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5/10HUNL, 3bet Pot with KK

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5/10HUNL, 3bet Pot with KK

http://weaktight.com/5146508

Seems incredibly standard. But I was a little curious about just how much value the river jam had and what the numbers looked like so I looked into it. I think it's good to analyze hands sometimes even when you think they're completely standard just to re-affirm your thoughts and potentially tweak some variables to find thresholds. I was a bit surprised at what I found with this hand.

By shoving the river, we need to be called by a worse hand > 50% of the time for it to be profitable, of course. If we give him a calling range pf of the top ~40% of hands minus the top ~4-5% that he likely 4bets, he can (and most likely will) show up on the river with the following hands that beat us: (AT, KT, QT, JT, T9, T8s, 88, 33) All of which probably take this line close to 100% of the time.

So next, I added hands until I reached the threshold where KK wins > 50% of the time and I was a little surprised at how deep I had to go. This is the range I came up with: (AJ, A8, 99, 77, 66)

Arguably, some of these hands get played different on prior streets only thinning the frequencies and making us dig deeper to 55/44. And if we add T8o into his range pre-flop while taking away 99 (if he 4bets it) and adding suitedness to A8 (to represent that he might not flat A8o pre and/or float it on the flop) then we have to go as far as him hero-calling with AQ before we start showing profit with our river jam. Quite the result!

Of course, the cool thing is that if he's not calling the river wide enough thus making our bet with KK a -EV bet, the effect on our entire range is likely +EV if we assume that we bluff the river with an appropriate frequency and that our play on prior streets sets up properly for such a balanced river range. So I don't think anything but jam is really an option here but I found it very interesting to see how close it actually was and that its very possible that it can be a chk/fold (crazy I know!) against the extreme tightest/nittiest of opponents.

17 Comments

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james 12 years, 5 months ago
I would guess that if he gets to the river with a range tight enough that you can't value jam the river then you've made a ton of money off of your flop and turns bets. Additionally, if he gets to the river wide but only calls down with trips or better type hands then you're likely making a ton of money betting a balanced range on the river as your bluffs should be making tons of money. I guess I'd think of this situation more as a 3 street situation rather than isolating the river play.
Lucas Greenwood 12 years, 5 months ago
I think c/f is a perfectly fine river play vs the right opponent, particularly because you better hands will call 99.9% of the time, and worse hands won't. It also depends on villain's river bluff frequency, tight players should be shoving 66 otr if we check as a bluff, but vs an opponent who will not, I'm fairly certain c/f is the best option, because it minimizes our losses for all better hands and its fairly likely that he does have a better hand.
woohoo42 12 years, 4 months ago
So, you think he never floats 9J in this spot? Weird, I had a feeling that that particular hand made a decent part of his flop-turn calling range, and can call a river bet as well... And, I agree with James that this is a 3 street spot, because you will 3 barrell this board sooo much that you just have to fire here.
henrik7 12 years, 4 months ago
what do you think about a turn check? i feel i check a lot of my range on the turn here because i feel its hard to get 3 streets on most river cards but we can pick off floats and/or let him value own himself. in general i cc cc turn and river. thoughts?
Sean Lefort 12 years, 4 months ago
It's very viable but we need to recognize what it does for our barreling range. If we decide that this is a flop we want to CB with a very high % (potentially 100%), then we're carrying our entire 3betting range to the turn. If we chk/call all of our big pairs, our turn CBing range for value is very narrow and thus we need to either slow down with a lot of our bluffs (and be okay with it), or bet them and risk being exploited by light call downs. Playing the hand like you do is completely fine, it's just important to understand how it affects our overall gameplan.
Brian Rast 12 years, 3 months ago
There are definitely opponents where C/F river is a better line than betting... probably not too many that you'd play in HUNL games on the internet I would imagine anymore... but you'll probably find a higher frequency in live ring game situations... and this could easily happen in a folded-to-button-raise-bb-3bets type scenario. The biggest trait I think somebody needs in order to make this a good c/f spot is that they don't turn hands into bluffs (they get there with 55 or AQ, and wouldn't think to bluff with them when checked to)... and the second would be that they don't call huge river bets light (i.e. even if they called flop/turn with 77 or 99, they'd generally fold river).
obviously these opponents would be wonderful to play HU vs, so you probably won't find too many of them online grinding... but you find people like this regularly playing live ring games, and this spot would just require them to open in late and you 3bet with KK out of the blinds.
laxputs 12 years, 3 months ago
Given that it's rainbow, what do you think of betting 1/3 on the flop and sizing to bet 3 streets but not be allin by the river? That's what I've been doing at 6max lately in the exact same spots, rainbow, paired boards, 3bet pots. Considering we like betting the flop with most of our range, it forces him to call the flop with more of his weaker combos, and it's likely turn and river will be hard for him to play. Also, what do you think of a QQQ flop? Are there flops we just can't 3 barrel? Or can we design our river range such that we have a bluff range, xc range, and value jam range? Been curious about this for a while. Thanks.
Sean Lefort 12 years, 3 months ago
Very good thoughts.. I think you're right in that I would expect villains to make more mistakes against that betting scheme given that it's (1) likely pretty foreign to them and (2) difficult to pinpoint thresholds (ie. defending (1-alpha) is likely going to be preeeetty weak). But that being said, I don't know if that added value of their potential new mistakes is going to outweigh the value of us getting 3 full streets with a dominating range. Although, as we saw from OP, those premium hands don't get a tonnnn of value on that 3rd VB so I could be convinced that the smaller betting scheme makes more sense.
DirtyD 12 years, 3 months ago
Interesting idea, it's always nice to find a plan that's reasonable from a game theory perspective but your opponents probably haven't seen before. I would think this could work quite well if our opponents don't use the room we've given them to bluff with a good frequency, which most probably won't.
aurora446 12 years, 1 month ago
I disagree with the range you attributed for villain on the river and think this is much further towards being a c/f than your current analysis reveals.

I think it’s crucial to know how liberally villain is calling the flop cbet. Would he call with for example 89ss expecting his pair outs to be good a lot and having a backdoor flushdraw? Equally could we therefore expect hands like QJhh, or do we expect him to shove the turn with this?

Using what I consider a more accurate range of AT, KT, QT, JT, T9, T8s, T7s, 99-33, A8s, A3s, AJ and then adding QJs, Q9s, J9s, J8s, 98s, 97s, 78s (specifically the heart, diamond and spade combos) along with KJhh I get a total of 110 combos I believe.

Our equity v this new range is 55.46% on the river.

Based on this I would still conclude it’s a c/f based on not expecting him to call with anywhere near 100% of the combos we beat but 100% of the combos that beat us, and how liberally I have attributed a flop and turn floating range.

Apologies in advance for possible mistakes with the numbers.

Additionally c/c seems like a very viable option if it increases the number of combos we beat, putting money in (a combination of him turning hands into bluffs and value betting worse) and we now have favourable pot odds. There could also be additional floats that turned flushdraws which are now air which I didn't fully investigate, and this would better protect our checking range which I assume (maybe incorrectly) is relatively weak atm.
Sauce123 12 years, 1 month ago
"So next, I added hands until I reached the threshold where KK wins > 50% of the time and I was a little surprised at how deep I had to go."

This isn't correct, and it's important to see why not. Assume for simplicity 25% of his range beats us and the rest is air. If we jam for pot, he'll call 25% of the time and fold 75%, thus Ev(jam)=.75(pot)+.25(-1pot)=.5pot. If we check, he'll jam all his nut 25% and add 12.5% bluffs to make us indifferent with our bluffcatcher, thus EV(check)=.375(0)+.625(pot)=.625pot.

In the case (similar to OP's description) where villain calls 25% and loses, and calls 25% and wins, EV(jam)=.25(-pot)+.25(2pot)+.5(pot)=.75pot, and EV(check)=.625pot.

So, if villain plays perfectly vs our hand when we check, and holds a distribution of 25% nuts, 25% bluffcatchers, 50% air relative to our hand, then what's the indifference? Not surprisingly it's where villain plays GTO (of course, calling with any bluffcatchers is only GTO if OOP holds some bluffs- that OOP will hold some bluffs I take to be implicit in the example) with his bluffcatchers, i.e. EV(jam)=.25(-pot)+.125(2pot)+.625(pot)=.625pot=EV(check)=.375(0)+.625(pot)=.625.

I find it easier to employ this information in practice if I relate the two quantities with a heuristic I can use at the table. Something like, "If I jam for pot and win 33% at showdown, I'll be indifferent between checking and betting."

Sean Lefort 12 years, 1 month ago
Thanks for that, Ben. I was looking at the problem in a more isolated sense of "do we want to put chips in the pot" instead of running analysis the proper way, which is to compare our strategic options. Essentially, (I think?) the analysis I did is applicable if we're in position and can close the action:

Ie. EV (jam) = .25(-pot) + .25(2pot) +.5(pot) = 0.75pot = EV (chk) = .75(+pot) + .25(+0)

So in essence, allowing him to act after us (ie. "having position") is a strategic advantage that's reflected by our EV (chk) = 0.75pot -> 0.625pot. We quantified position! Position = 0.125pot. Poker, solved. :)
Sauce123 12 years, 1 month ago
I think the essence is that allowing villain to bet with a polarized range is a strategic advantage for him. He just happens to be in position.
Sauce123 12 years, 1 month ago
Sean, we have to be ahead a bit more than 50% when called when we value bet in position if chips remain for x/r, and we have to be ahead 50% when called if no chips remain for a x/r. Note that exploitation is implicit in this sort of analysis (as well as my previous posts in this thread) since we make reference to our opponent's calling frequency.
Learn2FoldEm 12 years, 1 month ago
Hi Ben, assuming the situation when EV(jam) = EV(check) = 0.625pot like above, where hero is good 33% when called and you come to the conclusion EV(check)=0.625pot. Is it only true to say you are indifferent if you can assume villain is going to play GTO because if he was to bet an unbalanced range when checked to then EV(Check) is greater than EV(Bet)=0.625pot in some situations and EV(Check)is less than EV(Bet) others.

For example, if we were to make a bad call vs his nuts range then EV(check)=0.75(pot)-0.25(pot)=0.5pot. Or alternatively a good fold then EV(check)=0.75(pot)-0.25(0)=0.75(pot)

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