Early in $80 $50k guarantee on ACR. We are second in chips with 186 bbs.

V in this hand has 102 bbs. Other callers all have between 90 - 160 bbs.

No reads.

OTTH

V opens UTG for 2.5 bbs. I call from UTG +2 with KcJc. CO and BU call.

Flop (13 bbs): Tc3c4h. Checked to me. I bet 3 bbs. CO calls and V x/rs to 10 bbs. I call.

Turn (36 bbs): 9c. V checks and I bet 30 bbs. V calls.

River (96 bbs): 4d. V shoves for his last 60 or so bbs.

Me? Was my flop bet a mistake? Rest of my line seems fine.

If you are thinking about folding river, making your turn bet less than 83.33% of the pot is probably more important than your 3bb flop bet.

It looks like V flop a set, was scared of the flush on turn but couldn’t lay it down and filled on the river but what do I know.

Might be right. And it does look like a set, but what should my turn bet be? I don't want to price him in if he has a set ... but betting too big commits me. Also, his range should include not sets, smaller flushes, (hopefully not) the nut flush, AA (with A clubs), and maybe even AT (with A clubs).

If my math is correct, if V does have a set he has 11 outs on turn or about 22%. So to deny him proper odds to draw (again assuming V has set), I need to bet at least 1/2 pot, but the extra amount bet should make his call worse, that is, if he assumes my range is heavily tilted towards flushes (which it sure looks like it is).

I would shove the turn.

Doing the math, when Villain calls 30 bb's on the turn his implied odds are a little over 4:1 assuming that if he boats up Hero will call his river shove. Assuming he has a set, his odds of boating up or better are roughly 3.5:1.

Betting 30 bb's with an effective stack of 90 bb's is basically pot committing. You can fold the river now that its all gone south but the problem is that you are still thinking about it because V can have the hands mentioned (like AA/AT/smaller flush/etc.).

As played I guess I fold the river because I didn't shove the turn, but I am not happy.

And to make it clear I do this sometimes as well. My choice is to try to pick up extra chips on the turn by getting Villain to make a mistake and call with a hand that is drawing dead. Or a hand that has just the A.

But I think the compelling deciding factor in this hand is that V has c/r'd the flop which strongly indicates he has a set and is setting up for a turn shove assuming the flush doesn't come in. Ultimately this is why I shove the turn.

edit: If I am not shoving the turn here, I am betting about just over 1/2 pot or 20bb's in order to just pick up some chips and allow for a fold on the river. It makes the river tricky if the board pairs or if a club comes which will happen about 37% of the time. And obviously we are not going to guess right all of the time if we call or fold on that river (assuming both the flush and boat don't hit at the same time).

Thanks Mr. Rick, very helpful. I felt I was committed and called (reasoning he might have AA or AT with A clubs).

V had TT.

Edit: One reason I don't shove turn is I'm probably only getting called by nut flush, especially since I have the K and J. Maybe I can get a call from Q flush, but I think I'd rather get some value from smaller flushes and draws.

I think ricks answer are your half pot calcium are on the money.

I look at it this way

Aqcc- Raises pre but doesn’t check raise flop
A4cc- doesn’t raise pre, could check raise flop, could cr turn when you commit, doesn’t open shove river
33 x no pre flop raise, large cr, possible fold on turn
1010- makes sense as played
99- doesn’t check raise flop, may lead bet turn

As played, I probably call river too.

Splitting your range (by using sizings that are only desired by a portion of it) is an awful strat when your range is very narrow.

As played (since your hand is basically faceup) you can now lean towards folding river.

That makes sense Erc. Question, though, as to what the rest of our range looks like. After calling the flop x/r, we are very, very flush heavy when we bet the turn at all. Would we want to bet smaller with our smaller flushes and larger with our bigger ones? And, therefore, by your advice, choose a middle sizing for both on turn?

Turn sizing looks quite good. It's an interesting spot because you're both quite strong at the top of your distributions but he's got those overpairs and you don't so his distribution is much flatter and stronger overall. Basically you're a lot more polar than he is but still the top of your range is quite strong so gotta go pretty big to get some value.

River donk sizing seems a bit silly and think it's a pretty easy fold. Setting everything aside and just thinking exploitatively you're like 90% flushes at the top and he never expects you to fold a flush, he's gotta be really really bad to have worse for value and probably has no bluffs unless he turns overpairs w/ a flush blocker around and donks them too which seems dubious since most people just assume (often correctly) that there's enough AT,KT in your range to justify trying to make it to showdown with those. So he should be like 90% TT here IMO.

Interesting that the math gurus appear to like the 30bb bet sizing on the turn, yet both also advocate folding the river.

Thanks, Eggs, JJJ. Question to Eggs, though. Should V still assume my range has AT and KT when I bet turn so hard? I think if I were V, I'd discount those hands pretty heavily. So, if that's true ... might it not make sense (and be quite ballsy) to turn an overpair or AT with a club into a bluff when river pairs? Or do you think the pop (no reason to think V does not view me as the pop) is too stubborn with a flush on the river to make this bluff profitable?

AT,KT are your best bluffs but naturally you've got a lot less of those when you barrel turn.

So indeed it makes some sense for V to turn an overpair with a club into a bluff but there's merit to trying to see showdown, too, and I think people just assume there's enough AT,KT in there to where they can avoid that and people are too stubborn with flushes anyway.

You're gonna win here sometimes. Just not a lot at all.

Overbet shoving the turn for like 2.7x pot on the 3-flush board seems pretty insane. Yeh it it protects your hand and might get him to fold a set and should get the nut flush draw to fold, but you lose too much action and your hand is too face up playing that way.

I probably mis-spoke when I said shove the turn. What I really meant was that if I was going to bet 30 bb's there I'd rather shove the turn. Any time I am betting more than 30% of the effective stack size it is basically pot committing unless we know Villain doesn't bluff/can't be bluffing.

I think an argument can be made to bet 30 bb's on the turn if the effective stack size was deeper. I think we get a lot of AX to fold and TT calls because we are somewhat polarized (though I do think our hand is fairly face up whether we shove or bet 30 bb's after being c/r'd on the flop)

In general though, I prefer to keep my turn bet sizing fairly uniform at about 60% pot. In this way my opponents really have no idea as to the value of my hand. It is up to me to pick bluff opportunities enough to keep it disguised (and profitable).

FYP...

I'm not sure what your entire flatting range looks like vs the small c/r but it should include at least some (if not all of your sets) along with your FDs and maybe some AThh; KThh; QThh; JThh.

Personally, I wouldn't have a 3bet range IP otf. You have a pretty significant range disadvantage, plus (with an SPR of ~2.5) you don't need to put > $ in to get all-in by the river.

OTT, even tho UTG doesn't have as many flushes...he still can have A2dd and A5dd (since they are the only FD combos that are strong enuf to c/r OOP.) This isn't a spot where you get to bomb it. In addition to your flushes, you should also want to bet your sets both for value and protection vs overpairs with a diamond.

I realize that the pot was multiway otf but given the fact that CO is so insignificant (capped both pre and otf) we can look at a Sim to see what the optimal actions are:

OTF vs the C/R we prob would have to pare the width of our calling range down since UTG's c/r freq* will go down vs. a stab+a call. We don't have a flop 3bet range tho:


*I made the c/r size larger in order to keep the pot the same size (as it would be with CO's call of your flop stab.)

OTT we do want to bet some of our flushes, along with TT and 44, although we are checking back 33. UTG is checking close to 100% freq here, meaning he can have a lot of strong hands (which is another argument against betting big.) If we bet, the preferred sizing is 55% (I gave it 4 options: 55%; 75%; 100%; and Shove):



This is not a spot where we want to polarize...I can post my inputs/ranges if anyone is interested.

Interesting, we are betting most sets and flushes for about 1/2 pot. Seems counterintuitive, because as Eggs pointed out any call by V should be from strength -- minimum being either set, flush or overpair with diamond. I know we can be drawing dead to A5dd or A2dd, but as IP player we can check back river if we get called, so shouldn't that mean we can bet our smaller flushes strongly too. This way we extract maximum value from V's strong calling range that still has draws. I guess, the real danger is if V x/r's us again if we bet our entire range for this sizing.