I'm def not qualified to seriously comment on this hand but I'll get the discussion going.

I'm curious how you construct a turn c/r range here. Would you c/r a hand like 77-88 here? Also what if the river comes down J/Q/K/A, are you bluffing?

Looking at the player pool, you wouldn't expect this to be NLHE hand. :)

Pre-flop is loose but good, and I like the flop bet, too.
If you had two spade overcards to the 9, I think both c/c and c/r are good plays.
C/r because you get money out his stabs, and you're less likely to get floated on a board where his range contains a lot of backdoors and Ahighs to continue with.
But with a lower FD and only one overcard, I think betting is clearly best.
C/c would be nice because he'll barrel a lot of cards that improve you, and it's nice to be able to bluff rivers on checked back turns, since you don't have much air when you c/c with initiative.

On the 9 turn that's equally good/bad for both ranges, I don't think you should have a huge c/r bluffing frequency, but I would barrel most FDs, and balance with 9x.
The rest of my 9x, pairs, etc. go into my c/c range, both for balance and pot control.

His turn value range is narrow, so I dislike the near 4x c/r. If he floated the flop (Ivey loves to float), then the turn c/r sizing doesn't need to be big. Your value range is narrow also, with 9x+.

I don't see the point in jamming the river. You block two spades and 54s, and can't expect him to bet-call 9x+, and fold it on the river.
I'd check, and try to show down versus hands like 66 that bet for protection on the turn, and called the c/r.
There's a small chance he did bet-call a draw on the turn, in which case you'd want to bluffcatch the river.


Thanks for sharing the hand. Always excites me to see HSNL hands from you, and I hope you post more.

also not even remotely qualified since i don´t even play holdem but give it a try too :)

i even don´t know about preflop, i guess ivey is pretty sticky in position, our hand obv doesn´t play very well out of position vs a tough, loose opponent (which i think ivey is), but i guess it´s fine vs random hand, although i actually think it might be close.

flop c/bet is imo by far the best default line for our range with this texture, so not much to say about that, although phil prob has lots of history vs ivey in these situations whereas we could take an alternative line too i guess, like c/r to punish his total air stabs and get the pot most likely down with t high etc... seems pretty suboptimal though and very tough to balance and further streets if he continues etc, so imo cbetting is best, followed by c/c if ivey is likely to rep our hand with total air a lot. phil will know that better obv

turn is very player/read dependent imo; is ivey likely to double float? is he giving up on floats if double barreled on this turn, knowing he reps super thin/polarized on such a spot if he continues with a raise? if he likely folds his floats i think a simple double barrel would be the best play, if phil is trying to punish his floats (which i think he is) then c/r. c/ would be the default line too imo since i don´t think phil would bet all his value hands on such a board ott and could prob quite easily get away with a river stab if it´s c/c ott.

as archivist, i´m very curious though how you would construct your c/r range on this turn, esp since ivey most likely 3bets 77+ preflop. i´m curious on what parts of his range you are targeting with this c/r, esp with the plan of following up on blank rivers if called. looks to me like 44/55/66, 2x, 3x, maybe A4, A5. very small value range imo, but it looks that way to me. we prob drew out otr now and are almost certainly vbetting since i don´t think ivey folds TT+ (which he very rarely has anyway) ever, but isn´t that a bit strange since we obv thought a river bluff shove vs these hands would be +EV when c/r the turn? prob a merged vbet now, but what do i now...

to add to the turn c/r raise, i personally would construct it in a very polarized way between TT+ and total air to have an easy decision on what to do when shoved on, c/r call the first part of the range and easy c/r fold the second one. we would be in a pretty painful situation if ivey decides to shove vs our actual hand ott imo.

u should be mostly checking on the flop, but it`s ok to have some betting range on this one, T5s is ok to be in it, on the turn u should check everything with a little c/r, this hand is ok to c/r, on the river u should give up some bluffs, T5ss being one of them, cause u have at least a little sd value + having a Ten< having 2spades when considering bluffing

Think your line is pretty good.  River just comes down to whether or not he calls with enough 2x/3x/44-66,A high's to make up for the times he has 9x.  He will have a lot of 9x SB v BB, all of which are likely to play this way(unless he'd raise flop with some of them), so you'd have to count combos of other hands that would play similarly.  I think I like your line best on the river though, nh.

Phil,

I think pf/flop/turn are all fine, I have a hard time believing we are making money OTR shoving.

If Ivey is playing a pf range that is 10%-70% (not exact I know but fairly close)

66-22,A9-A2,K9-K5,Q9-Q6,J9-J7,T9-T6,98-95,87-85,76-75,65,54,K4s-K2s,Q5s-Q2s,J6s-J2s,T5s-T2s,94s-92s,84s-82s,74s-72s,64s-62s,53s-52s,43s-42s,32s,ATo,KTo,QTo,JTo

This range (assuming it never folds flop) will have two pair OTT 15%, and will have trips or better 12.67%. Given that our river shove will always be called by trips, we would need to expect him to call down 2x or 3x 44-66 over 3/4 of the time to make money which seems extremely optimisitc.

was hoping to sweat - can't find the game

If he merges alot, I think I like this line. Even the river. It's a spot where you look full of **** and mergebetting players probably love to call that turnraise (especially because of the sizing) wide and herocall a megablank Th river. But I wouldn't even mind a c/f or c/c on the river. It really depends on the villain.

He has never overpairs.

Your Tx are never dominated on the river because you even block the Txss. (That's actually relevant)

You beat everything except 22/33/9x. And we all know it's hard to get trips or full houses in holdém :)

And I do think you get herocalled here alot, it just looks like that kind of spot because you are perceived to be so polarized and the line is weird.

Although it really hurts the line if he 3bets linear 66+. Him being able to have 66-88 here is 18 combos that would be really nice if he could have. Because they would be a big part of the herocalling range.

You are "freerolling" against everything except 9x or 22/33. T5ss and AA is essentially the same hand of value here.

I think I like it. But could definitely be convinced about all sorts of lines here. You could design this line vs a specific opponent and I do think it could be good. If Ivey can't have 66-88 here then I think he is maybe the wrong candidate for your line.

It seems like this play is exploitative in nature so I think the river shove on the ten is kinda overkill.  You must think he's bet/calling the turn with 3x, 44 and 55 really often but then also getting curious and looking you up.  If that's the case then I think your idea of exploiting him by c/r turn and shove brick rivers is getting called too often--though I don't believe that's necessarily the case--meaning I liked your original idea and I think let's use this river pair to save ourselves some money the times he has a 9 and just chk/fold.  If he flats 66 77 and 88 pre then I think the river shove has more merit.

How do you think he plays spades?

I don't really get why you're happy to ch/r turn and fire bricks because you think he's going to fold enough of the time with marginal stuff, but you then go ahead and fire a brick T expecting to now be called by these hands?

if you think there is a chance that the river helps you isn't a check/call a lot better than a jam?

ivey is betting turn to protect with a lot of his range.

galfond knows this so he is cr this turn card with a few semi bluffs and his nut hands.  

ivey knows this and might end up bet/calling some pair hands on the turn that are worse then Tx (4x, 3x, 44-88). which are in fact ahead of galfonds specific hand of overcard + flush-draw whilst on the turn.

on the river, galfond has a shove for value. which is probably a good shove. imo. especially with how we got there. (better then cc with it -- beat many 2x, 3x combos, 44-88. keep in mind these two hands happened sb vsbb. where ranges are inevitably very very wide. )

the bluff just sucks man. if i would be in phil iveys shoes i would put u clearly on AK.

^ I think 2+2 is calling you. They need more trolls.

 To make us indifferent to bluffing, he gets to fold 50% of his turn betting range to the cr and then 50% of cr calling range on the river. He only needs to call the river with 25% of his original turn betting range and of  that river range-- less than half need to be 9x or better or roughly less than 12% of his original valuebetting range to make value betting correct. 

If he has a 9, 1/8 of the time on the turn, then we can't profitably shove a ten for value. I'd think any competent player would meet this criteria. 

I tried to do lil OO myself, and what i came up with with assumption he defends 50 % in bb 

On the turn, if he defends wide he will have approx this continuation range

9*- 16.5 %

33 - 0.5 % and 22 - 0.4 %

suited spades - 20 %

JJ - 5 %     TT 2.56 %

AA-QQ - totals 15 % approx but since he capped by not 3 betting pre, we can leave total of AA-QQ to 5 % of slow played ones ( if he has flat range of premiums, which i suppose is a must )

So on the turn check raise, he should be continuing 49.96 %, if we exclude sets thats 1 percent less, and f he doesn't continue with every spade combo thats getting a check raise more and more profitable

On the river, he wil be calling all 9s and top boat if he continued with tens and his overs ..some 24 % of the time

Play as such, should be at very least break even, but much depends on a player read, which u know better

If he doesn't continue with all his spade draws, and all his tens and jacks, play is auto profitable

Number of his slow played overs is also unknown factor, and how he treats them afterwards

Lets seperate the hands into groups.

Group A-- Hands we Lose to 

Better hands that ivey will have on the river.

Very loose range:

Give him every suited 9x combo: 48 combos

Give him every offsuit 9x combo down to 96o: 27 combos

Give him ALL of 33/22/99: 7 combos

Give him 5% random TT-AA combos: ~1 combo 

total combos that will lose: 83 combos

Group B-- Hands we are ahead of.

 Worse hands that ivey can **potentially** call a river shove?

Give him 75% of worse pp's then Tx (44-88): 30 combos

Give him every suited 3x,2x combo: 63 hands

Give him LOOSE range of 3x,2x offsuit combos:  70 combos (listed below)

Ax3y,Ax2y,6x3y,5x3y,5x2y,4x3y,4x2y,3x2y

total combos beat: 166 combos.

notes:

* I mean its pretty tough to guess how many offsuited 2x, 3x combos someone is going to be calling sbvsbb but for now that range listed above of 70 offsuit combos is very wide and loose imo, so keep that in mind.

* Maybe 9x is more likely to be 3bet then his 3x and 2x combined so we can reduce hands lose to slightly more. 

*He wont always call the river with hands from groupB. 

If you assume he is calling 75% of time with hands from group2 then on the river he has a worse hand that is calling about 1.5x more often then he has a better hand. 

I keep looking at the hand and wondering if the river bet is for value or a bluff. Seems more like a bluff especially since we assume Ivey is 3 betting hands like 55-88 pre. However I'm not sure what better hands fold. Given that my very humble opinion would be that this hand goes better as a bluff catcher. 

Damn, the more I look at the hand the more confused I get. Really nice HH. 

Given what you say about him betting so wide to protect, what about ~12k-15k on the river?

That sizing doesn't seem too sound in theory, I don't see why it's shove or check in the actual situation.

Okay so that I'm Biochemistry free I did some work on this one.

On the river, he has 70 combos of 9x+ Assuming no flop raises and him playing 94s+ and 96o+. Of those combos only 6 are ever possibly getting raised (22-33) so i suspect he has 64 combos at bare minimum 

If he defends 22-55, 2Ko+, 3Ko+, 23-25s, J2s+, 34-35s, J3s+ (assumed he 3b the middling ones) then he has 152 combos of paired hands or better ( so we're barely a favorite vs his pairs + which probably tells us this isn't a great spot to jam since he has to bet/call turn 100% with those hands and call river for it to be good.)

Furthermore, this represents 15% of total hands on the river. You can prove he can call with a tighter range than this by the river and not be exploitable even if he's defending 100% of hands pre. I even assumed he bet turn 80% when checked to to keep his range as wide as possible (and account for your "bets to protect turn" read). I don't think we can reasonably go any higher than that.

This makes checking river best and likely folding since if we assume he jams trips + (70 combos otr) we need 35 bluffs.

If his turn calling range is pairs+, flushdraws, 45, A4, and pairs/A high show down, trips + and 45/flushdraws shove he only has 28 combos of bluffs.

This means even if he raises flop with sets making his river range 64 combos of 9x, we still can't call the river jam unless we expcect him to turn Ax into a bluff.
As we'd need 32 bluff combos and can only come up with 28 still.

Nice post apotheosis. It's possible tho that Ivey has a more aggressive flop raising strat than only 22/33 for value (very strong 9x?). Intuitively c/c river seems best but Apo's post suggests otherwise.

Ok, my first post on RIO - hi everyone...

I'll take a shot here with some questions and observations.

1) I have never played with Phil Ivey but I have watched a lot of video on him (as everyone has I guess). Obviously, this is not the same as developing reads playing with him but I think I have a decent idea of his style. When bvb here, I think his pre-flop call is super wide IP and I think his flop call is also SUPER wide IP. I have seen him float flops like this with next to no equity just to try to outplay on future streets. On such a dry board, when you check the turn I think he is betting with almost his entire range as he will act to protect his one pair hands, bet his huge hands for value, and stab with his air. When you c/raise this turn on such a dry board, I think it looks super suspicious to him and I think AGAIN he calls super wide, but I do have to believe he is calling with something that has SDV because I don't think he'd call here with intention of bluff shoving river given stacks aren't great for that IMO.  

A) You said your plan was to shove brick rivers. You would be shoving 33k into 48k. Do you think that is a good bluff size on river? IMHO whatever he is calling you with on the turn, would call a brick river for 68% pot shove. Again, I haven't played with him, but this is my read based on video. 

B) I GUESS that to be perfectly balanced, we could shove our entire range here on the river. We could shove our air like was your plan, shove our value range obviously and shove our top pair as we ended up doing. Personally, I lean more towards exploitative play than balance, so if it was me, I would expect him to call this river shove so I'd be shoving for value and not as bluff, and I believe the 10 on the river allows us to shove for value. I expect him to call with worst. I expect us to have the best hand here a good percentage of the time, and I expect him to call with worst enough to make it a plus EV shove.

2) Table selection. Seat selection. hand selection.

A) Is there a big fish at this table that makes it worth your while to sit with Phil Ivey directly on your left? Seems to me I would do almost anything to avoid this seat, as to me table selection and seat selection are HUGE parts of playing winning poker. Maybe you don't think Ivey is as scary as I do? lol 

B) Let's just say we think the table and seat are still plus EV... Why are we opening 10-5 OOP vs one of the best players in the world? 

@ desalle--> I think we should play a mixed strategy, shoving the times we have stronger 9x (especially the ones that block his bluffs). Depending how frequently he bluffs etc it may be better to x/c a hand like Qh9x since we don't block any of his bluffing combos (though it may be correct to just jam them all),

I also think as a sort of side note, we shouldn't simply take this line with "9x and air" i.e. all 9x+ and some draws. We should take this line with nutted 9x and air, and then leave our weaker 9x either in a betting range or a x/c x/c range (my preference). This keeps us protected the times we don't x/r the turn. Also, hands on this board like 97s if we check raised turn are spectacular bluff catchers (because of card removal instead of having just under 1/3 bluffs hes now going to have just under 1/2 bluffs.) He also has a decent chunk of extra fds in his range now ~10ish I'd say, given we don't block Ts or 5s anymore. That doesn't mean they're strong enough to value bet though. Even if his range contains lots of air, he can't call with it and 97s is doing pretty meh against his range unless he just bet/calls turn and calls river with all pairs (as I talked about above). Obviously when we beat a few 9x and block a bunch he's not going to have to call as wide, but if you work backwards in the previous example he can bet turn like 80% of the time and then be defending like 150% of the deck to not be exploitable calling that range. Which means if we have him defending only 60% of the time and betting the turn a slightly more reasonable 65% it's going to ~account for the strength of our hand. (That's just my guess, you could work that out).


@ Tom Alner Yea, that's definitely true. It's possible he just raises A9 here, but it's also possible he has 88 or AA slowplayed some of the time too so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Also, given the results of that post, he'd have to be raising shitloads of 9x for our play to be good, not just a couple of sporadic combos here or there (which is probably closer to the truth)

Hello, 

I consider the riverplay pretty poor. I added three crEv trees where you i make a few assumptions that I think that are pretty standard. 

1.)Preflop range

2.)flop calling range (It´s hard to know if he´s going to fastplay TP2k+ and sets). 

3.)Betting vs missed OTT -->mainly the PP between 3´s and 9´s

4.) Calling range OTR -->mainly the PP between the 3´s and 9´s. 

The first tree consider the most optimistic assumptions for Phil (bet/callshove river with the pockets). The three lines OTr are compared. We also see he´s calling a huge % OTR (Polarizing).

The second one considers he´s fastplaying TP2k+ OTF and he´s not bluffing on the river K high FD. 

The third one is what I consider (He might raise 22-33 on the flop but almost never K9/A9), and he might bet/call on the turn with the pockets but he´s never calling on the river, based on what I have seen in the highstakes. 

To sum up, the bet is always the worst option, showing that if Polarizing is not betting the river with all the flushes, check folding is very superior, and if he is betting with all of them, is only a bit superior. 

Anyway, just play a bit with the tree. I think it´s the best way to make accurate assumptions. Thanks Phil for bringing the hands, I will post some in the next weeks too.

http://we.tl/sa3RAyE1L2 

Did he fold? :)

That's aloof of monies

Edit: a lot , thou aloof could work better

I am curious as to why you are convinced this is a +ev open pre? 

I'm assuming that you have specific reads vs Ivey that you think opening T5s vs him BvB is profitable(since I don't have these reads I'm inclined to fold). However, as played I think we can eliminate 99/33/22/32/93/92/A9/K9 from his range given that he didn't raise flop(and we don't think he has over pairs since he didn't 3bet pre), I don't think I've ever seen Ivey slowplay a big flopped hand. How are we playing our 9x/full house hands here? It would seem that bet flop, cr turn, ai river would be best since we get stacks in. With flush draws and straight draws we could triple barrel and it's much cheaper when we lose. They both feel like a polarized line but we could bet A3/44-88/TT+ with the bet bet bet line as well to protect. Is it bad if we don't have a bet bet check line on this board? I don't think so because I wouldn't expect him to call call and bluff. I'm mostly an lolliveplayer but that's my 2cents. 

looks like you can never call when you check... go for the check call!

I'm not sure about the shove on the river because gallons is very unlikely going to get called with a worse hand then a 10. I think galfond should ha've leaned towards a value bet.

I hope it's ok if I have a go at this.

Range that calls otr (210 Combos or 57% of his range)
99,33-22,A9o,K9o,Q9o,J9o,T9o,98o-92o,A9s,K9s,Q9s,J9s,T9s,98s-92s

Range that folds otr (156 combos or 43% of his range)
A3o,K3o,Q3o,54o,A3s,K3s,QJs-QTs,Q8s-Q3s,JsTs,Js8s-Js3s,Ts8s-Ts3s,8s7s-8s3s,76s-73s,54s

(not clue if villain calls or folds river with JsTs and QsTs)

I assume we always lose when villain calls.

If we bet and Villain folds we win = +81100$ (43%) = 34873$
If we bet and Villain calls we lose = -33700$ (100%) = -33700$

EV Bet = 1173$

Does that sound about right?
Can somebody tell me if I'm doing the math right here? I'm really new at this :)

And how do we calculate the EV of a check in this spot?
fwiw I flunked just about every single math class in my life.

*edit math :p