online midsteaks game starting on a 9h table, one sitting out so dealt 4h. Abe is otherwise new and unremarkable.

two folds and Abe raises SB. I 3b BB with As4sJsKd and Abe calls. 6 SB.

FLOP: 7c9s8s.

Abe checks, I bet, Abe raises. I have good but not great equity and nut potential on the high side so I prefer to see what the turn brings. Open to raise arguments but I'm not pausing the action for them. I call. 5 BB.

TURN: 7c9s8s 9d.

Abe bets and I call.

RIVER: 7c9s8s 9d Jd.

Abe bets and I ...

i find this one kinda interesting

blocking three spades (and As at that) he isn't gonna show up with those really strong combo draws that whiffed (A2ss etc). but you unblock all flop pairs, and you block one straight card.

i think i would fold here as i feel like i'm towards the bottom of my range. i do find it somewhat compelling to call because of pot size, and honestly i think it's fairly close. but the blocker info kinda pushes me towards folding.

Interesting spot. 78 got counterfeited and we beat some lo + overcard combos that might have taken a creative line on the flop , also worse flush draws. Even like 2345 taking this line can be pretty good.

. So call is probably okish in a vacuum and from a gto standpoint - irl we might be able to adjust by folding to more conservative opponent - who also aren't going to find many ratty and creative raises on flop - but even then they might have a similar hand like akq3 with worse flush draw turned into a bluff as sound practice.

Think we can mix in a few checks on the flop and also sometimes put in a 3rd bet on flop / raise on turn with such good equity and the j blocker.

I think you have too many zero showdown value hands in your range to fold this one.

Agree that it is interesting. Likely depends on how wide he is pre, but I’d fold this one. I’d also just call pre.

I'd call river.

i definitely think it's a river call now after some consideration and discussion

Don't like the preflop raise, especially against a SB raiser...you're giving away your hand (ie..you almost always have an Ace with a wheel card here).

I'd probably make a crying call...fully expecting to lose most of the time...but getting 8-1 (I think), you probably are good 12.5% of the time.

as bb your job is to oppress the sb

I would call here almost always.

Maybe I have a different definition of ‘unremarkable’ but I would never expect to be good here against unremarkable player that c/r this flop. Even more so when we block spades.

'Unremarkable' players are capable of playing A2 this way ime.

In NLHE, yes.

In heads up, limit Omaha8, against a SB that has already shown strength, you're just bloating the pot. His hand is probably no worse than yours, frequently better, so it's just a card holding contest at this point as evidenced by this discussion...calling with TPTK in Omaha has got to be -EV against all but the craziest maniacs.

The range of hands I would do it with all beat hero - 652A, T62A, JT2A, overpairs - except for A2 with spades. And unlikely I have any hands in that part of range since hero has 3 spades (overpairs would probably be in my 4bet range actually).

X/r, barrel, barrel is just not a bluff often enough in my mind, but you play way more limit than me so noted that most seem to agree with you.

Maybe it's a function of the stakes that I play, but it's astonishing to me that so many people want to fold this hand. Maybe at smaller stakes folding is correct? I have no idea.

i wanna say yes but i doubt i've had much interaction with your player pool.

what i will say is from my own experience and observations, many of the GTO calls one might be making are payoff calls on the lower end of the stake spectrum. you just run into a lot more weaktight nits, for one, or people who just don't have their bluffing frequencies at the right level.

and i contrast that to my own experiences of higher stakes play (about up to mid-stakes) and observations of higher stakes, and that's where i do see those bluffs normalize more.

i will add, though, that this thread has been pretty useful for me in correcting how i view the bottom of my range. like, i had a hand vaguely similar to this one today where i ended up calling OTR with a J and picked off a bluff. and that was a direct result of your response and discussing it with someone else (thanks, guys!). to further add onto that, it didn't seem at all good to fold because i expected my opponents to be bluffing closer in-line to correct frequencies, given the stakes. but probably if i were playing something like 2/4, i wouldn't really even think much of folding. whether i would or not is a different question, but i'd certainly be more inclined to make an exploitative fold against someone who probably isn't adhering to a solid strategy.

No doubt stakes matter but then you’re just reducing the frequency of triple-barreling with A2Q/J/whatever you know is going to lose to AK as you move up. So then it just becomes a matter of classifying Abe.

I would call in a 4h mid stakes game but you don’t think it’s close? We block three spades, stuff like A37T got there as well as some combo draws with spades we don’t block such as hands like QsTsxx. I’m also not sure a counterfeited bottom two pair plays like this all of the time. So I can see the case that his ratio of value to bluff hands can exceed the high pot odds we are getting.

That said we have a jack and paired one on the river which helps block JT so we might win more often than if we had AA which blocks him doing something with just a low draw

Am I wrong to think that many of those don't count? That, on the river, I'm supposed to look at "hands that can beat a bluff" and fold the proper fraction of those, here 1/9th? My theory is weak, for sure.

I'll take a crack at it.

When we look at his ratio of value hands to bluffs, we are mostly looking to exploit our opponent and I feel this is the view we should mostly consider.

As a matter of practice though, we should always think through how often we are folding to that line on this board runout. If we are overfolding then there is opportunity to get exploited where our opponent can profit by taking more hands than we anticipate and turn them into bluffs. Then in the long run this would ultimately impact the ratio we consider above.

Not sure if I understand what you mean. Theoretically you are supposed to look where you are at your range, what kind of blockers you have and make decisions based on that.

Nevermind, I found my misunderstanding by opening up my copy of MoP. It seems I'm confusing how an oop player must determine his call/fold point facing a bet after checking with how an ip player must construct his call/fold point facing a bet. You, scotch, and RUT are right, unsurprisingly. For those following along, Examples 11.3 and 17.1 in MoP helped me get there.

Another benefit for raising is keeping our range uncapped - we can better rep aa, kk and a2/a3 hands that will be greatly discounted if we flat.

Agree that we are not pushing much equity. But bloating the pot is not that big a deal with a hand that wants to showdown a lot anyway. And playing this hand aggressively should be beneficial for our entire range.

I generally would reraise this preflop, against a 40% open range we have around 54% equity, position, and don’t discount the AK combo which is very valuable in headsup O8b pots.