PokerStars - $4 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: $259.60 (VPIP: 34.80, PFR: 13.51, 3Bet Preflop: 6.65, Hands: 101,134)
BB: $356.00 (VPIP: 33.78, PFR: 7.71, 3Bet Preflop: 6.56, Hands: 102,753)
Hero (UTG): $442.20
CO: $392.00 (VPIP: 27.94, PFR: 18.38, 3Bet Preflop: 3.91, Hands: 95,700)
BTN: $353.50 (VPIP: 37.14, PFR: 23.67, 3Bet Preflop: 6.34, Hands: 100,217)

SB posts SB $2.00, BB posts BB $4.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $6.00) Hero has Q A

Hero raises to $12.00, fold, BTN raises to $36.00, fold, fold, Hero calls $24.00

Flop: ($78.00, 2 players) A 9 K
Hero checks, BTN bets $45.00, Hero calls $45.00

Turn: ($168.00, 2 players) A
Hero checks, BTN bets $78.00, Hero calls $78.00

River: ($324.00, 2 players) A
Hero

Forgot to mention hand is played on anonymous site ignore those stats. All I knew about villian at the time that i have seen him 3b a few times.

I'm going all in and hoping he calls with a king.

If he has a king he might call but might not bet thinking only better / the same will call.

If he's been aggro I guess he may try to bluff and rep the A/K and you can X/R. Think I'd be scared of it getting X'd through.

Maybe I'm playing too face up.

Pretty easy c/c. Let him continue to bluff and vbet worse. Not thrilled with the call pre in these positions on an anon site unless he's a Pyscho or there is significant history.

Not the greatest of turn cards for villain to barrel, so wouldn't expect him to be super light here. KK, 99, and all of his flushes check back the river.

Against his range, I like a small value bet hoping to get some kind of crying call. Something like $84.

He was 3betting quite a bit at the time

I gotcha but sample size is something to think about. He could easily be on a small heater at anon table. Did any of his 3 bets go to showdown? Just sucks cuz short of making quads, hhh, or KJT board how thrilled are we about calling down when flopping 1 pair or worse which will be the majority of the time for us.

Ya I understand but I think on anonymous tables sometimes you have to make reads/assumptions faster due to sample size. You will rarely ever get enough SD hands. I think the player pool at 400nl has enough people who 3b pretty often that I will be able to tell who 3b often pretty quickly.

I can agree for sure. Just still sucks to have this hand oop vs an aggressive opponent when we don't really know his tendencies in 3 bet pots. All we know is he 3 bets a lot. Does he 3 barrel a lot? Does he play straightforwardly after cbetting the flop? I think the fact that he's 3 betting your UTG raise says a lot and his range is very polar to hands that crush you and bluffs. Sometimes you'll catch him 3 betting with Axs and you'll get lucky to flop an A but him having initiative and you being oop it's going to be extremely difficult to play post flop on any board where you don't flop the nuts or super strong draws.

Like here for instance if the river is the 3c instead of the As how good are you feeling about x/c it off? He would have to be a maniac for me to be fist pumping there.

I think you will rarely ever get enough reads on an anonymous site to know all that.

I won't be fist pumping but it would still be a call for me.

Yeah def be a call for me too. We're pretty high up in our range what else can we do? A lot of times on Bovada even as high as 1knl I will fold these spots and wait for better spots unless I know he is super light. The player pool from 400-1knl just isn't getting out of line enough vs UTG ime. Just too many better spots to choose from.

you are probably right.

Hero is two away from the button. It's effectively the hijack.

The converter label of UTG is silly since it's more meaningful to classify positions according to their strategic properties. Being first to act at a 5-handed table is basically identical* to being second to act at a 6-handed table after the first player has open folded.


*Some pedants might bring up the minor bunching effects, which actually make it slightly different, but it's not that meaningful and pedants suck.

Depends if you can have like QQ-TT here, If so i think villains bets Kx but thats pretty unlikely, think i like a small bet, make it look like a block bet, sometimes get bluff raised and you get called by a a good amount of hands that probably x/b. Think most good players x/b Kx here. Maybe some bet KK that is now counterfeited because of the blocker and are putting you on 99 or some middle PP.

against a small bet maybe some people just ship a king to try and get you off a chop also

Pre is at least a call vs something like 98% of online poker players.

What a weird spot. Checking might win you a small bluff from broadways trying to fold out a flush, I guess. Basically your range is face up as exactly Ax, 99, flush, with Ax being the majority. His range is Ax, flush, KK, maybe 99, and some air. Whenever each of you has a non ace, the other has an ace the majority of the time, so either way a bet happens, it should be small.

If you were to bet, it would be to bluff your flushes or make a blocking bet with your 99, and if you check, he should be bluffing all of his broadways for an amount to make your 99/flush indifferent to calling. I'm thinking in theory it's a check, but on bodog against a possibly weak player you should just bet 30-40 dollars yourself.

bet 4 dollars

I'd bet $9.99 to rep 999.

This seems like a no brainer pre call no? I wouldn't even fold this in UTG vs MP let alone BTN v MP.

If you are folding this what are you calling with may I ask?

it really0 sux that you are out of position tho, check..

Quite possibly the worst poker post of August 7th, 2015. Consider a less expensive hobby such as fly fishing.

For you guys that want to fold this, how do you construct your calling range?

Extremely exploitably and situation dependent for Bovada.

Can you explain this more?

Have you ever played live poker? You have GTO, the unexploitable strategy, which in theory wins money from every other strategy and breaks even against it self.

Then you have exploitative play, which is being extremely exploitable and deviating away from "optimal play" because it becomes more profitable to do so.

Basically it's pretty tough to accomplish extremely exploitative play profitably via most online poker because of data mining, huds, ect, ect.

On Bovada, similar to live poker, it's a little different. Since no one can have a long term read on you it's possible to deviate from optimal play and make more money by becoming unbalanced in such a way that you exploit the population and not worry about balance so much. I.e. You can fold the top parts of your ranges in spots where they just have it, ect...

In most spots I would exploit the population here by just folding AQ on Bovada in this particular spot unless I have a real read that tells me otherwise and not just villain has 3 bet a few times. Because my read of the population is that they don't 3 bet UTG all that wide.

When my read of the population changes I'll consider changing my game plan in regards to this type of spot. The more regs that infiltrate the games the more we have to worry about these spots. But no one is printing money against my exploitable approach here at this time. Imo...