No real history vs villain, just know that I've seen him in the player pool a few times. Considering I block a T and unblock 4,5 and A - should I call this? Just seems so rare to ever see a bluff in these stakes with this line.

Also - should I cbet flop here with my whole range?


PokerStars Zoom, Omaha Pot Limit - €0.10/€0.25 - 6 players
Replay this hand on Pokeit

UTG (Hero): €45.53 (182 bb)
MP: €11.80 (47 bb)
CO: €25.70 (103 bb)
BU: €35.68 (143 bb)
SB: €60.18 (241 bb)
BB: €25.00 (100 bb)

Pre-Flop: (€0.35) Hero is UTG with K 8 K T
Hero raises to €0.85, 2 players fold, BTN calls €0.85, 2 players fold

Flop: (€2.05) 3 T 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets €1.95, Hero calls €1.95

Turn: (€5.95) J (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets €5.65, Hero calls €5.65

River: (€17.25) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets €16.39, UTG (Hero) ?

Why are you check-calling the flop? You prefer to be in control of the hand yourself. Just bet it and barrel this turn.

If it's very rare to see a triple barrel bluff, then you can fold, and you block some of the diamonds you want him to have, but as you pointed out, there are the A4567 type hands he can have, and his value-betting range shouldn't be particularly wide, i.e. if he has AA people at this level will tend to take their sdv on this river. I probably wouldn't call every time but I'm probably calling here most of the time and expecting to see some junky ****.

I appreciate the quick input Wazz.

I should've cbet the flop with my range advantage which in turn would allow me to better understand the opponents actions.

Checking this flop is not crazy, let's be clear, it a valid option but should not be the default. The default should be bet 1/3. With only one backdoor flush draw solver likes a pure check here, but with two back doors it likes betting 85% of the time at various sizes.

After you decide to check the flop, which is fine, you played it very well and should be folding to the river. I think you have way better calling hands in your range than this overpair and think you should be pure folding here 100% of the time

+1

I like that backdoor flush draws are finally getting some love on the Omaha forum as a way to decide how to bet or check.

Yeah, when I joined this place in pre-solver days, we didn't know how to account for backdoor flush draws at all and just bet regardless of backdoor equity. Good thing this place is finally moving with the times.

My guess is the most common action as the OOP raiser in a single raised pot with stacks this deep is check. Another guess is that we should have cbets and id swag it at 15-20% frequency given we opened from the LJ and called by the BUT.

Given the check you like kc. The same features that make this hand a good bet also make it a good kr, imo. So I'm curious as to why. The features are top pair (blocking top set), pocket pair and those notorious backdoors. These all stack together in a way that I can see a lot of turns and river to barrel off. Why do you think calling might be better? Is this board so dry/low that our middling advantage in overpairs wants value from small bets?

How do we bucket this hand to one or the other in practice? AAT8ds is nuttier and less vulnerable to overcards, so maybe that's the better kr and this is the better cbet?

Interesting spot and interesting perspectives offered so far.

This is actually why I ran it through a solver. I felt like, for all of the reasons that you listed, that this would be a great hand to put into the xr bucket. I'm not sure I understand why it's better in the cc bucket. I wish I had monkersolver to view the equity range graphs as they would shed light on this.

With AAT8ds it's checking with two backdoor flush draws (78%) and betting with only a single flush draw (84%). In the case with two backdoor flush draws, when it bets, it likes 3/4-PSB, whereas with a single flush draw it primarily bets 1/3 (61%). Also, with AA it is finding a lot of xr if we have a wheel card so like AAT2-5, AA44, AA54, AA54, AA52, AA43, AA52, AA32, AA55, AA44, AA22 all get put in our CR range. Also, AA with the straight draws get a 50% xr frequency (AA4x, AA5x). With KK it only finds xr with KKTT, KK55, KK33, KK54, KKT3, KKT2, so I guess it just has enough xr's from other parts of our distribution that this hand doesn't need to be in it. Yeah, some of the findings from the AA also follow for ATww - lots of xr with the T blocker and wheel cards (when they check)

Well, I also agreed with Wazz's logic and wanted to see what bet size solver would choose here as I'd lean towards small, but I also know I cbet too frequently.

Despite actually studying game theory at university, and in general trying to keep my hand in when it comes to learning how this stuff works, I'm really at a loss here in terms of trying to understand either the appeal or benefit of this sort of analysis.

Am I right in saying that none of these solvers are utilising neural nets? i.e. it's just brute force, strat vs strat iteration until it finds one that doesn't lose, and there's no AI actually involved?

I'm not sure why you feel that way. GTO has completely revitalized my interest in poker. I quit playing for a long time as I was stubborn and never transitioned from LHE to NLH and the games basically died. I did come back for a few months and got pretty good at GTO limit holdem via Newall's book (best book I remember ever reading about poker), but then quit again as it just didn't really feel worth it to me as online was basically dead.

As far as the stuff I posted above about the AAww, I'm endlessly fascinated by it and how it is somewhat intuitive when you see it, but not really before you see it. I think its invaluable to know where the baseline frequencies are (I'm not even close) and then apply exploitive adjustments from there. I am not sure I'd be on the forums right now if it wasn't for GTO. I also love when it confirms the play that most book / intuitive / classically trained players would make. It validates.

With respect to neural nets and AI I think it depends on what you mean. AI is such a misapplied term (I work in data science) that I'm not sure people use it in the right way. ALL GTO solvers use AI in a context, as I believe they all start from Conterfactual Regret Minimization, which is a form of reinforcement learning, which is a form of machine learning, which is a form of AI. Are they using neural nets? I think not many.

cbet range is crazy lol if anything we are closer to to range check.

I like bet on the flop on this texture blocking the T, I also like 1/2 pot because most players are peeling too wide vs 1/3 and I want to be playing against a range I better understand.

I’m barreling turn and check calling river.

As played after flop check, I think call, and call river is mandatory, we have the best hand a ton.

Switch the 8d for the Qd and I’m check shipping the turn.

Interesting discussion on flop. Main takeaway for me is that its close either way and both options are fine. Its not like you lose money checking instead of betting or vica verca.

As played, I also call only on turn and I'm snapping river.

Expect to win a decent amount of the time vs players who turn JT into a bluff. Can also expect to see hands like missed 654, A54 or 54 with turned diamonds. You block TT and JJ is unlikely. Can lose to some other boats/quads but whatever. Think its a good call.

I think you lose a lot of money checking the flop. I think it's burning money in fact. It's not like this is a flop we can expect villain to bet frequently when checked to. We have about as strong a 1 pair hand as we can have, and this is a flop where 1 pair is going to be the vast majority of his range to get to this point and his range for calling a bet. And I'm unclear on how you could exploit our betting this hand.

It's a good hand to catch some stabs across a couple of streets

Although probably betting that flop is correct as a default strategy versus the metagame and specially against an uknown player in those high rake levels like Pokerstars Zoom NL25, I have taken the time to analyze your hand in our app FlopHero and there are several points to analyze here.

One key elements of the hand is that the SPR is higher than normal, because the BTN has 143bb. The solver flop strategy differs a lot between 100 and 150bb solutions, due to the fact that the OOP player is in a bigger disadvantage as the stacks behind are getting larger.

Our solver checks 75,9% with its whole range with 100bb, and bets around 50% when it's holding KKxx.


But if we check 150bb stack size solutions, now the checking range is around 90% whole range and with KKxx checking 95%. With 200bb the solution is pretty similar


If the effective stack size was 50bb, the strategy should be similar to the 100bb, where you bet a lot of your KK specially with the 2 backdoors as others pointed out.

At the river, your decision it's easier than it seems because you are only calling the turn pot bet because you have a strong flush draw, not because the strength of KK plus the T.


Our app recommends a GTO river call of 40% in that spot to keep you unexploitable but the EV of your exact combo is a little negative, so you can safely fold to a 3barrel because people usually can't create many bluffs on those lines.
https://i.imgur.com/93NJnw5.png

You can check it yourself here https://app.flophero.com/omaha/strat...rds=Ts3c2dJd3h

Not to overanalyze but if I call turn as played I'm probably calling ng river around 35percent of the time.