PokerStars - $0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players


Hero (CO): 100 BB
BTN: 100 BB
SB: 267.9 BB
BB: 100 BB
UTG: 120.1 BB
MP: 100 BB


SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A A

fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, BTN calls 2.5 BB, SB calls 2 BB, fold

Flop: (8.5 BB, 3 players) T 8 7
SB checks, Hero bets 6.5 BB, BTN calls 6.5 BB, fold

Turn: (21.5 BB, 2 players) T
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: (21.5 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero bets 8.2 BB, BTN raises to 32.6 BB


villain is an unknown (25/13 over 8 hands)

river bet could've been a mistake, I could've just comfortably check-call
basically the purpose of this bet is to get a call out of 8X or maybe some lower garbage, it's an exploit, but he probably doesn;t have too many 8X or worse hands that he'd call with, but he still can raise his bluffs (he has a fair amount of busted fds and sds), but overall people at 10NL don't tend to bluff raise rivers

Otf, 3 way (even heads up), you could consider a check as well. AA doesn't need much protection compared to JJ for example, and 3 ways you want relatively low cbet frequencies. But a bet is good too.

Turn, I think checking is fine. In a heads up pot, the top card pairing would usually be pretty good for you, but here, I'm not so sure it is. You would probably want to check a decent amount of your Tx otf (I'd imagine you could argue checking them all back wouldn't be too bad), and villain should probably never check raise Tx, apart from maybe T9, T8, or T7 (those that are in his range). Overall, I think in this spot, a range check Ott would work pretty well.

Otr, I like your thought process of thinking about what you want to get called by. Like you said, villain doesn't have (m)any medium strength hands that might want to bet river for thin value, so should be fairly polarised. He'll have a lot 9x and busted FD, and those are probably the hands you want to target. My guess is that a 1/3-1/2 blocking bet is a fairly good strategy against an optimal opponent. You could include pp down to 99, and expect to get called by some low pp or 7x 8x hands.

You could include some nutty hands in that range like J9 or full houses with the intention of jamming over a raise, but I think a lot of those hands want to go for a bigger raise size.

In any case, you block AT, which seems like one of villains likeliest Tx combos (the most likely if he calls ATo pre but not KTo), and this has to be your strongest hand which would want to take this line (I think you want to go bigger with any Tx). So, as played, I don't see how you can fold river unless you have a read that villain will very rarely bluff.

block bet given action is fine, we no longer have muchos nutted hands but a bunch of middling stuff we're looking to get value from, bet fold AP seems ok.
x/x is undesirable should it happen and x/c vs a larger villain sizing (villains shouldnt be blocking inposition) gives us a less favourable price.

Most of this is bad imo. X'ing otf should be a secondary play, not primary. This flop is good for bu, so he'll have a lot of hands that will continue to a bet, even a fairly large one. We should not be giving up an obvious value bet here. I'd venture a wager that even the safest combo of AsAh is betting here most of the time.

Check flop

After researching this more, I changed my mind a bit. I think i'd go ahead and x AA. I'd still bet some more vulnerable pairs like JJ.

I would never consider checking flop here, this sounds rediculous, the board is super wet and we are 3way, any J, 9, 6 or totally ruins the board for us (as in we no longer can value bet), here on the flop we're still strong but our hand does need protection and there are a ton of draws and TX that gonna call us

This flop is horrific for our range so it is probably a range check

+1

fairly likely a range check in gto, wouldnt mind a small bet assuming one of them is a fish. big bet is torch

River is a fold.
His turn check and river c/raise or raise is the common line of a Monster.
Better to check river and allow him to bet here so his range has some bluffs.

Checking flop especially against aggressive oponents would be good. River I would bet 2/3 pot.

I didn't view flop check as an option, if it's indeed a correct play here then I think this should've been xc-xc-xc/xf

as played I did end up folding the river, feels bad to fold there but I guess I might have played the hand incorrectly from the very beginning

why would you check all you Tx otf? makes zero sense to me. this texture is basically a 3 straight. I am personally betting here any tp, 2nd pair good kicker, high equity draws and airballs in order to have a polarized cbetting range.
If we aren't cbetting our Tx we miss out on so much valuebetting potential on a superwet flop and at the same time don't protect our equity. so many bad cards that could come ott.
im am curious to know what your cbetting range on such a flop looks like if you're leaving out the most obvious valuebets.

I would bet, bet, evaluate river card. on scary / straight completing rivers i would bet 60%/fold. on brick rivers we can do a smallish blockbet/fold, maybe call is raise is tiny.
as played fold river, since he probably has trips+ and is likely too scared to bluffraise his missed SD since it's 10nl and his stats look fishy even though it's just 8 hands, so i wouldn't put much weight on the stats anyway.

I didn't say check all Tx, I said you could argue for it. Effectively, multi way and oop, even on relatively favourable boards, you can argue for a range check. However, boards don't get much more unfavourable for you than this one.

When you look at MDF for villains in this spot, it is about 57%. That means they can probably continue with roughly 29% of their range without overfolding. And I don't think either will have to call any 8x that doesn't also have a draw to meet that frequency. I reckon they can even be folding some FD or oesd and still meet that frequency.

So, I'd argue that betting JT otf will only get called by hands which have you crushed, or which have pretty strong equity vs it. My guess is that any Tx you bet otf (which doesn't have 2 pairs) will have less than 50% equity vs a continue range, and most Tx will have less than 50% equity vs a calling range. That's why I'd argue that, other than AT (maybe), betting Tx may not even be a value bet.

Obviously, this is just my personal view of the situation, and I could well be wrong.

Also that doesn't even cover your checking range. If you're betting some 8x here, your checking range is probably a x/f range at close to 100% frequency.

As soon as my overpair goes multiway on a flop like this I'm just in general bluffcatcher mode. The more money enters the pot the less likely you're good almost always so you're never losing much EV by playing nitty.

AP, fold on river is GOOD because this is micros and river raises are face-up 9/10

Flop is most definitely a check in GTO land. Even if this were HU with the BTN, we would be ragechecking this board. This is a very advantageous board for the IP player, whose condensed cold-calling range is proportionally weighted towards mid PPs and suited connecters. Whilst we do also have all the sets as well as an overpair advantage, it's less relevant because 1) overpairs aren't particularly strong hands anymore on this board texture; and 2) our range is diluted by lots of high card combos which have completely missed this flop. Not to mention we're out of position. We have to respect all these factors and play very defensively here. Generally, the best simplification for this is to rangecheck.

Given that we're 3-way, that should usually make us even more inclined to check because our equity decreases quite rapidly the more players are in the pot. You could make an argument for betting here, but it would based on exploitative reasoning and would be along the lines of- "well SB is clearly a fish (because he flatted from the SB), so I'm going to bet as I expect him to call too wide and I want to get as much value as possible from him now before the board runs out bad. If BTN continues, I'll proceed with caution".

very good explanation (for me at least) why checking flop is a better option, nicely sums up the most popular answers I got in this thread, thank you

Bet turn