CheaterBot

Thanks for the response. I like the line of thinking that trying to make adjustments to a small factor preflop could be much more costly to me post flop when I have to go through and re-work how I am playing my new ranges. I think this also touches on the fact that you think the rake cost isn't so much isn't reducing my EV enough to warrant that kind of work? Is that correct?

I think on the flop we are going to see a bigger bet size used a lot even with the A9 here. Folding the turn isn't crazy as it should be pretty close to zero ev vs a balanced player and if they slightly under bluff would be negative ev. The only player type we have to continue vs is a known maniac.

In spots where you aren't completely sure I would lean towards your assumption but give a little room for error. For exaple, you think a player would 3bet QQ 100% of the time. First, I would look at the player pool on average and see if that is the case, then I may look at players in the pool with similar stats and see if that is the case. If those are adding up to show likely a 100% 3bet, but we still cant be certain, I would say a 90% 3bet and have him call 10%. If the pool and similar players are actually 3betting much less that 100% I would give him something much closer to what those players are doing until I have more evidence to make me want to change that. Hope that helps.

I think if our range has all the 33 and 55 combos here then we should be cbetting some frequency. If it doesn't, that makes a much better argument for checking range.

As played, I like the x-r and the barrel on the turn. Instead of jamming the river, what do you think about block betting? I think a strategy could be built around block betting some of our Kx, JJ - AA, and using our worse bluff combos to balance. Our shoving range would be 55, 33 and bluffs with better blockers.

Thanks for taking the time to check out the thread and give some feedback.

Thank you for your answer. I like the idea that potentially weaker blinds gives him the chance to have more bluff combos. Just have to work out if the player is they type to use them. My opinion and it seems like everyone agrees, is that most players wont. Which leads to your next point, can we even really get exploited here by folding some of the medium-strong hands in our range? I like that thought and I also like the idea of finding a lot of checks with that portion of our range as well.

Thank you for your response. I agree in theory that if we are betting the river it should always be a shove. But in practice, it seems that a lot of people feel this spot is under bluffed on the turn, which means maybe the BN doesn't have enough bluffs to support a river shove? What do you think?

Thanks for your answer. The part about the river jam vs the sizing used is exploitative based, meaning that against someone who isn't playing perfectly balanced ranges, do you think the river shove is stronger or weaker than the sizing we see here.

Sorry it was so many questions. I have so many of my own assumptions about this spot and wanted to see if I could get confirmation on whether they are good or not. I appreciate you taking the time to answer what you did.

Before buying either I would spend some time watching some of the videos of the coaches here using each. I think even with an essential membership you will be able to see several examples. Also, if i remember correctly, CRev has a trial period (it's been a while since I purchased) and you can get a free (turn/river) version of PIO to try as well. I actually tired typing out some explanations a few times but it felt like it was going to take me way too long to type up something that wouldn't give you near as much knowledge as seeing it for yourself. I apologize that my answer isn't what you were looking for but I think it's a good recommendation.

I messed around with this one a little in CRev and, unless he is getting pretty out of line because of your small sizing, it looks like a bet fold is going to be your most +ev line here. Once you call the flop it is going to be too easy for him to play very well against you deep and in position. Checking calling is actually pretty close in ev so depending on reads it will be very likely you would want to go back and forth between one or the other.

I think it is going to be very hard for that K to improve either player to hand better than ours unless they have KK or they had already flopped a straight. The BTN called a pot donk with a player behind which shows he has something decent and the SB is a weaker player so he can likely continue wider than most. So although it looks like I hand strength decreased on an absolute scale, I think it stayed about the same relative to these too guys and they are both showing they are willing to play a big pot which makes me want to put in a big bet.

On textures that tend to get checked a lot I lead very frequently, but I tend to make my sizing larger. I would have bet about $1.00 to $1.20 on the flop. I think the majority of the hands that you expect to call for a pot sized bet, call for the larger sizing as well. Depending on who calls and the turn card I will adjust my sizing on the turn somewhat, but in general it will continue to be large. In this hand, after you get two callers I think the bet needs to be bigger on the turn, in the $3.50 to $4.00 range. I just want to get as much money in as possible before the board changes in a way that kills my chance to get more value.

I appreciate you guys all taking the time to comment on my hand. It gave me a lot to think about. I am going to leave my thoughts and see what you guys think.

In the actual hand I had KdTd. A little off topic but I think my turn call is debatable. I thought that this guy was aggressive enough to be barreling a little too bluff heavy.

Anyways, we get to the river and he checks and I immediately want to turn my hand into a bluff on this river. I realize it is a little contradictory to my reasoning for calling the turn, but instead of winning the pot 50% of the time it seemed appealing to me to try and win as close to 100% as possible and I thought once he checked a pretty huge bet might get me there.

One reason I thought this, and is something that you pointed out, is that it's hard for me to have a lot of bluffs here. First, I don't think many people would be thinking to turn a hand like mine into a bluff. Second, I don't have much air here other than backdoor flush combos on the flop that missed on the river. 89, Q9, 78, KQ is pretty much it.

Usually when you are in a situation where you aren't repping any bluffs an overbet is going to be overkill but i think his player type was more likely to take the, "show me the flush" type mentality and call vs the 70-80% sizing. Also, although AJ or KJ shouldn't be value betting here (I don't think) I didn't want to risk himself using a small bet as an excuse to think I might have been. So, I in my opinion 1.5x was the sweetspot.

I did some work in CRev so I figured I would share the results. Below is the range I gave him by the river. Obvioulsy, we are winning quite a bit with a check vs this range. Vs this, the equity of KT was 51.9% and the ev of a checkback was $19.07.

I assumed (like it seems others do as well) that most if not all of his flushes would have bet the river. I also assumed that some very small percent of the time he might have gone for a blocking/value bet with his sets and came up with the following ev calculation for a 1.5x pot bet. The X-axis is how often he calls with his 1 pair hands that have a club blocker. The y axis is how often he check-calls with sets instead of bets them. Also, I assumed that his AA, KK, and two pair never fold. All of his pairs without the blocker always fold.

Even if he always check calls his sets, we only need him to fold is pair+blocker hands 52% of the time to be slightly more plus ev bluffing.

So what do you guys think of my assumptions and my thoughts? If you think my assumptions are correct, do we get the 52% folds?

So what you are saying is that on this river you bet small with all of your air and check back all of your made hands that aren't good enough to value bet?

Also if you are betting a flush, what size would you use?

Thank you for taking the time to respond but I didn't actually have 22 in this hand. I changed because I didn't want people to think about what I actually had.

One thing that stands out to me though is that you said if you had blockers you wouldn't bet big as a bluff. Why is that?

I think worrying about giving betsizing tells to a weaker player is going to cost you a lot more money than it is going to save you. Against weak players you want to take the best exploitative line you can at all times and save the balancing for the regs imo.

I think you can call here but it is going to be very close. The reason is when the gutshot comes in you are likely to be able to get his stack a large percent of the time and when the flush comes he likely has enough strong hands that aren't flushes where you are going to be able to get at least a 1/2 pot bet.

On the turn I think a 1/3 - 1/2 pot bet works much better with your specific hand vs his range. I don't think you are getting any value hands that bet the flop to fold on the turn until you start overbetting so your bet is meant to target all of his flop bluffs that are giving up. They really can't do much vs even a small bet and it is very good for your hand to get those to fold. Also, when you do get check-raised (which I actually wouldn't expect all that often) you are likely going to be getting a much better price as well.

Pretty much this. I do think sometimes check calling down with this hand is good if the BB is stabbing and barreling a lot after you check. Without the Ah I think a check-raise on the flop is pretty nice against that same type of opponent.

As long as the other people at the table aren't taking notice and trying to punish me, I would be opening the top of my range much larger at this table to try to isolate the weak player and get the pot as big as possible pre-flop. I have played against guys like this kept playing 80% of hands to 10x opens for example.

If this guy is actually playing a 91% range here he can have have all the sets and a bunch of two pair combos, but he also has a ton of 1 pair hands and draws that he might play this way as well. It's almost impossible to get inside the head of a guy who wants to try and play 90% of hands and give him a kind of thought process and assign ranges so I think we just have to recognize that we have a very big hand against someone that seems to want to gamble and can have almost any two cards here so we need to try to get the money in as fast as possible.

Good luck man.

I think the 4bet size is fine in these positions as long as you have a balanced range here and aren't 4betting AA to 22bb and bluffs to 25bb or something like that.

I wouldn't say never shoving the nuts, there is always the misclick. Anyways, you need to be good here about 40% of the time so vs the range you gave him it will end up being a call. I tend to think KK gets it in more often than not pre-flop though. If he doesn't have the KK combos you need to fold this flop. But, that is only with the range you gave minus the KK. If you can find other flush draw combos, KQ, QJ, TT, etc and potentially discount some of the sets then we are back at a call.

In the end, although it isn't the best thought process I just say I have AA in a 4bet pot and this is a weird line by the opponent so I click call and make a note.

What do you think a checking range looks like on this board after a 3 bet?

My guess is most of his pp's bet for value/protection and a lot of his bluffs probably fire the flop to set up a double barrel. So I guess it could be AA, 44/22 (if he 3bets those) as slowplays, a few give ups, and some Ax combos that want to try and get to showdown?

If thats the case I probably want to make a small bet with most of my range. We can get rid of the give ups cheaply, set up barrels vs most of his Ax on good run outs, and don't risk too much vs his few slow-play combos.

I think the 78 is a better bluff because it has no showdown value but has the backdoor fd and 1 backdoor straight draw. KQ doesn't do too bad as a check because I assume it is a little less worried about giving free cards to his give ups and there is some chance that on a K or Q turn he turns those give ups into bluffs and you can get value that way.

But, all this is based on my assumptions about what a check range looks like for an unknown player so if people have better assumptions about what the population is doing after a 3bet on these boards fill me in.

I think the limp pre is fine being on the btn.

When the sb donks with 3 players left to act I think you have to raise here. He is showing a reasonable amount of strength given the sizing and the number of players that saw the flop. It's hard to image he is doing this as a pure bluff. I like making it 2.8 to give us a 6.6 pot on turn, 5.8 on turn to give us 18.2 on the river to set up just under a pot shove (if I did the math right).

As played the J is a tough card because potentially one of his draws got there or he could assume that one of yours did. I still think he has enough likely combos of other stuff that we need to be getting more money in, but we can't make a huge raise anymore. That being said something closer to 5 to 5.5 looks better to me. We get more value/protection vs all his draws but it's not so big that it forces them all to fold.

On this river and with the action I think his range is mostly bluff catchers and missed draws. Meaning unless he has 69 I think you always have the best hand. Unless you have a read that you can induce a check-raise bluff, in general you wanting to be betting pretty big with all your value hands vs that kind of range and let him figure out if he can call or not.

Ha! And then you were so distracted by the awesomeness of the word you completely forgot about the poker aspect? haha