.50/1 game, 4 handed deeeeep

At this point it's 4 handed and table is about to break, couple people just got stacked and stacksizes are pretty big right now. I have around 500 and I cover villain, who has around 375.

I'm small blind, he's big blind. Action has been wide and loose preflop, have been seeing lots of 3b and calls, light 4bets, etc. Have been seeing a lot of people making moves, floating with weird hands and calling 2 streets with flopped top pair. Everyone is a thinking player but there's definitely been some leveling metagames going on.

I have JsKd.

Button raises to 3, I raise to 11, big blind (villain) calls, button calls.

Flop comes down 4s 9s 10h. Pot is 33

I continuation here with my 2 overs and gutter and backdoor flush draw for 17. villain calls, button folds.

Turn is a Ks. Pot is 67.

I bet 45. Villain takes some time and then makes the call.

River is 6c. Pot is 157.

I check, thinking I'm checking calling most bets. (should I have bet? like maybe 80-100 here?)

He thinks for a second and then jams his stack in (around 280 if I recall correctly)


I'm pretty confused here. Thoughts? On one hand why overbet jam if he's trying to get paid off? He literally just made a speech about 5 min ago about how he was thinking about overbet bluff jamming a hand he was in but couldnt pull the trigger. I haven't seen him ever overbet river so huge before - he's bluff overbet rivers (in much smaller pots, like $60 into a pot of $40) in 4-to-a-straight boards before. I've never seen him overbet for value. My hand is pretty underrepped I think and I've been playing really loose and have a pretty loose image having shown a couple bluffs already. I don't think he shoves straights here for value, so I guess the question is does he shove flushes? I feel like he could have also called 2 streets with a TXs/9Xs type hand that was being sticky.

Just seemed like a weird spot to me and I don't know if people have had experience with these things pop up as "mostly bluffs" or "mostly value" if they're sitting at a live game.

I'm not especially familiar with live cash games on the whole, but I think you're asking some of the wrong questions and providing the wrong information. There is nothing in your opening post about ranges preflop, on the flop or the turn. Your narrative is just what happened, which everyone can already see.

At least state what range you perceive both villains to have preflop. What about how you anticipate them to play flops, with examples of holdings. How are flops and turns going to play out in different nodes, i.e. what do they do facing bets, facing checks both on the flop and in the turn scenario? To me your analysis doesn't start until the river, which is not how you should formulate a hand review, and the analysis there is also asking a lot of the wrong questions since so much is focusing on "do they bluff" or "would they bet a flush like this" without really evaluating the range with which they come to the river. Players in these games are obviously playing very very far from optimal, so in order to write a decent reply, it would help massively to know something about how they deviate and why you think your line is best against the opponent.

Every hand starts preflop and I would not expect this 3bet pre to be good in this setup. The deeper you go, the less value these types of hands have in general. You will flop lots of 1 pair hands that do not hold up favourably when 200, 300, 400bb goes in the middle, and obv you will simply miss more often than not. You will struggle to win the flops when you flop nothing or weak pairs given that you're deep, out of position, against people who you assume to be making moves. Your fold equity pre is also likely to be very little, since that's pretty much how live poker goes. The hand doesn't fare well vs 4bets, and even when called, it is not making hands you're that happy about when so deep. I'm unsure how you are expecting the 3bet to be better than just flatting preflop? I assume preflop 3bet pots are raked in this live game? Is so, this really reduces the 3bet/fold mentality that exists in the online games. I mean in an online game this probably even gets folded in high rake environments anyway. Not that I would ever expect people to fold this in a live game, but still, it should give some idea as to how hard it is to actually show profit in this spot with this holding.

I am not a great fan of the flop cbet either. You need to be asking yourself what their preflop ranges are, how do their ranges interact with the flop, how does your range interact with the flop, how do the ranges play out across a variety of turn cards? It seems to me that even your overpairs are going to be very uncomfortable on many turn and river cards given the stack depths, especially against 2 opponents and 1 of them (the big blind) usually having a range that interacts very well with this board since he vpipped in a spot where he had only his bb invested. He is therefore supposed to be very tight pre and is likely to hit this board often and hard either with sets, overpairs, straight draws, nut flush draws etc. Your reasoning is simply "I have 2 overs and a gutter, therefore I bet", this is just the same as what any fish does where he looks at his 2 cards and makes a decision based purely upon those 2 cards and the board texture. You need to think deeper in this spot. What are the ranges in play? How does it play out on the flop and turn? Sure it's great when you bet, get called in one or two spots and an offsuit Q comes on the turn, but that's just 3 cards, what about the rest of the deck? How much do they fold combined on the flop? Is it enough to show profit? Or more to the point, is it enough to favour betting over checking? Imo, flop fold equity here is extremely little, the hand cannot continue vs a raise, it doesn't do well when called in terms of finding profitable barrels and it's outs other than a Q are not good enough to allow you to keep betting profitably.

Anyway we bet and big blind calls. He called pre and he called flop when sandwiched in-between yourself and the button. He already should have been tight pre, and now he has called the flop when you are representing a pretty strong range 3 way and he's got another live player behind him. What do you think he's doing this with? I mean you say these guys are thinking players, do you really anticipate that big blind flats the flop with, say, 88? How does that flop range of his interact on the turn? If his preflop and flop ranges were as tight as they should be, it does not seem that this turn is especially bad for his range. It is also not great for your range. AK likely should not be cbetting flop, most overpairs apart from KK just got weaker as a straight and flush came in and stacks behind are still very big. We should have eliminated most of the poor hands from his range on the flop, so I'm not sure how betting big with your hand on the turn is really accomplishing much value? It's like you're just hoping and praying he has exactly like AsTx (Should be folded pre)? QsQx (This is reasonable, but not many combos of his whole range)? Is this really enough of a part of his range? How does your hand play vs a raise after betting turn? Even vs a call I'm not sure you're an equity favourite... I could see a bet here if it was like 1/3rd pot or something, hoping to get value from some shit like JT with no flush draw or something, but when you go big it seems unlikely that you're getting called holding an equity advantage. You also open the door to being raised, which is most certainly not favourable to your holding.

In terms of how I see it, once the opponent has called preflop, flop and a sizable turn bet, you are just not ahead of his range and check calling the river makes little sense. To check call, you are basically saying that you are looking to bluff catch, but how does he even arrive at the river with a bluff? Are you thinking he somehow has AsQx? AsJx? I mean these hands would be extremely ambitious flats on the flop, even ambitious preflop. I can see little else that gets here this way that wants to bluff. AsTx would be even more ambitious preflop and in his eyes may have showdown value on river, even fucking 87 got there on the river, QJ got there on the turn, there's an abundance of flushes possible and QJ is possible. He could even have fucking 99 or TT and jam the river if he expects you never check better on the river... I really really do not get how you could possibly think that your hand is "pretty underrepped"... You have fucking 1 pair in a 375bb deep spot on the river where there's 2 straights and a flush possible, not to mention a bunch of sets. How the fuck is your hand underrepped? Is it standard here to just 3 barrel this hand for value? Is that how your hand should be repped? Seems like a ridiculous thought process to me. Think villain would have to be defending a GIANT range preflop, flop and turn for you to consider putting in a 3rd bet with your hand in this spot, either via check call or betting river and be good often enough for it to be long-term profitable. "On one hand why overbet jam if he's trying to get paid off?" It's easy to level yourself with questions like this, typically big hands want to bet big, it's as simple as that.

The funny thing is, I kind of expect your response to be "I called and was good" and that you're posting as some sort of brag/validation of your play, but I think it's unprofitable regardless of results on basically every street. Maybe you made some sick sizing tell without even thinking about the ranges at all, and congrats if so, but I think the thought process here was pretty lacking.

hi5 to midian for writing what no one else wanted to. if you're winning at these limits great, but i would consider working on your game before moving up.

only amendment i'd make to midians post is that this is a pretty profitable 3bet live against a lot of player types if you have only a minor skill edge. most people massively over/underdefend and over/underbluff and its not hard to tell who falls into what camp so finding spots like these to play poker can boost your winrate a lot. that caveat isn't really an excuse to shirk strong theory/fundamentals though.

On July 15 2020 22:51 ToT)MidiaN( wrote: I'm not especially familiar with live cash games on the whole, but I think you're asking some of the wrong questions and providing the wrong information. There is nothing in your opening post about ranges preflop, on the flop or the turn. Your narrative is just what happened, which everyone can already see. At least state what range you perceive both villains to have preflop. What about how you anticipate them to play flops, with examples of holdings. How are flops and turns going to play out in different nodes, i.e. what do they do facing bets, facing checks both on the flop and in the turn scenario? To me your analysis doesn't start until the river, which is not how you should formulate a hand review, and the analysis there is also asking a lot of the wrong questions since so much is focusing on "do they bluff" or "would they bet a flush like this" without really evaluating the range with which they come to the river. Players in these games are obviously playing very very far from optimal, so in order to write a decent reply, it would help massively to know something about how they deviate and why you think your line is best against the opponent. Every hand starts preflop and I would not expect this 3bet pre to be good in this setup. The deeper you go, the less value these types of hands have in general. You will flop lots of 1 pair hands that do not hold up favourably when 200, 300, 400bb goes in the middle, and obv you will simply miss more often than not. You will struggle to win the flops when you flop nothing or weak pairs given that you're deep, out of position, against people who you assume to be making moves. Your fold equity pre is also likely to be very little, since that's pretty much how live poker goes. The hand doesn't fare well vs 4bets, and even when called, it is not making hands you're that happy about when so deep. I'm unsure how you are expecting the 3bet to be better than just flatting preflop? I assume preflop 3bet pots are raked in this live game? Is so, this really reduces the 3bet/fold mentality that exists in the online games. I mean in an online game this probably even gets folded in high rake environments anyway. Not that I would ever expect people to fold this in a live game, but still, it should give some idea as to how hard it is to actually show profit in this spot with this holding. I am not a great fan of the flop cbet either. You need to be asking yourself what their preflop ranges are, how do their ranges interact with the flop, how does your range interact with the flop, how do the ranges play out across a variety of turn cards? It seems to me that even your overpairs are going to be very uncomfortable on many turn and river cards given the stack depths, especially against 2 opponents and 1 of them (the big blind) usually having a range that interacts very well with this board since he vpipped in a spot where he had only his bb invested. He is therefore supposed to be very tight pre and is likely to hit this board often and hard either with sets, overpairs, straight draws, nut flush draws etc. Your reasoning is simply "I have 2 overs and a gutter, therefore I bet", this is just the same as what any fish does where he looks at his 2 cards and makes a decision based purely upon those 2 cards and the board texture. You need to think deeper in this spot. What are the ranges in play? How does it play out on the flop and turn? Sure it's great when you bet, get called in one or two spots and an offsuit Q comes on the turn, but that's just 3 cards, what about the rest of the deck? How much do they fold combined on the flop? Is it enough to show profit? Or more to the point, is it enough to favour betting over checking? Imo, flop fold equity here is extremely little, the hand cannot continue vs a raise, it doesn't do well when called in terms of finding profitable barrels and it's outs other than a Q are not good enough to allow you to keep betting profitably. Anyway we bet and big blind calls. He called pre and he called flop when sandwiched in-between yourself and the button. He already should have been tight pre, and now he has called the flop when you are representing a pretty strong range 3 way and he's got another live player behind him. What do you think he's doing this with? I mean you say these guys are thinking players, do you really anticipate that big blind flats the flop with, say, 88? How does that flop range of his interact on the turn? If his preflop and flop ranges were as tight as they should be, it does not seem that this turn is especially bad for his range. It is also not great for your range. AK likely should not be cbetting flop, most overpairs apart from KK just got weaker as a straight and flush came in and stacks behind are still very big. We should have eliminated most of the poor hands from his range on the flop, so I'm not sure how betting big with your hand on the turn is really accomplishing much value? It's like you're just hoping and praying he has exactly like AsTx (Should be folded pre)? QsQx (This is reasonable, but not many combos of his whole range)? Is this really enough of a part of his range? How does your hand play vs a raise after betting turn? Even vs a call I'm not sure you're an equity favourite... I could see a bet here if it was like 1/3rd pot or something, hoping to get value from some shit like JT with no flush draw or something, but when you go big it seems unlikely that you're getting called holding an equity advantage. You also open the door to being raised, which is most certainly not favourable to your holding. In terms of how I see it, once the opponent has called preflop, flop and a sizable turn bet, you are just not ahead of his range and check calling the river makes little sense. To check call, you are basically saying that you are looking to bluff catch, but how does he even arrive at the river with a bluff? Are you thinking he somehow has AsQx? AsJx? I mean these hands would be extremely ambitious flats on the flop, even ambitious preflop. I can see little else that gets here this way that wants to bluff. AsTx would be even more ambitious preflop and in his eyes may have showdown value on river, even fucking 87 got there on the river, QJ got there on the turn, there's an abundance of flushes possible and QJ is possible. He could even have fucking 99 or TT and jam the river if he expects you never check better on the river... I really really do not get how you could possibly think that your hand is "pretty underrepped"... You have fucking 1 pair in a 375bb deep spot on the river where there's 2 straights and a flush possible, not to mention a bunch of sets. How the fuck is your hand underrepped? Is it standard here to just 3 barrel this hand for value? Is that how your hand should be repped? Seems like a ridiculous thought process to me. Think villain would have to be defending a GIANT range preflop, flop and turn for you to consider putting in a 3rd bet with your hand in this spot, either via check call or betting river and be good often enough for it to be long-term profitable. "On one hand why overbet jam if he's trying to get paid off?" It's easy to level yourself with questions like this, typically big hands want to bet big, it's as simple as that. The funny thing is, I kind of expect your response to be "I called and was good" and that you're posting as some sort of brag/validation of your play, but I think it's unprofitable regardless of results on basically every street. Maybe you made some sick sizing tell without even thinking about the ranges at all, and congrats if so, but I think the thought process here was pretty lacking.

cool, this helps a lot. Some additional info then! So everyone has been 3betting super light and action has been pretty crazy, I've been seeing ppl 3b and call with holdings as weak as 8To, 45o, and obviously also broadways and larger pocket pairs. (Typical live game? I don't know) People are showing down with super light holdings in some spots and as a result when I 3b I'm actually doing this with what I perceive as value as I'm anticipating getting called with things like k9o+, any pocket pair, any offsuit connector, etc. I think everything you mentioned is spot on but does it change for live games at all? Action is insane every few hands. I would say about every third orbit there's a 3b and probably a fifth of those are getting 4b preflop. People aren't going nuts raising top pair on boards getting in 100bb, but people are definitely getting 2 streets of value with a flopped top pair. I figure if I hit a J or K I'm actually ahead a lot of the time here.

As played I thought given their wide ranges preflop a flop c-bet wins some % of the time, and if I can't check every time I miss otherwise it becomes pretty broadcasted. When I say thinking player they're somewhat good at handreading and can make some big folds too. Definitely not amazing players.

Getting to the turn my thought process is because people are calling light 2 streets sometimes I actually should value bet this K which I shouldn't have a lot of the time, and I still have the J flush draw too. I feel like not betting here I'm missing out on a street of value from random straight draw hands, 10x type hands, etc.

Because action is so insane and ppl are making really light calls I figured a check/call river would be good a decent amount of the time if he also happened to be turning a missed straight draw or pair+flushdraw into a bluff. Am I wrong that I should be playing these games a bit different? Feels like I"m giving people way too much credit for continuing on those boards if they have only the holdings you mentioned. The massive overbet from how the hand was played and run out was where I was lost - didn't know how to take it, and didn't know if that were something more common in live that I could have expected.

I ended up folding here and he ended up showing As4x. Wasn't sure if that should have been a call given how loose/crazy ppl play in live low stakes, or if I should just fold and not think too much about it.

On July 16 2020 00:39 PoorUser wrote: hi5 to midian for writing what no one else wanted to. if you're winning at these limits great, but i would consider working on your game before moving up. only amendment i'd make to midians post is that this is a pretty profitable 3bet live against a lot of player types if you have only a minor skill edge. most people massively over/underdefend and over/underbluff and its not hard to tell who falls into what camp so finding spots like these to play poker can boost your winrate a lot. that caveat isn't really an excuse to shirk strong theory/fundamentals though.

thanks for chiming in! I honestly havent touched poker since like 2010 or something so the two games I got into recently (posted a hand from the last one too) I just have no clue if games are just like this or if I played it correctly.

You know, how like in lowstakes online back in the day a turn minraise was pretty much always the nuts, lol.

Oh one more thing of note, just in case someone says "why not just tighten up and you'll print money against these 3b/4b etc"

They do notice and talk about player tendencies at the table - one guy wasn't 3betting at all and the moment he did table just folds to him instantly. So if I want action I feel like I have to give action too. (Correct me if this is stupid thinking)

On July 16 2020 04:18 Endo wrote: Show nested quote + On July 15 2020 22:51 ToT)MidiaN( wrote: I'm not especially familiar with live cash games on the whole, but I think you're asking some of the wrong questions and providing the wrong information. There is nothing in your opening post about ranges preflop, on the flop or the turn. Your narrative is just what happened, which everyone can already see. At least state what range you perceive both villains to have preflop. What about how you anticipate them to play flops, with examples of holdings. How are flops and turns going to play out in different nodes, i.e. what do they do facing bets, facing checks both on the flop and in the turn scenario? To me your analysis doesn't start until the river, which is not how you should formulate a hand review, and the analysis there is also asking a lot of the wrong questions since so much is focusing on "do they bluff" or "would they bet a flush like this" without really evaluating the range with which they come to the river. Players in these games are obviously playing very very far from optimal, so in order to write a decent reply, it would help massively to know something about how they deviate and why you think your line is best against the opponent. Every hand starts preflop and I would not expect this 3bet pre to be good in this setup. The deeper you go, the less value these types of hands have in general. You will flop lots of 1 pair hands that do not hold up favourably when 200, 300, 400bb goes in the middle, and obv you will simply miss more often than not. You will struggle to win the flops when you flop nothing or weak pairs given that you're deep, out of position, against people who you assume to be making moves. Your fold equity pre is also likely to be very little, since that's pretty much how live poker goes. The hand doesn't fare well vs 4bets, and even when called, it is not making hands you're that happy about when so deep. I'm unsure how you are expecting the 3bet to be better than just flatting preflop? I assume preflop 3bet pots are raked in this live game? Is so, this really reduces the 3bet/fold mentality that exists in the online games. I mean in an online game this probably even gets folded in high rake environments anyway. Not that I would ever expect people to fold this in a live game, but still, it should give some idea as to how hard it is to actually show profit in this spot with this holding. I am not a great fan of the flop cbet either. You need to be asking yourself what their preflop ranges are, how do their ranges interact with the flop, how does your range interact with the flop, how do the ranges play out across a variety of turn cards? It seems to me that even your overpairs are going to be very uncomfortable on many turn and river cards given the stack depths, especially against 2 opponents and 1 of them (the big blind) usually having a range that interacts very well with this board since he vpipped in a spot where he had only his bb invested. He is therefore supposed to be very tight pre and is likely to hit this board often and hard either with sets, overpairs, straight draws, nut flush draws etc. Your reasoning is simply "I have 2 overs and a gutter, therefore I bet", this is just the same as what any fish does where he looks at his 2 cards and makes a decision based purely upon those 2 cards and the board texture. You need to think deeper in this spot. What are the ranges in play? How does it play out on the flop and turn? Sure it's great when you bet, get called in one or two spots and an offsuit Q comes on the turn, but that's just 3 cards, what about the rest of the deck? How much do they fold combined on the flop? Is it enough to show profit? Or more to the point, is it enough to favour betting over checking? Imo, flop fold equity here is extremely little, the hand cannot continue vs a raise, it doesn't do well when called in terms of finding profitable barrels and it's outs other than a Q are not good enough to allow you to keep betting profitably. Anyway we bet and big blind calls. He called pre and he called flop when sandwiched in-between yourself and the button. He already should have been tight pre, and now he has called the flop when you are representing a pretty strong range 3 way and he's got another live player behind him. What do you think he's doing this with? I mean you say these guys are thinking players, do you really anticipate that big blind flats the flop with, say, 88? How does that flop range of his interact on the turn? If his preflop and flop ranges were as tight as they should be, it does not seem that this turn is especially bad for his range. It is also not great for your range. AK likely should not be cbetting flop, most overpairs apart from KK just got weaker as a straight and flush came in and stacks behind are still very big. We should have eliminated most of the poor hands from his range on the flop, so I'm not sure how betting big with your hand on the turn is really accomplishing much value? It's like you're just hoping and praying he has exactly like AsTx (Should be folded pre)? QsQx (This is reasonable, but not many combos of his whole range)? Is this really enough of a part of his range? How does your hand play vs a raise after betting turn? Even vs a call I'm not sure you're an equity favourite... I could see a bet here if it was like 1/3rd pot or something, hoping to get value from some shit like JT with no flush draw or something, but when you go big it seems unlikely that you're getting called holding an equity advantage. You also open the door to being raised, which is most certainly not favourable to your holding. In terms of how I see it, once the opponent has called preflop, flop and a sizable turn bet, you are just not ahead of his range and check calling the river makes little sense. To check call, you are basically saying that you are looking to bluff catch, but how does he even arrive at the river with a bluff? Are you thinking he somehow has AsQx? AsJx? I mean these hands would be extremely ambitious flats on the flop, even ambitious preflop. I can see little else that gets here this way that wants to bluff. AsTx would be even more ambitious preflop and in his eyes may have showdown value on river, even fucking 87 got there on the river, QJ got there on the turn, there's an abundance of flushes possible and QJ is possible. He could even have fucking 99 or TT and jam the river if he expects you never check better on the river... I really really do not get how you could possibly think that your hand is "pretty underrepped"... You have fucking 1 pair in a 375bb deep spot on the river where there's 2 straights and a flush possible, not to mention a bunch of sets. How the fuck is your hand underrepped? Is it standard here to just 3 barrel this hand for value? Is that how your hand should be repped? Seems like a ridiculous thought process to me. Think villain would have to be defending a GIANT range preflop, flop and turn for you to consider putting in a 3rd bet with your hand in this spot, either via check call or betting river and be good often enough for it to be long-term profitable. "On one hand why overbet jam if he's trying to get paid off?" It's easy to level yourself with questions like this, typically big hands want to bet big, it's as simple as that. The funny thing is, I kind of expect your response to be "I called and was good" and that you're posting as some sort of brag/validation of your play, but I think it's unprofitable regardless of results on basically every street. Maybe you made some sick sizing tell without even thinking about the ranges at all, and congrats if so, but I think the thought process here was pretty lacking. cool, this helps a lot. Some additional info then! So everyone has been 3betting super light and action has been pretty crazy, I've been seeing ppl 3b and call with holdings as weak as 8To, 45o, and obviously also broadways and larger pocket pairs. (Typical live game? I don't know) People are showing down with super light holdings in some spots and as a result when I 3b I'm actually doing this with what I perceive as value as I'm anticipating getting called with things like k9o+, any pocket pair, any offsuit connector, etc. I think everything you mentioned is spot on but does it change for live games at all? Action is insane every few hands. I would say about a third of the hands are getting 3b and probably a fifth of those are getting 4b preflop. As played I thought given their wide ranges preflop a flop c-bet wins some % of the time, and if I can't check every time I miss otherwise it becomes pretty broadcasted. When I say thinking player they're somewhat good at handreading and can make some big folds too. Definitely not amazing players. Getting to the turn my thought process is because people are calling light 2 streets sometimes I actually should value bet this K which I shouldn't have a lot of the time, and I still have the J flush draw too. Because action is so insane and ppl are making really light calls I figured a check/call river would be good a decent amount of the time if he also happened to be turning a missed straight draw or pair+flushdraw into a bluff. Am I wrong that I should be playing these games a bit different? Feels like I"m giving people way too much credit for continuing on those boards if they have only the holdings you mentioned. I ended up folding here and he ended up showing As4x. Wasn't sure if that should have been a call given how loose/crazy ppl play in live low stakes, or if I should just fold and not think too much about it.

I freely admit that I'm not used to live game dynamics really, I've prob played live cash games maybe on 20 occasions tops. I guess there's just a lot of street poker going on in this particular game in general if people are calling pre and flop with A4o in spots like this. If ranges are that wide pre I can understand flop cbet, since I guess you might be able to get it through enough and have more equity when called than you would if big blind is playing any kind of reasonable preflop range.

Knowing this though, my line would be to start bluffcatching from turn, because I do not think your hand is strong enough to valuebet both turn and river on the vast majority of cards despite the wide ranges whereas perhaps he is the type to float flop with lots of random shit and start bluffing turns and rivers. When you bet you need to consider not only whether your hand is good, but also how your hand plays on future streets if you bet and get called or raised. To me the only rivers you are somewhat happy to valuebet are a K, Q, and a high spade, i.e. river would be more of valuebet on As river more so than 2s river, which is obvious speak anyway and the hand isn't strong enough to fight a turn raise. The comfortable river cards don't make up much of the deck and the hand won't make all that strong of a bluffcatcher on river after betting turn anyway since the majority of his turn calling range will have showdown value and not need to bluff, or will be beating you. So for those reasons I'd rather just start bluffcatching from turn and be more polarised with turn bets. If you do bet turn I still think you should size down, it's not a good card for your range in general and if you wanna bet and get called by enough worse hands you need to be basically utilising a block sizing.

one thing to note is our hand is likely towards the top of our range here and we hold the Js. Pretty nice combo to hero call with especially if villain is unbalanced in these spots (which i think is quite likely at low stakes as well).

^ I think "top of our range" is kind of a poor excuse by itself tbh. It has it's place, but usually the only reason a hand is 'top of our range' is because we constructed our range in such a way that it happens to be top of our range, which is very often very far from the optimum range getting to that node. If we have constructed our ranges perfectly up to that point, then sure, we can use that excuse, but it is extremely easy to make big bluff-catching errors based upon that logic if we have either a) constructed our range sub-optimally up to that point or b) opponents are deviating hard and arrive at this node with 0 bluffs. In the latter case, we should actually be bluff-catching river never. If we construct our range in an incorrect way it's easy to make ANYTHING the "top of our range" and use that as an excuse to bluff catch river, usually erroneously, purely based upon this 'top of the range logic' which falls short when points a and/or b are true. Say we just bet all top and mid of our range on flop and turn, when we check river we end up having an extremely capped and weak range entering the river and the 'top of our range' in that spot might be, in absolute terms, very low down the overall range we entered the river with. Does this mean we should start check calling shit hands on the river because it's the 'top of our range' that enters that node? Cleary not when we have have formulated our range in such a way that our range hitting that node is just full of garbage. IP can get away with murder in this case.

Besides, from an exploitative point of view I don't think we need to think too hard about our bluff-catching region after betting 2 streets in this spot anyway, since the whole bet, bet, check call range is irrelevant if villain does not call/call/bluff appropriate frequencies. Very few humans are going to get close to correct GTO bluffing frequencies in this exact bet sequence since most humans infrequently flat enough hands pre/flop/turn that don't have showdown value or turn enough showdown value hands into a bluff on the river to really incentivise OOP to try to create any sort of bet/bet/check-call frequency.

"On one hand why overbet jam if he's trying to get paid off? He literally just made a speech about 5 min ago about how he was thinking about overbet bluff jamming a hand he was in but couldnt pull the trigger"

Applies pretty much most of the time to the general population. Also, this is a pretty big live tell, saying he is capable and almost like he genuinely regretted it, especially if he brings it up more than once. Almost too coincidental that it comes up at a time when you have no other better hands to call with here. Couple that with the fact, it feels more like he wants a fold than a call. You basically have the ideal villain and hand/scenario to make a hero call.

also enjoyed midians analysis overall in theory. nice hand anyway

On July 18 2020 23:35 ToT)MidiaN( wrote: ^ I think "top of our range" is kind of a poor excuse by itself tbh. It has it's place, but usually the only reason a hand is 'top of our range' is because we constructed our range in such a way that it happens to be top of our range, which is very often very far from the optimum range getting to that node. If we have constructed our ranges perfectly up to that point, then sure, we can use that excuse, but it is extremely easy to make big bluff-catching errors based upon that logic if we have either a) constructed our range sub-optimally up to that point or b) opponents are deviating hard and arrive at this node with 0 bluffs. In the latter case, we should actually be bluff-catching river never. If we construct our range in an incorrect way it's easy to make ANYTHING the "top of our range" and use that as an excuse to bluff catch river, usually erroneously, purely based upon this 'top of the range logic' which falls short when points a and/or b are true. Say we just bet all top and mid of our range on flop and turn, when we check river we end up having an extremely capped and weak range entering the river and the 'top of our range' in that spot might be, in absolute terms, very low down the overall range we entered the river with. Does this mean we should start check calling shit hands on the river because it's the 'top of our range' that enters that node? Cleary not when we have have formulated our range in such a way that our range hitting that node is just full of garbage. IP can get away with murder in this case. Besides, from an exploitative point of view I don't think we need to think too hard about our bluff-catching region after betting 2 streets in this spot anyway, since the whole bet, bet, check call range is irrelevant if villain does not call/call/bluff appropriate frequencies. Very few humans are going to get close to correct GTO bluffing frequencies in this exact bet sequence since most humans infrequently flat enough hands pre/flop/turn that don't have showdown value or turn enough showdown value hands into a bluff on the river to really incentivise OOP to try to create any sort of bet/bet/check-call frequency.

Practically speaking is it not reasonable to assume Hero's range that goes bet/bet/check isn't towards the nutted end? I believe I was pointing out a fact unless AJ here isn't towards the top half of most people's range here. We block many reasonable flushes villain also has in his range making this hand a reasonable Hero call in my eyes.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me to assume that bet/bet/check isn't a line that will tend to be nutted, however I'm not arguing that this may be top of hero's range when he bet/bet/checks, what I'm saying is that it's debateable whether we should even get to this node with KJo in the first place. The point being that even though KJo may be "top of our range" when we, as a human, took this exact line, this is only the case since we constructed our range this way. It isn't necessarily a solid theoretical reason to call down if we made mistakes earlier in the hand with our range construction. I personally don't believe KJ should be betting this way twice, at least not for this sizing, when it was 3 way on the flop and the ranges in play preflop SHOULD theoretically be pretty tight, at least for the villain in BB, who is the guy who continued on the flop. KJo really isn't all that strong on this board in this situation as a whole where reasonable preflop ranges are in play in any case. I think the way we bet flop and turn really should narrow his range to the point where he will not have enough bluffs such that our call is +EV, regardless of where it falls in our range, which is simply only a function of the way we chose to bet.

To illustrate the point - We could choose to just bet/bet/bet all hands for value flop/turn/river and end up in a spot where bluffs that are giving up is all we have on the river, does that mean we should start check/calling the best of them on river since we have "the top of our range" that got to that node? KJo may be top of our range in this spot, simply because we constructed our range incorrectly.

Of course a lot this starts to go out the window when people somehow have A4o in this spot, clearly I didn't expect such play which is probably due to my inexperience in live games. But still, even given that he has A4o in this spot, it doesn't NECESSARILY mean we have a +EV call vs his whole range. That will depend on how many other bluffs he has and chooses to jam, and how many combos of value hands he jams. I will admit that it is PROBABLY likely that we do have a +EV call given that he showed A4o and he probably will find enough bluffs and perhaps may tend towards smaller bets "to get called", if that's how he thinks, with at least some of his value hands. However, even if this is a +EV call vs villain I still don't think that the reasoning of we are "top of our range" is the correct reasoning to make the call and I don't think the way this hand played out was optimal against either an optimal player, or even vs this player. In the latter case, I personally believe check calling turn, or even checking flop, are both better options than what was chosen.

I could run a sim on the spot but it would have to exclude BTN and fuck knows what ranges I would input for SB and BB, so it may be pointless, but if you wanna gimme some ranges I can run it and see what optimal outputs are for that situation?

grunch: I snap call this. Your hand is kinda face up. You either have nothing or you have like JJ+. He cant shove and expect a call from a weak range and thats exactly what you look like here. He has to go for straight value and get looked up unless you have some terrible image of paying off huge bets with single pairs. Therefore the only logical thing he's doing is looking for a fold. BTW I wouldnt 3bet KJo OOP deep, otherwise you just end up in dogshit spots like this right here. Suited? No problem.

On September 16 2020 21:12 NewbSaibot wrote: grunch: I snap call this. Your hand is kinda face up. You either have nothing or you have like JJ+. He cant shove and expect a call from a weak range and thats exactly what you look like here. He has to go for straight value and get looked up unless you have some terrible image of paying off huge bets with single pairs. Therefore the only logical thing he's doing is looking for a fold. BTW I wouldnt 3bet KJo OOP deep, otherwise you just end up in dogshit spots like this right here. Suited? No problem.

sure, you snap call this 400bb deep....