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100/200 HKD Live PLO 2nd set on flop vs. tight range. theory?

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100/200 HKD Live PLO 2nd set on flop vs. tight range. theory?

This is a 100/200 HKD game in Macau. Roughly = $13/26.

9 handed game I have 50k and raise UTG to 700 with QQJ7ds. 1 calls and the button (who is a tight reg with 25k) 3bets to 3800. Both blinds fold and he gets 2 calls.

Flop Ac Qd 2d (11400)

check, check, Button bets 9500, hero? (the passive fish in the middle is already making folding gestures)

What I know of the reg is that he's a winning player. Plays more NLH than PLO. And overall is really tight and pretty much just has it most of the time. He sometimes play mid stakes short stack PLO on stars. He's been folding a lot of hands in the past 3-4 hours and this is the first time I've seen him 3bet.

Needless to say I'm basing his 3bet range to be premimums (but not all AA). His cbet size leaves him just under 12k behind so I highly doubt he's bet folding. I feel the frequency of him having me drawing dead is very high so I wanted to make a tough fold.

However, before I released the hand I thought of the hand in a balance perspective. I'd 4bet all AA with this stack pre so by the flop the very top of my range is QQ; therefore, with this thinking and the fact he does have some combos of ABBB and MMMM with flush draws I felt like I could never fold.

Is this thinking correct? I AM at the top of my range here but is there a way to think about your range in relative strength and absolute strength? Like I feel the relative strength of QQ here is a lot worse than KJTQdd.

How is my thinking here?

17 Comments

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Adam Lee 12 years, 3 months ago
with 125bb effective stack, I don't see how you can fold second set even against tight reg. His bet size on the flop probably can't tell us much but I would guess if he had AA with diamonds he may want to bet smaller to induce a call. He never has air by betting this size into two ppl so we probably don't have any folding equity. If I decide to never fold this hand I would check/call his flop bet and chk/fold any diamond if jammed on except Ad. If the Turn brings 3~9 i'd jam myself (def. chk/call 2 or Q). But if Turn comes J K T non-diamond I would be having hard time either folding or calling.
Phil Galfond 12 years, 3 months ago
It's a difficult spot, and one that completely depends on his actual 3betting range, which you'd know better than us, but still not with much certainty.

The important thing I'll point out is- "However, before I released the hand I thought of the hand in a balance perspective. I'd 4bet all AA with this stack pre so by the flop the very top of my range is QQ;"

You shouldn't be thinking about your actual range in this instance. If the overwhelming majority of his 3b range is AAxx, you have to fold. He's not balanced and he's not thinking about bluffing half his stack in a 3 way pot when your range is capped.

Using "top of my range" as a reason for a decision, in my opinion, should be done only against very good opponents who you fear will exploit you if you don't defend properly with parts of your range.
Adam Lee 12 years, 3 months ago
Hi Phil, thanks for response. As I posted above, do you think it's an viable line to play QQ if we decide to stack off or just check/pot on the flop? My thinking was that if BTN is never bluffing, he has tons of AdBBB combo draw so it maybe better for us to wait a safe turn to get in.
pacmang 12 years, 3 months ago
Hi Phil. Very much appreciate your response.

Your post cleared up the confusion I had regarding when to use "top of my range." For this reason I think this spot is a definitive fold and especially here since people's ranges are incredibly unbalanced.

Thanks again!
mason88 12 years, 3 months ago
think this is a fold if he has a tight 3betting range... some people playing live just never ever 3bet without aces in position and premium aces oop... I think you are either dead or up against a super draw...
ButterNjam 12 years, 3 months ago
Against tight BN here is it ok to just fold to the 3B? We have bad absolute/relative position postflop and when we find ourselves stacking off with QQ+FD are often again AA or AK with NFD. The value of set mining doesn't seem to be worth the pf call given how often we will have to give up when we miss+ the reverse implied odds of hitting a FD.
Brian Rast 12 years, 3 months ago
i think you have to put it in. Even if this villain is playing tight and not 3-betting much. He is some kind of poker pro, and there are a few things going for putting it in in this spot.
for 1, he's 3betting on the button, so his 3bet range here is probably slightly larger than if he was in the blinds.

while this spot is not super obvious, and i'm sure you put it in and he had AAxx (which is why the hand got posted), I think you'd need more of a confirmed read on him that his 3betting range is extremely weighted towards AAxx combos. Something stronger than "he's been playing tight for 3-4 hours and hasn't 3bet much". The fact that he's a winning reg who plays PLO on stars would indicate to me that he's fully capable of 3betting a range that's somewhat diverse at 100bb's, and will include hands other than AAxx.

At your stack depth, based on the reads you've given, this is a pretty trivial put-it-in spot imo.

and as an aside, i feel like if his range was so weight towards AAxx combos that you couldn't put it in on this board - you'd probably have a fold pre flop with your hand (even double suited), oop against a decent reg who won't be folding much post flop. I went to propokertools and put in QQJ7ds against AAxx, and you only flop 40%+ equity vs AAxx about 17-18% of the time it looks like (over 209 flops dealt, so it's not conclusive, but it is telling). So if his range is so strongly weighted towards AAxx here, than I think at this stack depth it's incorrect to call the 3bet pre flop. It would only be correct if you thought he'd play so weak post that he'd incorrectly fold on a lot of scary boards... but I would think the villain you described who's played some on the internet and is a winning player will just shrug and go with it after putting in over 20% of stacks pre on many boards.
pacmang 12 years, 3 months ago
I'm not really sure how to describe but this guy is known for being a really tight just has it type of player. I'm not sure if he's a winning reg online just said he jumps in there from time to time.

in nlh he's known for being very tight and set mining type of player. same in plo. i'm fairly confident that even though he is on the button his range is heavily weighted towards AA
Alix Martin 12 years, 3 months ago
your not supposed to be balanced on every flop, even in the context of an overall balanced strategy. If he has the nuts 75 % of the time on a type of flop that appears 5 % of times, you have an auto-fold, and it does not necessarily invalidate your preflop call, because it could be justified by the ev on the remaining 95% flops.
Phil Galfond 12 years, 3 months ago
Great posts, guys.

I'd also like to point out that I would not consider QQ the top of my range here.

AQJT, AQxxdd, really any AQxx or Axxxdd is probably stronger in this spot than QQ, given that we block a lot of AA combos, and that we have plenty of equity no matter what (with our nut flush draws).
pacmang 12 years, 3 months ago
Nice Phil

This is what I was asking about earlier. How if we can determine the "top of our range" with regards to relative value instead of absolute value.

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