Hey all,

Curious as to thoughts on all streets, thought it was an interesting hand to my limited experience at these stakes. I am expecting tons of "wow you played it terrible" lol! I'll share my thoughts and final results on each street later.

Very important (I think), was this was my first hand at 5/10 at about 3am on a Sat night so I have zero feel for table dynamics although I have played 5/10 here twice before with very small success, and the game generally plays big and aggressive on weekends. I came straight in to big blind and am literally stacking my sloppy ~$1,300 obv coming from 2/5 while hand is dealt.

Hero - I was an obvious rec player taking a shot, play a lot of 2/5 and roll has grown to taking a few shots at 5/10 for fun/experience

Villain - was a pro/regular (seen playing 5/10 a lot) sitting on a very large stack

9 players folds to button
Villain ($6k+?) raises to $50 from button
SB folds
Hero ($1,300) calls $50 from BB with QJ

Flop ($105) - 1093
Hero checks
Villain bets $75
Hero C/R to $210
Villain calls

Turn ($525) - 10
Hero leads for $375
Villain has medium-long think then calls

River ($1,275) - Q
Hero checks
Villain shoves (I have about $700 left)

Hero ???

Hey, interesting hand.
Preflop action: i would've 3 bet the button raiser because it was coming from the button with no caller, so probably trying to steal the blinds. So your 3 bet would've give you more informations on your oponent if he calls OR you wouldve won the hand right there.

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No action and a button raise, his range could be anything, so your 3 bet is giving you more information.

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I agree when I've been sitting at a table for a while I 3bet probably 50-60% in this spot (in BB with suited broadway facing button open against most non-nittish opponents)

Given the weirdness of just sitting down and me being an obv rec player, for better or worse, I thought at time that villain would call any reasonable 3 bet with the majority of a pretty wide range and I'd be stuck playing a fairly crappy hand out of position without knowing much more. My plan at the time pre-flop was frankly to check fold most flops, unless I hit pretty hard, I was not looking to play for stacks in hand 1 at the table.

Then you probably should've fold in the first place if you were not willing to bluff your suited connectors out of position.

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Line seems fine. I think we can rule out any hands with a queen or better single pair hands - I don't see AQ/KQ taking this path against a newcomer to the table - especially since they don't have the spades to draw with... AA/KK seems unlikely as well - I think he would have played it more aggressively on either flop or turn on such a draw-heavy board.

Unfortunately you're blocking a ton of hands that he would be using to bluff here - big suited spades or highly connected cards are the best drawing / river jam bluff hands. You’re also blocking QJ which could take this line and shove river for value.

The hands that beat you where his line would make sense could be any of 33, 99, or a random 10 like 8/10 through Ace/10 or even possibly jack-8 where he spiked the river straight. All of those hands could take this line and have you crushed. The only bluffs he could have is something like 7 8 offsuit - if he had 7 8 spades he probably gets it in since he'd have an amazing draw as well. So that's a pretty narrow bluffing range.

Personally, I think he has wayyyyyyyy more nut or value shove hands than bluffing hands here and for me it's a reluctant fold. It’s never a good position to be in with one pair where there are zero other one-pair hands that you beat. There’s no way he’s taking this line with A 9 – he would just show-down the one pair if he thought he was good. JJ is checking the river as well.

Interesting hand but after thinking it through this seems like a clear fold. There's just way more value hands than bluffing hands in his range.

Ha! Obviously I would a lot of times at 2/5 after knowing players/table dynamic, I just wasn't looking bluff this specific first hand at table out of position against a probably superior player. Might have been a different story an hour in.

Awesome thoughts, thanks.... curious how often do you think villain calls vs. re-raises my flop C/R with 33 or 99 on this flop on this board? Also I think AK is in his range, I think KXis not (since Q-9 are out). What about AX (specifically wheel type hands)?

I agree villain rarely/never shoves a better 1 pair hand on river so range seemed to be fairly polarized in this spot, that's why it seemed like an difficult river decision (at least to me).

I was also pretty unsure if river lead check is the right play here...

I'm absolutely fine with a flat preflop to a 5x sizing, you're going to want to defend your BB a lot here and it's nice to mix in some strong hands that can often play well across all sorts of run-outs. Plus, QJs is too strong to "bluff" with preflop, and you're going to be in an awful position if you get 4-bet.

On the flop, I think you need to check-raise to a much larger size, more like $300. You should be check-raising with a polarized range consisting of only strong draws, combo-draws and two-pair+, so that range demands a larger bet size.

As played, I think I like a turn check planning to check-raise all-in. The strong part of your polarized check-raising range on the flop is now so nutted that you don't need to worry about giving the villain free cards, so it makes sense that you would check your strong hands in this spot. And though the 10 is kind of a bad card in that it takes away some of our T9 combos, you can easily rep a boat when you check-raise, and you're going to want to balance that range with some semi-bluffs that can still win when we run into a 10.

As played on the river, I think I like a call. Assuming we were continuing with our entire range on the turn, I'm also going to assume we would shove all of our nut hands on the river as well. That means our river checking range is probably pretty weak, and because villain knows that, we're going to have to call sometimes when he shoves. QJ is probably at the top of our range, so I think it's a call.

Interesting. I will say I rarely find the right spot for a C/R consecutively on both the flop and turn, maybe this was one.

On the turn I was definitely thinking the 10 was a good card for us in that villain had to assume we had some 10s and maybe boats in our range with a flop C/R and turn lead. I was hoping the turn lead to get him off overs for sure, and maybe even an overpair.

On the turn my plan for the river was to bluff shove any card other than an A, value shove my made straights and flushes. I did not fully think through my plan specifically if an offsuit Q or J hit. Checking seemed weak, but no other bet than a shove made sense and seemed like potential spew.


I agree with these thoughts. I remember on river waffling between 2 main thoughts.

1. What bluffs can he really have, and is my river check so weak he is now sure I don't have a non-boat 10? Bluffs seem limited to 7/8, and A with , maybe low chance JJ or A9 turned into bluff... So fold

2. The only made hands shoving this river are boats (I remember thinking he would have shoved turn with just three 10's) and I block QQ and Q10, and I thought 33 and 99 would have *probably* raised my flop C/R on such a wet board... So call

The 10 really isn't a great card for our range because we shouldn't have any 10x here when we check-raise. All it does is shrink our value range because it eliminates combos of TT and T9s. That said, we still have full houses in our range and we should play that range accordingly.

On the other end, the 10 is a pretty great card for Villain's range, because a very large portion of his bet-call range on the flop just improved to trips. However, that is the absolute top of villain's range -- he is almost certainly 3-betting on the flop with T9 or sets. So that is why I'm advocating for a double check-raise in this spot ... allow villain to rep trip 10s when checked to, and then shove it in his face with a range of full houses and a few really strong combo draws (QJs, 87s, KJs, KQs).

This is a very interesting side tangent to me, and appreciate the discussion.

So on the flop I (and I think most?) would check almost 100% of the hands to villain, including all my 10x. I don't think I ever donk lead flop with 10x here to a button raiser.

So when I have 10x (any of J10, Q10, K10, A10) on flop shouldn't I be C/R a good portion of the time here also? If I just check/call flop with such a draw heavy board, feels like most of the deck would be bad for me on turn and keep villain with both initiative and position. Also if I check-raise flop on this wet board I expect villain to re-raise most better hands (overpairs, etc) allowing me to find a fold more cheaply.

So I guess basic question is why do you think 10x won't C/R flop, and if you advocate C/C on flop with 10x what is turn plan?

Thanks, that scenario is a pretty common spot (flop ~9-J top pair/good kicker OOP to a PF raiser) and I am really curious about better ways to play that spot even though it isn't what I actually had here.

These are complex questions, but basically what it boils down to is balance. If you are always check-raising your top pair and better hands on this flop, what does it mean when you just call the bet? It means your range is very weak, because you don't have any top pair in your range.

Furthermore, when you check-raise with just top pair, you will often either get called or jammed on. What do you do then? You have no idea where you are at in the hand and you've now bloated the pot with a vulnerable hand that won't be able to survive pressure on several different runouts.

If you are worried about playing an uncomfortable pot OOP, well, that's the price you pay for playing a hand OOP to begin with. Check-raising might end the hand right away, but your opponent will just be folding hands that are likely drawing very thin against you anyway. Better to just allow him to keep bluffing with those hands rather than deny yourself the one good advantage you have when playing a vulnerable hand OOP.

The good news is your decisions get a lot easier when you think about your range as a whole, and you make sure your range at every decision point is balanced with the right kinds of hands so you can never be abused.

I would suggest reading Matthew Janda's "Applications of No-Limit Hold'em" to gain a full understanding of this and other important concepts.

his 5x button sizing is kinda odd, but i dont mind 3betting or flatting. probably leaning towards flatting since i dont want to play 4bet pots yet w this hand and stacksize.

flop is obv fine, tho i would go bigger.

turn i'd check and play a mix of x-rai and x-call depending on his sizing and what your spidey senses tell you about his reaction to your check.

river is probably an easy fold as played

RESULTS:

I ended up calling

Villain had 109 for turned boat, Hero loses


I appreciate all of the thoughts on the line and ranges.

In the end I had a couple of main thoughts which obviously were wrong in this spot.

On the Turn
I felt a turn lead accomplished 2 things. First, it gave me a chance to take down the pot vs a weak flop float since my Q high had no showdown value. Second it set me up better to get stacks in if I hit my massive draw OR bluff shove a total miss. I did not properly think through the specific scenario which happened when I hit top pair on river.

I honestly didn't think check at all on turn so since several people advocated that line I am going to explore that more in future spots, thanks!

On the River
I felt very strong that his value shove range was limited almost exclusively to full houses in this spot. My river check I knew would open up his bluff range.

For his value range, my general thought was...
---I block a lot of QQ and Q10 combos that boated river
---33, 99, 10/9 often would have 3 bet my flop raise on such a wet board (obv wrong in this spot)

For his bluff range I had
---AK
---AWheel
---78 (mostly ) rarely other
---Rarely A9 or JJ turned into bluff or something else random

In the end it was truly about 50/50 in my head so getting almost 3/1 I decided to call.

I think biggest mistakes in my river thinking was A) was underestimating Villain's willingness to peel a card on the flop against my raise with top 2 pair and B) Not putting enough stock in how small his bluff range was.



Thanks for all the helpful commentary, turn and river were interesting to me and I find it valuable to hear different PoVs on lines and ranges.

I'm honestly pretty surprised that he showed up with T9 in this spot. On the one hand, your flop check-raise was so small, he should be mostly calling with his entire range because of the price you laid him. On the other hand, this board is so draw-heavy that it makes sense for him to have a 3-betting range, and T9 is probably the best possible hand to 3-bet for value in this spot because it is so vulnerable.

I would have folded the river as played. Villain should have a good feel for your range by river. Qj and spade draws make up a ton of your flat pre / cr range on flop. He may or may not give you kk/aa/jj/qq in range. I would say realistically he gives you jj but heavily discounts aa/kk. When you check the river you will in practice never have a t or qq. So villain shoving as a bluff should be mostly with the objective of folding you off ak/ax of spades if it would win, it is not that likely he tries to bluff you off an overpair or has better a q better kicker in his range to value bet.

Also: I think you thinking his value shove range is only boats is totally incorrect. I would expect it at minimum include any t, kk, aa, and probably qx/jj some of the time (targeting something like a9)