GG Rush and Cash 1/2 - 100 Effective Stacks

UTG with A A T 8 we raise. UTG+1 calls, everyone folds.

Flop (8.5): T 6 3

We check, villian checks.

Turn (8.5): 9

We check, villain bets 6.375 (3/4), we call.

River (21.25): 9

We check, villain bets pot, 21.25, hero ?

Think Hero should bet flop.

As played, think Hero should call. We block both the t and 8 and unblock all villain draws. Villain can even value bet worse overpairs, etc.

Bet flop, as played bet turn. On the river we're just guessing and call might be fine.

Would have said check flop but now think betting is better. Betting hands like this (AA:Tcc,hh,ss)) gets us just under 10% of all AA. Pretty sure I want at least that many AA cbets on this board.

As played, no strong feelings about turn lead vs check but playing the latter as kc seems right. River I would call getting this price but not happy about it.

Ya betting is the way to go OTF - checking allows the villain to do whatever they want and now you're in a guessing game. As played the turn created a lot of draws that bricked the river, so I guess I'd call.

I think the only clear decision in this hand is to check the flop and I'm checking my entire range.

Why? Hero has range advantage.

T63 is dry, despite two low cards.

We block his most likely continuation card.

He should be betting A LOT when we check.

We should be trying for a xr.

Edit: Also, we have a range advantage now - but the board can change fast.

Funny to see 4 people all say to bet and give reasoning and then you say it's the only clear decision the other way. I don't think he should be or is betting a lot when we check.

It looks like my reply didn’t get sent, or I may replay twice, and if so, sorry.

I agree, it is funny.

An UTG + 1 calling range is extremely narrow. It has a lot of KK hands in it rhat we’re not good enough to 3b. It has a lot of RROOxxyw hands in it. It has a lot of Tens in it. It has low rundowns that were not good enough to 3b.

Wazz - you are not checking this range after I check to you. You basically recommend betting every pair on every flop at every chance in every thread I read on here and now the action is raise, call… T high rainbow flop check to you and you have KK and you expect me to believe you are checking behind?

Think through your UTG+1 cold calling range and tell me again you are checking it back after I check to you.

I'm in practice not that hyper aggressive at all but in a lot of these close spots in general erring on the side of aggression is likely to be a smaller mistake than the passive, so in practice a lot of close spots fall to one side.

Why should I want to bet wide on this board when checked to? We have: some hands with showdown value & backdoors, some with pairs, some with a combo draw even if it's just a gutshot, some of these hands are worth a bet, some aren't. It's not like with a 3 on board we're expecting as much action from tight early position raise and call to interact with this board too strongly, so why should he want to just step in to the void left behind by your check and bravely stick his face into god knows what when he can check back hands that can either or both call just one street in position (a huge number of these) or a small number of outs to the nuts such as pure gutshot. Because he can be very fluid with how he mixes in his check backs with his bets for hands he only wants to bet one street, it's like mixing the move order up in chess in order to find a more forcing sacrifice.

I'm not fully tracking that, but are saying that you would check most of your UTG+1 range on this board after I check to you? Because, if so, I don't really believe it, and if it is true, it's probably not the right adjustment it's not disastrous for my hand...

I know you don't care, but others do. In this spot FlopHero is checking 99.2% of UTG range and then UTG+1 is betting 85% of his range... and I think most of us are betting that too after UTG checks because after UTG checks we expect him to have his AKQT, KQJ9 type of hands and not AA, because, let's face it - no one here is checking my hand in this spot.

So, I check, you have KKJJss, KQJTss, JJ99, KQJJ, JJ77, 7543, etc., are you really checking behind? I'm not, I'm for sure betting and I'm probably betting a lot of hands and I think all of you are as well.

Mark its really hard to follow some of your reasoning here.

Flop seems slightly better than average for Hero and most villains should have lots of checkbacks on this board. It's certainly ok if Hero wants to start with a check instead of a bet, but that doesn't mean that betting is a bad decision.

Or if you are convinced its a bad decision please elaborate on the reasoning - such as villain will overrealize his equity on too many turn/river run-outs. Or checking is important because Hero wants to protect various tx and overpair hands in range on this texture. Etc.

Note: a flop texture like this is a little tricky to evaluate because its a disconnected low board with the lowest broadway card. This type of flop is unlikely to have a clear player consensus on the best line, especially since players may have different views on what UTG+1 calling range looks like.

So you ran a solver solution for this spot and it wanted to almost pure check this texture? Ok - that's fine. I understand plenty of the reasoning that can lead to this preference.

But is solver check-calling or check-raising? That's actually a lot more informative than its decision to start with a check is.

Also - solver suggesting utg+1 betting 85% of range when checked to seems quite high. It makes me suspect I could be overvaluing this texture for utg PFR even though I don't think utg+1 call range connects with it very well either.


Finally, even if solver wants to play this flop in a particular way, that does not mean its preferred strategy actually lines up with player population norms or a particular villain. It's very important to remember that solvers are a tool to help players become better and make more money. Even definitive solver solutions can be very misleading if the reader doesn't have a strong understanding of the processes it used to generate the solution.

I really enjoy seeing more discussion of solver solutions in the forum, but we should acknowledge that they can also make discussing PLO strategy more challenging and complicated - while solvers are very powerful the consumer experience can still be very raw (in addition to time-consuming and/or expensive), and it remains difficult to repackage strategy for power users into wider market solutions.

If we bet flop do we fold to a pot sized bet on turn? What do we do if a q hits turn and are raised half pot if so? Ty

So i ran this hand through flophero based on your post Mark. My first flophero sim.

The ev expectation between check and bet on the flop is virtually identical: 4.3 check vs 4.26 bet.

Solver also notes this simulation is "an infrequent spot," which means it can be less accurate than other spots - but i don't have a good enough understanding of flophero to fully understand what that means.

After starting with a check, flophero mostly calls vs either a pot-sized or 1/2 psb, though it does raise a small portion of range - this particular combo of aa it can go either way. It re-pots 2/9 aat8 combos vs full pot (that is the combos with 2 backdoor flush draws) and raises pot with 2/3 of its aat8 combos vs a half-pot bet.

Note: that the solver doesn't have a single fold on the flop vs any bet on the flop with its entire range - and it is opening 16.7% of hands in its high rake simulation utg. I'm not sure that range is really appropiate, it seems a bit wide.

Finally - i ran this same simulation with slightly worse position for one or more players to see how the strategy changed.

If this was a UTG+1 open and btn call, the solver nows likes potting close to 30% of its range on the flop, including some aat8 hands.


It's important to note that the solver is also very sticky against any cbet, folding only 20% of the time against any pot-sized bet and less vs smaller sizing.


This was a useful simulation because I think it does demonstrate that while a solver does offer good baseline recommendations in a spot like this, its ranges and strategy are likely out of sync with population tendencies.

Bet mostly to avoid situations like you got lol, check, call.

As played, I mean he can have a straight I guess but we unblock clubs Ks Qs and Js so I’m calling.

Yes, those are some hands that may bet, but essentially what you're claiming is that there's something specific and obvious about this board texture such that I and many other aggro players are liable just to see this flop and bet without thinking. It's far from immediately obvious why this board texture should specifically see a check from utg and a bet from utg+1. If utg+1 has a strong hand he wants two-three streets from he will likely bet; if he doesn't, he may check, same as many other boards. When the preflop raiser checks first to speak, I don't just go 'oh he has nothing, I'll bet range', I'm very aware that there are some calls and maybe raises coming my way so I bet with care. just because FlopHero does something doesn't make it clear and obvious why it would be good to do same or similar against a human opponent.

Great, I'm glad to see you use it. It is virtually identical, but it checks 99.2% of hands and bets 0.8% and it is saying these two are about equal. It's not saying the difference between checking / betting this hand is trivial as it squarely puts this hand into the checking group and I have not seen a way to find the EV comparing options for a specific hand (which would be great).

I also don't know the ramifications of this.

This isn't right - solver is folding 35% of its' range to a PSB. It is not folding any AAxx for a bet after checking, but it is folding 35% of it's range to a flop pot sized bet. All of the hands like AKJ9, AK77, KQJ8, KQJ5,9955, 9944, etc. they are all c/f to a pot size bet.


Very interesting! I just ran the same spot and see that solver is checking 89% (UTG+1 open, BTN call, T63r flop). Oh I see, if you have AA selected then yes, it wants to PSB 30% of AAxxyy range in this situation. Mixing it that approximately equally for all hands except those with a gunshot which are nearly pure bets. What is also interesting here though is that of the hands it is betting (AAQ7, AAJ3, type hands) all bets come from AAdd as it's the only combo without two backdoor flush draws. All of those are checks.


Not sure what you mean here.

Great discussion. It seems to me many people would default cbet whereas solver would check a lot (maybe because UTG+1 should have a very tight cold calling range). Not saying cbet isn't good in practice taking into account population tendency.

Follow up question would be what should be UTG+1's adjustment if UTG is cbetting too much compared to theory (e.g. cbetting 100% of his AATx)?