Weird Overbet Spot In 4 Bet Pot 400 NL
Posted by James Hudson
Posted by
James Hudson
posted in
Mid Stakes
Weird Overbet Spot In 4 Bet Pot 400 NL
SB: $402
BB: $444.95
UTG: $888.49
HJ: $400
CO: $421.20
BN: $530.68
BB: $444.95
UTG: $888.49
HJ: $400
CO: $421.20
BN: $530.68
Preflop
($6.00)
(6 Players)
Hero was dealt
A
Q
UTG folds, Hero raises $8.00 to $12.00, CO raises $20.00 to $32.00, BN folds, SB folds, BB folds, Hero raises $44.00 to $76.00, CO calls $44.00,
UTG folds, Hero raises $8.00 to $12.00, CO raises $20.00 to $32.00, BN folds, SB folds, BB folds, Hero raises $44.00 to $76.00, CO calls $44.00,
Flop
($122.00)
2
T
6
(2 Players)
Hero checks,
CO checks,
Turn
($122.00)
2
T
6
9
(2 Players)
Hero checks,
CO checks,
River
($122.00)
2
T
6
9
T
(2 Players)
Hero checks,
CO bets $345.20,
Loading 15 Comments...
-CO checks back turn with a flush close to 0% of the time (since you can be shoving so many hands)
-CO overbets river with AT or worse for value almost never (and has AT-JT rarely in the first place)
Can he play 22 or 66 this way preflop? I'd still be shocked to see him ck back turn with a set, but I believe it's possible. The only other hand that makes sense is T9s.
I think he likely SHOULD overbet Tx in this spot given my assumptions about how most people play your spot (leading turn with sets and flushes 90%+?)
The other issue is that he should have very few hands without SD value. Basically only suited broadways, right? I started leaning towards a call (even with your hand), but now I'm talking myself out of it.
Seems like you have to find a fold with most of your the chance of him having a suited broadway hand that played this way AND randomly spazz overbet the river.
If we want to look at it in terms of game theory, where you call with the top x% of your range, that's a whole other story (and not my specialty)
Ideally, you'd find a way to occasionally show up with huge hands here. I believe there's a lot of value in doing that anyways, even if it's not +EV in a vacuum or as part of your overall range, because it keeps people very hesitant and timid against you after they see it a couple times.
You said villain has shown the ability to go for thin river bets, so I'm imagining he is a competent reg.
If we think about what he could have, I think we can quickly discard 22 and 66. He'd have to be the type of player to 3bet these smalls pairs IP, then flat the 4bet instead of folding or shipping over, then checking a set twice and as Phil mentioned before, I can't believe he'd check the turn, even if he had 6d6x. Combining all those factors, I think its fair to say that those hands are negligible. This goes for 2pair hands on the turn as well, and T9s/o is the only real one that's there, and he's gotta bet that w/ no diamond.
After you checked three times, its pretty obvious you have Ahigh, and not the overpair. By checking back twice, this player has represented that he has nothing, or a hand he wants to get to showdown with for free, or for just one bet. He's told a story, one where he has very little, and then has overshipped on the river. His story doesn't add up, he knows that you know that, and he's trying to get max value out of it.
People seem to flat 4bets (at 100BB stacks) with AA and KK, or some suited stuff that they just didn't want to fold pre, decided that you don't have the goods and that they are going to fight you for it! Since this player is a reg, I think its safe to assume that the regular wouldn't self destruct with this overbet ship in a spot that looks clearly bluff here. I mean its possible, but I just think its more likely that this player is trying to cash in on a bluffy line with thin value. I think it's most likely that this player has KdKx or AdAx, XdTx or Q9-A9. Fold and save the hero call for another time.
I'll start by saying that we need to be very careful employing game theory principles on individual streets without having considered the implications of how our ranges were divided on prior streets. It is entirely possible that the way we played our range up until the river, villain can jam his entire range and we have to fold our entire range because it's thin/weak/face-up as a bluffcatcher and his frequencies are such that we have to fold. This is why it's good practice in general from a game theory perspective to avoid having thin/small/defined ranges on earlier streets in fear of having to deal with situations like this on later streets where we can be exploited.
First lets look at the pot odds and frequencies:
Villain is betting 345 to win 122. We're looking to call 345 to win 467, ie. we need to win 42.5%+ to call profitably.
To calculate our minimal defending frequency:
(thank you Bill Chen and Jerrod Ankenman)
Villain is risking 345 to win 122 so variable b = 345/122 = 2.83 ... a = b / (b+1) = 0.74 ... (1-a) = 26% (ie. Phil was correct).
What this implies is that if we don't call the bet at least 26% of the time, villain is exploiting us and insta-profiting with all of his bluffs. And this is something that we don't want to let happen if we suspect villain might be looking to exploit us in a spot like this.
Let's look at villain's optimal bluffing frequency (X%):
(note that this equation is intended to make the hero indifferent to calling with a bluffcatcher)
X(+467) + (1-X)*(-345) = 0 ... 467x + 345x = 345 --> X = 42.5%
This equation is stating that if the situation is that villain has discrete hand values of {HANDS THAT ALWAYS BEAT US, BLUFFS} then if he employs a frequency of {57.5%, 42.5%} with his all-in, we are exactly indifferent towards calling or folding with our bluff-catchers.
Now here's the catch. AQ is clearly a bluff-catcher, and it more than likely is always a head of all of his bluffs (although arguably not quite). But let's look at the make-up of villain's range. He's going to have a fairly strong hand given that he 3bet and then called a 4bet. Hero checked the flop and he checked behind, indicating that he likely had some sort of equity because you would think most of his super low equity hands would have bet as a bluff. He also checked the turn after we checked, again indicating that he seems content with getting to showdown. Then he jams the river after we check a 3rd time.
There's really not a whole lot of hands that make sense for him to have that need to bluff. Your hand looks a whole lot like AK/AQ or maybe a slow-played overpair with a diamond. I think his most likely bluffing candidate is a hand like AJo with a diamond. But the point in general is that there's not a whole lot of hands with which his range needs to bluff with given that most of the hands that want to bluff likely would have stabbed at either the flop or turn.
So if he has say, 25 combos of {TX, slowplayed nutty hands} and only 15 combos of {AJo ish hands that now want to bluff}, he can jam all of these hands yielding a 37.5% bluffing frequency (below the 42.5% optimal frequency) and force us into folding our entire bluff-catching range. And this is simply a symptom of: (1) Villain not having a whole lot of hands with which he needs to bluff with given his range that gets to the river, (2) River card is generally better for villain than for us, and (3) Our range is likely capped at {weak bluffcatchers}
These numbers of combos of hands are obviously arbitrary and you could go a step further in actually trying to come up with some numbers, but I was just trying to make the point that the way the ranges get to the river, there's a very good possibility that villain recognizes that he can jam all of his {value, bluffs} and still be below/near the optimal bluffing frequency to the point where we have to fold our entire range. Intuitively, I believe this is likely the case and I would go ahead and fold the river.
As for the earlier parts of the hand, I think the 4bet is a touch too small. Like Phil, I'm a bit removed from being a 6m NLH specialist so I'm not keen on the new trends and fads. But at that size villain only needs 28% equity to call and given that he's in position he'll likely obtain at least that even with the worst parts of his range (implying that he should never fold to the 4bet, not something we want unless we're doing it for some exploitative based reason). I could be wrong on that though but those are my thoughts intuitively. If you make the 4bet to something like 88, villain now needs 32%+ equity to call which is more productive in getting him to fold his weaker hands (and thus helping our 4bet bluffs succeed). Additionally, we're still under that threshold at 100bb where we would need to call it off if he jammed (ie. if we made it something like 110+).
As for the flop, I think we have a very good candidate for CBing. We're pretty much at the bottom of our range given that our range probably looks something like {big pairs, AK/AQ/ maybe some other AX, a few other bluffs} and those other bluffs often hit this board in some way. AK/AQ hands with a diamond are also better candidates for checking given that they have better playability on turns like this one.
Sorry for the long-windedness but it was my first post so I thought I'd make sure to make it a good one. :)
The only thing I may have an issue with is:
"As for the flop, I think we have a very good candidate for CBing. We're pretty much at the bottom of our range..."
Given that villain's range is very strong (especially on this flop), I think we need to be completely giving up with some hands. Hands like ours here seem like the ideal candidates. I'd prefer to bet with AK/AQ w/ a diamond, mainly because of our BDFD, but also because having one high diamond in our hand should have a somewhat meaningful impact on the # of flush draws they have.
As an aside, what pocket pairs do you guys expect to be in villain's range?
Also, I dont think that he only jams AT+ here for value, I think essentially any Tx that he gets to the river with he can be jamming. Its a weird spot, but I think given that unless we have a read not many people are bluffing here ver, and were not getting good odds to make the call.
Be the first to add a comment