_michael_

I don't understand the turn overbet for more than half of effective stacks, you have a middling hand with a great draw so you can comfortably ch/c, or bet much smaller if you are going to bet. You are going to fold out most of the marginal hands you are ahead of with this big bet.

I also prefer to call flop but raise seems ok.

I possibly like it, my concern is we are representing very narrow value, and are we balanced? We have a ton of combos that could raise flop as a bluff, you would need to be very careful with what you follow through with on the river. None of our draws get there on the river, so we should expect to be called down by Qx often.

Our clear value combos on the river are only 22 and Q9s for 6 value combos. I am expecting you to squeeze QQ, 99 and AQ pre. Maybe you have Q9o?

If we are looking for optimal then you should only have max 3 bluff combos for ~pot jam on the river, and that is assuming you always take this line with 22 and Q9s, but you should probably check them on the turn sometimes. Maybe the best 2 combos are T8cc and J8cc, just don't start jamming your diamond free JT or 87dd. I don't think you have worse hands blocking neither JT nor diamonds.

I am not going to say you are definitely wrong, but I will give you two big issues I have with your strategy:

Your 4b range is weak, bluff heavy, and you will get into difficult spots when called by a range with lots of AK QQ JJ. Having A5s and KTs is 8 "bluff" combos, having ATo and KTo as well is now 32 "bluff" combos, this is drastically different. KTo and ATo hardly ever flop good draws to barrel with. When we 4b JJ AK even QQ it isn't so much for value anyway, we are quite happy taking down the pot and don't want to be jammed on. With this many bluffs in range I would 4b to a larger sizing.

Your 3b call range is wide if you are including so many unsuited broadways, again you will put yourself in difficult situations. This is a big 3b, I don't think default calling with AJo KQo is a great idea.

Very interesting thank you lIlCitanul, so the larger sizing is more polarised but still somewhat merged. It will be difficult to get the balance right in practice, firing 3/4 pot with A2s, some baby pairs etc, but definitely possible.

Thanks, I agree villain's play is terrible, and in hindsight small turn bet makes more sense.

Interesting thought on the flop sizing, thanks both. My default is 1/3pot or check for monotone, but I sized down because it should be hard for him to continue even for tiny bet with a lot of his range.

I am interested in which hands we should bet 3/4 pot with here.

I am never 4b this hand pre but I don't know exactly how you construct your 4b range. What are you doing with KQo, KJo, ATo, AJo if you 4b all of them it is way way too much, and we don't want to call with too many offsuit and often dominated hands. I really don't like using KTo as a 4b, we have better KX and AX to 4b light with.

Personally I am more inclined to use better blocking hands like AJo, KQo, A5s as my light 4b vs wide 3b range.

How you continue turn depends on your 4b range, can we have some hh hands to fire with? I never have this hand here so it's hard for me to construct a balanced range. KQo seems like a better fire as it blocks QQ and not TT and has more outs if he calls, you can also use your backdoor thoughts to decide which KQo to use.

Does reg really call 4b oop with AJs 99 etc? Maybe they can with your sizing.

Personally I am being very careful not to overbluff on the turn, I am expecting to see lots of QQ JJ.

fully agree
prefer to 3b pre.
definitely bigger turn raise if you are going to raise, he has loads of hands that will continue. Bigger turn bet also sets up bigger river bet.
river blocking spades sucks, we block most of his missed FDs. folding this size seems fine, or we can b/f to try to get some value from KQ KJ AK. Once he bets big he shouldn't have Tx without a boat so we don't beat any value for this sizing, I doubt he is doing this with AA or KJ.

What other hands do you take this x/c x/r line with, I think it's really hard to construct a balanced range to do this with on this board. The problem is that he has all 16 combos of AQ and 9 sets and we should have way less of these, so if we x/r turn with anything other than AQ he can jam over and we hate life. J9 is much more dangerous to slowplay flop, and we probably raise some AQ on flop, so they have a big range advantage on the turn. I don't like to x/r 2 pair, and if we don't have 2 pair then we have no boats on the river to call with.

I quite like planning to x/c x/c x/r this combo, it protects our one pair hands that want to call down and see showdown. If spades miss it looks like a desperation bluff and he has proportionally more value. We would likely x/c not x/r board pair rivers.

The stats don't mean a huge amount but we know he isn't a complete preflop whale with 23/15 over 50 hands so it tells us something. One of the useful about having stats on zoom is you can identify people playing way too many hands even with small sample. If he was playing high VPIP then we would likely know by now.

I expected this was being posted because he turned up with KJ, I was just expecting it to be suited!

We have 38% against a range of just KJ so it's not a terrible call even if he only does this with KJ (I am fully expecting to have >50% equity here)

Seems fine to me, I assume you lost the hand. I don't like the size down with AA pre.

There is only 3 22, 1 88, 1 J8s, up to 3 JJ, I am not folding AA here. Some of his value could x/r turn, and JJ could x/c flop a lot, so some of his value may be in different lines. If he is bad he can have KJ with this line, if he has bluffs (eg T9s) then it is a call. We could fold river against some villains but I am calling without extra info.

We have many worse hands like QQ and AJs and we shouldn't fold all of these. Our only better hands are JJ and KK so we are folding far too much if we only continue with those 6 combos.

If he is somehow raising flop with some random 8Xs then that sucks but oh well, the SPR was 1.5 when the second 8 came. If he is doing that then he probably has some random straight draw bluffs too.

Thanks very interesting analysis and I like your sizing on any club river. It also protects my thinner value, I can bet this sizing with Kc myself and possibly bluff.

I agree he could easily have folded a Ten with a club that I should have got value from.

My plan on the turn was to set up river jam and I didn't reconsider it enough.

I am calling the jam, he has coldcalled a 3b OOP so I am expecting to see TT and 99 in his narrow range. If he has KJs it sucks but we have reasonable equity still. If he is showing up with J9s or KJo then he is a fish and he has a load of 2pr that could spazz out doing this, so I am calling. His stats make this unlikely (and maybe he doesn't have KJs)

His TT and 99 can take this line because they are scared to see another card and just want to jam and hope you make the call with AA or something. He could also do this with strong club draws, he can have AJcc AKcc (If he has KJs then he has these).

I think 99 is a tough hand to have here, I am not folding TT or QQ.

I think your preflop raise is too small OOP, and this flop hits his calling range really hard so I don't like range cbet. What can he call pre that folds on this flop aside from underpairs?

I wouldn't mind just folding preflop, we have to commit a decent % of our stack with the 3b here.

If we are going to cbet this flop the sizing should be bigger.

I play the hand same as you, I want to protect equity on the turn (I am expecting to be mainly ahead when he checks) and I am folding if he x/raises again. We are also buying a showdown rather than having to call a river bet when we don't like any rivers.

He can have all sorts including 43 45 random 4x many 5x and 6x as well as the monsters.

Once you get to the river I agree you should bluff, we don't block his middling PPs which likely fold, and this is one of our worst hands. Turn I am not sure if this hand needs to bluff, it depends on your range construction.

I like the line overall, but we don't want to turn up with too many bluffs. Say we have some flushes, KK, QQ, KQs and AA for value (lets say 22 combos if ~8 flushes, depends which suited hands you 3b).

3/4 size pot bet means we should have about 3 bluffs per 7 vbets.

On spade rivers this is one of the worst hands we can have (maybe A3s can do this with double gutter on turn).

A5s and A3s would give us 6 combos, which is pretty close to optimal (~9), and if you slowplay a bit of your strong value into different lines then it is about right, or if you check back AA no spade. I would like to be able to bluff the river with a spade blocker sometimes, but we possibly don't have any unpaired ones (if we have the 4 AsJo then we probably have the 7 KQo and we have both more vbets and bluffs).

Yes fancy play for me, I don't like the flop raise, we can construct a raising range without this hand (it is a middling hand). We can raise with some combination of some FDs, sets, JTs and 98 if he want a raising range (we definitely shouldn't be calling all those hands 100% preflop though, depends how you construct your 3b call range). I am flatting flop with my strongest diamond draws.

You could call flop with this hand as it covers you on some runouts, I don't mind just folding it either, as you will avoid difficult decisions later (eg if A or Q comes and he keeps betting big, or he bets big on a club turn)

3b or fold for me, I don't mind either, whereas AQo and KQs are clear 3b. If we call we can easily end up playing 4way, or worse we get squeezed out by the blinds.

Personally I wouldn't have a calling range at all here.

I like it, well played. Calling turn keeps in his draws that can also fire river, we also give overpairs a chance to fire again. If you raise turn you also need to find bluffs to raise turn with, it is much simpler to only have calls. We are protecting our weaker hands that want to show down by calling down with this boat.

If you 3b flop you really narrow down his continue range and we are not actually that happy if he calls or jams. I don't think flop 3b is terrible because we can deny a lot of equity but we have stronger hands that can consider 3b for value, such as 77,88,J9 (we may have all 16 J9 combos here) and some strong draws for balance.

Line seems ok, I would definitely use bigger 3b pre OOP and possibly smaller cbet sizing. I am only calling with specific info about villain, I don't think population can bluff enough on this river.

He has loads of possible valuebets and I can't see obvious bluffs. This is also a scary board to bluff into against a 3bettor. Maybe his TT/JJ is supposed to bluff.
Maybe he gets here with weaker AXs bdfd and doesn't realise he is bluffing.

His possible value range: AQ, JTs, 88, KQ, some weighting of AK and QQ. He would need a fair amount of bluffs to make river call profitable.

I suspect you have given yourself a very narrow range when you x/call the turn, possibly you only have AJs and ATs. Can you have KQ or AQ with that line? Maybe you have KJs? If you can have lots of weaker suited aces then in theory you will have to call ATs (better bluffcatcher with the straight blocker), whereas if you have lots of stronger hands you can fold ATs. It would be interesting to see how a solver plays their range here.

Wow that is an extreme difference, I was not expecting it to be that much worse than a 9,T,J. This may be because we have discounted suited gappers entirely, but it still gets the point across that an 8 is a horrible card for us.

I don't mind call or fold on the river really it's close. If you are betting most stronger queens on the flop then I think you have to call river with this, as you will be folding your middling PPs and missed FDs.

Player behind us can show up with hands like AT KT KJ that stabbed flop and got there, and KQ.

They can also bluff river with some underpairs, flush draws or no low equity flop stabs that decide to bluff river, and we don't block clubs.

Thanks for this analysis. What this demonstrates is how the 8 is a better card for villain than us, to the point where the solver only checks. The IP calling range used gives him a lot of strength on this board, in reality random villain's calling range is not exactly like this (eg full weightings of lower SCs), but it seems reasonable. It also confirms that the overbet is a big deviation from optimal.

I don't hate the line here, but I would ch/c or b/f river, unless I have evidence villain is capable of spazzing here. We have plenty of Ac ourself so our river bet range is protected, we should have more Ac than him.

There is an argument for bet turn but you don't like getting raised, whereas you can comfortably ch/c.

You can ch/c riv to protect your non-club hands (you have a lot of these). I would strongly consider doing this, but can definitely miss value this way.

It is not that easy for him to have a lower club here. His turned flushes are betting and he shouldn't have many unsuited hands, so his lower flushes are only pocket pairs like TT, 88, not that many combos. It's also not easy for him to have Ac, he has to flat 3b and float the flop with AKo/AQo or slowplay a turned nut flush. If he is going to float some high card hands they will often contain Ac.

If he is a passive fish who calls the 3b with AJo and ATo then suddenly he has loads of Ac and we should definitely not b/c river.

That's not cheating! That's what you're supposed to do.

You are worrying about stuff that is technical and nobody can give you a perfect answer, the exact % you open is not the key factor for beating 2nl as long as it's not stupid. Put a simple preflop plan in place and focus more on your postflop play.

Thanks. I think I am looking for overbet spots when they aren't really there.