Hi all,

20/40 CO opens $40, BTN 3! $60, hero SB cold 4! $80 with QQ, BB folds and they both flat. BTN seems solid tag.

Flop ($260): J-8-4ss. Hero bets $20, CO folds, BTN raises to $40, dealer puts out the 4d prematurely, hero raises to $60, BTN calls.

Turn (natural river) ($400): 7c. Hero $40, btn raises to $80, hero calls.

"River": 5h. Hero x. btn $40, hero calls.

Thanks,
DT

Seems pretty standard. Hopefully opponent overplayed AJ but I would expect to see KK, AA, or a flopped set. I’m not folding on the river but I’m a call monkey and this is limit poker.

Weird to post dollar amounts in a LHE hand - it just makes it harder to read the hand. We think in terms of bets. In any case, nh.

Well played

Definitely call the river and nh. Is this a game with a 4bet cap? That's common but 5bet cap isn't unheard of and it's worth knowing . Vs a CO open, BUT has a very wide 3b range and folds nothing for one more bet. also, It's interesting to think about what hands he takes this line with postflop. He could have reasonably called flop with strong hands like sets or top two expecting you to bet many turns with your overpairs and raising appropriately. But he didn't and so I'd want to know why. The turn completed a couple of straights and improved 87 to two pair. If you happened to lose to those, then your flop aggression will be warranted vs him in future hands as he's probably got an exploitable habit of making free card raises. When he only calls flop bets IP he'll be weaker than usual, too. But if he just has set/J8s/AA/KK then I'd wonder how he views us. He's declining a very reliable and profitable turn raise. Does he think we're spewy and could we exploit that read elsewhere?

Thanks, he's solid probably thinks I am too.

Totally standard - you can’t do anything different on any street.

The flop 3bet is a clear mistake. Once a solid tag raises that flop after the hero 4 bet preflop there's just no way the math will be there to justify a 3bet. Once the solid tag raises in that spot it's time to check/call down UI and hope for the best. I would say to anyone in this thread, pull out whatever equity calculator you like, plug in a realistic range for the solid tag after they raise the flop, and they'll see what I'm talking about.

I generally agree with you but I see a lot of seemingly “solid” players in LA raise the flop with AK and then check the turn if they don’t improve.

lol this makes me feel better disagreeing with the advice you gave me in the other thread. very nitty way to play.

Well now we're getting into a No true Scotsman situation as I would say no solid tag is raising a non-spade AK in that spot after that action but whatever I'll sidestep that problem. The key to solving this riddle, IOW the key to understanding why this flop 3bet raise is a mistake is recognizing that the hero pays a higher price when he is wrong vs when he is right. This reality translates to the hero needing significantly north of 50% equity to justify his 3bet. And any honest range of the solid tag will not get us there. I encourage anyone to plug in a realistic range of the solid tag and see what they get.

Yeah he shouldn’t be raising a lot here but even good players raise like every Jack, tt, t9, a4ss er and when they check back the turn like a champion you’ll wish you’d bet the flop more

This is always true of aggressive actions unless our bet/raise triggers a cap. Is it your position that you need substantially greater than 50% equity when HU to take any aggressive action because you pay more when you get raised than you win when someone just calls?

Jx: If he truly is a solid tag we should discount Jx significantly after he raises the flop. I know preflop ranges are wider in this spot but the hero just 4 bet OOP. It's now HU, the solid tag is closing the action. There's no reason to raise for protection nor is the tag getting special odds for a value raise since the CO didn't call the flop. Many--I dare say most--solid tags would just call down in this spot UI and hope to win. After all, raising the flop opens the solid tag up to getting value owned and it also can induce the Hero to fold a hand near the bottom of his range--say on the turn--that the solid tag would rather stay in (IOW back to what I was talking about before as far why one needs equity significantly north of 50% to justify opening up the action and raising)

TT: I'm not gonna entertain the possibility of this holding. Raising that hand in THAT spot is just a terrible play. If a guy does that he is no longer a solid tag in my book.

T9s: The question is how often would a solid tag 3bet this hand vs a CO open? Are we just assuming 100%? I doubt that's the case, although I see nothing wrong with that.

As4s: Again, is it safe to assume that a solid tag is 3betting a CO open every time with this holding? I'm dubious. I suspect this hand should be discounted somewhat, but whatever I can get behind 100%.

Ok let's just to build a range here that you would basically agree with.

The CO opened and the Solid Tag 3bet from the BTN. At this point let's say the Solid Tag's range is AA-44, ATo+, KJo+, A4s+, All suited broadways, & T9s. Hopefully you find that agreeable enough. If you don't let me know.

Ok now to the flop. Assume the flop was Js8s4d. Hero bets and the solid tag raises. Now at this point let's say the solid tag's range is JJ+, Jx,88,44 & any spade hand/OESD that was initially in his range.

Ok, EVEN IF we don't discount Jx at all--something I think is completely unrealistic, the hero still only has 55.73% equity which in itself is probably not enough equity to justify a raise given the downside of re-opening the action.

This thread is like a throwback to the AggroHush poster days except for everyone not named ILP is him. Flop 3bet is terrible.

I actually just played a similar hand in solid rags position and board was 8 high and I just called down with QQ. But people play bad so I’d three bet flop

Setting aside the fact that a solver says button should just call with 100% of its range--and I mean 100% of its range, not 100% of its continuing range--we're indifferent between calling or raising with QQ when button does in fact raise, so I think calling it "terrible" or a "clear mistake" is wrong, or at minimum, hyperbole.

If we are going to interpret "solid TAG" as meaning someone who is tighter than optimal and who is going to think that an SB 4b after a CO and BU open/3b is a narrowish range, then sure, we can interpret the flop raise as quite strong. Bonus points if "solid TAG" means that the player does not do much bluff or semibluff raising. But I take "solid TAG" at face value, meaning this is someone who plays fundamentally sound poker. And against such a player, although they appear to have made a theoretical error in raising flop, I'm not going to read into that anything much more than that they haven't studied this kind of situation with a solver (surprise!). I do assume they know we are quite wide ourselves, this is a bloated pot, we are very likely to be c-betting a high percentage of the time if not 100%, and they are therefore incentivized to raise with MUCH less than the nuts here. Due to the pot size they should have a lot more value raises than bluffs, but what qualifies as a value raise is a lot worse than QQ.

So, we're not necessarily up against AA-KK or a set here. We can be up against AJ, JTs, J9s, T9s, and I'm not discounting nut flush draws and KTs and K9s type hands, completely either. Against basically every hand class we are ahead of our hand plays best as a b/3b and if we get 4b we can just call down. It's not that big of a deal. I very much disagree that the analysis is whether we have >50% equity (or more!) OOP here. Our hand plays better as a b/3b.

This is literally the widest range situation you can get in a 4bet pot. I might agree with you if our solid TAG had 3bet an early position raiser, but that’s not the hand we’re playing. I also agree that our hand plays so much better if we retain the initiative OOP.

The results of the solver are interesting but not really relevant to the argument. I gave the solid tag one of the widest ranges possible. I did not discount Jx at all and YET the results STILL support Hero NOT 3betting. When I say that 3betting is a clear mistake vs a solid tag in that spot there is no hyperbole. It's a bad level zero 3bet. Plain and simple. The reality of the situation is this: when the hero 4bets preflop with QQ, and a solid tag raises him on a Jack high flop in that spot the hero's thought process should be "FML" not "I have QQ therefore I 3bet!".

This is a cool story bro but none of this matters. At the end of the day math is the answer. Of course that's a bit simplistic since what really matters is our assumptions underpinning the math and I bent over backwords using assumptions I found patently ridiculous (I.E. not discounting Jx from a solid tags range in this spot at all)--assumptions all the cool kids in this thread should find extremely palatable --and YET the hero should STILL not 3bet.

Math doesn't care if you disagree with it.

The ranges of the participants was already accounted for. I understand the situation.

When I play poker my goal is to make money, IOW not set money on fire. So for example, let's say I'm HU on the river and someone bets. Assuming I'm going to call a 3bet, I should not make a value raise unless I am at least a 2-1 favorite. Now if I'm not showdown bound the math changes obviously. E.G. if I believe my opponent will never bluff 3bet and never 3bet for value with same or less, then I can safely fold to a reraise. In that case then I would only need 50.1% equity in theory to justify a raise.

When in position HU it is decidedly NOT my position that I "need substantially greater than 50% equity....to take any aggressive action [for value]" any more than it is my position that 2+2 = 4. The math is the math. And it is simply a mathematical fact that we need approx 66.7% equity for a value raise to be profitable assuming we are never folding when reraised.

Now out of position is more murky. The math is more vague becuz when we take a passive line we can't control the action, I.E. we can't ensure that bets go in every street when we are best. This translates to us needing to raise more in theory than if we were in position, but that said we still face the problem of paying more when we're "wrong" so to speak. So the equity we need to 3bet for value is somewhere north of 50% and south of 66.7%. My guess would be around 60%. Again this assumes we're never folding. If we are not showdown bound becuz we can trust that our opponent won't raise the turn or river with less for example then the math obviously changes.

We will need to agree to disagree that the "math is the math." Let's use a simpler example. When you are HU OOP on the river and you are deciding whether to bet or check, your "math is the math" claim would suggest that we should only bet if we have substantially greater than 50% equity. But, in fact, we should often bet even if we are infrequently good when we are called or raised. We do so because betting (maybe even bet/folding!) has a higher ev than check/calling or check/folding. Betting just needs to be our best option in the context of our overall strategy. But what I am drawing from your posts is that you would disagree with this, and if that is the case, I have zero confidence in your math.

Being OOP on a previous street (and not heads up) is more complicated because we need to consider future action and possibly multiway factors, but my sense is that actually makes the case stronger. We have to construct a strategy that accounts for playing our entire range in the way that maximizes our overall ev. Focusing only on the equity of our specific hand is not a theoretically sound way to build our strategy. For starters, and just for starters, your fundamental theorem of betting and raising only hands that have oodles of equity would mean we have zero bluffs. I cannot believe that 29,785 posts on 2p2 later, you are endorsing a framework in 2023 that would result in having zero bluffs and takes zero account for where our hand sits in our overall range.

Forgot to include this amazing snippet of cognitive dissonance.

lol your math sucks. “assuming I call a 3bet I need to be a 2:1 favorite” is insane. some of their range doesn’t 3bet! some of your range can raise/call, some can raise/fold. Some is raising as a bluff. You’re doing the level 0 thinking you accused others of doing

No I would not disagree with that. I was talking about opening up the action with a raise. Just didn't mention that scenario, which I would contend is one of the most important scenario's in limit holdem--specifically knowing when to bet/fold OOP on the river. Vs sooo many people check/calling in that spot will be death and bet/calling will be death. Knowing when to bet/fold HU OOP on the river is huge, and yes, one doesn't need to be even 50% good to make that play correct. Again there is no "agree to disagree" here. This doesn't come down to opinion.

We do not need to consider multiway factors. Stick to the hand. Multiway factors change everything, but this hand is not multiway the moment the solid tag raises the flop.

Vs humans I disagree with this vehemently. Now we can agree to disagree. Playing against humans is not about having balanced ranges/game theory it's about making money and exploitative strategies make the most. I'm not dismissing game theory out of hand. I think studying that has lots of value. Great intuition builder, but in the heat of battle knowing when to be exploitative is the key to maximizing earn.

I can't tell if you have misunderstood me or are purposely being disingenuous. Look let's focus on the hand. Talking about what our range should be in a spot vs some super human computer is a major copout. We are focusing on one play in a vacuum. Either the hero's 3bet on the flop vs this particular opponent is burning money or not. That's what's up for debate. Do not run to another subject.