PokerStars, $9.80 + $1.20 - Hold'em No Limit - 250/500 (50 ante) - 9 players

Mako2213 (UTG): 25,355 (51 bb)
GerstaJ (UTG+1): 12,459 (25 bb)
Q7isthebest (MP): 45,454 (91 bb)
chik12xa (MP+1): 9,062 (18 bb)
boksör (LP): 35,487 (71 bb)
B4zingy (CO): 11,003 (22 bb)
kompot595 (BU): 24,796 (50 bb)
JklMF (SB): 9,480 (19 bb)
ksenia1982 (BB): 9,920 (20 bb)

Pre-Flop: (1,200) Hero (GerstaJ) is UTG+1 with T♥ A♠
1 fold, GerstaJ (UTG+1) raises to 1,000, 6 players fold, ksenia1982 (BB) calls 500

Flop: (2,700) 2♣ 8♦ 4♣ (2 players)
ksenia1982 (BB) checks, GerstaJ (UTG+1) bets 1,100, ksenia1982 (BB) calls 1,100

Turn: (4,900) 7♦ (2 players)
ksenia1982 (BB) checks, GerstaJ (UTG+1) checks

River: (4,900) 5♥ (2 players)
ksenia1982 (BB) bets 4,000


Would you call or fold ??

Thanks a lot

Fold, when he defends from BB his range is so wide and has many combos of 6’s

Fold preflop, ATo is close to garbage from EP.

Flop is great for BB range and you have nothing but naked overcards. Check behind.

As played, fold river.

You block their main bluffing hand which is 9T so no it's not a good hero call tbh. If you're betting this flop not blocking flush draws and straight draws then I pref 66% to price out the myriad of gutshot/low flush draw type hands BB will have. I think if you're having ATo in this position's range then you should prob just check as this is near the bottom with showdown though.

Raising ATo at 25bb is fine but I feel like this is a board we check back heavily. Small 1/3rd betting on the flop is ok but only when we have a backdoor flush to go with our 2 overcards.

Check back this flop and calling a turn probe depending on whether the 3rd club hits is also an option vs aggy villains too

As played, I fold this river

If ATo is fine then you're raising A9o some of the time then correct? ATo is a loose open and in itself is "fine" but I think it's important we acknowledge it as the bottom here.

Why call this turn if villain bets? It smashes their range and we have basically 0 equity esp vs aggro villains that will continue to fire properly on the river not allowing us to realize what little equity we had.

Maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been.
IMO ATo is a standard open at these stakes even at 25bb. A9o is not. Theres quite a big difference in ev between the two hands.

My actions in the previous post only applies if when we hold a club, Ac preferably

Are you opening AT from utg?

I don't accept that you're not allowed to cbet. This flop doesn't do enough to kill your range advantage.

I'd probably let this one go due to the uniquely poor run out. I know he's repping too thin and overbluffing but I've been punished alot by calling this texture with A high and them showing up with weak pair turned into a bluff. Like on 4 to straight aggro players can underestimate the showdown value of a pair and overestimate the need to rep hands I can't have.

25bb?? at micro/low stakes? 100%

Ok so betting the flop with AcTx is about attacking weak draws, 2nd/bottom pairs that have to defend flop, and some weak top pairs that have to fold if clubs runout. But part of the problem is you can get c/r on this board a lot if since you shouldn't be opening 22/44 from UTG and thus our ranges are pretty equal on the flop. The problem with having the flush blocked like that and the backdoor one too is that they can't call as many worse combos now. AJs+/A5s prob 3bet pre but A2-A4 and A6s-ATs all have to peel with a straight up FD and backdoor FD's prob have to defend some combos against 1/3 flop sizing too.

Surely we have worse hands to wanna cbet bluff with and that seems like a lot of combos. I know that we can realize equity somewhat reasonably on this type of board but are you cbetting AJo and AQo as well? What combos of ATo are you choosing to use? Ones that don't block the front door or back door flushes (like this hand obv)?

The problem is that the point of raising ATo from EP is that it plays really poorly multiway and that's how most pots will go in these types of fields and you're stealing. If the tournament was much later it's more enticing as the amount of total chips in play you're stealing is more significant.

I like check back too, I just think cbet is profitable utg v bb almost always especially this shallow where it doesn't matter what he reps we're never folding overpairs. And remember some player types will rejam any pair this depth so cant have sets. If splitting my main check backs will be AcXx or AdXd because those have a bit too much equity to bet fold

I think check back is plus ev too, could be more plus ev its just with these posts I don't like getting bogged down criticising lines that are not egregious when the poster is interested in the big money decision point which is the river.

Vs UTG the BB should have all the sets and 75% of 88 combos preflop imo since we don't have reads imo.

I mean I get that to an extent but every decision from a prior street affects how we should play our ranges though.

@all Cbet is a lot better with something that can realize more equity on the turn like JTdd or 9Ts combos of any kind cause they fold out more combos of better hands (K9o/QJ etc) from BB and also have more options on various turns.

Even though betting AT is inefficient and barely folds any better hands you avoid folding the best hand on the turn tons. Check back is a high ev strat when you plan to get sticky because what happens is bb starts thinking they have a range advantage or something then start massively overbluffing turn with a weak range, but it's also gets tricky to play and can lead to costly mistakes so range cbet is a fine simplification imo.

Your thought processes for bluff selection seems good also but again this takes mental energy in a spot where BBs range doesn't warrant much respect. UTG range v BB range. Big bank takes little bank. Overfold to range bet.

I recently purchased Patrick Leonards MTT course, 'Pads on Pads' and one of the first (and most important) modules is 20bb EP vs BB opening ranges. And the lowest Ace being raised in his solved 8-max GTO ranges is A9o - And he specifically explained that A9o has been included when playing less than competent opponents. I would assume someone who is a short stack boss with $15 million in earnings knows what he's talking about. But hey sure

Yeah and a player like Pads is able to navigate postflop and play proper with those marginal holdings to realize ev, but hey sure. Also less than competent players is a bit vague for a player with 15 million in earnings since a player who's a reg in 55's and 109's is a less than competent player to Pads.

How is that their main hand and not AQ or pockets like 99 or JJ?

S how are you supposed to hit sets - from MP onwards? And even if you miss a set, doesn't opening strong from EP imply a stronger hand than the small pocket pair you actually have and give you cbet bluff options?

How do you determine range and that yours are equal?
Everyone talks about ranging opponents and calculating equity but no one explains it. I assume it ties in with charts I've seen but not sure how to calculate equity against it, determine that your ranges are equal, or how we can assume TAGs/LAGs have the same range as other TAGs/LAGs or that they're not loosening/tightening up as blinds get higher, stacks get shallower and the bubble/higher pay jumps approach.

Also, o the topic of starting hand charts, isn't blanket-assigning TAG/LAG hands to villains in all positions from UTG to BU a) treating villains as a homogenised, predictable bunch and b) over-rating villains (espesh at the lower stakes)?


[quote]AJs+/A5s prob 3bet pre but A2-A4 and A6s-ATs all have to peel with a straight up FD [/quot]
Why would A5 3bet preflop but not A6-AT?


Why?

All of those hands likely 3bet preflop all in or 3bet. They also don't take these lines postflop. 99 and JJ should be c/r flop or turn and AQs is very likely 3b but if it isn't AQcc should be jamming flop.

[QUOTE=MissVix;57047527]S how are you supposed to hit sets - from MP onwards? And even if you miss a set, doesn't opening strong from EP imply a stronger hand than the small pocket pair you actually have and give you cbet bluff options?


How do you determine range and that yours are equal?
Everyone talks about ranging opponents and calculating equity but no one explains it. I assume it ties in with charts I've seen but not sure how to calculate equity against it, determine that your ranges are equal, or how we can assume TAGs/LAGs have the same range as other TAGs/LAGs or that they're not loosening/tightening up as blinds get higher, stacks get shallower and the bubble/higher pay jumps approach.

Also, o the topic of starting hand charts, isn't blanket-assigning TAG/LAG hands to villains in all positions from UTG to BU a) treating villains as a homogenised, predictable bunch and b) over-rating villains (espesh at the lower stakes)?


Sometimes when you're EP you're just not able to cover every board. You're not going to be able to have every set etc from UTG+1 cause that's just opening too wide to have 22 etc with these stacks.

You take what you think their range is and compare the nut hands vs each other. Nut hands on the flop are considered 2pr or better combos. So on this flop your only nutted hand is 888 and maybe 444. You don't have 84s/82/222/444 like BB does. You also can look on a solver, it'll tell the range equity and ev for everyone. Also your AT has minimal equity when called and has some showdown value vs BB. If people deviate from charts then we just do our best to guess based on HUD stats and reads.

I mean it kind of is but the truth is you aren't going to be able to optimally play with that many vastly different ranges. It's better to just have baselines and change it a little bit. When you add/remove 20 combos on the flop it's not a big deal since BB will have hundreds of combos etc.

A5s works well as a bluff hand because it blocks their 4b range and doesn't play well postflop flatting really due to reverse implied odds and it being a marginal hand. It can make a wheel straight also where as A6-A9 can't and ATo can just elect to defend in BB or fold if not BB generally. If we were to 3bet all those combos we would just have too many hands.

Sorry for my late answer. Thank you all comments, it was very helpful for me.

ATo is my bottom hand in EP range, sure. So I could fold pre and I often fold ATo from UTG+1.

BB shall have very wide defending range with 20 bb, so therefore I decided to cbet, as I suppose he fold more than 60% of his range.
I agree, that AcTx would be better for cbet.

But as played, I called his nearly pot size bet on river in 2 seconds. Yes, he could have Xc6c hand. But he has a lot of bluffs in his range. With this river bet I shall defend in 55%. But I am not sure, that ATo is good candidate.

On the other side, my play was exactly as AX hand play. With over pair/sets of 8 I would probably bet bigger on flop and bet on turn or may be jam (with this stack sizes). So if villain thinks I have AX hand, than it would not make a sence to make pot river bet with X6 hand (as long as he thinks, that I thinks, that he thinks I have AX hand...). For me, it was like he is trying to steal the pot by big river bet.

But I don't think my play was the best, therefore I posted it here.