Played what I thought was a fairly standard spot yesterday. I don't recall exact stack sizes, but you can infer them if you need to.

I defend BB with KQs from UTG (TAG) raise. Flop is 877 with my flush draw. He Cbets 1/2 pot, I check raise 3x; he calls. Turn is a blank, I shove for pot. Results not important.

I looked to see how PIO would play this spot, and saw my hand is a pure call on the flop. We know we need to mix some check raises with FDs, and also we need to have some flushes in our check call line. I wonder why this combo never raises (in theory, anyway).

Which FDs check raise the most?



I think I was able to get a screen shot here. (I used an SPR of 5.6) You can see the pattern of which flush draws check raise. Interestingly, it also never raises its weakest draws.

I am wondering what heuristics I can glean here, besides the obvious, don't go to war with dominated flush draws...

Interesting question. My guess is that it raises the ace-low draws because there are fewer reliable pair outs. KQ has so many outs that we are fine to just call flop and turn and fold river if we don't improve. Whereas other combos like Q6 can be made into a bluff, because we have significantly less equity.

That said, I don't think your play is too bad. It applies maximum pressure since we have all the 7s in our range and he may fold the good draws, A9, or even TT if he's tight.

Maybe because villain will barrel a lot on K's and Q's on later streets, and you will have very comfortable calls?

edit : you could try to see what pio does in UTG's shoes on turn Kspade for example, and how your equity looks like?

Disclaimer: I am not a MTT player, and if you mean "UTG in a 9-max tournament" then maybe being happy they barrel a K or a Q is stupid (I play 6-max and our UTG is in fact the lowjack)

I would guess the raises come when you a)have fewer pair outs or b)are less likely to be good at showdown. I suspect with KQ we don't raise because we have a better chance of dominating villain if we hit a K or Q, which you might not be able to say for some worse kings. (And possibly, as boulgakov says, because those are cards villain might barrel even if he misses.)

There's a mix of motivations here with raising, in terms of wanting to cooler better flush draws (some of the Ax raises) vs. fold out hands that would win at showdown or might dominate us.

Also looks like we always raise 9x and 6x for the backdoor straight draw potential, and sometimes Tx-- but not the OESFDs, T9, 96, or 65. We do always raise the flush draw + gutshot combos, though-- JT, J9, 95 (except 54). In general it seems like we raise more often when we have some out to a backdoor straight as well as the flush draw.

Also, I find it funny that with these solver inputs we mostly raise TdTd. Presumably we want to win that without a showdown that reveals the whole hand is void.

Villain is betting 84% of the time on a turned off suit K. My particular Villain would be playing more ABC there, which, I guess is an argument for calling flop, as he won't be barreling cards he should, and we get to see the turn/river for no more chips.

I'm having trouble reading the chart. Probably something I am doing wrong. But since you locked suited diamonds, both the normally offuit side and the suited side appear the same as far as the cards they are showing we hold, but have dramatically different results. Should I be reading the left side (offsuite side) as unsuited with 1 diamond? Or just plain no diamonds? Or any unsuited? Also interesting that for KQ in particular, the chart advocates for a call even if unsuited (again not sure if this with one diamond).

My guess is that with the number of bluffs with the offsuit hands like A6/A9/AT, that it assumes we are holding one diamond.

Yeah, all the stuff on the left has one diamond, either way (Adx or A?Xd)

Maybe PIO thinks he never folds to the raise with his Ax and pairs, which is the majority of his range given he's TAG. With that said we have so much equity that I wouldn't think it matters much.

I bet the EVs are pretty close judgmentally speaking (like under 5bb/100 is my guess) but I think KQs in particular has a double whammy:

1. gets mostly worse to fold on flop if IP has few Ax which are probably mostly really bad for that cbet sizing. AK and AQ probably ok for 1/2 pot

2. river barrels always having terrible blockers against worse (KdTd, QdJd etc). And almost never winning at showdown.

At least KJ gets IPs KQ to immediately fold. KQ is a lot of his range from EP. Td5d always gets worse to fold when folds do happen, even despite the blockers. AdXd at least can beat stuff at showdown.

To be clear, KdQd is for sure monotonocally stronger than anything KJ and worse its not like KdQd isnt printing no matter what you do.

For #2, I wonder what average EV of KdQd is when BB xr 2.2x, barrel turn moderately small, triple moderately small all in. He has to fold whiffed diamonds which he'd surely still have. Assuming you guys are 25ish pre and so turn and river are ~1/3 psb each. Is KdQd the lowest EV combo you'd have?

Without looking at the screenshot Id guess 9dXd and 6dXd raise the most. All of which have really good positioning wrt getting worse to fold no matter how many bets go in; AND they have extra playabiliy because of the backdoor. Its a double whammy.