I think potting twice with a range of 6x+ (mayyyyybe some KK/AA) is a good strategy.  I just felt like (exploitatively), people have a very high betting frequency on the turn in his shoes, as well as a very low raise frequency.  So, I like the idea of building bigger pots with my polarized range (at least a chunk of the time) by check-raising.

As far as potting vs. my sizing of 290/358, I don't think there's a very big difference.  If I had to guess, potting probably is a little bit better given that I'm much more polarized than he is.

Great question, Ben (shocking!).

Yeah, it's a really tough spot.

If we only x/r our strong boats, we're going to have a very low x/r frequency (and not get to x/r many bluffs).  In practice, people delay cbet these boards a ton, so it would be a shame to have a low x/r frequency. (practice isn't theory though)

In theory, I'm wondering if IP should be betting much less frequently than he usually does in practice.  If that's true, we likely shouldn't be x/r with trips often (should x/r more polarized).

I'm trying to start imagining what ranges "should look like" for getting to the turn.  Since that's too big a problem, let's start with what I think ranges do look like.

When we get to the turn, I have everything I called preflop with, and he has:

-Overpairs
-Draws (mostly weaker & non-nut draws)
-Air (but my reads in the video discussed how I thought he was betting more air and checking back more marginal-strong hands than most)

I did some playing around with PPT (but very quickly and I'm not good w/ it), so maybe you guys can help...

-It seems like I'll have 4x as many boats as him (or more)

-I have a little more trips than him, but not much
-He has twice as many overpairs as me (and they'll be higher on avg)

This all feels right to me intuitively.

So first things first:

How should he be playing his range when checked to?

In general (very general), the more polarized range should be the one betting. I'm clearly the one with the more polarized range here.

However, when checked to people seem to always bet overpairs here, and always bet their non SD draws. I could even imagine that there are regs who bet over 85% of the time here when checked to. Agree?

I should've had a coffee before I started this post. Agree?

The question I'll leave you guys with (and myself with) for now:

If you agree that most people in position bet at a very high frequency here (including most overpairs and most decent+ draws), and you agree that the more polarized range should be the one betting (in general)...
a) Why is IP player's strategy to bet at a high frequency a mistake (which hands should check back instead)? or

b) Why does this board/situation not fit the general rule of thumb that the more polarized range should do the betting?

I understand that the IP player checking changes things (since if he should bet often, then his checking range changes), but if the IP player bets over 75% of the time, the correct counterstrategy for OOP is likely to check often.

Last note: I think this is possibly more applicable on boards that pair but don't bring a second flush draw.  I see some guys regularly bet total air in that situation.

Curious to see if you guys agree with me and what we find out!

While it's true that we have way more boats, it's also true that IP has as many trips combos as we do.  So, I wouldn't say that we're way more polarized than IP; it's more that we have the very top end of ranges and he doesn't. 

I think IP does a lot of betting because he expects OOP to have bet most of his trips range already, and the ~15-20% trips frequency is the bulkiest part of most value betting ranges.  IP doesn't need to be that afraid of a XR if it only happens 10% of the time.

I think 75% is a realistic betting frequency that I'd expect from some villains (certainly not one I'd recommend).  Are you saying you disagree with that?

I know that we are similar in trips frequency (depending how you broke down the ranges), but I found that our trips or better frequency is significantly higher (meaning around 50% higher).  My ranges weren't very refined though.

In addition, he's going to have significantly more overpairs than we are, so as far as showdown value is concerned, I see us having more of the tip-top end and fewer of the decent-strong hands (or however you'd describe overpairs).

I agree that we aren't WAY more polarized, but I do think we are enough that it's fair to use the word.

I think we are (very roughly) in agreement about what kinds of hands OOP should be betting.  I suppose then, to figure out if IP is doing well by betting at a decent frequency, we need to figure out what types of hands and how often OOP is calling after checking.

I think in practice, most people bet a lot of their hands that may want to check-call here, which leaves them with very few legitimate x/c candidates.

Other than some trips and some overpairs, it's hard for me to come up with hands that are happy to x/c compared to just betting...  What are a couple other hands that you'd like to x/c here with?

Spots like this where IP effectively can't have the 3rd nuts or better are interesting to me, because whether we bet or x/r (especially x/r), we won't be getting raised.  I like to push hard in spots like these where I don't run the risk of getting re-bluffed on the turn, and rarely get re-bluffed on the river.

I'm sure I'll see you use that against me at the tables soon :)

"When we get to the turn, I have everything I called preflop with, and he has:

-Overpairs
-Draws (mostly weaker & non-nut draws)
-Air (but my reads in the video discussed how I thought he was betting more air and checking back more marginal-strong hands than most)"

Hey Phil,

I don't think you are giving your opponent enough credit here.  In the first video we saw Raven check back a dry top two on a draw heavy board.  I think there are lots of combos of 96xx he will check back, not to mention an occasional slow play with top set.  True you will have few more boats, though I would guess from a completely theory standpoint (and maybe vs this player in practice as he c-bets a lower frequency) your range will be similar to his as you would be leading some of you set/two pair combos on the flop.

Good point, Brian.  He did show his ability to be tricky with his range which means I shouldn't consider him completely capped here.

I don't have a leading range built into my game right now for this scenario, but I definitely believe I should have one in theory.

Awesome response, Ben. Thanks. I agree with everything you said.

I guess what I might be focusing on too much is the fact that I really don't expect to be raised as OOP almost ever, so like you said, it's tempting to bet everything I'd consider x/c with.  This is why I felt IP bets very frequently (though I have no accurate empirical evidence... only my memory's best guess).

What you pointed out (after discussing the above dynamic) that stuck a chord with me was:

it's not clear to me that these huge frequency swings are going to generate much additional EV for either player.

This is something I need to keep in mind when I dive into the abyss of exploitative counterstrategies.  

Even when my opponent's strategy (currently) requires a large adjustment on my part to maximally exploit it, it doesn't mean that I'm gaining much EV from that adjustment.

The classic example (I know you know this, but I'm writing for other people who may be reading) is if my opponent pots the river and is bluffing only 30% of the time.  If I know that to be true, I should fold 100% of my hands, but the EV gained by my massive adjustment will be minimal.  For that minimal gain, I've left myself open to being exploited in a very meaningful way and I've put myself in a situation where I'll need to expend a lot of mental energy keeping tabs on my opponent's adjustments.

While I'll never give up on my quest to maximally exploit my opponents, I will keep in mind that I should let the smaller potential leaks go, and focus only on ones where I see large potential gain.

Thanks Sro!

I'll need to have some follow through frequency on rivers, because otherwise I'll be unbalanced.

I think that I'd want a 9 and/or 3 blocker to fire the river.  I'm not familiar enough with my true range here, but I think if we bluffed river every time we took this line and had a 9 or 3 blocker, that'd probably be a decent overall strategy.

The problem with the river bet is that once he's called the flop and turn, 8xxx is a huge part of his range.  We need to be careful about bluffing too much in this spot, since when he blocks the 8 we have fewer combos of our value range.

I'd never attempt to build a range that makes him fold 83, and probably not 82.  Off the top of my head, I'd like to aim to make him fold K8, and to keep A8 in our value range, but not K8.  

So, we'd have to figure out how often we play A8+ this way and then see how often we have blockers to the 9 or 3, and preferably no A/K of spades (as those are the best type of hands to bluff with, I believe).  We'll need to use a dead 8 in our analysis if we're trying to make him fold K8.

As I said above, I'm not a PPT whiz, but this is how I imagine we'd look to "solve" this spot. Maybe some whizzes can step in from here and walk us through more :)

Zach, alot of the c/r bluff hands you mention have quite alot of SD value and we are most likely value cutting ourselves when called (except the times we boat/trip up OTR which is rare), so I might be hesitant about including too many of those in a c/r bluff range. 

Ben, given a large portion of villains range will contain 6x after the c/r, how do you attempt to create a river bluffing range, given when we hold some candidate hands like 9x and draws ourselves this will weight villains range towards 6x even more (albeit slightly)? If we pick x ratio of bluffing hands to value combos to make opponent indifferent to calling OTR, should we be worried that villain will actually hold the blocker (6x) enough of the time so that he is actually able to make +ev calls with a larger than normal portion of his range. So should we therefore reduce our bluff frequency to make a larger portion of his range truly indifferent to calling our river bet, or would you agree (as Zach pointed out) that since the range that calls the turn is this strong he may have already been exploited by overfolding the previous street. 

Hope that made some sense, cheers.

Zach,

As a default I had IP betting around 52% on the flop (and checking 48%) and delay cbetting 55% on the turn with what I thought was a tough range, that's where I get the numbers I'm talking about in the above post. 

It must be so relaxing for you to not spend all of your effort trying to max-exploit and then worry about them countering and your next adjustment :)

You make good points, one thing to consider though is we will hold trips+ around 20% of the time, and a FD with worse than TP between 25-30% of the time. Most of the FD+TP<< we wont want to c/c, but some TP+draw we can since we still have some SD value vs bluffs and can improve otr. If we c/r too many of the FD+TP<< AND weak TP+draw combos I think we will run into a lot of problems otr. This all ignores whether we want a leading range etc but basically my point is that since we have a ton of semi bluffs and cant raise all of them that would be the reason we may want to structure them the other way.

I will try to when I get a chance (after weekend) ; you are right this is just my intuition of frequencies but I will see what I get if I sim it to the best of my abilities. 

Ben, 

Below is my stab at "backing it up". I made some assumptions that hopefully arent too agressive and I may have made some mistakes as well. This type of analysis is an area you are better than I so let me know what you think.

100% PF range : 211876 combos

Flop Value Cbetting range: (99,66,22,96,92,tt+:hh,78t,578,TT+:78,Ahh,78:hh,9t8:hh,759:hh,345,34:hh,45:hh,t8:hh,57:hh)

That's 56121 combos or 26% of his PF range. Conveniently the range I estimated he cbets for value is exactly half of what you estimated as his overall cbet frequency.  He cbets 52% so we can roughly assume he is also betting the bottom 26% or an additional 56121 combos of his range given Phils provided read that he cbets top and bottom portions of his range.

He arrives to turn with 100%![99,66,22,96,92,tt+:hh,78t,578,TT+:78,Ahh,78:hh,9t8:hh,759:hh,345,34:hh,45:hh,t8:hh,57:hh,(bottom26%)] 

99634 combos arrive to turn.

You provided 55% as his turn delay cbetting frequency. Phil provided 75% as his estimate. Lets use 65%. That would be 64762 combos.

I dont know how to write out the bottom 26% in combos, although we can probably assume that little of it contains a 6, or overpair. Im assuming those one pair combos will more often be in his check back middling range.  This assumption makes his turn range stronger given all 6x are still included. Accordingly, lets check how often he has a hand strong enough to b/c turn. Lets assume he calls turn with QQ+:dd, any 6x, and any :hhdd. He wont have QQ+:hh because those get bet on flop most often.  

So turn b/c range is (qq+:dd,100%:hhdd,6)!(99,66,22,96,92,tt+:hh,78t,578,TT+:78,Ahh,78:hh,9t8:hh,759:hh,345,34:hh,45:hh,t8:hh,57:hh)

Which is 38024 combos

This will have him b/c'ing turn 59% of the time.  If villain delay cbets 60% pot and we 3x c/r turn we need a fold 53% frequency for immediate profit. 

As mentioned above due to complexity of correctly modelling the scenario and my lack of skill for advanced analysis beyond this here the results will have some error. I think that given there are some 6x combos that bet flop like (2678,26:hh,678,kh6:hh) we might take out enough 6x combos of his turn range to get that required FE. That said, it is a bit surprising how often he will have 6x on turn to me. This furthers my belief that we should c/r PP and TP type hands > FD,SD type hands. And with the implied odds given his b/c range will be strong it should become a +ev c/r.