Swoop

Hey Daniel, very in-depth video as many of yours are. Thank you.

I have a question regarding the 2nd hand. I didnt get a chance to run it in pio just yet, but does CREV have us call the river w/ a lot of combos that contain diamonds? This might be a fallacy on my part as far is the gametree is concerned. But if so that would seem a little counter-intuitive given that we would also expect villain to be having missed flushes in his betting range. Could you elaborate on this a bit more?

Best regards

I liked this video very much.

PS.: My comment is also supposed to further encourage more parts from this series.

Hey Ben, it took me a while to watch this video after you posted it, but it is great to see what an eye you have for detail even if it isnt a variant of poker that you play everyday or that you might not even enjoy as much. Thank you.

I dont have a lot of experience with crev, but will definitely take a look. I cant really see this hand being a snap fold though. For me it was a real close decision. I hated not having any blockers to his value combos ofc, but I also had not lost a showdown up to this point and he was calling pretty wide now. I didnt wanna loose value against his 8x or even 6x combos that I could rarely see him folding.

My sizing on the river was exactly the same as the last 3-4 3 barrels to not give anything away in regards to the strength of my hand. I just didnt wanna make it like $25 all of a sudden. Im not sure if he would play his weaker 2pair combos (84, 83, 64, 63) like this, but I still think this is a fold in retrospect. There is really no need to be calling that wide even though it would suck folding that hand the river is a pretty clear bet/fold to me (now).

In game I called and he ended up showing A7o for the missed dbl float, but I also dont think he is bluffing often enough for this to be a profitable call. Im sorry, but I cant seem to be able to "unhide" the results of the hand without having his name revealed which I dont wanna do. Thanks for the input guys.

@ Will Winaton

makes sense and I agree that this might be in the bottom 20% of my range here for 3 barrelling. Knowing this how should we construct our range then? Fold all bluffs/missed gutshots etc and 1 pair hands and start calling 2pair+? Seems like doing some math here is in order.

@ schifty1

You´re right the hand history is mixed up. I was the button/sb and villain was in the bb. Cant seem to be able to figure out what went wrong. The HH is correct when I try to edit it.

His pf range might include 88 or at least some combos. I´m not sure if he was/still is 3betting 100% of pairs. I only have his overall 3bet %, which is kind of low tbh, which would lead me to believe that he is in fact not 3betting all his pairs. Flop chk/raise is 3% over 950 hands, turn I would have to dbl check as dont have that stat in my hud. Fold to 2nd barrel is 25% though over the whole sample. Fold to 3rd barrel is at 50%. I dont remember anything in regards to the snap shove, just wanted to add that in. Kinda seemed like he was planning to do that from the start should I barrel off again.

ok, thanks guys. I ended up calling for the reasons I mentioned earlier. He showed Q4 and I didnt win.

Edit: somehow I couldnt unhide the results without the names being shown and as I didnt wanna out villain I edited the hand out. Thanks again.

Hey guys thanks for you replies.

@ SPrince

Betting the turn is definitely debatable. I can see an argument for c/f turn as well. That being said: I´m sorry but I dont really understand your point in regards to the limp vs. raising range. I discounted a lot of combos that would be overshoving for value on the river because he checked behind preflop. He might be bluff shoving a little bit wider because he perceives my pf limping range to be weaker.

You constructed kind of wide overbet shoving range in my opinion. Do you really expect ppl to overbet shove the river here w/ T2? We have to keep in mind that the same ppl havent raised the flop here, which would lead me to believe that T2 or T4 for that matter is either not in their range or they´re playing this part of their range rather passively. That in turn would make it rather unlikely that they be overbetshoving the river. What do you think?

@ Raphael Nogueira

Thank you. Would you fold river though as played? And if so / if not why?

Seems to me like he is repping the Qx of spades, Aces, Kings and quads of course. I doubt he would even be playing the (nut)flush this way tbh. The question however is how would he be getting to the river with those combos without betting the flop as the pfr.

I dont have a very good answer to that. I dont see ppl checking very good, but non-nutty hands (A5o e.g.) on the flop very often - granted this is online as I have next to no live MTT experience.

In my mind we would have to discount some of those combos that would either bet the flop or raise the turn when donked into. I dont know if he realizes that he cant add that many bluff combos while having so few value ones.

Given that this leaves us with very few combos that beat you and also given that you only have to call 3.7k in a pot that is now (1440+850+2000+4850) 9140 I can hardly ever see us folding here vs an unknown (If this was part of your question - I personally think we should at least consider it for a brief moment). I dont think we learn very much from the previous hand you described other than that he might use some weird lines and might (!) not be an expert player.

That being said. I can hardly ever see myself not going all in here without a very specific read. You´re only beat by AA, KK and 55. He will call with the smaller full houses and insta-fold all his bluffs and flushes.

Hi there,

you say villain in this hand is good player. Do you have any reads on what his bb checking back range is? In my mind he takes at least a lot of good Jx hands out of his range by checking back. Given that we block some straight combos I´d say we´re looking at very slim value range here. As played you might even have immediate odds to draw (havent done the math). Folding for 7k more (maybe the hh is messe up?) doesnt seem like the best option to me.

I´d consider c/r the flop here. As I said I think his range is capped here and you do have potential nut outs and a medium back door flush draw.

@ Raphael

Thanks for your input. I agree.

@ FRABB

Possibly!

Without any specific reads I wouldnt fold the river. Villain might be of the opinion that your range is capped after checking the flop, which it most likely is. What are you cbetting on this flop if not 88? Are you really checking back many flush draws? Given that the answer is probably no, villain can apply a lot of pressure as he did. By cbetting you get a ton of floats from overcards (w/ a spade more likely) that might plan to take away the pot on later streets. You can then check many turns and bluff catch as many rivers.

As I said I´d lean towards calling here as played on the river. The thing is: each and every draw he could possibly have turned (except for 34) missed on the river. This narrows his range and should give us a lot more confidence in catching his bluff. Then again: you said he is a good reg, can he really expect us to fold anything w/ showdown value that called the turn? The answer is probably no. In his mind though he might just try to get us off our overcard w/ one spade hands that he cant beat at showdown, which is why I´d still call.

I second what Raphael said. You dont have to take what very often will be a flip here. Giving up a little EV here is fine as you can get in a way better spot. Your stack is still healthy and you dont get this exact spot even close to often enough to take advantage of a slight shoving ev edge.

He surely might have a wider jamming range here on the river, but given that there are so few real value combos (as discussed above) for him, he cant really believably add more and more bluff combos to his range without getting to the point where he would just be spewing. Given that I think he was at least a normal reg without any crazy tendencies - at least that I had seen so far - I dont think he would have many of the combos you mentioned. I am also unclear about whether or not he´d open JT and QJ UTG at this point. He might though given that the bubble wasnt too far away.

By simply calling the turn I set myself for playing the guessing game again on the river. Unless he is betting ridiculously small on the river I dont see myself getting the right price for calling turn and river with bottom pair king kicker. Also, unless I have seen him do so a few times, there is no way of telling how he would be playing his AsXx, KsXx hands.

Good 8x hands can easily be bet on the turn and river here if I am villain which is why in my opinion it´s c/f or b/f on the turn.

I dont see him really putting in tons of money against my turn play here as I am playing range here and there is also no way for him to know that I´ll be playing K4 this way unless a similar hand went to showdown (which I dont recall at this point). If he does adjust I would have to do the same and check an improved range to him on the turn.

Hey Raphael, can you provide us with your reasoning for chk/calling turn and river? Do you mean any river (my guess would be that you dont) or the specfic river in the hand in question?

Check calling the turn here with no backdoor flushdraw and just 4th pair seems pretty off to me. I´d really like to hear your thoughts. In my opinion we would just be calling to fold basically any river other than 4 or Kx.

Turn is debatable for sure, but why does it make "no" sense to you? Have you considered my reasoning? What´s your play on the turn? Check/fold seems to be the only other option as chk/call just leads to folding on basically any river other than a 4 or K.

Tough to answer the question for an "optimal" line. Why did you play the hand the way you did? Are there any specific reads that would help here (tight players behind you etc.)?

If not I dont mind opening QThh here from this position. I dont know if you have a balanced range here when checking the flop. My best guess would be that it is tough to balance and that you turned your hand face up. As played pf I would just bet flop and turn big to make sure I realize my equity and take advantage of any fold equity that might be left.

Thanks for the responses so far.

@ lbey33
My turn bet is certainly debatable. My intention was to protect my hand from six outs on the turn and maybe get a slightly better hand to fold on favorable (perceived draw completing) river cards.

@ SPrince
Why do you think he´d check is value range on the flop a lot of the time? I can imagine him doing that with some combos (as I would consider to do so myself), but I dont see a c/r from hero as much of a threat to a good part of villain´s value range.

I see people playing the As or Ks this way, forgetting of course that they´re trying to make hero believe that they would play a good part of their overcards + flush draw combos on the flop that way. Until proven otherwise I am not convinced that people do that very often. On the other hand his would be reasonable play as it makes it harder for hero to take the pot away from you.

Ok, I think I misunderstood your point the first time I read it. You were saying in general you would be playing AK bet/check/bet here and not bet/check/jam over a river bet from BB, which would make very little sense for value imo. I think we´re in the same boat then. Thank you.

Thanks maxderwayner for your insightful comments.

I totally agree with you that most regs that play 1k mtts will know that you need a thinner vbet-range in order for you to being able to add more bluff combos. That being said: is this really the spot to take advantage of the ranges we constructed in theory? Each and every possible (turned) draw missed. You said it yourself. Our range is far more 7x heavy than villains.

I am very much in favor of balancing each and every spot and I do like checking back AK as villain to induce bets from whatever bluff/1 pair combos hero might have on the river, but why play AK exactly like villain here? I cant wrap my head around what this would accomplish. What worse hands are calling us? Isnt the fact that you might get someone (tough to find someone in this spot imo) to call you with QK here less relevant than preserving your chips against a pretty strong value range on the river?

I personally would like to have some (if not most) AK combos in my 3 barrel range here as villain. Mostly due to the fact that as far as I am concerned many BBs dont defend very many 7x combos. Then again, we would have think about what that does to our checking the turn range.

Thanks, that pretty much summed up my thinking on the river. Yes, I do not block any spade draws, but would he really just ship any missed spade combo that got to the river when the flush draw obviously missed and I should be having some kind of bluff catcher a good amount of the time? I didn´t think so, which is why I ended up folding.

I only recently got into playing again and am still getting used to the current games. I see regs (I basically play zoom only when playing head up holdem) raise these flops w/ hand ranges that I dont really get to be honest like A2 or A3. Maybe they think Im cbetting too much, but then again those combos all beat me here on the river as well.

I dont have more history on the villain in question here other than that he was at a vp bb of 70 over the 75 hand sample with a 21.7% 3bet. I dont think he has many 92, 93 combos here and even if we add some suited combos of those, my best guess would be that he´d just ship those on the flop. The ace turn sucks for my range as well as I dont have many aces in my flop 3betting range.

Thanks Jhuntter. My reasoning came from the hand we played before. By not raising the 345hh flop before w/ 44 he took all his set combos out of his range on similar flops - at least in my mind until proven otherwise. His range now consists of (semi-)bluffs and straight/flushdraws (maybe the occasional K9, A9). Yes, I do loose some value against his bluffs that would continue the turn, but I also will get bluffed off of my hand on most spade run outs, which is why I wanna get more money in on the flop.

Why would you prefer just flatting the c/r on the flop?

All the hands you put in his flop c/r range do make sense normally, but given the other hand I initially posted and given the fact that he didnt ship the flop over my raise I´m positive that he doesnt have a made hand on the flop.

That being said. His flop c/r range does have to contain some bluff combos like Asx or simply overcards that get hit hard by the turn and the river doesn´t it? Additionally, given that a substantial part of his range (spade draws) obviously bricked the river, would he just ship the river anyway?

thanks Disharmonist, but what about the above mentioned range concerns? What do we do as played?

I don´t really think he has much of a bluffing range here as I would assume that most reasonable bluff combos bet the turn as well. As played and as discussed above there are just so few value combos in his range here that he cant credibly add many (if any) bluff combos to his river range.

That being said in game I called and sure enough he had KK for the obvious boat. I was and still am very mad at myself for how I played this hand. It is highly unlikely that he would throw that many chips away at this point in the tournament on a less than credible bluff. I´m fine with the preflop call as long as I dont make many postflop mistakes. This was one of those costly mistakes. Thank you guys for your feedback.