5-handed. folds to btn who opens. seems like a straightforward player.

i 3b 2245K from SB, BB folds BTN calls.

2:2

23456 i bet he calls

1:1

2345T

my plan is to bet here, pat then check/fold river after the last draw. if he had improved on this 1:1 and raised i'd call and D1.


thoughts? thanks

Your plan sounds reasonable. I think betting turn is good to keep our hand disguised and get some value. An alternate line could be check/raise/patting to try to get better to break and get an extra bet of value when you're good. If it goes check/check, you didn't miss out on that much value and can confidently pat. If you get 3bet, you can happily break.

Check/folding river seems to weak if it goes 0/1. You'll be at nearly the top of your checking range, with lots of worse T's and maybe even some J's. Villain could even value bet some worse T's. If it goes bet/call pat/pat then check/fold seems fine. Is there any merit to value betting river even after 0/1?

Also in terms of alternate lines, what do folks think of the 3b predraw? I don't like 3betting without a 7 for reasons that become all too apparent on the flop. Is it too weak to never 3b a d2 from small blind? Seems good to have the disguise of your d2's.

As played, what do people think of a snow once we have the straight? We can break if we get played back on. We have seen a dead deuce and have all these low cards up against a draw 2 with a rough draw.

I like the 3 bet with 245 especially with the extra deuce, more likely opponent on button rolling around 873 type hands.

While not a super premium draw I think 2345 is too good to snow

Typically I do not bet Tens especially ones where I’m forced to call a turn raise. And you will get freezed a lot as he is more likely to have a rougher D1 that may make a 9 he can’t break. But since he might be rough you probably won’t get raised as often, the underlying draw is not super premium, and it’s the best ten.
So I think betting patting is ok. But I’m probably more apt to just check and see what happens. I think the 2345 draw is just good enough that I don’t want to get it frozen.

I do not think you are at the top of your range when you check. But I don’t think that consideration is as important as the fact that you hold 2345 and completely block unblock 7,8, and 9s. This is probably more relevant in 1/1 on last draw but can have some relevance here because pairing top card is randomizer for many people. When I make crying calls that are good this is often what they have. It’s not a pair of deuces that may make a little more sense in a 0/1

To clarify, freezing is when a good pat hand just calls, right? And the purpose of a freeze play as I understand it is to not overplay some more middling pat hands and to induce players to pat incorrectly. So I want to clarify what line you're suggesting, Scotch. Do you want to check/call and draw 1 so we don't get frozen by a better pat hand? What do you think of the check/raise/pat line?

And also to clarify as played where it goes bet/call turn you are happy to check/call river whether it goes 0/1 or 0/0, right?

Yes freezing serves a few purposes, first is not to value own yourself against better pats and have villain pat worse. I think either betting and patting and checking are reasonably close. As I mentioned I think checking is slightly better but not going to say betting and patting is worse. I mean no one really knows for sure or at least I don’t think they do. But 2345 is good enough that I don’t want it to get freezed.

I’m not happy in either of those cases but I made a case for why we would be more apt to call with T2345 than T9873 that extends for reasons beyond having a better ten which in reality shouldn’t matter. In theory against certain opponents we could call both or neither. But in more unknown territory T2345 is better imo

0/0 I am certainly not calling. We only beat a freeze bluff and players that do that tend to have a rough ten and we block a ten

Oh I do not like a c/r pat line in a 1/1 against what is more weighted to a rough D1 draw. Less chance he’s betting UI for slight value. The only good aspect is you unblock nines which are good hands to target for a break.

But in a 1/1 you will value own yourself against his probable range and then against a reraise it’s a terrible situation.

It’s better where you were D2 vs a D1 facing auto bet. Bet even there I think at best it should only be on occasion. Better hands are T6543 and T8763 that also unblock nines but they can easily fold to a reraise

I'm a bit confused by this line. Does this imply when you check/call you then draw 1? I think so but want to confirm.

Thanks for your replies.

Bet and pat or check call drAw are options. Checkraise is very bad

Yeah he's saying that when we bet and villain calls we don't know whether he's pat or drawing 1.

If we check and villain bets then he's likely pat and we can draw.

My only issue with the reasoning is that if we c/c break he gets to pat all his T's and J's. And of course we lose value if he checks and draws 1 after we pat.

We clearly cannot check/call and then pat though. We are getting the worst of both worlds.

Value of position.

Does check/check pat turn our hand face up? Or are we ever doing this with stronger hands?

Somewhat. Though we can have a whiffed checkraise with other hand types

i'd just bet-pat c/c river, or bet/call-break and call river pretty light.

I would usually lead and pat turn, and depending on what I've shown down I may have several different reasons to bet river, even into a pat hand that freezes. I bet a bit more often than some to protect other hands. If I've been caught a lot I might c/c to induce bets from players who have reason to think my pats are more garbagey, but if I've generally had strong hands at showdown I might bet expecting not to get called by the worst Nines, and not having to turn my hand over helps preserve that image.

If it's 0:1 otr, especially if villain is suspicious, then I expect to get called really light because I will have all snow hands in my range, and response to a raise will depend on history.

If I don't have a good reason to bet the river and villain is pat, most of the time c/f > c/c. If I think villain is comfortable patting Jacks behind and/or thinks I'm fos, then I bet river. If villain is more conservative then there's no value in calling his bet on the end. You become exploitable to observant opponents if you default to c/f regardless of history, so I advocate betting a pretty wide range, c/f most of the time otherwise, randomizing river checks into pats with a few c/r with better hands and a very small number of c/r bluffs.

How do we mostly expect a villain to react IP when he has say a 98642?

Most will call and break the winner. Some will raise to find out where they are at, then break the winner if you call and pat.

Ok thanks I agree with this.

This one is a more general question but given a random player with no info are they more inclined to bet/pat hands like T7432 and T8532 or c/c?

I will never bet/pat those hands OOP. Only tens with straight draws. Those are too strong to just get frozen and lose.

Oh yeah totally agree. But you are a top player who knows how to deal with this spot.

I guess I was thinking about a more random type player, he doesn’t need to be a complete fish, he can even be a winner but not play this right potentially. I think more check than bet/pat so I play my hands assuming that unless I see him bet/pat something obvious like T7432. Just a random check of assumptions but kind of fits with this topic.

But sometimes we talk on this board and some people may take away that we should bet all tens. But the underlying draw means a lot.

I think the typical player definitely bet pats a lot of tens. Some of this is aggro players that play too many hands and have a rough 4 card too often here. As a generalization freezing people is quite profitable

Oh yes I agree but specifically what about when they have stuff like T7432 and T8532?

Anyway I don’t think it matters much.

I have a spreadsheet where I analyze pat or break decisions. I differentiate it between what a range would look like versus a D2 range from EP that largely contains a 2 (and thus has a much more limited universe of nines) versus say a BB defend range where any 9 is basically possible.

Against a strong D2 range, 97652 is only breaking off 2% equity so break is clear play. But against a BB defend it is 11% thus Pat is play. Now this is assuming they check tens. If tens are in betting range and almost certainly are for some hands the conclusions imo are the same. Still want to break 97652 against strong even though equity breakoff is slightly wider. And against the BB defend, patting is even more correct.