Say an 'unknown' MP player open-raises 3BB, everyone folds to me in the big-blind with ATs and I flat (by the way, Alex Fitzgerald recommends 3-betting dominated-hands in the blinds).

I assign ~20% VPIP to an 'unknown' MP opener.

Flop comes A84r for top-pair & so-so kicker. MP c-bets 2/3 pot after my check.

But on the turn what do I do out-of-position:

1. Check/fold if he double-barrels (but he could have a worse kicker)

2. Check the turn hoping he checks-behind (confirming he has nothing)

3. Check/raise

4. Donk-bet the turn. I do this a LOT, getting say 60% folds; but 40% calls (then I know I'm in trouble facing 2-pair or a set)

Follow up:
Is their simulation software to run situations like this. Does PokerSnowie allow you to simulate specific situations?

This is a very clear flop check/call. Donking the turn is very bad as he mostly just continues with hands that beat you and folds or raises his bluffs. Brick turns should be check/called again barring a very large sizing as the hand is still a bit too strong to be folded yet on such a dry board.

Yes you can use Snowie to analyze specific situations. I'm not sure how useful it is, though. It doesn't use the same ranges that you'll encounter playing humans and it is pretty far from theoretical optimal play.

None of this matters if you 3bet/fold preflop. Better players than me will frequently point out that mistakes postflop are reduced with good range decisions preflop.

also

That's just flat wrong, many regs will either check flop or turn with TPGK (versus other regs).

When you call in the BB with this hand and the board runs Ace + 4 bricks, you pretty much committed to bluff catch to SD. Raising at any point turns your good SD into a bluff; folding at any point means you put a load of money into the pot and then gave up all your equity.

Since either scenario sucks, why put yourself into this position in the first place?? And yes, I see it is sooted...don't change nuthin.

To be clear (coz this is BQ innit) this is an unknown (I'm assuming 100bb effective stack, which is standard) villain, RFI 3X in MP. Once you start changing those parameters, my advice would change.

I play 25nlz and in this exact spot I fold preflop (coz i know my population ranges and I'm nitty versus tight EP/MP ranges); I have a mixed strategy with AJs versus EP/MP RFI (50% 3bet, 50% fold). Against a 2.5bb or smaller EP/MP raise, I call ATs/AJs 100% (in the BB). Zoom is a game of accurate decisions.

PS I don't use snowie or pio....yet

this is very, very bad. Like, calling 100bb preflop allins with 27o bad. Dont bluff with your bluffcatchers.

1) What browni said. As played -

XC flop
XC turn unless bet is really oddly large
X river. If villain fires river as well, at this point its probably safe to assume you're beat but if bet is relatively small compared to the pot its still a call.

2) What FatBoy said

If you 3b pre as a semi-bluff you can fold out a lot of better hands and if you get called or raised, you now know you're likely dead in the water and don't have to put one more chip in.

Following your line - villain raises to 3 and you call from the bb so pot is 7. Villain bets 4bb otf and you call - now you're in for 7, pot is 15. Villain bets 10 OTT (brick) and you have no idea where you are. You still check call and now you're in for 17bb.

But if you 3b pre you've a good chance of taking it down, and a good 3b is 8-9bb which is HALF what you end up paying on the hand as played otherwise. If you get called, check fold flop unless flop is ATx or better. If you get re-raised pre, you fold, saving half what you would have otherwise on a very weak ace.

I couldn't keep myself from joining the conversation but couple of the things that were suggested are very questionable. First off fatboy suggests flatting AJs as the bottom of your range in the BB which means that you are basicly underdefending by insane amount. I do not think however that this is a very bad strategy for a beginner player but it will eventually become a pretty big leak as you move up. 3 Betting it makes sense sometimes however be careful with the logic you imply here to 3 betting ( We fold better hands and if we get called we are dead ). This type of logic will get you 3 betting every single suited ace in that case. I think the go to play is to just call, look to check call twice a lot and fold rivers. Players at micro stakes are not capable of 3 barrel bluffing much so you won't have to worry about being exploited. Also a lot of them are gonna be nitty enough to check as high as Top pair top kicker on bunch of runouts so you will be able to get to showdown more often than you think.

Read the post mate properly mate. That's not even close to what I said.

I said I have a mixed strategy (3bet or fold) versus an unknown 3x RFI in EP/MP with AJs, but I call ATs/AJs in the BB against smaller opens from EP/MP in the BB (only) because of the better price.

I 3bet AJs all day long against LP opens, villains with high fold to 3bet, loose fish yada yada yada...none of which are the spot in question. And all of this is zoom strat based on known population EP ranges.

ggrrrr BQ, no matter how much you spell it out, somebody cherry picks 10% of your post.

That's certainly the go to play in lots of weak small stakes live games and maybe the smallest stakes online, but probably not anymore if you reach the upper end of micro stakes like NL25.

Overfolding preflop is generally significantly cheaper than overfolding the river and players (with the help of software) are smart enough to find out that your preflop calling range includes all kinds of Ax hands that you are not willing to take to showdown on Axxxx boards.

But in your typical 1/3 live game, against reasonable bet sizes, c/c, c/c, c/f is pretty solid advice on lots of runouts.

In general, I would call at least two streets and then fold or bluff the river depending on the run out.

ATs is usually a 3-bet pre, so I'm going to pretend you have ATo, as that's a more obvious call pre.
Since AT on A84r is a very good bluff-catcher, but not a strong value hand that wants to bloat the pot (like A8s or 88 or 44), just check and call. You usually only want to put two bets in the pot. On many boards, you can fold the river if the flop and turn go check-call/check-call, as you'll have better hands (2prs, straights etc) to call with on the river. If villain checks back the turn after betting flop, you can lead some rivers, or check-call again.

P.S. I would not recommend this for stakes below 200NL, but the GTO play probably involves check-minraising the flop at some frequency, even though it sounds like a ******ed line if you're an ABC player. Everyone will be doing it in 2023. You heard it here first.

what other hands would you check-min raise here on the flop with?
what % of the time would you check-min raise with AT and other hands?

The question 'how to get away from good top pair hands' is essentially the same as how does one hand read. You can learn to make more accurate assumptions by practicing. Spots like this will become easier the more you encounter them but there isn't a one size fits all solution to anything in poker. The opponent in question is always key.
Villain can easily be betting worse otf and turn and I'm rarely folding to a turn bet here. Of the 4 options you'v suggested 2 is going to be the best line a lot although it's worth noting that if villain checks behind on the turn it doesn't mean 'he has nothing'. Option 3 and 4 will rarely be advisable.

To date, I don't think I've ever check-minraised top pair on Axx (it's too weird even for me), but I'm mostly playing microstakes and tourneys for lolz against very bad players, so I try not to get too fancy, but pseudo-GTO play apparently features some very surprising strategies.

On A84r in BB v MP in the spot described, Snowie recommends min check-raising 25% of its range. At the top of the range (fat value) are 88, 44, A8s, A4s all at 100% frequency. At the bottom of the range (bluffs) are the gutshots (76s, 65s) also at 100% frequency. Mixed in with these at various frequencies are some top pairs (like AQ at 96%, AJ at 89%) apparently for thin value, and some middle pairs (e.g. 87s and 66 at about 55%) and bottom pairs (54s at 100%) for protection/semi-bluff.



Solvers like Pio/GTO+ probably have somewhat similar strategies for this spot, but the precise frequencies depend on which pre-flop ranges and bet-sizes you specify. It's of constant amusement to me that many plays that look incredibly fishy are apparently part of theoretical optimal play. The old "minraise to see where I'm at" is coming back in a big way, just like the old 8bb "stop and go" has in tourneys.

How likely do you think it is that Snowie's strategy for this spot is just not very good? I have a hard time trusting it when it has so many contradictions in it's strategies. I don't think it's accurate to claim it is "pseudo-GTO," when it gives advice that is very clearly not even close to equilibrium in many spots, such as where it suggests river calling ranges which lose a lot of money to the range it suggested the other player bet.

I don't think Snowie is trying to "see where it's at." It's a value raise.

I was joking with the "raising to see where I'm at" comment. The concept came up in the Janda thread, where there was a big discussion about the merits of check-raising A8 on 8xx. It's a raise for value/protection, but it looks like the "raise to find out where I'm at" play, of which fish are so fond, but top regs have implemented into their strategies.

I really have no idea how good or near-GTO Snowie's strategy is. From the handful of Pio/GTO+ "solutions" I've seen, it definitely differs in its recommendations, although there are clearly some similarities. Its river play continues to perplex me (the ranges don't 'add up', as you mentioned, but I think this is due to the neural network learning by playing against all strategies, rather than just what it thinks is best). It just feels like it's become harder to beat over time, but this is possibly confirmation bias on my part. Anecdotally, I beat it over 20,000 hands before it introduced the 1/4 pot sizing (possibly due to positive variance), but now it routinely destroys me. I am pretty terrible at poker though. :/

the reason you are getting this weird results is because you are only allowing one, very small raise size - raises this small have to be somewhat depolarized because they are offering such great odds.

All raise sizes are "allowable", but Snowie actually thinks that quarter pot is the best size of its 4 options for maximising EV for the entire range in that spot. (It doesn't do range-splitting, with various hands using different sizes, like the solvers do. It only uses one size for its entire range). If you force it to use 1/2 pot or pot or 2x pot, then the check-raising frequency is lower and the ranges are indeed more polarized. FWIW, I've been analysing various flop textures for BTN v BB spots and 1/4 pot is by far its "favourite" check-raise size, but on some textures it prefers larger raises. It's really strange, but then 1/4 pot c-bets and 3x pot turn bets seemed strange until RedBaron started doing them. :/