PokerStars - 3000/6000 Ante 600 NL - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 152,656 (VPIP: 32.73, PFR: 16.16, 3Bet Preflop: 8.82, Hands: 123)
Hero (SB): 117,344

2 players post ante of 600, Hero posts SB 3,000, BB posts BB 6,000

Pre Flop: (pot: 10,200) Hero has T 7

Hero calls 3,000, BB checks

Flop: (13,200, 2 players) 7 8 8
BB checks, Hero bets 9,000, BB calls 9,000

Turn: (31,200, 2 players) A
BB checks, Hero checks

River: (31,200, 2 players) 3
BB bets 15,600, Hero ??

I seldom do combo work like this so i want to check that I have done it right and see if hero calling in this spot is good/bad

So from a combinations perceptive i figure the hands that beat me are:

Any eight apart from 88 because he didn't raise pre - 96 combos

Any ace below A9 because he didn't raise pre - 128 combos

Any two heats excluding A9s+ and KJs+ because he didn't raise pre - 60 combos

Totaling 284 combos that beat me

He bets half pot, so i am getting 3-1 meaning i need to be good 2% of the time, so that means if I can beat 25% of 284 combos which is 78 then its a break even call right?

I figure he could have the following bluffs - J9s+, T9s, 65s, 54s, J9o+, T9o, 65o which accounts for 68 combos but if we add 54o then its 80 combos but of course we cannot expect him to call the flop and bet the river with that combo

All in all it seems like a close spot right?

Call.

Size your bets down post flop.

Considering how wide his range is to start the hand and getting that price otr I dont mind calling

Ya it seems very close; I could go either way. His range could be much different than we're assuming. Though, a ten is a bad card for us to have. I'd definitely rather call other 7x, fold 74-j7 no heart, but meh, fine to call.

I think flop size is ok. Seems fairly std.

Flop is way too big, esp for a polarized board like this that could've smashed his check range. He can have every 8x while we can't. Something like 6k is vastly better.

River is a call cause we won't have many other hands we can play this way to get to river with.

Also what's with no reads deep in a tournament?

I agree with you with the flop sizing

What about the combo work that i did, was it all correct?

I purposefully left out reads of the villain because i wanted to review this hand just from a mathematical/combo perspective

I'll be honest I didn't read it but without reads we have no idea what they'll do in the BB with these stacks. It's not a spot you'll get into often. Better way to critically analyze is how proper are you shoving going into the money etc. Villain should prob be jamming any ace, KJs+, 55+ and some other stuff pre. So we're concerned about how he plays his random heart hands and 69 etc.

If any one can comment on how i approach the combinations work that would be great

Villain was splashy with his calls and his bets; he seldom fired three streets but often take a single stab at pots

How do you figure out their ranges? That's hard and just takes time. To start just go each street at a time.

You raise the button preflop here HU what do you expect him to defend with? Ok so he has that range, some of his range he'll be jamming as well so we take some of those out like 99-QQ potentially. Then we see what the flop comes and evaluate based on his range assessment we had whether we wanna barrel the flop if we have an advantage. Then down the line until we hopefully have a defined range on the river. Also things to consider are the hands he can't have cause of what YOU have. So he can't have 7's full as likely cause 77 likely jams pre and there's only one combo. He CAN have A8/89/86s/87 etc etc so yeah just working out what they likely have and how to exploit it. But mostly people just play straight forward and betting means strength and maybe a spew bluff once in a while which has 0 logic.

What's hero's range that gets to the river?

He didn't raise pre. Villain probably doesn't have A8. I don't think you should assume people "just play straight forward."

What range do you think he called flop with?


That's the real question!

Then how do we treat randoms then? How do we assign them ranges until proven otherwise? They have to have an assigned range so what do you wanna assign them? I'm not being a jerk i'm just saying they have to have something so personally most people at low stakes; A. unbalanced B. not creative (taking proper bluff lines or incorporating on various boards) C. don't hand read well and can make money playing vanilla poker.

Even if we didn't raise and limped you can still parse out the logic. So we limped pre, how do we play flops etc.

More important. What hands you beat? 72-97 only
What hands beats you? Ufff, a lot of hands...


Read Will Tipton's HU book. You will improve a lot in HU games and narrowing ranges
When I said read it, I mean that you have to do the hard work the book puts you through

I'd prefer a half pot bet otf

Anyone else doesn't like the turn check? hero's cards are now face up 7x except for a8 i guess.

I'd prefer another half pot bet or 1/3 and easy fold if we face resistance. And we can fold out other 7x, and khx, qhx type of hand that floated the flop.

We have good flop showdown and ok showdown since villain shouldn't have many aces and certainly not suited ones. Would rather just protect that equity and maybe look into what hands do we want to be bluffing with also.

I didn't think that matter much given that the villain is not a thinking Reg


BTW i would probably be checking an ace on the turn in this spot

I guess i should have included the villain splasy tendencies in the OP as we need his tendencies to range him properly. Given his tendencies i think i ranged him more or less right, maybe a little too wide? (Check op)

In the Op i wrote i'm beat by = Any eight apart from 88 because he didn't raise pre - 96 combos

Any ace below A9 because he didn't raise pre - 128 combos

Any two heats excluding A9s+ and KJs+ because he didn't raise pre - 60 combos

Totaling 284 combos that beat me


What i beat is = J9s+, T9s, 65s, 54s, J9o+, T9o, 65o which accounts for 68 combos but if we add 54o then its 80 combos but of course we cannot expect him to call the flop and bet the river with that combo


Thanks for the book suggestion and all the comments guys

Then it's probably more important to worry about your own ranges first given that you have no idea how villain will play their ranges vs you. Just call off the top x% in your range based on the sizing you face and any other adjustments you want to make based on population reads and/or exploits.

Yeah flop way too big. Optimal sizing is gonna be somewhat small (anywhere from cbet10%-cbet33%) because you should be stabbing pretty wide with a quite wide range (this being HU) which implies lots of air in your betting range which implies small sizing.

AP, V likely calls flop with a menagerie of 8x, 7x, FDs and SDs. This combo is probably ~75th percentile of V's range and probably ~70th percentile of your range so depending on how you look at it it's either a great barrel (beating most of V's range) or a great check (strong enough to bolster your turn checking range), thus turn plays as a mix.

River V's sizing is kind weird, it's either too big or too small depending on what he's trying to accomplish.

His river sizing is perhaps a tad big, considering how much air is in your range he can easily get away with close to 50% folds from smaller sizing like 10k.

But at the same time, your range is weak enough to where an overbet would really generate lots of folds, and since V has so much 8x he certainly wants to maximize his value from 8x and an overbet also makes sense in that case. So in that respect, V's sizing is also perhaps too small.

V is almost surely unbalanced in this spot, but it's hard to tell if he's exploitably strong (too much fat value relative to equilibrium, hence he's going so big because he wants to get paid to the max) or if he's exploitably weak (too much air relative to equilibrium, hence he's going so big because he really wants a fold).

I'm inclined to call because this bet just feels like a half-hearted bluff attempt (V should have plenty of, say, 65, Q-high, K-high that may want to stab) and besides, you can't fold a hand this high up in your range vs this sizing without being exploitable, anyway.

This is actually pretty high up there in your range. Most of your range OTR is Q-high and worse (look really, really closely at that texture). Prob 80th percentile now that you've filtered/capped your range somewhat via checking turn.


In this spot where V's have tons of air in their range I do think lots of V's will stab river suboptimally (too wide) making this even more of a call.

To give you an idea of how juicy this hero call is, I estimate the $EV is anywhere from 1.8%-2.5% of the remaining prizepool. Assuming 1st place is 50 buy-ins and 2nd place is 25 buy-ins, this call is probably worth ~1.5 buy-ins in $EV.

You have to make this call.

Thanks for that detailed response


I did indeed make the call and villain showed J9o

I think it's a fold pre. Why split your range OTF? You have great equity in the hand, so why not enjoy it, take a free card.

Bet Turn 15K OTT.

He reps big OTR, you have to put KQ in his range, I call I guess sometimes based on the range that villian added to his bluffing range OTR by checking the turn.

Folding pre seems too tight at 20bbs, especially when we have position postflop and most villains don’t isolate vs limps at anywhere near the correct frequency.