizing made no sense to me, had he jammed, I think I fold.



I agree with your (and others) thought process re: this hand in a vacuum. But we were in the final 110 or so of the Venom, with $1.5m up top. Because of that situation, I don’t think his value range is as wide as it should be, and certainly not for almost all of his chips. Added to that my read that he viewed me as a weaker player, I found the call. Theoretically I guess it was bad, but I thought the situation was unique and my call was warranted.


I don’t love his call with AKo, but it can’t be bad. That’s an interesting range you have for a 4bet bluff. I don’t think I have the balls for that

Edit: sry for the formatting when I use my phone. Too lazy to go through it and delete those superfluous AÂ’s that show up on every contraction. Ugh

PIO does like a block sizing for the river. It gets calls from All worse 9x and a lot of worse one pair hands. It is indifferent to calling the river raise with our exact hand.

Interesting that this $2650 buyin is labeled [mid]. Are the labels sticking around? Seems like they are.