Hi Kevin, at 31:23 you say that villain is "not doing a great job assessing the strength of hands once there is a check on the flop". I find that if I am playing very well I can also make similar observations, but I struggle to implement the correct counter exploit based on a observation like this. How do you go about translating his flawed assessment into an actionable counter strategy?
One of my guesses would be that we just will get the opportunity to show down weaker hands more often (if he isn't thin value betting enough) and thus some of the best hands we might turn into bluffs can just be checked.
He's undervaluing hands in these spots, so I'm going to avoid thin value betting and except him to do the same. This might make me call lighter vs bets in these spots because I know his value range is more narrow than it should be, but if his frequency is particularly low then this won't apply. I won't necessarily show down my bluffs more often because it doesn't specifically translate to a lower folding frequency from him - we just know that he thinks less of his made hands than I do.
The 2nd pair heavily favours our range and clearly a great spot to donk the river, I assume top pair always pays. It should be easy enough to fill in the air range with non showdown hands, but how often do we donk the river on the trips?
If always then we don't have trips when we check, should we consider using a mixed strategy, say 80% of rivers we bet and choose the 20% we check in spots were trips is less nutted like flush rivers?
As long as you're checking enough strong hands to discourage me from rampantly overbetting then you're doing fine. We make a lot of money by donking trips so it's often in our best interest to do so. I'd donk the vast majority of trips and maybe even 100% because there are stronger hands we can check that are also strong enough to check/raise vs a small bet. We should hopefully have those hands at a high enough frequency to discourage much of anything crazy from sb.
Considering our range advantage and the range the villain and us share, do you still think as you did in the video? We should scale back our bet size on the K turn. I think i prefer the BXB line with the majority of my Ax in this spot so i agree its a strong turn but for my betting range i think we do better than villain. Looks like a nice spot for me to run some sims. X amount of hands below could be in flat or 3bet depending on villain ofc
Anonymous generally have showdown value and Kevin would be representing very thin for value since overpairs and most bluffs that paired (or are a straight) OTR bets flop. AQ/KQ probably doesn't lead turn.
Repping such a narrow value range on the xbb line against this type of player you will see some very loose river calls.
Yes, anon will have showdown and call a decent bit, but not bluffing 54o here prob means you're not bluffing at all in this spot and I'm pretty sure Kevin will have traps here and 8x hands that want to bet for value and my comment was intended more as a joke then strat :)
Getting to this river unpaired and not betting is somewhat sad. I don't think Kevin has much of 8x hands on his 3betting range that doesn't bet flop when ip continuing range will have a good portion of his flop calling range that is unpaired. Sorry for not being fun at the party :)
Just a general question. Am i making a big mistake by always checking my entire range when the board pairs the 2nd or 3rd card on the flop? I just never really had a leading range after check/calling flop ever.
I think we have hands that want to lead, but I wouldnl't call it a big mistake. It's an easy strategy to use that I don't think sacrifices a lot of EV.
great video. You really seem to have a strong understanding of everything going on in these battles.
at 25min, with the AJ, ur flop sizing seems to imply you are polar on that flop of J65hh. then turn K, you bet again for protection/value. river 5 and you check, which seems best. how important is it to protect your river checking range with some calls? Do you purposively vbet turn thin sometimes (with 2street hands) in order to have hands to call blank rivers? I know its not that important to protect the range cuz its so expensive for him to get that spot by calling 3b and two streets and fading the river jam, but it also seems to important to call sometimes.
Do you do this more on boards where this a lot of draws and therefore a lot of his hands on river may not have SD value and these thin vbets benefit from charging draws on turn and being able to check and pick off bluffs on river? The risk is that it incentivizes him to jam draws/made hands on turns if ur not as polar. Though, thats still risky for him given he's in position and can have relatively safer bluffs on river if they miss their draws and you check to them.
at 30min, you call twice with j4 on q4276 after he bet turn/river. do you expect his delay bluffing range to be mostly air with no draw? cuz id think hands that barrel turn like 65 85 86 wud probably bet the flop with BD straight draws. if not, if he only bets draws on turn, isn't 4x a fold cuz his bluffs paired up or hit (85 86 65 53 63)
at 33min, i agree with ur 95 and his a6 on k9466, it favors his range. what would his bluffs be on that river when he leads? id assume it'd be largish sizing given he's polar when he bets (doesn't bet 9x) so he needs some bluffs. I really dont know what they wud be, 4x? 4x seems semi strong to bluff tho .... same thing at 39:30 when he had k6 on 96346, what does he lead as bluff?
also, how does ur 3b hands/sizing change with their pre flop raise size? tighter 3b range versus 2.5x-3x? and do you still do about 3.5x the open to either size (min raise or 2.5x-3x)?
On your first point, with AJ I'm not really betting for the purpose of having a x/c hand, but I think betting is the best turn play and I acknowledge that it'll end up being in river x/c range usually. As you said, it's only really important if he can manage to get to the spot with bluffs at a reasonable price, so it will depend on how the board runs out whether or not I find it important to x/c sometimes. I think you'll find that on boards where he can find bluffs easily on rivers, we will also want protection on turns with more medium strength hands. This will result in us having marginal hands more often on rivers to x/c with and all we really need to do is click check rather than bet often enough with top pair type stuff once the board runs out blank on rivers.
at 30min, I think a lot of regs will bluff non-draws on turn with the intention of following through rivers that fill draws. It's important not to overfold simply because the main draw completed for this reason.
In the leading spots, the EV of trips will go up substantially if we manage to bluff properly, so I think it's important to simply draw some bluffing hands from the bottom of your x/c range on the previous street. It might end up being bottom pair or an ace high flush draw but it will do a lot of good for your trips+ if you manage to pull it off.
The last one is a big concept - is villain's frequency changing (both opening and defending to 3b)? How does he play postflop? These things are going to change my range and sizing as well.
thanks a lot! every point makes a lot of sense to me. was thinking yea we just need to use bottom of X/c range on that k9466 hand.
if villain plays solid postflop (we still have edge) and doesnt fold that much preflop but doesnt overcall either. and he opens a bit tighter for a 3x then a 2.5x or 2x. how would you approach that? do you just test stuff sizings out and see what ranges he shows up with and how much he calls/4b the different sizings? I think if we are linear we def wanna make it slightly smaller either way, but linear range i use more when they overcall pre
23 min with KT, why are you cbetting this board without any bd ?
Dont you think you have too many bluffs if you cbet this (i thought it was ok to check ace high along with K'high most of the time) ?
Whats the plan turn river ?
I do have a backdoor (straight draw)! I think these hands are excellent bluffs on some runouts that help my gutters and I'm generally more aggressive on this board texture.
Kevin, dont you think river call with T9 in 3bet pot on 974xJ was a marginal one?
Doesnt that river hits a lot of broadways he barrels in 3bet pot especially considering he wasnt cbetting a lot (however it might be irrelevant given its 3bet pot spot)? Is it viable to fold this one and call some better 9x with better kickers which blocks more overpairs (which is relevant given all the info you had and it seems you havent expected him to value shove as thin as TT+ on the river) and blocks more KJ, QJ stuff which got there otr (maybe even JT, J8s but not sure he 3bet so wide pre at that moment).
Or do you think its on contrary broadway kickers would block more his potential bluff combos in HU 3bet pot?
I understand you dont have clubs which makes it a slightly better hand to call but guess its a minor consideration in a 3 bet pot.
However it porbably might appear 9x is generally very high in your range by the river and you haven`t planned to fold any 9x at all vs reasonable ranges.
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Hi Kevin, at 31:23 you say that villain is "not doing a great job assessing the strength of hands once there is a check on the flop". I find that if I am playing very well I can also make similar observations, but I struggle to implement the correct counter exploit based on a observation like this. How do you go about translating his flawed assessment into an actionable counter strategy?
One of my guesses would be that we just will get the opportunity to show down weaker hands more often (if he isn't thin value betting enough) and thus some of the best hands we might turn into bluffs can just be checked.
He's undervaluing hands in these spots, so I'm going to avoid thin value betting and except him to do the same. This might make me call lighter vs bets in these spots because I know his value range is more narrow than it should be, but if his frequency is particularly low then this won't apply. I won't necessarily show down my bluffs more often because it doesn't specifically translate to a lower folding frequency from him - we just know that he thinks less of his made hands than I do.
Table 3 @39mins K9ss, Assume we are the BB
The 2nd pair heavily favours our range and clearly a great spot to donk the river, I assume top pair always pays. It should be easy enough to fill in the air range with non showdown hands, but how often do we donk the river on the trips?
If always then we don't have trips when we check, should we consider using a mixed strategy, say 80% of rivers we bet and choose the 20% we check in spots were trips is less nutted like flush rivers?
As long as you're checking enough strong hands to discourage me from rampantly overbetting then you're doing fine. We make a lot of money by donking trips so it's often in our best interest to do so. I'd donk the vast majority of trips and maybe even 100% because there are stronger hands we can check that are also strong enough to check/raise vs a small bet. We should hopefully have those hands at a high enough frequency to discourage much of anything crazy from sb.
Table 1 @ 24mins Td7s
Considering our range advantage and the range the villain and us share, do you still think as you did in the video? We should scale back our bet size on the K turn. I think i prefer the BXB line with the majority of my Ax in this spot so i agree its a strong turn but for my betting range i think we do better than villain. Looks like a nice spot for me to run some sims. X amount of hands below could be in flat or 3bet depending on villain ofc
Range advantage
99 JJ AA KK AK QTs AJ
Shared rangee
A9 J9 QTo Ax
Villian hands we dont have
KJo K9o
Yeah that's a good point about Ax mostly checking behind turn. I think we can keep going bigger here.
You broke my heart when you did not bluff the 54o hand.
Yeah i cried a lot too.
Haha, do you think that's a successful bluff spot?
Anonymous generally have showdown value and Kevin would be representing very thin for value since overpairs and most bluffs that paired (or are a straight) OTR bets flop. AQ/KQ probably doesn't lead turn.
Repping such a narrow value range on the xbb line against this type of player you will see some very loose river calls.
Yes, anon will have showdown and call a decent bit, but not bluffing 54o here prob means you're not bluffing at all in this spot and I'm pretty sure Kevin will have traps here and 8x hands that want to bet for value and my comment was intended more as a joke then strat :)
Getting to this river unpaired and not betting is somewhat sad. I don't think Kevin has much of 8x hands on his 3betting range that doesn't bet flop when ip continuing range will have a good portion of his flop calling range that is unpaired. Sorry for not being fun at the party :)
Just a general question. Am i making a big mistake by always checking my entire range when the board pairs the 2nd or 3rd card on the flop? I just never really had a leading range after check/calling flop ever.
I think we have hands that want to lead, but I wouldnl't call it a big mistake. It's an easy strategy to use that I don't think sacrifices a lot of EV.
great video. You really seem to have a strong understanding of everything going on in these battles.
at 25min, with the AJ, ur flop sizing seems to imply you are polar on that flop of J65hh. then turn K, you bet again for protection/value. river 5 and you check, which seems best. how important is it to protect your river checking range with some calls? Do you purposively vbet turn thin sometimes (with 2street hands) in order to have hands to call blank rivers? I know its not that important to protect the range cuz its so expensive for him to get that spot by calling 3b and two streets and fading the river jam, but it also seems to important to call sometimes.
Do you do this more on boards where this a lot of draws and therefore a lot of his hands on river may not have SD value and these thin vbets benefit from charging draws on turn and being able to check and pick off bluffs on river? The risk is that it incentivizes him to jam draws/made hands on turns if ur not as polar. Though, thats still risky for him given he's in position and can have relatively safer bluffs on river if they miss their draws and you check to them.
at 30min, you call twice with j4 on q4276 after he bet turn/river. do you expect his delay bluffing range to be mostly air with no draw? cuz id think hands that barrel turn like 65 85 86 wud probably bet the flop with BD straight draws. if not, if he only bets draws on turn, isn't 4x a fold cuz his bluffs paired up or hit (85 86 65 53 63)
at 33min, i agree with ur 95 and his a6 on k9466, it favors his range. what would his bluffs be on that river when he leads? id assume it'd be largish sizing given he's polar when he bets (doesn't bet 9x) so he needs some bluffs. I really dont know what they wud be, 4x? 4x seems semi strong to bluff tho .... same thing at 39:30 when he had k6 on 96346, what does he lead as bluff?
also, how does ur 3b hands/sizing change with their pre flop raise size? tighter 3b range versus 2.5x-3x? and do you still do about 3.5x the open to either size (min raise or 2.5x-3x)?
Thanks for that, and the great comment!
On your first point, with AJ I'm not really betting for the purpose of having a x/c hand, but I think betting is the best turn play and I acknowledge that it'll end up being in river x/c range usually. As you said, it's only really important if he can manage to get to the spot with bluffs at a reasonable price, so it will depend on how the board runs out whether or not I find it important to x/c sometimes. I think you'll find that on boards where he can find bluffs easily on rivers, we will also want protection on turns with more medium strength hands. This will result in us having marginal hands more often on rivers to x/c with and all we really need to do is click check rather than bet often enough with top pair type stuff once the board runs out blank on rivers.
at 30min, I think a lot of regs will bluff non-draws on turn with the intention of following through rivers that fill draws. It's important not to overfold simply because the main draw completed for this reason.
In the leading spots, the EV of trips will go up substantially if we manage to bluff properly, so I think it's important to simply draw some bluffing hands from the bottom of your x/c range on the previous street. It might end up being bottom pair or an ace high flush draw but it will do a lot of good for your trips+ if you manage to pull it off.
The last one is a big concept - is villain's frequency changing (both opening and defending to 3b)? How does he play postflop? These things are going to change my range and sizing as well.
thanks a lot! every point makes a lot of sense to me. was thinking yea we just need to use bottom of X/c range on that k9466 hand.
if villain plays solid postflop (we still have edge) and doesnt fold that much preflop but doesnt overcall either. and he opens a bit tighter for a 3x then a 2.5x or 2x. how would you approach that? do you just test stuff sizings out and see what ranges he shows up with and how much he calls/4b the different sizings? I think if we are linear we def wanna make it slightly smaller either way, but linear range i use more when they overcall pre
23 min with KT, why are you cbetting this board without any bd ?
Dont you think you have too many bluffs if you cbet this (i thought it was ok to check ace high along with K'high most of the time) ?
Whats the plan turn river ?
I do have a backdoor (straight draw)! I think these hands are excellent bluffs on some runouts that help my gutters and I'm generally more aggressive on this board texture.
5-00
bottom table
Kevin, dont you think river call with T9 in 3bet pot on 974xJ was a marginal one?
Doesnt that river hits a lot of broadways he barrels in 3bet pot especially considering he wasnt cbetting a lot (however it might be irrelevant given its 3bet pot spot)? Is it viable to fold this one and call some better 9x with better kickers which blocks more overpairs (which is relevant given all the info you had and it seems you havent expected him to value shove as thin as TT+ on the river) and blocks more KJ, QJ stuff which got there otr (maybe even JT, J8s but not sure he 3bet so wide pre at that moment). Or do you think its on contrary broadway kickers would block more his potential bluff combos in HU 3bet pot? I understand you dont have clubs which makes it a slightly better hand to call but guess its a minor consideration in a 3 bet pot.
However it porbably might appear 9x is generally very high in your range by the river and you haven`t planned to fold any 9x at all vs reasonable ranges.
Thanks.
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