Church,

I mean, I don't know. It's fine to bet any size with this hand, and it's also fine to XR. The turn spot is likely best played with multiple lead sizes and certainly some XR, so any line is fine from a balance perspective. I just decided to bet twice because I think villains have capped ranges with a lot of medium/weak hands that always call smaller bets.

Td8d flatted ooySB vs BT minraise on QdJc6d 9c vs flop xb :

If I understand correctly, your exploit of what you perceive of the population tendencies (weak checkbacks) is to bet smallish (you chose 70% pot) with this value hand in particular.

• When called, what would be your river sizing on blanks ?
• Given your read, what would you do with your bluffs, bet big ? (I feel that it's hard to find some btw, given preflop, and they wouldn't have great blockers, we'd have 88-77, ATs-A6s maybe ?)
• Does your read also assume that villain would play well against big turn bets (by folding Q4hh for instance ?) ?

I'm curious because, given same read, I would go big twice with my whole betting range here (and probably not bluff enough in retrospect).

On one hand I'm happy to get paid off with this holding in particular, on the other hand I'm kinda disappointed that the thinking seems to just boil down to "Haha he doesn't have much, let's bet small twice and get paid off".

okdude,

In balanced play we'd probably bet at least 2 sizes with this hand, as well as X it sometimes. So, when I'm playing against a mostly unknown population, I just have to take a guess.

S,

Good question. By far the most important factor for me is the showdown value of AJ when the river goes X/X. IP will almost always have JTo, and occasionally J9cc or J8cc, and occasionally a hand like A3 or A6 which floated turn.

I'd think on the J river, if villain checks then IP will bluff with A3 always, and probably A6 as well quite often. So, if that's true then, AJ wins at showdown against JTo (often), and J9cc/J8cc sometimes. Overall it seems quite close, as the AJ blocker will do well reducing IP's 2PR/ST frequency and so will be an excellent bluffing blocker. Overall though I think AJ is going to win at showdown 5-8% of the time (maybe, I haven't run the numbers) and I don't think the A/J blockers will get enough extra folds to make bluff better than X.

I ran a quick CREV sim on this spot

http://gyazo.com/29109378f900c4ef59a5a53d701fd267

Cliffs are basically that AJo might be an OK bluff if you think villain folds A3/A6 on turn and calls with more Qx. If you think villain calls A3/A6 and mixes it up with Qx, then it's bad to bluff AJ because having the A blocks villain's folding range on river. I would default to calling A3/A6 and folding some Qx on turn, in which case the EV of bluffing AJ is around -1.7bb, and the EV of checking is 2.7bb. So it's a fairly big swing.

Even if IP is more Q heavy on the turn, I just don't quite see AJ working out as a bluff, checking has too much value (~6.5% of pot, so I was close with my original guess).

thx for the response Ben!

It seems like sb would do better just checking the flop with AJ on that board. It's not like BB can go crazy stabbing because a lot of the stronger hands on this board would have 3b as you said, so he should get to see a free turn fairly often.

cent,

I think in general, more 3betting is better because it's so hard to play against.

That being said, the best strategies are usually ones that include both balanced 3betting and calling ranges.

I don't have plans to make a PLO video anytime soon.

I agree with either betting turn or checking back river with the AK. The typical dumb 200nl reg I think is likely to see turn as a bad calling spot, but calling the river after a turn check back as relatively profitable. In reality, they are way off about this but I suppose you should play in a way that exploits their tendencies rather than in a way that makes them profitable.

I'm going to talk about the AK hand with GT a few posts down, plz join the discussion there.

Try to ask one question at a time, I find it overwhelming to talk about 4 hands at once :(

I'd like to add on to this as well Sauce. Another thing I worry about is inducing check raises or floats from these fishy type players who just don't believe you when you c-bet $3 into $10 on 224r or even T22r. I'm playing on a fishy site, Bovada, and generally want my c-bets bigger so that I can get more value with my made hands instead of having to balance my range and bet $3>$10 with JJ on T22r.

What are your thoughts on this?

WIRA,

I think the best way to answer this is just to say that if you're betting a more polarized range, then tend to size up the betsize, and if you're betting a less polarized range, tend to size down. You'll notice I'm betting some stuff like AT on 226r or something for value/protection against the blinds, so you can see that I'm betting a less polarized range.

me 2

another vote

Awesome video, another vote.

GT,

Good points. I don't run into pot sized CB too often, but one thing I was trying to do was make my flop continue range elastic vs the pot CB, which means I have to fold some fairly strong hands because villain 3b to me to 4x my raise and then potted.

My guess in the moment was that the weakest hand I'd continue flop with would be AJ+BFD, maaaybe AJ occasionally, and then Tx+. I'd also usually 4b QQ preflop here, making the top of my range QT/TT type of stuff. I'll have that nutty region ~5% on the flop, making a huge portion of my range Qx, and to a lesser extent Tx. My flop range ends up being around 2/3 Tx+ made hands, and 1/3 draws, with about 1/10th of my flop continue range being KJs/J9s (which is of course always getting bluffed sometimes).

http://gyazo.com/9b30e5d57994c6e4832d00c00e9d5db6

So, my plan was to play a passive strategy postflop, showing down Tx almost always (except for a tiny region I'd prob bet small for protection on turn and turn into a bluff on a K/A river), and betting my better Qx and draws sometimes on turn, but also checking them quite often. I thought I'd generally bet around half of my unpaired hands on turn as well.

On the river, then, that makes the stone bottom of my range the occasional KJ/J9, but mostly AJ/AK. I was kind of unsure how aggressively I'm supposed to go for value with like QJ here, so I ended up barreling AK because of now narrow my range had become by the river.

Here's a shot of a rough turn strategy (turn is too passive in this case, river too aggro, but I don't want to get too nitty with it)

http://gyazo.com/de92fbd2b32c8f998d1d074b896e5f63

I think this basically suggests that if I never bluff AK, villain has to fold everything but Qx> always because I don't end up with many bluffs, but if I always bet AK I'll be bluffing too often. So I think my hesitancy during the hand was pretty reasonable, though I think I should mostly X.

BS,

Interesting points. What I get from your story is that you end up folding a lot of KJo,J9o combos preflop, and that you always or mostly bet your KJs,J9s combos on the turn. It is hard to make sense from your CREV screenshot because a lot of ranges are truncated or hc[K1,K3]. Therefore they are not very insightful to me.

You talk a lot about your own range, but you almost completely ignore his range. If you have no clue about what hands are good for potbetting the flop, and if you have no clue about how much EV he will burn by potbetting the 'wrong' hands on the flop.

For instance, you say that want to fold some strong hands on the flop. If you think that your opponent is betting AQ+ for value and some KJ,AJ,J9 type hands as a bluff, it makes sense to fold some weak made hands like Q9,JJ,JT and call more with hands like AJ,KJ. However if you think that he is betting weak hands like 88 and T9 you should not be folding those weak made hands.

It makes little sense to start folding your weakest Tx on the flop and then turn AK into a bluff on a 53 runout. But this is very subtle, and mostly depends on your preflop calling range and your flop calling range. I don't have enough precise information about those ranges to say that you should ever bluff AK here or not.

I hope you fellows excuse my half-joking comment here:

Villain that 3-bets 4x and then pot CB the flop is very likely a fun player. A fun player will not fold any pair on the river versus this action, so it's probably best to take SD with AK and hope to win. \analysis

That said, I very much appreciate and enjoy the in-depth strategy discussion you guys are putting forth. I agree that it's the best way to approach any hand and that strategy discussion should never/rarely be limited to the type of comments I just made.

And I know that you (Ben) always make an effort to play a very solid fundamental game in all your videos and not deviate too much from it without great reason, which is awesome.

I'm enjoying the discussion.

If he is not 3betting KQs here, he has in practise 0 bluffs vs a utg range and only value I would imagine. Plus it also plays okayish vs calling range.

I dont agree with podskiii, your argument is not valid， why zero bluffs? you can bluff with slightly weaker hands, such as KJs or QJs or even Axs, I dont hate the 3bet but I think KQs is strong enough to call (if you decide to have a calling range in this spot), I remember also Ben calling in this exact same situation in one of his early video saying "My hand is too playable to fold"

I've watched 4 of Sauce's 6max videos in a row. I have not seen him flat a single time in MP vs UTG.

I suppose this is fairly similar to SB vs other positions. Wonder if he is just playing 3bet or fold. I remember him mentioning that he 3-bets 6-9% in MP vs UTG and if his playable range is that wide then shouldn't he have no flatting range here?

Besides, most guys open 3X from UTG, which makes 3betting > calling
Vs certain min-raises or 2.5X opens, sauce did have a calling range in the SB.

Its not the same someone that opens 15% on EP with 5 players to act than 15% on EP with 8 players to act. The second one has a higher cost, so I doubt we can use the same strategy.