Jurik

Could you developp your thinking process about flatting 4-bets out of position ? I don't believe this is a mistake neither, however I personally have trouble postflops when I play medium PP out of position in 4-bet pots.

3beting more would need a brave heart I guess.

Why ? If they fold two third of the time, or if they play fit or fold postflop when they call, 3-betting aggressively seems fine to me. Especially in position.

6seven8 wrote:
Do you guys have any rules of thumb on ISOing limpers?

I personally use my RFI range as well in standard case, but I will adjust accordingly to the limper's profile: as you said, we shouldn't isoing the same range against a 40/0 and a 28/10. The postflop tendencies have an effect as well.

I guess it's okay to have an overlimping range as well, depending on the limper and blinds tendencies.

OK then I would advise to 3-bet a lot on this table, especially light if you have a great fold equity.

If your opponent puts you always on KK+, he will probably call with hands that have potential to win great pots as deep, including all pocket pairs for setmining and suited connectors. I guess you don't want some players in the blinds to get involved neither since your equity will decrease as the pot comes multiway.

This is just a point of vue, I can understand why you decided at that time to slowplay ;)

So, what happened on the river ?

Being in this spot on the river is exactly why I don't like cbetting this hand, even less double barrelling on the turn. You're making the pot bigger with a hand that will become only a bluffcatcher on the river.

I like check/calling this hand on the flop, and if villain checks back, then sometimes betting the turn and the river for value, sometimes checking again on the turn to protect my double checking range.

As played, if you think that the player pool underbluffs the river, then you have an easy check/fold. However, I'm not sure that a 10NL player shoves AJ for value on the river, and if he is the kind that always raise DP/set on the flop or on the river, then his value betting range is very thin on the river, and even if he rarely bluffs, bluff catching might be profitable.

If the table is loose passive preflop, I don't understand why you're slowplaying AA, you can still be cold called if you 3-bet and, especially as deep, you're missing value against EP opening range.

River, the only hand that beats yours is 55, because I don't think he is betting flop and turn a T-x, even AT. I guess betting small on the river is fine because you don't have many bluffs there (only 76s ?).

Why are you calling 4-bet instead of 5-betting preflop ? I guess it's better to shove since you're OOP and TT will be very hard to play postflop, won't it ?

If I had to construct a calling range OOP, I would rather include hands like KK+ which are easier to play postflop, and hands like 98s/T9s, maybe AQ/AJs/KQs, somes AK. Then I would 5-bet some AK, QQ-99, and maybe some bluffs like small pp or A5s at a small frequency. WDYT ?

In my current preflop strategy, I never calls 4-bets OOP. I understand why it can be an issue against a good opponent, but I have difficulties playing postflop OOP in 4-bet pots. I would like to know your opinion about this.

I would not discount AA from villain preflop calling range.

Like 6seven8 said, checking this flop at a high frequency seems fine, thus check/folding AK would not be a problem. But it depends on your 3-betting range as well.

I still think not checking back some 9-x (even with no dynamic) is a mistake: if AQ is the top of you range on the river, you will indeed have to call, but this is only a bluffcatcher and the call is theorically EV0. The problem with AQ being the top of your range is villain can check/raise much more agressively on the river because he will have more value combos with which he knows he is never beaten. He will have more bluffs as well in order to make you indifferent to calling.

Remember that against a good player, having a bluffcatcher on the river when facing a bet or a raise means you have actually lost the hand since calling and folding share the same EV. Thus, you really want to avoid to the maximum this kind of situation. Slowplaying some 9-x will probably make villain river shoving range thiner.

The formula gives the percentage of the total range to be defended, not the percentage of bluffcatchers to be called (Hero should check/back some 9x on the turn, and may holds J8s 86s, and even AA sometimes as well). Since he still holds some hands that can beat Villain value check/raising range, he won't need to call with as many bluffcatchers as he would have to if his entire range was only bluffcatchers.

Of course, some 9-x will be bluffcatchers as well (with whitch we will call), so maybe we don't have to hero call with the AcQc. This depends on: 1) how thin we will value bet the river (which depends on villain flop betting strategy as well) and 2) how often we slowplay the turn to bet the river.

I guess that only 20 hands or so on a player allows you to have a quite clear idea whether this player will be the kind who overprotects hands like 8x on the flop by raising in multiway pot. However, if this is one of the first hands you're playing with him and he just joined the table, then he is more probably a fish, and go broke KK here against him might be profitable.

Anyway, you should not tilt because of that since players who raise non-nut hands (i.e. less than DP on that texture) are pretty rare. Thus folding probably remains the best decision in the long run.

Hi Hoegh93,

I don't know your flop betting strategy, but I'm not sure betting a wide range once villain checked this flop is relevant. Then your flop betting range should be mainly straight draws, dp, sets and maybe AQ/AJ. Then if you don't have poor backdoor flush draws such as the Jd9d in your flop betting range, you have very few flushes in your range on the river.

On the river, I guess you should keep value betting 55/66, but probably checking back A6/A5 (I'm not sure of that, and it depends of course on villain check/calling range on the flop and the turn).

Thus, bluffcatching with straight seems mandatory against a good player. It's a uncomfortable spot there since we are betting some hands for value, but most of them are turned into bluffcatchers when facing a jam.

I'm not sure whether turn bluff raising range should consist of strong draws: I don't like being pot commited with my strong draws after raising on the turn and then facing a 3-bet jam. Any thought about this ?

Hi,

We need more information about your preflop range: will you raise 55/44 as well, or will you over-limp ? Same question with 76s.

Some players can merge their raising range here, with hands such as TT with the plan to make the regular fold (even a better hand) and then play heads-up with the fish for value. So it will depend on the fish profile here.

Without any information, I would advise folding, I don't think we will be (often) exploited in that spot since the regular should know we're almost never cbetting bluff this board 4way and because it's hard for him to x/r bluff with two fishes remaining in the hand.

Hi Wildspeaker,
I'm interested to discuss about building preflop range on Skype if you're still motivated.
Please send me your Skype ID by PM.

Mathematics of Poker solves multi-street games with a perfect polarized range against a pure bluffcatcher range. In reality, this will never happen since:
- real poker is not static: even worst bluffs have some equity against villain calling range
- a nut-air vs. bluffcatcher will almost never occur on the earlier streets

Thus, calculting the exact ratios of bluffs on the turn or on the flop is impossible without knowing the GTO solution.

As said above, you can study GTO solutions from solvers such as PIOsolver, and then use the same frequencies to construct your own ranges.

Applications of No-Limit Hold'em by Matthew Janda talks about good bluff ratios in most spots, accoring to game state, stack size, and board texture.

Against an opponent who uses a polarized cbetting range on the flop, I really like your check/back on the turn since it's not likely that you have two streets of value because a polarized cbetting range only contains AT+ and 9x for value. It's then more interesting to bet a polarized range as well in the turn since you don't really need much protection here.

However, this opponent doesn't seem to use this strategy according to his flop betting size. He might bet this board with a high frequency with a merged range if he uses such a small bet size. Then, betting the turn with the intention of calling a check/raise and shoving the river if your opponent check/calls might be the best line with the AQ.

Considering your turn check/back range: I don't think betting all of your 9-x is the best strategy on the turn. If we assume that your opponent will never check/raise all-in turn with no equity, you might want to check/back all of your Q9, J9 and 98 since they block your opponent's check/raise bluff range. That will give you a reasonable slowplay frequency I guess. You really don't want the AQ to be the top of your range on the river once you checked/back on the turn imo.

On the river, your hand is simply a bluffcatcher, meaning that you should be indifferent to calling or folding if your opponent is good. Then calling or folding the AQ depends on how you play your range on the flop/turn/river, if AQ is near from the top of your range, then you should call to make your opponent indifferent to bluffing.

Your last statement is wrong: in a multiple-street-game, to include the maximum bluffs, you have to bet the same amount relative to the current pot size on each streets with the intention of shoving on the river. This has been proven in The Mathematics of Poker.

In this case, the correct raising/betting size is 83%, which means his turn raising size should be around $7,000 with the intention of shoving the $13,500 remaining in a ~$16,000 pot.

If my calculus are correct, he then can have a 45% bluffing ratio on the turn, and 31% on the river if his range his perfectly polarized and assuming that his bluffs on the turn have no equity, which is wrong. Because his turn bluff raising range should have some equity, he actually can raise a bit more agressively.