game is avg. 3-4 to the flop. tightish player opens in mp. next tag player cc. all fold. AsA6 b/c. turn 9s checked through. river 6s. c/b/fold. mp had kk. next guy had 77. obv these guy were playing on different fields. which plays were most -ev over the long run? rank and describe.

Coldcaller and it's probably not too close.

Folding KK there is probably only a small mistake against an unknown at worst. CO should be betting that turn to get KQ/KJ/even 88 out!

77 coldcaller

Maybe you guys can help me understand why.

I thought the worst mistake was folding KK on the river. there are 4 bets out there and KK must be good way more than 20%.

yeah 77 should bet the turn. The whole reason to call in the first place it to make MP's life miserable.

Cold calling with 77 is close. Is 3-betting better? Folding?

I think betting 77 on the river is correct. Agreed?

Saint Mary and Joseph, Christ alive, this hand is a nightmare.

They both played it lolariously terribad. 77 took a huge lead early on as the worst player with his PF cold-call first in (if the PFR is tight, it's an easy fold unless he can expect like 5- or 6-way action after his CC, but since the game averages 3 to the flop then it sucks), as he should have just folded it or 3-bet vs. a looser player.

On the flop it's a pretty easy fold unless he's planning to steal it with a float, but he's so far behind everything MP can have that it's much better to give up, since I assume the reason he didn't 3-bet was because MP has a tight range of like 99+ and AK/AQ/AJ. The only hand he's ahead of is KQ, but if that's in the guy's range then he should 3-bet PF and take control of the hand. Since he floated the flop, he might as well go ahead and bet the turn hoping MP folds. But when he checks the turn back, he absolutely can never ever ever bluff the river or value bet it. Betting the river is lighting $40 on fire unless MP is so miserably terrible as to fold KK.

Which brings us to MP, who was definitely doing fine up until it got important. Flop c-bet is standard, as the texture of the board has us miles ahead of every hand villain can have except some random Ax hand the guy decided not to 3-bet with (maybe he cold-calls AJs or ATs), so if I had KK I'd be pretty happy with this flop. I don't mind the turn check at all, since he'll often get more $ by inducing bets on the turn and river. And guys that peel the flop will usually fold to another barrel. So on the river, he should realize the guy is just trying to get to showdown cheap, which argues for a river bet and hope for a crying call from JJ/TT/99/88/77. (Unless he thinks the floater is capable of having a 6 in his hand -- in which case he should check and hope the guy bets 100% of his range; if the guy does bet, it's a turbo-snap-fistpump-call). By giving up on the hand after the flop call, KK has decided he hates money, life, and poker all at once. 77, also a money hater, hit the lottery in that he was up against a villain bad enough to bail him out after 3 streets of atrocious poker.

This obviously the perfect analsyis but don't you want the 12 minutes that it took you to write this back?

he's helping me out. Now why would he want that time back?

from top to bottom

folding the river is bad but it's not as bad as it looks.
KK is getting like 4.5:1 so if he's right more than ~23% of the time he's profiting. But how much? Fractions of a bet. I mean, how often IS he right? It's probably less than 30% without reads on 77 guy.

This is the same thing as folding some marginal hand getting marginal odds in the BB. Just because you would have won a big pot doesn't(or might win a big pot) doesn't mean folding PF is a "big mistake." It is what it is.

Versus an MPO 3betting 77 is the best play for sure. Coldcalling is probably the worst. You just announce to the entire table that you have two cards between five and Queen.

His river bet is good but only because the board is double paired and K high will call and the turn got checked through. If 77 bets the turn he really shouldn't be betting the river. Betting turn >>>>>>>> betting river


IMO here's how it should have happened
As played
MP opens KK CO coldcalls with 77
AA696(bdfd)
MP bets flop turn river. Fold only to turn raise. When MP checks the turn 77 should be betting. If MP bet twice and checked the river this is a close spot because live players just blow me away because so many are checking literally anything worse than an Ace here so often. I usually VB 77+ just because I hate missing bets and don't mind the occasional spew but there are definitely people I've checked behind with TT here in similar spots.

Good player vs good player

MPO, CO 3b 77
AA6 MP c/c
turn 9 MP c/c
river 6 MP checks CO thinks forever and checks behind and loses.


EDIT: just saw some people wrote in before me. I'd personally never fold this flop for 1 bet and I don't think anyone else should either.

Yeah, value-betting to get calls from k-high.

All the mistakes that the 77 made were fraction of pot mistakes. Should raise the flop, bet the turn, 3bet or fold PF. But all these things are only fractions of bets. The fold by KK at the end costs the entire pot. Of course, maybe that's to results oriented.

I'm just saying it's inconsistent with the PF play. The PF cold-call says one thing loud and clear: "I think I am behind MP's range." This means you think MP has 77+, AK/AQ/AJ and maaaybe KQ. On the flop, you're behind every single hand except KQ so it's a fold by the same logic. The flop call says something else loud and clear: "I am ahead of plenty of hands, such as KQ/KJ/KT/QJs/QTs/JTs, 22-55, and some random suited connectors like 87s, while still being behind many of his hands; let's see what happens on the turn)." In that case, you should obviously have 3-bet preflop since 77 is ahead of a range that includes all those hands.

So if I believe what he's saying with the PF cold-call, then calling the flop can't be correct unless it's a planned float to steal the pot with a turn raise.

Whatever we think of 77 guy at least he had the read/stones that his opponent was a weak enough player to topple for a bet, whatever he had. KK guy just sux outright, imo. Turn gets checked thru and he either doesn't bet river or at least call? Horrible, weak/scared bad hand and situation reader, must do awful in the game.

It costs him the whole pot a fraction of the time. So it's really a fraction of a bet mistake too. But I think the the fraction of the time he is good is closer to 1/3 making it a pretty big error IMO.

Yeah that's actually a pretty good point.

Still though, and everyone does this, we just assume that villain is capable of drawing logical conclusions which is seldom(but certainly not never) the case.

case in point, this hand.

ok ok. I crack. I had 77.

I should have 3-bet pf. I was hoping (praying) that it was going to be 4 or 5-way to the flop for 2 bets. I don't adjust to tighter games very well.

On the flop I was planning to call and raise the turn to make a play at the pot. This guy is a folder, I know he can lay down a hand, so I was hoping to get KK-88, and the suited broadways to fold. Problem with this logic is that there is a jackpot and he's going to call to see the river with TT-KK. Or maybe he will check-call down. Such a dumb idea.

I froze up when he checked the turn. I didn't think he would fold TT-KK and just really didn't think at all.

On the river I thought he must have King high and so I bet for value. What a disaster with a good ending. (I mucked quickly. Deep into the muck.)

if it makes you feel any better I play 60 hands a day worse than this.

I don't know, if this guy is actually capable of folding KK then besides PF you probably took the best line.(against TT-KK) Which is weird.

It always makes me feel better to hear how other people make mistakes too. Guy I was sitting next to at the table last night claims to have lost 7 million in the market. CEO of Chesapeake got a margin call which forced him to sell all his shares. 33 million of them.

Makes me feel better about losing my poker winnings in the market.

So you think KK guy should check the flop and check-call down? I might not be doing enough checking in spots like this.