Hey aamadeo.

it's tough for me to make a broad enough generalization to answer this question in the way that you'd probably like. Instead, I think we should re-evaluate your thought process. Your phrasing suggests that you assume that we need to be turning these hands into bluffs on one texture or another; why are we assuming this? Further, does every combination necessarily have to be bluffed at some point?

Your phrasing suggests that you assume that we need to be turning these hands into bluffs on one texture or another; why are we assuming this?

Yes, I assume that in some textures when we get to the river and have to check behind, the equity of our hand is 0% or near 0%, and we should bluff with our hand.

Further, does every combination necessarily have to be bluffed at some point?
It would depend on how wide the ranges are, if it is blind vs blind, I don't think it's true, but with tight ranges like in a 3bet pot, that could be possible for lower pairs.

On UTG vs Blinds I'm not sure.

I like the general train of thought in your reply.

There are spots in which you should probably be bluffing those small pairs, though they would be relatively rare I'd assume. It's also tricky to answer this because I'm sure there's plenty of flops on which you should be betting underpairs at some frequency. However, I wouldn't really call those "bluffs". You yourself indirectly said this in original question ("I'm assuming we'll turn them into a bluff in later streets rather than early"). The question then basically becomes:

On what textures would UTG check twice and then bluff river with small pairs?

This is still too broad as UTG strat would vastly differ against say a HJ cc versus a BB cc.

Also, if we're using Pio to guess and check different textures, we're probably going to end up betting river at mixed frequencies with discounted combos (because of mixing on previous streets). This is another huge reason as to why your question is difficult to answer. It'll be hard to find spots where you'll always get to river with those hands, let alone spots where you'll also always bluff them too.

Just so I'm no being completely useless, a couple you should look out for while playing are:

• rivers that have significantly strengthened your range such that an underpair is one of the weakest hands in your range. Like I mentioned before, I think this would be a somewhat infrequent occurrence. If we're UTG and have checked back twice against BB, our range is going to generally be quite weak. We're often going to have enough high card combos to bluff with instead.

• boards on which your underpairs are counterfeited. In some ways this situation falls under the umbrella of the first point. Nonetheless, 77733 might be an appropriate board to bluff 22.

Probably never folding a king to this sizing. Assuming villain (who is likely a rec, btw) isn't playing every Kx+ hand this way, weaker hands like K3cc might be even higher EV calls than K9dd. Reason being that his bluffs are likely largely, if not exclusively, composed of missed straight draws and the odd BDFD.

Thanks B,

I appreciate the suggestion. Though it might mean having to be more concise in my analysis, there's a good chance I'll add a third table the next time I do a live play video. It creates a different "feel".

Hey Artur,

I wish I had the time to run a sim or two on this spot to get a more definitive answer, but I'll expand on my rationale some more instead.

1)

I'd like to know why you think the 6 is one of the worst cards for us. I see it almost like a blank. Villain has few, very possible zero (look at his VPIP), 6x in his range. However, I do have some 6x that will occasionally play this way. We both have discounted combos of AK, but I think his are much more discounted than mine (given preflop play). Lastly, I don't think he ever has KK, and possibly not even 55.

Basically, I think the 6 is more of a blank than anything. I'm uncapped and have more nutty combos.

2)

a) Upon review I do think a small sizing would have been better.

b) With my large turn sizing I left slightly under 2/3 pot left for the river. With the small turn sizing I'm suggesting, I would probably use a river overbet on a lot of blank rivers (with my range, not necessarily with this hand every time). I don't know about stack sizings making "a bluff difficult to pull off", I think the key is just to adjust bluffing frequencies appropriately.

There's definitely plenty that's worth debating on this hand. Like I said, I haven't actually done any analysis and am more than willing to change my mind. I just wanted to expand on my thought process as is.

Edit: sorry to still leave some questions hanging. Like I mentioned before, I'm busy with family stuff and just snuck in some answers while I could. I DEFINITELY will get back to everyone. Thanks for your patience!

The board is so dynamic and relative hand strength can/will change significantly on the turn. For this reason, most of my hands don't want to make large bets OTF (overpairs included).

Seems okay. The 9 is meh but the ace has some good blocking qualities. Off the top of my head, other possible bluffs with this line could be weak diamonds, no-pair Tx (T7s), and probably some Ax.

I'm happy with the fold against the tight player. Seems pretty close against the average reg. I prefer suited and connected hands here to the off-suit broadways.

My value range doesn't become narrower OTT. My 66 combos went from (a possible) 3 to 1, however, like I already mentioned, I would play some 6x like this too (consequently adding hands to my value range OTT).

I made a post about this hand above already. I prefer a small turn bet instead of pot. This prevents villain from betting large OTT and allows me to see the river for a smaller bet. The hands that I intended to place pressure on with a turn bet were the 77-QQ types. I believe I have pretty high fold equity against those.

I'm not sure what you mean by I won't lose much value by checking AK+? Seems like I would be missing quite a bit as I'm no longer easily getting in stacks OTR without a massive overbet.

Hey Wur,

I stand by everything I said in the video during the hand.

• TT+ will likely still be in his range at some frequency given that he is using a cold calling range.
• 33-88 seem improbable given river sizing.
• Villain lead 3 way flop (with BB rec player). Many regs will be skewed towards value here. Further, the turn continuation when no backdoors come in is noteworthy.
• 99 at this point isn't all that high up in my range. Consider how tight at HJ RFI range is. Then recall that I can defend tighter OTF 3 way than I could HU. Also add in ~PSBs OTT and OTR.

I'm not saying 99 is necessarily a theoretically correct fold OTR (though it could be and seems close to me). In practice though, I just can't imagine most 100z regs having enough bluffs here. This actually seems like a fairly easy fold.

Just messing around with different sizings. Players probably make more mistakes against 10.5bb than against 9bb assuming they made a 3bb open.

Hey Drachaon,

3betting (and/or calling) 44 and 55 from the SB against a 2x CO open with 100 or more bb seems very standard to me.

If I were CO, I would easily have 44 in my range against a 3b. This is especially true at our stack depth in this particular hand. By no means would I consider that "over defending" against 3b.

In addition, if you did have 44 and 55 I imagine you'd want to go ahead and 3bet the flop raise most of the time?

Probably not. Unlike the 3bettor, the IP caller probably even has 86s in his range at this depth. Also, on a board so dynamic, we probably don't want to be growing the pot so much this early. Relative hand strength is going to change significantly on the next street(s).

Given all this are you checking your QcJc some of the time? I would have thought you'd need to on this texture.

Certainly checking this at some frequency. My intuition tells me that my checking frequency with range should increase with stack depth on a texture such as this (basically for the reasons stated above).

Hey Paul, many thanks for your reply.

How wide are you 3betting here? The range I'm currently using is around 8.5% 3bet in this spot - and certainly no room for 44 or 55. I've never really even considered it so I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

As for the CO defend, if we assume a standard 27% open, and that we want to defend around 55% of our range to a 3bet IP (10% of that by 4betting), then that leaves us around 160 combinations of flats. If we're going down to 44 in pairs then we have to start folding A8s, 65s, T8s, AJo type hands, which seems a little pair heavy. Unless, as I said, we're over-defending 3bets. If we also have 86s I can't see how we wouldn't be over-defending?

It has a considerable effect on this spot so definitely interested in your thoughts!

Just trying to exploit here without giving much consideration to balance. Hoping that villain doesn't want to fold his strong pairs (which I think he'll have a significant % of the time given line and HUD stats).

It's okay... I might not have realized those guys were recs until the turn.

I tend to be quite a bit more passive in multiway pots. Having an additional player(s) does change a lot. I probably was thinking something along the lines of wanting to realize equity by checking. Note that the SB has a stack that could easily decide to x/j.