20/40 9 handed. Folded to tagfish who raises in mp. Loose-ish preflop, probably opens too wide from ep and mp. I 3bet AThh. Call.

Flop QQ9r one heart. How do you proceed on a board like this?

Bet


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Where are you?

Anyways, bet.

Interesting spot, what position are you in?

Sorry I am on the button. I feel weird about betting here since if he folds I probably had him crushed and if I continue I have too much showdown to turn my hand into a bluff.

Why do you have him crushed?

He may have two live cards, he could have a straight draw, he might have a better Ace, or he could have a pocket pair.

Regardless I’d bet the flop.

Thank you! This is a spot I think about too, and have similar concerns related to the concept of GTO thinking you mentioned (folding out worse, not really a bluff, etc.). I think there are some key concepts to consider and I'll try to back these up with some solver work.

Here are the ranges I gave the players. I gave the MP player a slightly wider range than I have based on your read. I'm sure there's room for debate here but we can start with these:

MP - AA-44, AKs-A2s, KQs-K5s, QJs-Q8s, JTs-J8s, T9s-T8s, 98s-97s, 87s-86s, 76s, 75s, AKo-A7o, KQo-KTo, QJo-QTo, JTo.

BTN - AA-55, AKs-A3s, KQs-K9s, QJs-QTs, JTs-J9s, T9s, 98s, AKo-A9o, KQo-KJo.

On the board of QcQh9s, the solver (pio) bets 91% of it's range. The 9% in it's check range is just some mixed strats. For example, ATh bets 86% of the time. It's betting it's entire range like this. Essentially GTO is to always bet, with an occasional check back.

Let's look at a different board, 8d7h5s. Here it also bets with all hands, but at a lower frequency of 71%, mixing in more check backs.

Last one - 8d7d6d. Now my iron friend still bets all hands, but does so at a 61% frequency.

I think the concept here is that certain board textures favor our stronger 3b range over the MP's wider opening range. A relatively dry flop like QcQh9s favors our range more than the wet flop of 8d7d6d and we should tailor our betting frequencies accordingly. As a practical simplification, always betting on a board like QcQh9s and mixing in some checks on a board like 8d7d6d seems correct.

This is also an interesting spot to exploit opponents. If you are against a very aggressive player who is going to check raise you frequently on wet boards, you could incorporate some more checks. If your opponent is passive and not likely to check raise then bet all the time. In this way you are balancing your range, at least from your opponents perspective.

Like you, I have some trouble getting my head wrapped around how this syncs with the logic of what type of bet is this... value or bluff? I think the answer is that our range is too tight to balance by checking or betting 100% with certain hands, so instead we balance by incorporating check backs across all hands at a % tailored to the flop texture. Would be interested in the thoughts of other folks as well.

I should make one quick clarification. When Pio bets it's entire range at an average of 61% of the time, that does not mean it bets every hand in it's range 61%. It'll bet it's stronger hands more often, say 80% and it's weaker hands less often, say 50%.

@jlot: Thanks for doing the time to put this spot into your solver. I agree that it’s much more interesting a spot than it may ostensibly appear to be. The solvers sometimes do strange things that make sense to the machine but may defy conventional wisdom. So basically in this case we have a very good range advantage and so should bet this board quite liberally. It seems that in a mixed strategy, however, this hand is slightly more mixed in favor of checking. Does that mean that if we bet 91%, this would be one of the better hands to check, or do we just simplify the strategy by always betting here mp vs cutoff and saving our checks for smaller, monotone, connected boards?

If he folds on the flop I have him crushed is what I meant. But yes, there are hands that I get value against but it’s very thin. I’m just wondering what the purpose of a bet is here and what we do on various run-outs.

Technically yes, however the difference is so small that I think the best plan is to just always bet this board (QQ9). There's not a very practical way to check back a hand 10% of the time so just always bet. On a less favorable flop (monotone, lower, connected) it makes more sense to select hands to check back some 1 in 3 times. How to manage this practically is really the issue, so to simplify, maybe think of it in terms of exploiting your opponents tendencies on these textures.

I have been checking back a lot more hands in hu situations lately which I thought was good because I had seen good players do so in the games I play, but maybe that is a mistake? Or is it a completely different situation hu vs a blind as apposed to heads up in a 3b pot versus an open from the field.

I see lots of hands we can get value from. KJ, KT, JT, T8s, worse Ax. Also deny equity to hands like 87s which probably won't peel this board but have a 24% chance of hitting something to beat us (which is great to fold out when we have to invest just 1 sb into a pot of 6.75).

Also from an exploitative sense, you get check raised on this board at an incredibly low frequency by hands you're in terrible shape against as many players 4 bet pre with JJ+ and slowplay to the turn with Qx hands or 99 (though people are making these slowplays less now IME). All these factors lead me to want to bet 100% of my 3 bet range on this texture. ATs is fine to bet with.

Completely different situation and it's important to understand the differences. In a HU situation vs. a blind, ranges will be much wider than in a 3b pot. This is the most extreme in a blind vs. blind or BTN vs. BB battle when ranges are very wide. In these scenarios there are sufficient hands in the preflop aggressor's range which can profitably check back 100% of the time as a defensive measure. A hand like 66 in a BTN vs. BB battle on a Q97 board is a good example.

Now let's think about another scenario, LJ raise (UTG 6 Max) vs. BB. Here the UTG raise will be much tighter and so therefore we will have a situation that is more like the hand in this thread. It's correct for the LJ to bet all hands, but mix in some check backs with a hand like 66 (50%).

Finally, let's look at an UTG 9max vs. BB. In this scenario on the Q97 board we only check back 66 30% of the time.

So the moral of the story is that as your range tightens you should have less check backs, tailored to the texture of the board and how it fits your range vs. your opponent's. In a wide range spot you'll have enough hands in your range so you can check some back 100% of the time, but in a tight range spot you'll just check back those hands a % of the time, defaulting to bet.

I'll just add to JLot's excellent posts by saying many "good" players just copy each other and don't really know why they are doing what they are doing. Solver stuff is pretty hard to get right, when you find a new idea that you haven't done before it seems like you find tons of spots to start trying it.

Bet flop. Bet turn and make him fold AK face up and give a speech about how bad he runs. NH

I see you ran this without villain having a capping range. Nice.

If villain has a reasonable capping range this is range bet 100%. So I agree we should always just bet here.

i think jlots estimate is pretty liberal relative to what you actually have, but more importantly relative to what he thinks you have.

when people open too wide it generally means they're not expecting to get 3bet light. if his perception is that he's getting 3bet LESS than optimal it's a pretty rough spot for almost all of his range besides qx. which means you might actually get better hands to fold like AJ, and you most likely won't get raised.

2 barrels seems mandatory with the third depending on the run out.