Saw this on poker go …

40,000/80,000/80,000

Hunichen SB, Button, 1.95 Million,
Peters, BB, 4.65 Million,

Preflop

Hunichen 64 completes,
Peters K5 raises to 300k
Hunichen (1.9m behind, 220K to call) calls

Pot 680,000

Flop 7h, 2d, 3s

Peters bets 230,000
Hunichen (1.7m behind, 230 to call) calls

Turn 7h, 2d, 3s, 9h

Peters checks
Hunichen (1.4m behind) bets 275K
Peters folds

Here’s my questions on Hunichen’s play. Is his call pre which is 11% of 25bb stack too much to call here, in general? Ok, this is high stakes and he probably intends to float and steal it later if he doesn't hit, but isn’t his stack size to shallow?

On the flop he calls another 12% of his 20bigs, which also seems to me a lot to call in hopes he has an opportunity to hit, or bluff it on later streets. Is this super agro? Or am I missing how important it is to play poker and go from 25bigs to 15bigs and steal lose the pot.

Thoughts? I guess I’m a complete nit.

its not about it being high stakes and people using some indescribable magic to steal pots. its a perfect example of people understanding pot odds, position and how to range your opponents.

Do you mind answering my questions with some detail? I understand your points.

Not sure how much HU BigHuni has played but in Gen:

[ ] MTT players are goot at HU.

I would complete 64s close to 100% of the time here in SB (w~25bbs eff.) Can also raise a smaller % vs passive players who are folding too much pre.

After the iso (depending on how aggro BB has been pre and otf) this is prob near the bottom of calling range vs a 3.75x, might even be a mix between call/fold, altho always calling 3-3.25x sizings.) If playing a 100% limp strat from SB then would lean towards folding vs this sizing.

Flop can mix between call and c/r...again depends on BB's cbet strat and reads (it wouldn't hurt if you gave some hints here since you watched the HU . Prob would default to call here with no BDFD but c/r could be ok vs a high-freq cbet strat. Can't really fold anything vs the ~33% cbet sizing even with these stacks.

Ott imo it's better to have a heart when we stab (reduces BB's calls and check shoves a lot) but again vs a super str8forward BB strat could be ok.

Main question/toughest street is gonna be river if BB calls turn. Gonna have like 1.1k with pot=1.6k so might be tough to rep a lot of thin value bets on rivers T+? Gonna be at bottom of range on bricks so should be bruffing at a high freq...

I don't feel qualified to give you good feedback on his cbet strat only some TV amatuer watching which very well could be wrong ....Peters certainly was balanced with his cbet aggression don't remember if he ever fired 3 bullets??. I beleive Peters knew Hunichen played the most"courageous" at the FT and willing to call light, so I think he gives up on the turn (but I see the whole cards)

Why is turn heart better?

Thanks for the feedback, helps a lot.

I meant that it's > for us to hold a heart b/c we block the heart/heart combos that BB can continue with. Although a turn SPR of 1.2 to 1 doesn't lend itself to a check/shove or c/c with hearts so it may not really be a factor here (so disregard...sorry didn't look closely enuf at SPR ) - I would expect a slightly bigger flop cbet then shove turn for ~pot with decent backdoor heart combos?

The heart blocker would be > valuable with an SPR of 2-3 to 1 ott b/c then it would make a lot of sense for BB to take this line.

This is HU so BTN/SB should prob be opening to 160k not limping, as he is playing every hand in position post flop. However there may be some argument at this stack depth to limp, given SPRs post.

As for post flop it seems rly standard.

64cc can float the flop with position, gut shot, but most importantly a significant range advantage. when the turn bricks and K5o checks, 64 has an easy bet to fold out K high and takes down the pot.

@erc you may be forgetting position here. 64cc is first to act pre, but big stack K5o is first to act post, so 64cc can raise but not check raise.

Think I'd rather be raise/fold preflop. Is it really a huge tragedy to not see a flop with this hand, in exchange of just taking it down pre sometimes and uncapping our range post?

AP looks good for SB. Not floating flop would be absurd, and OTT 64s has to be one of his better bluffs given its utter lack of SDV and unblocking lots of hands in BB's x/f range like unpaired Ax and Kx (can BB really x/c much AT here, for example?)

@OldSilver, this is a pretty unconnected, raggy board. I'm pretty sure the preflop raiser still has the range advantage. I don't think SB has the range advantage here without big PPs, or very much of any AT+ in his range. But I may be wrong. Does SB even have 77 or 33 in his range?

All great stuff for me, thanks guys.

@Eggs, can you explain for a beginner what is "range advantage"? And how that relates to this hand. tx!

I’m thinking in pretty basic terms where range advantage means paint+ good for raiser and low cards good for limp caller..nothing too scientific there

Basically means which range has higher EV, i.e. is stronger. Generally speaking, having a RA means one should be betting at a very high frequency, for obvious reasons.

OldSilver's comment is sort of correct but it's a lil more complicated than that. For example, I'm pretty sure on this texture--raggy and disconnected--the PFR still has the RA. The PFR has all or most PPs including all 55+ I think, the SB has none of the premiums. The PFR has AT+, the SB hans very few or none. The SB arguably has more 7x, 2x, and 3x but when you loos at ranges as a whole the presence of premiums and big A-high (and even K-high) tilt the RA towards the PFR. I think, I haven't run their ranges through a solver or equilab or anything like that. Mostly because I'm honestly not sure what a SB complete or a BB raise vs SB complete range looks like HU at a $100K FT.

I used to play exclusively HU, but that was some time ago, so take these comments with a grain of salt.

I think that SB has the immense range advantage here, simply because he will have far more TP or second pair combos (in addition to all of the 2pair combos, none of which BB has)--meanwhile, BB will have a ton of Ax, Kx, Qx type hands, the majority of which don't connect with this board.

You're correct in saying the BB has far more big A-high (and K-high), but this isn't a good thing for him--the vast majority of those hands haven't connected with the board. SB has far more 9x, far more 7x, and the overwhelming majority of the 2x and 3x. In SB's shoes, I'm feeling somewhat comfortable that I have the best hand a very high % of the time when turn checks to me--this isn't to say I'm necessarily value betting all of them, as that decision is contingent upon how I perceive BB to construct his ranges, but yeah.

So, cliffnotes: I think SB has the big RA here on turn

You may very well be right about turn.

I was fixated on flop though, and I recognize now that's sort of silly since we're seeing a turn.

Who do you think has the flop range advantage?

Before I forget, and I think this is very important, the weird ante structure (1 full big blind, if I'm reading OP correctly) complicates things here, and I'm very unfamiliar with it. It would, of course, have the effect of widening ranges, but to what extent I can't begin to say.

Anyway--I think raw equity wise, the BB, for sure (on flop). Could run an equilab quickly and check for sure. It really depends on what SB's range for flatting the (somewhat large) iso is, though. Given we see 64s in it, we can establish a useful lower bound, though.

I suppose my mind is fixated on how the spot plays out in practice, though--I feel like in practice the SB can really have his way with this flop, floating or raising every single gutshot--and continuing with pairs, of course, though with regard to how to best do so I'm not positive--and taking BB off his hi card hands (which are exactly why he has the raw equity advantage) that can't withstand a raise or call down multiple streets.

So to summarize I think raw equity & realizable equity diverge quite a bit here for the BB.

One final point that just occurred to me:

It's worth noting that at 25bb effective, BB didn't jam pre--this removes a lot of hands from his range, depending on what strategy Peters is employing. I think it's somewhat standard to jam something like {22-55, A2o-A9o, A2s-A7s, couple other things that have high raw equity/low playability/don't want to get their iso flatted} pre? Give or take a bit. (Want to run this spot? )

I'm too tired to think about how that shifts things around, but definitely has a huge impact, whatever that impact may be.

On second thought, can PIO even model HU preflop play? Obviously it can model normal SB vs. BB situations, but with the reversal of postflop action order that HU play entails...is there a setting for this?