Unorthodox River Spots
Posted by Nuno Alvarez
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Great video nuno, as usual.
The reason why A3 is not calling is mostly because pio is shoving a lot of 10x, 5x with a diamond type hands. It's one of those spots where our hand is actually beat by some of the IP's 'bluffs', making it such a -EV call. If we would nodelock, and remove all those hands from IP's range, i suspect the EV of calling with A3 would go way up.
Thanks for the kind words isquirtbullets.
Completely agree with you. Thanks for pointing it out!
What is the most common reason why after flop check-raise, oop not really using 1/3 in HU (well maybe in some scenarios)?
2nd and 3rd hands
last hand (last minutes) we probably shoving our blockers to his Ax because it make a lot of sense to put a lot of money with blockers.
Hey Jeff!
Good question. I think that the main reason has to do with how wide the ranges that get to the Turn are in HUNL. In most cases the IP player continues very wide vs Flop aggression and I think that reduces the incentive for the OOP player to size down OTT and allow him to continue a lot being in position.
Indeed!
On the last hand how reasonable is OOP x/jam vs overbet? It seems quite exploitable to be pure bluffing to the overbet sizing if IP ends up with a ton of bluffs, sure we have more Ax as IP but if we start pure overbetting all of our bluffs it leaves a lot if room for exploitation. I wonder what frequency OOP can get away with jamming the river.
Hey veritaph thanks for the comment.
As you can see on the sim, the overbet sizing is not getting used by the IP player at equilibrium. I just thought that it would be a nice sizing here but I was wrong. In any case, I think it can work pretty nicely exploitatively.
If we force the IP player to only use overbet OTR this is what happens and this is the OOP response, in case you're curious.
OOP is basically never calling any chops because it has enough Ax hands to reach the MDF by shoving vs the overbet and that's the main reason why the overbet sizing is pretty bad for the IP player at equilibrium.
hand #1 on the AJ3Tcc-3x run out I was surprised to see Q9 Q8 QX in general not bluffing this river blocking KQ. Glad you showed the pio how Q high has some SDV. I think in Six max I would pure bluff this combo being ranges are more narrow and just triple off forcing player to basically have AT+ to call down with. I know you're not a six max player, but does that logic sound correct? Have to turn Q9 into a bluff being it's closer to bottom of six max range then it is in HU? Six max Q9 should have very little sdv if any on AJ3Tcc when it gets called twice except against like 54c.
Hand #2 with Ad3x on T85dd-Qd How come you don't use a larger than 2/3 size on the turn to set up a PSB on the river? I know PIO agreed with your size, just curious why it doesn't set up a ONE SPR on the river. I find it strange that last year I would always want to bluff with NF-blocker, but in the sim see IP and OOP neither player is bluffing with NF-blocker at all. Especially when river is polarized figured blocking the nuts was more important! I see some Kd5x bluffing though.
Recent year or two strategy seems flipped around from what I previously learned. Like XR with pair + BDFD, where PIO as shown in your first hand, doesn't do much raising with a hand like 5c3c (bottom pair + BDFD). Using hands with less sdv to bluff with. My focus has been more of increasing fold equity, where we block hands like 33 and A3 and bdfd, so by check raising we deny quite a bit of equity and have enough robust equity to barrel quite a few turns to make one pair hands fold quite a bit. Concept I have been struggling with for the past 6 weeks or so as it's more of muscle memory now and not really willing to accept the opposite.
One thing I see PIO doing or appears to be doing in my mind is just betting top of range and bottom of range and ignoring nut blockers. Is this correct? I know blockers only effect small portion of range, around 10% or so for six max and even less for HU, but I would still weight having a blocker more important than just being bottom of range. In my mind opponent with say QJ can say, "well, he likely does have KQ for straight since I block that, so I call!" I could be bluffing too much, being bottom of range and also using blockers, but I think it's hard for people to play against aggression in general being it's hard to make a strong hand.
I know it's a long comment, thank you in advance for the feed back! Great video as always and I think you explained things clearly and PIO mostly agreed with your play, just struggling with "why we bet" in general because I'm used to betting hands with highest equity, then polarizing some turns and rivers using blockers to balance out strong value / bluffs.
Hey RunItTw1ce, thanks for taking the time to write the comment and glad that you enjoyed the video!
That logic sounds absolutely right! The main difference between 6 max and HU is that the ranges are way more narrow in 6 max, therefore, the blockers gain a lot of value and the unblockers lose it. In most HU scenarios the ranges are so wide that unblocking folding hands has a lot more importance than blocking calling hands.
It's also important to remember that KQ is a pure 3B for the OOP player so we don't really block any strong value hands with our Qx bluffs IP. In addition to that, as you said, we also have a tiny bit of EV (SD value) checking behind and that's more than enough to check these combos all the time and pull the bluffs from other hands.
I think that we just want to use this 66% betsize OTT because that's what most of our value range wants to be doing in these spots in which the flush gets there. If the turn is a blank card, using a PSB is a good idea since most of our value range can bet larger and set up for a river shove.
It really depends on the spot but, when ranges are somewhat wide, having the nut flush blocker will also block the nut flush draw that will fold for the other player so that makes it not as good as it might look like.
Not sure if I understand what you're referring to here. Could you put an example?
Explanation makes sense, so used to seeing 2 sizes on this turn for like 75% sizing or over bet for six max, where over bet is obviously polar, so AdXx would fit into that being one of the best bluff candidates. At least in my head that is how it is played because opponent would be reluctant to raise with out the nuts which you block. Then the 75% sizing would be like Kd6d type flushes and KdXx bluffs.
These are the spots that get a little bit confusing because we want the NF-blocker on the turn to increase FE right? Regardless of sizing having the AdX blocks the calling range of our opponent. Then on the river, we want to unblock the AdX to increase FE. So AdX can float the flop either raise or call, can bluff the turn to balance out the bluffs, but has to give up on river because we block some of the folding range of our opponent. How do we balance shoving the nut flush if we don't bluff with nut flush blocker? is it really just the lower equity hands with no sdv? Similar shoving strategy to your opponent when you check? On the T85Qddd-3x board just shoving the 9d7x, 76, 9x6d type hands? I could see shoving NF-blocker as well as these no-sdv type hands, but maybe that would be over bluffing?
This was in reference to the Q9 region on the AJ3Tcc-3x board, where Q9 is pure turn bluff, but gives up river, which you explained
This little sentence is going to take some time to soak in... I know you explained it in the video where Q9 doesn't bluff because it blocks QJ QT Q9 98 etc which hero wants to unblock. So unblocking 56 combos is more important than blocking the 16 combos of KQ.
Thank you for the response, I know my response is a little scattered, but think it makes sense. Only part I feel really stuck on is not bluffing NF-blocker and balancing the times we shove with our nut flush. Again comes down to the little comment of unblocking folding range and not blocking value range.
Your thinking is good for the Turn play!
OTR I think you're overestimating the amount of nut flushes that we have in our range. Bluffing the 9d7x type hands is enough given that our main flushes are those 9x ones as you can see here and the Ad will be blocking a decent folding portion for the IP range.
The idea is to basically bluff OTT with our Adx hands because of equity and removal (never being drawing dead) but then OTR we will pull bluffs from other parts of our range that share cards with most of our value hands and unblock the Adx hands that IP will fold.
Remember that KQ is not in the OOP range because it pure 3B Preflop therefore we're mainly blocking folding hands with our Q9 combos!
Thank you Nuno Alvarez Long back and forth, but I woke up today with a much clearer picture of this hand. A lot of the AdXd are 3 betting preflop, so makes sense that we have very few NF in our range. On the image you shared, looks like KdJx, Jd7x and 9d6x are going to be the main bluffs.
One last question: Was watching Polk vs Dnegs right now and there was a hand on AT86ccc-K (front door flush completed on the turn) where Doug check raises, Dneg basically snap called and Doug shoved 33k into like 24k on the river. Dnegs called with 9x7c and lost to Jc4c. Would you say in a SRP that 9x7c is a pure call there? Side note I think Dnegs has a timing tell for snap calling that turn as some flushes would at least think about 3 betting. Dnegs has mindset of top pair or better have a club blocker gotta call down. Too rich to fold? I think I would call as well, but there there are a lot of Kcxc QcXc Jcxc hands in Dougs range that doesn't 3 bet preflop a long with all the other small flushes like 6c3c type hands.
Thank you for the back and forth, opened up some clarity to my strategy. Not just the NF-blocker bluff or the Q9 bluff but also another spot where I wanted to barrel a lot of pair + FD on turns or XR them on the flop, where PIO prefers to XC bdfd with a pair.
Good to hear :)
Yeah I actually watched this hand last night. 9x7c is a bluffcatcher here unless Doug is playing the 97 straight this way which is quite unlikely. His hand should pure fold without a club and mix calls and folds with a club at equilibrium.
I doubt Dnegs is playing a 3B strategy OTT but I agree with you that he's giving some info away snap calling the Turn raise (it usually means a medium/weak hand and not a very strong one)
Makes sense. Glad to be able to help you!
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