20/40

In the SB I have AK clubs. Folds to CO who raises. Loose, somewhat fun player but with hand reading abilities. BU folds, I 3bet, BB folds, CO 4bet, I call. This is still a relatively wide scenario for me because I will be 3betting all the hands I want to play out of the SB. No 5bet range.

Flop A76 rainbow. Should I be check raising here? I check call.

Turn A766. Full rainbow. Is there merit to a donk lead?

River A7668. I bet he snap folds queens.

Feel like i played my hand pretty straightforward here but also feel like I missed value. Also think he should pay off the river here but maybe I am just underbluffing here?

Why don’t you have a five bet range? As played, I think you pretty much have to CR the flop.

I’m out of position and don’t want to play my hand face up as QQ’s+ and Ak. By flatting his 3bet my range is uncapped on many different boards given that I 3bet him in a wide range situation (CO RFI).

If I check raise the flop, do I do it with a mixed strategy? Check raise strong aces, sets, two pair, and draws? What does my check calling range look like on this board?

You really need to be putting a raise in at some point. I prefer the turn. If he's at all reasonable you're fading the other two aces being in his hand, else you have the best hand.

I would not raise river as played. The 8 makes the board a little scary so I don't expect AQ to bet call all willy nilly.

I'm cool with just calling the 4 bet, but yeah if this isn't in a 5 bet range, then you simply can't have one. CO v SB we should probably have one in an optimal strategy, but you won't be missing out on much value without a 5 bet range. But the whole point of this is to disguise your hand strength and you have a much stronger hand than he'd expect here, and your turn xr range can be balanced out nicely by your 98s/T9s type hands.

Sorry, turn went check/check. My plan was to raise turn. Do other players have a 5bet range? I do not have one from any position. CA is a 4bet cap unless it is heads up, so I simplify my strategy and keep my range wider by not 5betting any hands.

evaluate whether it's preferable to raise flop or wait for turn for each part of their range.

against AK is a wash obviously and AA is too trivial a percent of his range to have an impact on your decision, so the decision to raise the flop or wait for the turn is hinged on the other parts of his range...

against AQ/AJ/AT it's almost a wash. he's likely to shut down against the flop raise with less than AK. but sometimes he gives too much action with AQ when you raise the flop (and when you raise the turn no one in their right mind is doing anything but calling down with these hands)

against underpairs it's also very close albeit a bit more complicated to calculate and depends on a lot of assumptions. it could go either way.

what clinches it imo though is when they have broadway hands that're bluffing. those hands may fold to the flop raise (or if not call and fold the large majority of turns), but will often two barrel if you just call. it's not quite that simple but i think overall against these hands there's a clear benefit to waiting for the turn.


if he NEVER has those bluff hands and his range is all mid pairs+ and AQ+ then I can see arguments for raising the flop. otherwise the turn seems preferable.



keep in mind if he's folding the river with queens what you lose with your value bets you should gain in spots where you bluff, where you're getting folds from probably 80%+ of his range.
his river range is primarily 88-KK. If you bluff you're wagering 1bb to win 5.5BB > 75% of the time. You don't have to adjust your bluffs (though against someone who folds QQ/KK you could conceivably bluff as strong as JJ profitably)… even if not though you just gain passively by how much more of a profit you show when you have KQs/99 and bluff with it.

+1 most players aren’t four betting pre here with an ace in their hand except for AA and AK

He open folded QQ on this board for one more? Man I'd punish this guy mercilessly after that.

Check raise flop with this hand and a variety of bluffs / semibluffs. I don't like the slow play out of position on this board as the 76 gives your range some draw possibilities. I think a drier board would be a better fit to wait till the turn to check raise.

Your opponent's fold on the river is really bad and something you should exploit going forward by bluffing in this type of spot. One question to ask yourself is why is this guy confident enough to fold queens here? Is he exploiting that you don't have enough bluffs?

He was very new to the table, had only been playing for two orbits. The info I know about him comes from the other people at the table, who had been talking about him before he showed up. I doubt I was being exploited.

My thoughts in real time was that I think a flop check raise is a little face up given that I am not 3betting a relatively unknown player with 89s most likely, so what bluffs do I really have here? Versus raising the turn I can have some thin peels on the flop that I turn into bluffs.

Do you really have that many bluffs? Are you 3betting 98 or T9s against a CO open? is he 4betting those hands? most realistic draws are backdoor draws and if he picks those up on the turn he'll 2 barrel usually which means you get more bets in. also kind of sucks to raise and get folds from hands like KQs without a bd flush draw that have close to zero equity.

the only hand/runout that raising the flop is clearly better for is when he has a bd draw that won't fold to the flop raise that ends up pairing on the turn and he checks back.

With a flush draw, sure, but you're not only going to raise when a bd flush draw comes in. If the turn is an offsuit 2 you're still raising AK i assume, and the most qualified bluff raise in that spot would be what, 88? i'd be fine just not bluffing and expecting AQ/AJ to call down almost always. the number of bluffs you'd need to balance your value is so small and the difference between doing it optimally and doing it never isn't noticeable. And realistically if you think raising 88 is good in a vacuum you probably also want to raise all your suited broadways that floated, 99, TT... there's very little difference.

If I’m never bluffing the turn then he can just fold pocket pairs easily to a turn check raise which means that I should be bluffing the turn. On A76 rainbow almost every turn that doesn’t pair the board will bring backdoor draws so having some floats that I turn into bluffs is not unreasonable? I do have a lot better board coverage than him.

Hands like T9s, T8s, 98s, and even 54s are good 3 bet pre / bluff candidates here. You also should have some air ball bluffs with back door potential, say like J8s, that can give up on later streets without improving. This is why we 3 bet those hands in order to allow us to balance our value with bluffs on all board textures. Give some thought to expanding your thinking along these lines, it will pay dividends, even if you decide to disagree with my advice.

There are clear limits to this thinking though. If we know that an opponent is only raising with AA then we would not raise these hands to exploit our opponent, however against an unknown opponent I'd default to "GTO mode" and put in the 3 bet with these hands until I have reason not to.

So you’re saying that in a SBvsCO situation, I should be re-stealing wide with suited connectors? The range you suggested seems too wide to me, but I’m open to new ways of thinking.

So on an A76 flop I should be check-raising wide and thus not delaying with AK, since I have enough bluffs in my range to not play my hand face-up.

You've got the idea. A default GTO based 3 bet range in this spot is ~ 30% of hands. This default range can then be tailored based on your opponent's specific leaks. Against opponents that fold too easily (like this villain) you can add more hands to this range to exploit his tight/weak play. Against opponents who play too tight preflop but well post you'll want to tighten up this range to exploit their overly tight preflop play.

Got lot of doubts a default 3bet from SB compose 30% range vs a CO is profitable.
I mean this would means CO open with what ? 45%-60% range at the minimum ?
Button or BB most be sleeping at the table if u dont get capped often imo...

30% of hands? That is very surprising to me. I usually defend 20% of hands out of the small blind.

Entirely possible I'm playing too loosely, wouldn't be the first time . What evidence are your default (tighter) ranges based on?

Players in my games don’t even open 30% of hands from the CO, so 3betting wider than they open while being OOP no matter what is kamikaze.

OK, sounds like you played it to perfection then.

I mean I feel like I got soul owned so I definitely see your point that I should open up my range in the sb. But 30% seems very high. What does a 30% open range look like?

I think that if this specific opponent is overfolding we can make more plays at it, so I like that as an exploitative strategy. However, I just want to know why you think it’s GTO to 3bet 30% from SB in a COvsSB situation. I do want to learn how to take my game to the next level and I believe that choosing the right moments to bluff is a huge part of that. I want to be able to go for it and play free but I am struggling in that regard.

In this specific spot I think check raising has some merits. I also think leading turn makes sense as well, since that card favors my range.

FWIW in JLot’s games a 30% 3 bet vs CO open may actually be a good range.


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A hands like 54s has about 37% equity against what I would consider a wide 40% open range from the CO. Does the equity even matter in your decision pre flop? Is this all about creating a range that is tougher to play against?

I could see 3 betting 98s. Are you including 54s in situations where your opponent is weak or perhaps too wide pre and can be restolen against?

I have opened up my game quite a bit in position. I'm trying to understand how doing this OOP makes sense as well. I get it that we are getting the SB discount.

Am I a nit or 3-betting an unknown with 54s is a bit much.

Technically 76s is the bottom of my range here, so adding in a hand like 65s or 54s is an exploit. It could certainly be folded, particularly against a tighter or unknown opener. I mentioned it in the original post as a candidate, though if I know a weak opponent would fold Queens on the river after checking back the turn on an A high board I'm going to push him in spots like this.

OP: A candidate 3b range vs. a CO opener could look like: AA-33, AKs-A2s, AKo-A5o, KQs-K5s, KQo-K9o, QJs-Q8s, QJo-QTo, JTs-J8s, JTo, T9s-T8s, 98s-97s, 87s, 76s. This range assumes balance post flop so keep that in mind. It's based on the solver/modeling work I've done at home. I'd encourage everyone to do this type of homework yourself as it is seriously enlightening. Humans play bad

Trying new things like adding some additional bluffs into your game is an exciting time and kudos to you for being sufficiently self aware of a potential growth vector. You will make some bad mistakes and feel like an idiot... I do this every weekend... ask JDR . But as you make those mistakes, take a note on it and think about it at home. You will settle on a new normal that pushes you in the right direction. Then you can experiment on that new new normal and learn from it as well. In poker, and in development in life in general, pushing yourself into uncharted waters is emotionally uncomfortable. You will make mistakes and that is perfectly natural, but the end output is that you will be better at that endeavor as a result of your experimentation.

Mon: I'm continuously amazed at how the solvers play and your question is a good one. My take on it is that the wide 3b in the SB is due to a few factors. First we get a small discount. Second we capture some dead money in the BB (always 3b, never call). Lastly we play perfectly OOP post flop. This last one is a big assumption, and includes ideas like having a donk check range on the flop, which 98% of live players these days do not have.

Reap: No, you're not a NIT, it is a bit much.