You're proving my point. Ceres is bluffing... we're evaluating (or at least I am), the higher EV bluff line for risk/reward between B/B/B and B/X/XRAI.

You should be devising a plan to get the most value from your hand and keep options open for bluffs ideally. OP has range advantage and wants to get value from draws when he's ahead (think you said villian won't have many draws on Ax board in 3-bet pots IP - meh), and leave options for viable bluffs on later streets. When the K drops, this is one of those merged spots where you should keep betting. OP has the perfect blockers for villains second best calling range. All the stars are aligned.

Instead it seems like there was no real plan, and then a shove at the end. Glad it worked. I guess that's all we should think about.

We don't care about AQ. AQ is a hugely EV+ call down for IP because it splits with value.

You need to look at IP's 0EV hands like AJs or worse.

The most important spot to me is OTR. We need to figure out if our opponent is overfolding/overcalling/GTO in the C-X-BF line on this board texture.

It's not completely clear yet if his bluff is good although I lean yes.

If you are villain are you calling AJcc vs a XR here?

Getting value from draws doesn't make a ton of sense to me since all draws are plus EV in a solver to call. We should care about IP's 0EV continues.

Yes I agree Ceres probably didn't have a game plan but sometimes genius strikes by accident.

Can’t we deduce from the C-X-B stat? Line + runout + type (prob has too many Ax) seems impossible to gather long term so.... exploit?

No because it could be overfolded more than the aggregate since we have a range advantage and population over 4bets AK/AA/KK relative to a solver.

If it's overfolded more than the aggregate this line is gold.

Although, it's true in most lines Ace high boards are underfolded but it's not a rule.

yes but respectfully how have you proven this beyond a few general assumptions? If you disagree with gto I'm all ears but you have to show why and how you disagree or it's just talk that you want people to take as gospel.

Why does a solver play QQ as X on the turn? How are you playing your other Qx? etc etc. I'm all for simplification like, but even that needs to be proven before deploying

We don't bet primarily to get value from draws, it's just a part of the equation. We're looking at the whole range of course, and how we can exploit our range advantage on this board.

As far as calling w/ Ax... probably most of the time, that's why I'm even posting. Our value shoving range is AA/KK/AK.. that's why I asked the question, how are you playing this range in my first post? I'm betting all of those hands on the turn and river. I don't expect my opponent, at most stakes at least, to hope they get to the river, and I bet, so they can get value from those hands. I don't think most opponents are doing that. I think you're saying, you shouldn't bet the turn, and that's probably the biggest difference in why I think there's higher EV bluffing lines, if I'm turning this hand into a bluff.

But on a side note, how and when are you choosing to implement solver approved lines, vs MDA / exploit lines? I honestly get really confused when you're posting advice. Is there some defining point in the hand for you, or how and why are you switching between the two? When you think you don't have enough info either on your opponent or range, you're thinking GTO?

This just in...

MDA using pokertracker:

Yes I figured you were calling Ax OTR which is why I am saying what I am saying. Against good regs you should be playing this line for value and against nit micro regs this is a great bluff.

I am mostly looking at river spots for GTO vs MDA although in 3BP's the turn becomes important as well. If I think population is over 4betting AA/KK/AK preflop (they are) then as a default this line as a bluff will be good. Against better regs we should reverse this and put value in this line, since as you said, you are mostly calling with Ax against B-X-XR.

I'm only deviating from a solver if there are clear incentives to do so. Ace high boards are underbluffed from population in triple barrel lines----->against good regs they will overfold. So you don't play value on Ace high boards in the triple barrel line as a default. That's why I don't like betting turn with value and instead would opt for Ceres line.

Respectfully, I've been asking a series of questions, so we can use reason to find the best line. If we're just looking for a GTO solution only, we can /s, no?

We can plug in some numbers if that makes you feel better.

We want to know if B/B/B is more profitable than B/X/XRAI. To do so, we need some general assumptions (correct that, educated guesses), correct?

How do you get to these numbers, other than make some educated guesses and employ some reason:

1) XRAI
We want to know how often our opponent is checking behind on the river and we lose.
We need to know how often our bluff is called and we lose.

2) B/B/B
Conversely, we need to know how often B/B/B on this board gets folds, and what our sizings should be on T+R.

Option 1 is the highest risk, and probably has the highest fold%. However it also has a guaranteed lose% when opponent checks behind on river.

Option 2 is the lower risk option, and has less river fold%, but also makes up for that when it gets value from what% of draws we want to say exist on the turn.

Do you want to plug some numbers in, or is it getting any clearer yet?

Thanks for clearing that up.

I think most people agree that we don't always want to bet turn for value. But we sometimes do on Ax boards, and sometimes we want to bluff. This is one of those spots where we can merge our range profitably, and imho, more profitably than XRAI on the river.

If the turn comes 2s, it's a totally different hand. And at the point, OP's line is likely higher EV. I'm not 100% sure if it's still profitable at these stakes... but probably it is.

That's the only point I was trying to make from the start.

I don't have all the data you would need but you can't do EV calculations like this, I've tried it a million times and talked to people smarter than me and it's always inconclusive since there are too many assumptions.

We aren't looking for the GTO solution because GTO bet's a lot of AK OTT, although it's still mixed. I'm saying the opposite of that based on how rivers are played.

If you know Ace high boards are overfolded and the strategy is mixed then you aren't incentivized to put value in that line.

All the data you are asking for requires huge samples sizes in spots that rarely happen. This is another reason why your EV calculations will not be accurate. We need to simplify the thought process and stick with what we know.

isn't that exactly what a solver does though?

I think the reason QQ hates betting this turn is because we only fold out worse hands or hands that we might win when IP x the river. The bet just doesn't achieve anything. We're making very little of V's range indifferent and it's easy for them to play their worse BCs. So we lose EV with that line.

If we knew for certain how V will play all rivers then deviating makes some sense, but with ranges still this wide I can't see how gto isn't/shouldn't be our leading light in that spot, which gets us to C-X-? otr

I genuinely don't understand the point of your post. We're playing a game of incomplete information. If we're not looking for a GTO solution, then we're going to have to make some logical assumptions, and use whatever data we can to plug in the missing variables. Like, how often do opponents fold on B/B/B boards? How often on A high B/B/B boards and so on. There's no MDA data that is going to be perfect either... and there's no calculation here that's going to be perfect for a lot of obvious reasons. But we're going to try and get as close as we can, and from that we can learn a lot actually.

You're not betting QQ, you're betting your range.

So what's your leading light? It's going to be really hard to have precise data for this spot... right? Isn't that what we're saying? So if you can't have precise data, or a button to press that has the answer.... how do we think through this? hmmm

I can tell you, when I first read a hand like this, I'm instantly thinking... spazz bluff. And my next question is, what's the bottom of my bluff catching range? The question is really about how often your population thinks that you're going to be trying to get max value from your CRAI range on the river, by checking turn, hoping your opponent bets river, so you can CRAI. Is your population going to do this more often than B/B/B with that same range? That's why I asked you in my first post, how you're playing AA/KK/AK.

Is this profitable? Probably... did we conclude anything?

I was trying (apparently unsuccessfully) to make the argument that this is a perfect merge ranged spot on the turn, that if you're going to be turning PP's into bluffs, you want to B/B/B, and that would yield a higher EV and lower variance.

I think I've exhausted this thread though, and my free time. ty

My point was that we need to prioritize our inputs, if we use those EV calculations we will be over indexed on variables and we won't get anywhere. We are just thinking about this spot differently, which is fine, that's what makes poker great .


The bolded is the most important take away imo. If you are getting calls from all 0EV hands then you need to use that line for value against the better regulars.

FreakDaddy intuitively knows the MDA here probably without having even studied it. The B-X-XR line is overbluffed so now we put value in it.

Always value your input FD. Break deserved.

AQ/AJ are the only better 0ev hands at 100bb in GTOwiz that are going to fold. People are going to show up with all three of the lower sets on occasion that aren't really supposed to exist in this line, and it's debatable that everyone is betting AQ/AJ to begin with, because people suck at valuebetting in general. Even KT is supposed to be a b/f and most people are either folding the flop or not betting the river. There's going to be more value hands than usual here, and none of those extra hands are going to b/f, so it makes me think that this isn't a good bluff, and there's no way that this is going to be an overfolded spot if only because there aren't enough folding hands that exist. My thoughts on the hand.

My thought's are it's a good bluff at microstakes since they overfold everywhere. I agree at small stakes we should probably move it into a value line, although I need to research it some more. And mid-stakes you should be playing value like this as a default imo.

WRT to them not value betting river. This is another reason why you bet smaller than 1/3 OTF. If we use very small sizing OTF (like 10%-20% cbet). Population will not be satisfied with only getting a 10% pot bet OTF with top pair in the B-X-X line which makes them more likely to bet river with Ax.

I've been using the super small sizes for around 6 months. I didn't know that it's some kind of a kind of gto strat. I've always had it on the simple setting until last week.

Nice one, yeah the super small sized cbets are really good and more GTO than 1/3.

The main boards to use them on are Ace high boards/Triple BW boards.

Triple BW boards we use super small to target under pocket pairs

Ace high boards we use super small to target the suited BWs.

Funny those are the types of boards where I use them, and I also use those or minbets on mono boards. They get so many flop folds, and I use a lot of massive turn sizes in 3b pots specifically. I think people don't have any idea how to play against the strategy, so they end up playing pretty face up.

Yeah I forgot monotone boards love small.

I think there are a ton of viable strategies OTT. I prefer smaller in general but weakening their range with really small cbets and then blasting turn can crush as well.

My general game plan is to try to play as many rivers as possible vs my opponents because that is where populations biggest leaks are. If you are playing on SN sites the rivers stats are the ones that take the longest to converge and get good samples on so exploiting rivers as a default game plan makes a ton of sense to me.

It's not intuition... just some logical deduction.

I wouldn't advocate getting into leveling wars w/ micro/small stakes players. Just play your hands for the highest long term value. Leveling wars are only profitable w/ a lot of history.

I should probably take a step back though, because reading this thread and some of these posts in here lately, I think I'm making some assumptions that many not be correct.

So for you and anyone reading this:
You're villain in this hand. You bet the river, and get XRAI... what range are you putting hero on?

I appreciate you posting the hand and your thoughts.