200/400 Ante 50 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (MP): 30.77 BB
MP+1: 48.97 BB
MP+2: 76.99 BB
CO: 23.12 BB
BTN: 26.97 BB
SB: 19.01 BB
BB: 113.35 BB
UTG: 37.39 BB
UTG+1: 68.38 BB

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has Qd Qc
fold, UTG+1 raises to 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold

Flop : (6.62 BB, 2 players) Kc 7d Jd
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets 2.18 BB, UTG+1 raises to 6.55 BB, Hero calls 4.37 BB

Turn : (19.73 BB, 2 players) 2s
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks

River : (19.73 BB, 2 players) Qs
UTG+1 bets 59.7 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 22.09 BB and is all-in


The call pre is unorthodox, but V had very tight stats and I don't mind shoving if we get squeezed. So flop x/r followed by a check ott seems like AK/AJ possibly with a d - could potentially even be like a TT with a d bluff. We call with plenty of bd equity and we're potentially ahead, then xb turn to see what he does otr - he insta-shoves. Does he have any bluffs when he uses this sizing? Seems more likely that he's either slow played KK/JJ/77 or hit his straight, but AT seems unlikely given the flop x/r (though I assume this is reasonable with the gs). Do we have to just call regardless?

At a glance I think I make the crying call but I'm not good enough to fold lol. I'm also having trouble figuring out which value hands we have beat. I'd imagine if he flops a set and we call x/r, I'm guessing he'd barrel most turns too. If he was slowing down with AK or AJ then he can't really like a Q on the river. And it's highly unlikely he rivered 2 pair obv.

It's a decent bluffing card because he'd improve some hands in his range, but risky because you'd also improve some hands in yours.

Would he open that early with 10-9s? If so, I could see him x/r'ing flop than trying to take a free river.

~41BB in the pot after he shoves, ~22 more to call, I think you're probably good often enough. Whatever he had, he played it weirdly.

Fold flop

Always calling here. He can easily be value betting worse; your image of him limits his T9. I guess he can have some AT, especially with a FD, but how can we fold this?

I think we can rule out T9s given stats, so value hands that beat us are only the ATs and KK combos (maybe AT). Humans do some whacky things, so even if he's not bluffing properly he could potentially still fire here with AA AK or whatever, maybe a dd combo though we blocks AQs KQs, but if course there are still the lower sets. Even TT can bluff here blocking the nuts. So yeah it's never a fold

Dude if you're going to make pointless inelaborate posts can you at least make sure the advice isn't terrible

Why is that advice so terrible? You basically block all his bluffs except AT but
I'm not sure people c/raise that too often.

Why is my advice terrible? Because vilain somehow magically had AT in this hand and you made a standard river call when he got there so you make a result oriented thread where you dont even question your flop play.

Okay, so firstly I'd like to apologise for coming off as offensive - it just generally irritates me when somebody gives a two or three word strat response without any elaboration as to why they're suggesting what they're suggesting. As for the advice itself - IP still has around 40% equity AFTER Oop range is narrowed by the x/r. We need to call just over 4bb into what will be around a 20bb pot. I'll let you do the math but I'll give you a hint - it isn't close. If we're ever going to consider folding flop here then it has to be HIGHLY exploitative based on significantly more reads/stats than I at that time currently had.

I expected to be criticised for the flat pre, the flop bet (rather than check) and for even bringing up the possibility of folding a river that is almost certainly a snap call. As far as I can tell, folding flop is most certainly not amongst the number of actions that I could have done differently - this is confirmed by the professionals that I discuss HH with and also by Pio. I mean, had you elaborated on your post with sound logic (that we block basically all bluffs is NOT sound logic) then we wouldn't be having this debate.

Have I made a result oriented thread where I don't even question my flop play? I don't think I have. I actually think the flop bet was kind of pointless (although ev is very similar to checking). Had the flop come KQJ and we called down three streets of betting then I wouldn't have made the thread, because that's standard and uninteresting. What was interesting about this was V's action - x/r flop, check turn, shove a river that drastically improves us - not a line/runout you see all too often. In honesty, I actually post primarily to gain insight from the general pop. into what a V can be thinking when I'm struggling to comprehend a line, whereas for strat advice regarding my own line I go to the sources I already mentioned.

Please kindly elaborate soundly on why flop is a fold and we can put this whole fiasco behind us

Wow if it is confirmed by professionals and pio then you must be right, so sorry to have given terrible advice for you.

Honestly your contradicting yourself when you say flop is an absolute must call and then you get pretty much get the best runout you can hope for on the river and dont know whether you should call or not.

Yes you should def call flop at some frequency and probably at a very high frequency vs certain vilains, but you just said this vilain in particular is very tight which is why you didnt 3! In the first place, like do you really think this nit is going crazy with TdTx or AdQx or AdTx all of a sudden? The only reasonable bluff he has is AdTd and thats one combo

Why would you flat QQ preflop with 30xBB because villain has tight stats? If he is tight, he is more likely to have a hand to call or 4-bet with.

Preflop: Fine

Flop: For starters I think you should be checking this flop. This is a hand that we want to be betting 1 or 2 streets. We check this flop because the villain will fold when they have nothing and we don't want to get checkraise here. If the villain was a call station then I think it's fine to bet the flop, check the turn and make a bet on most rivers.

Turn: You call the flop and now are checking the turn here hoping that he has a flush draw and it bricks? You got the safest card you could ask for here. I think you should be shoving this turn if you are calling this flop given the stack sizes. If you were deeper, a check is fine.

River: This is basically the best card that you could hope for. You are beating so much of his range. Two pair combos, AK, KQ (Don't know if he check raises this). There are very few reasonable hands that this tight player can have that beat you. AdTd or Td9d(maybe he raises any T9 in this spot). The villain could have KdTd and gets to the river and doesn't know what to do so he decides to shove.

Agree, check back flop and call river. Sorry he had AT.

Sorry, are you suggesting with your sarcasm that you know better than a perfect equilibrium solver? May I see a graph?

River is a snap call and I snap called - I was enquiring as to whether any universe existed where we could exploitatively contemplate not calling; it's not that I was unsure whether to call.

So this player type misunderstanding is largely my fault for an inadequate V description - I had in the region of 50 hands on him which could easily be a run of dead cards and the table was very squeezey which heavily influenced my decision not to 3bet (I'm perfectly willing to shove over a 3!). So any read I thought I may have had on V wasn't adequate to make such assumptions - being results oriented a moment, he had AThh and if he's going to x/r a pure gutter then yeah he has a plethora of bluffs in his range. So I apologise for the misleading info re. V description (tight was simply my impression of him up to that point)


I'm sorry to have hurt your feelings, but seems it was necessary for some elaboration for which I'll thank you, kind sir.

Ty, agree re. flop and an interesting perspective ott. Of course we're ahead of a lot more than just a fd at this point, plus there are hands that are marginally ahead of us that may check down river yet still call a shove, ie Kx

A perfect equilibrium solver is only as good as the parameters that you give him so in theory you are your own pio and if you include a massive range of bluffs in his x/r then obv QdQ is a call and its not even close.

Usually without reads and tight stats i wouldve given him some benefit of the doubt and given him a tighter x/r range, more towards value than bluffs.

I mostly play mid-high stakes plo cash now so i dont know if all you 100$ tournament wizards are just x/r the fu.k out of each other now and if its thats the case then yeah dont fold flop.

I think flatting is better here. The only point of 3b is if he's opening wider and won't fold hands like 66,77,KJs here if you 3b, which he prob would. You also have a chance of getting squeezed behind you which of course is great. This is a max 2 streets of value hand so there's really no point in betting the flop - I think his mid pairs might give you 1 bet if you check flop bet the turn, of course you can get c/r, and hands like AJ will probably give you 2 streets regardless if you bet or check flop.

So you're quick to use equilibrium strategy as a defense for your flop play, but are looking for any excuse to disregard equilibrium on the river? Where do you think the EV of the flop continue comes from? There's not much to talk about the hand. The correct play on the river is obvious. Anything else can only be justified by "it feels bad".

This feels more like a provocative attempt than anything else, but okay.. I'll bite a little.

The 'fold flop' debacle was more on my part an annoyance at the lack of elaboration rather than the content - had the fella initially included some of the reasoning expressed in his following posts then I'd likely have given a 'point taken, thanks' type of response rather than a vehement attack (for which I apologise). However, making a concrete statement that totally contradicts the advice of Pio, ie 'fold flop', is lightyears away from merely questioning whether there is any hint at the existence of an exploitative world where this river can be folded ("looking for any excuse to disregard equilibrium on the river?" wtf are you talking about?). "quick to use equilibrium strategy as a defense for your flop play" I agreed several times that my flop play was bad both here and privately.

"There's not much to talk about the hand." I don't care one iota about how much there is to talk about this hand - if there is one small piece of advice that aids me then the hand was worth discussing, which there has been both here and privately.

"Anything else can only be justified by "it feels bad"." I couldn't care less about busting a $109 mtt - I don't feel anything. What I do care about is making bad decisions and if I'm unsure about decisions I've made during a hand then I'll question them. The river call was by far the least of what I was questioning, but by all means go ahead and highlight that in an attempt to provoke. Rather, I would like to know more about the thought process of a V who takes this line and shoves the river - how often is general pop. (ie the members of this forum) doing this as a bluff?


Edit: Now, I've gone way off into the realms of entertaining myself and I won't be responding to anymore non-strategy related posts (at least I'll try not to)

Quite literally echoing my in-game thoughts regarding pre-flop and yeah I agree with everything you've said about post.

Pf is fine
Flop bet is A blunder
Rest of hand is standard

Could you please elaborate? (A bit of a repetitive topic in this thread, but elaboration is necessary for others to understand how and why you've made your conclusions so as to be able to determine validity)

Please don't make the mistake of taking the following as a defense for my actions, since I'm absolutely willing to make mistakes and learn from them, and am impartial when analyzing my own hands, but 'blunder' is a very strong word when considering that there is very little difference in EV between checking and a small bet, even when the range input for Oop is significantly tighter than at equilibrium (I ran both sims and Oop EV only increases over the top 20% of the ranges - of course range interaction/EV is key when making flop decisions whereas equity is more prominent otr). Again (and even disregarding results which I'm pretty sure the vast majority fail to do when analyzing hands), I prefer a flop check. But to claim a small bet to be a blunder seems wholly inaccurate - the blunder would be to bet big or fold (sorry Joe). Besides, if our intention is to mix our strategy (which in my case it certainly is) then we have to bet here at some frequency

I mean if you already ran the sim and the ev of bet vs check is similar than you don’t need my advice I guess your supposed to check this hand very often though

Yeah it's a vast majority check in the tight Oop sim and a bet around a fifth or sixth of the time in the GTO sim. I'd go as far as saying that betting is a small mistake considering that at this point we believed V to be on the tighter side

I mean if it’s only betting 15-20% then it might even converge out if you let it run. For all intents and purposes. It’s a pure check imo