JohnRusty's HH inspired me to think about spots I normally just take for granted. Here it goes

Folds to us OTB - we have 99

We open 2.5x and SB3bets to 11BB, BB folds and we call.

Flop comes Q53

SB Ranges 1/3

1) First mistake - Q high boards are very bad for the Small Blind because the BTN has a high concentration of Queens in his range. BTN has roughly 140 combos to SB's 200 combos yet the Qx is similar so BTN has more top pair in this formation.

1A) How to respond to mistakes and exploits. Given this mistake - we should develop a raising range OTF to exploit our opponent's over aggression.

But wait! Is this the most profitable exploit?

Let's continue and just call the flop 1/3 cbet.

We just call with our 99.

Turn is a Non-Broadway and we don't hit our set. So anything 8 and under - which will happen a little over 50% of the time.

Now SB checks. What should we do with our 99? (Solver mixes for small)

1) Bet
2) Check

Let's consider all eventualities.

We know our opponent's range is probably weaker than it should be since it is most likely he ranged flop incorrectly.

This trends us towards betting small to take down the ~40BB pot.

Alternatively, we know that opponent's Over Bluff by a significant margin in the B-X-B line in 3BP when it is Blinds vs BTN.

Exhibit A:



This is Reg Data that shows a clear trend to Over Bluffing this formation.

Let's X it back and see what happens OTR (notice that Xing back 99 is far superior to checking back TT/JJ because we want our opponent's to have those cards in his hand).

River: Ace - SB now bets 75% pot. We know Ace rivers are over bluffed and this sizing and formation is also over bluffed. We confidently call with 99 in a 100bb pot.

Exhibit B:



Villain show's KJ and we scoop.

By deferring our exploit to the river. We made more money than by exploiting OTF or OTT.

Anyone have any thought's on this?

What program are you using to generate these reports where you are getting all this general population data?

In this scenario, what is the potential turn exploit with 99? My guess is that if villain is getting to turn with too wide a range and has to check a lot, they're going X/f a lot. Even though we get folds out of hands that have decent equity against our holding, so there is some positive to betting, I don't know if I'd go as far as saying it is an exploit. I think the turn exploit is betting with hands that benefit more from folds. Just my thoughts on the matter, but I think the exploits with bluff catchers need spots where villain bluffs too much, so you're better off giving villain the opportunity to do so. However, I think flop is a better spot to exploit than turn, although again, I feel like you will have better hands with more chances of improving. Overall, with this particular holding and scenario, I do agree that river is the better spot to exploit.

It's from poker detox

It depends a lot how often we face a bet.
Vs KsJs specifically we have around 88% of equity so if both players check it down 99 win 88%, if we bet and he folds we win 100% of the pot. So to have ev of checking >ev of betting, he need to realize below 0% of his equity.

Thanks, never heard of it, will have to look into it. Seems very handy. OK I see it's some kind of stable of players, I didn't even know something like that existed.

Are you on poker detox's course or something? Or how did you get these reports?

As for the hand - I don't know if ranging this flop as villain is that bad. GTO wiz has us betting about 80% and prefers a 1/2 pot size. Which is interesting, as I also would have also assumed that high concentration of Qx will equalise OR's range advantage by a lot.

However if flop comes down something slightly more wet like Q 4 5 cbet % goes down to 50%, preferring a 1/3 pot size.

Make that Q 8 6 and we now check 68%. So apparently bone dry Qx flops are still bet a lot.

Anyways, your point is really interesting. I'm interested though how you would construct T and R, which hands would you prefer taking this line and which would you bet turn with.

The lower the flop + turn card - the more we will face a bet OTR.

We face a bet more than optimal vs most sizing since it is over bluffed across all textures.

One exploit you could do is to X back your air more frequently OTT. And then bluff raise vs his river bet line.

You can also do this with some super strong hands if you ever think your opponent is catching on (not relevant for Ignition).

You can over bluff even if betting frequency is low. They are not mutually exclusive.

The betting frequency isn't low though. It's high in the over bluffed zones.

Interesting. The takeaway from your analysis that I got is that there's not a ton of sophisticated exploits to be had with respect to our middle-strength hands like 99. The idea of floating a lot, expecting villain to overbluff bxb, then bluff raising river a lot makes sense and is something I hadn't thought about

I mean if they bet more then slover(even with slightly too much bluffs) it's not good for this hand category. Our EV when bc is only around 10% of the pot.

Another reason to call more preflop over 4betting. Bluffing with a hand like AKo OTR would be awesome.

You are assuming the solver doesn't bet often - these are not low frequency bet spots at optimal in general.

It's also not slightly too much. The Air component almost equals the optimal frequency in most cases and exceeds it in some cases. That doesn't even take into account low pairs turned into bluffs.

We can tentatively calculate the EV here. If the pot is 40bb and our opponent bets 3/4 OTR but bluffs 10% too much.

We are gaining 3BB on our call. That is huge.

Yeah I keep getting owned in 4-bet/5-bet spots because everyone is so ludicrously tight. I may just stop 4-betting in general lol

I need to stop bluff catching in these tight formations as well. I had AK in a SBvsBB4bet spot and tried to bluff catch and it didn't work out well.

I'm assuming that when you said they bet often it's compered to optimal frequency.

Non of the sizings is over bluffed by that much.
EV is
EV=0.4*100-30=10BB not 3BB if they bluff 40% instead of 30%. I

Thanks for the correction.

So it is an even bigger EV gain than I originally thought.

You also have to account for showdown bias - which the graphs do.

Yes, but i don't see where did you come up with such high bluffing frequency

I was looking at the Ace/Overcard/4 Flush river in the big graph.

Yeah but you don't know which card will come up, so when you try to evaluate EV of turn action you need to look what going to happen otr on average(table with sizings).
Also for A river sample is kind small and all bet sizings are put together.

What does this sentence mean? Us having 99 and checking it back is better than having TT/JJ and checking it back?

WRT opponent having "those cards", are we referring to Tx/Jx non paired hands?

I think that question is super complex and might not even be answerable.

You would need to figure out the GTO % of river betting frequencies in a 3BP B/X/B line in SBvsBTN. The problem is that different flop strategies are viable so that will influence river betting frequencies.

If you somehow could get a GTO % - you would compare that with specific run outs and see if it is normal/above/below the average river betting frequency. It would also be super sensitive to sizing and IP's turn strategy so I'm not sure we can even get that data and use it in any meaningful way.

yes to both