clark116

Bump. Im curious about freenachos' question too.

Same situation - really want RIO to succeed and really like the idea of playing there. But if I'm going to sacrifice a big player pool for a small (and I suspect tougher) one, I want to be sure that the rake (after rakeback) actually works out better.

We know the rake %s and caps but its hard to know how that rake actually works out in bb/100 at micro /small stakes.

I agree. Gotta call here. I think the whole hand is played fine provided we click call. This flop is rrally pretty dry and i like the small sizing.

Yea, not sure about 3bet pre, call would be fine.

I agree with flop check and small bet on turn. Def folding to the x/r though - he can def have JTs, KQ, 99, and there are no flush draws he could be doing this with. Don't see villains check shoving turn with a gutter or total air.

Going back and forth on this one. Yea he shouldnt have many bluffs in his range, but i find it very hard to believe he plays a set this way - bet small turn and then overbet shove river. Hero can totally have flushes and possibly straights from his point of view.

If villain can have flushes other than KcQc then he can also have bluffs. Still expect flushes to bet bigger on turn. Weird line - think im clicking call and hoping to see QcQx or a random suited connector bluffing, expect to see KcQc a fair bit

I agree with this completely. I have often seen people say that allin ev adjusted win rate isn't a great indicator of actual your EV winrate. I think such statements are ridiculous; obviously it is far from the whole story but (long term) it is a lot better indicator than your actual win rate is, as it is taking one of the big areas of variance out of play. 

Its a bit thin on the river with no history yet... 

I definitely think getting to the river we have the best hand most of the time. I think most regs are raising there spade draws here with a high frequency either flop or turn, so we can discount a lot of the flushes in his range (by no means all of them, but a lot). Its just that this river makes it much harder for him to call us.

On the other hand I'm not sure we can check/call, as he shouldn't have much air, or many hands weak enough to turn into a bluff. I think this is very villain dependent, I find that vs some opponents this is an easy shove, vs some a check/call. I'm leaning towards a check/fold, with the expectation that he checks back a lot with a 9 or 88/77, feels so weak though... but I think you need to have at least a bit of a dynamic of big bluffs and light call downs to get away with a value shove here /nit

Good luck Phil. Haven't railed a match like this since 2009 haha

This wouldn't generally be a 3bet for me. But given we expect to get flatted a lot in bb vs btn, I have no problem with 3betting suited connectors some of the time, you need hands that are going to play well in terms of flopping equity more than you need blockers. Also if you are only 3betting big pairs and Broadway's as part of a 'linear' range you are going to run into some serious board coverage issues. 

For some reason I thought this was blind vs blind. In bb vs btn I have no problem with the 3bet pre. Call is fine too though IMO. Turn bet I still don't like, I assume you are doing it as a semi bluff, and I think you are more likely to achieve thin value than to fold out better. It's too thin though and I think this plays much better as a check/call. He is going to float a lot of stuff that needs to bluff on the turn and I'm pretty comfortable check calling this

Also you need to remember that you are giving yourself a better price on the bluff shove. 

1/2 pot sized bets for a shove on the river definitely have a good amount of fold equity. Especially because the low stack to pot ratio encourages people to just shove the turn with a lot of their made hands that are intending to go with it.

I would bet same or slightly smaller on the flop. Half pot turn, leaving a bit over half pot on the river.

Ok, I understand the reasoning and can't argue with that. Like I said in the op, I have no problem with a filter. Thanks for explaining your reasoning Phil.

Might have to try to stretch to that elite membership, if this is a good announcement for HUNL.

I'm not a big fan of 3betting this in position, think it plays better as a call. I suppose I can see it vs a guy who calls loads of 3bets oop.

I don't think I like the turn bet, your hand is too strong to turn  into a bluff imo, and I highly doubt you are getting him off KQ/KJ in a blind vs blind situation. Given our gutshot and our showdown value vs hands like AQ, AJ, 98s, T9s, 55 etc I think we get to showdown and win a pretty decent amount. 

I am undecided on the river...

I think it depends on what you call 'unpolarised' (and what you call a 'whale' haha). I definitely agree that our 3betting range should change vs someone willing to call a lot out of position. 

I would say I 'depolarise' vs someone who calls a lot out of position compared to someone who is more inclined to 4bet or fold. But when I say depolarised I don't 3bet a perfectly linear range. I will add more hands that are 'strictly for value' and make up the rest of my range by 3betting hands with more of an emphasis on 'playability' postflop. 

Whereas vs someone who will not call out of position very often I will 3bet hands that I am happy getting in preflop, and then make up the rest of my range with more emphasis on hands that have good blocker value, or do ok shoving over a 4bet.

I am never sure when some people say 3betting a linear or depolarised range; whether they literally mean they have like a cutoff hand strength every hand above which they 3bet, and this is balanced with no weaker hands. I can certainly see how this works very well vs a villain that loves calling our 3bets when we 3bet and we have this range, but I worry about what this does to our flat calling range.

And of course I think he is more likely to do this when he has the backdoored flush than the 98.

I agree, it is pretty rare that you see someone say something like that on a bluff. I also think we can just go with the fact he's nearly always got reasonable showdown value wouldn't expect him to have many hands that feel the need to bluff.

Seems like the guy is a donk, and yea there is some chance of him having 98 and overvaluing it, but even if he plays 98 like this 100% of the time (and calls offsuit 98 preflop) I think he is going to have enough combos of flushes/straights and slowplayed sets to make you okay with folding, given there is only 6 combos of 98 (only 1 combo if he doesn't call offsuit pre)

I just can't see utilising an uncapped calling range that well being oop either as we give him the option to check back rivers a lot...

I'm not decided that your idea is wrong, just interested in what you think of these issues.

Hmmm, I see where you are coming from, but do we really not want to have a check/raising range on this turn, given that it changes the board and we are out of position. I mean we don't have to check raise all of our 9s, and we should have a lot of them. Also we can check raise some flush draws and some T7, T8 type hands, which then takes some weaker hands out of our calling range?

I would be way more active as a poster if there was a dedicated HU forum/subforum. If it can't be done then thats fine, but I feel like it could get a lot of activity; the HU forum on 2p2 is totally dead, and it leaves a void for the beginning/lower stakes HU players.

I think I'm actually check/folding here for once. I'm normally always the station arguing for a call when everyone else is folding, seems the opposite here.

Valuebetting river - I really can't see you getting called by worse very often at all. Really hard for us to rep a bluff here, and I think its pretty hard to come up with a decent hand that he can have here that we beat. The factors that are deciding this for me are:

-We opened in early position

-We don't barrel many hands that don't have good showdown value by the river on this runout

-He had a player behind left to act on the flop; so he probably is not peeling too light

-We have the Ac which blocks a lot of the weaker hands he could possibly have peeled us with that can call a bet now - I mean he really just isn't floating the turn very light when he can't have the Ac

Bluff shoving river - Firstly I just think he is likely to have a very strong hand here. Secondly, when we check/raise bluff shove he is left with around 45 to call into like 150 - I just don't see him not finding a call with any valuebet that didn't just check back the river. And as I stated previously I don't see him having much air.

I think the factors I've already stated explain my reasoning for not liking a check/call. I'm check folding - albeit with the expectation that this river goes check/check and we win a good amount.

Deet, I agree the turn raise is bad for our range in the sense that we can now never have a full house on the river. And so we feel forced to call on the river. But honestly I'm not only calling 'because we are at the top of our range', I genuinely feel that there are plenty of regs capable of recognising this deficiency in our range and turning everything less than a straight into a bluff. We are getting good enough calls to bluffcatch here in my opinion.

However, despite what the turn raise does to us on this river, I really can't see never check/raising this turn. As I see it the turn raise really only is bad for our range on rivers when the board pairs?

I agree with check/raising this flop once we flat preflop. Although I like check/calling the flop a lot vs a more laggy opponent who is going to have a lot of air hands with low equity that can attempt to barrel us.

You guys may be right about opponent wanting a call. I don't think we should be 4bet bluffing more though. I think with the low SPR villain is definitely going to be able to comfortably call enough in position to a normal size 4bet, that your 4bet bluffs are just never making money. Unless of course you are 4betting bigger, in which case you will be getting a poor price on your bluffs.

I could see 4betting a more linear range, i.e wider for value, being a decent adjustment... I mean this takes hands out of our calling range rather than out of our folding range, but if we are 4betting more we need to defend less in terms of total defending range.

Would be interested to get more opinions

I'm noticing a lot of these small 3bets too, sometimes even smaller, at first I thought it was from fish but there are definitely a lot of regulars doing it too. 

I am of the opinion that 4betting these a ton is not the way to go. I haven't thought about this too much and could be wrong but my intuitive thoughts on this are the following:

Yes in terms of game theory I believe the 39.2% figure you reference as minimum defend applies if we always 4bet (so that the worst hands in his range i.e the ones he folds to a 4bet cannot autoprofit) so he does not get to realise any equity with his 'bluffs'.

However, I would say that this 3bet size is specifically designed to give you a worse price on your 4bet bluffs, and to allow the villain to call your 4bets with a wider range of more speculative hands in position with a bigger SPR. Therefore I imagine 4bet bluffing with a wider range is playing directly to the advantage of their strategy. So I believe the correct adjustment is to 4bet more for value (perhaps a more linear range overall), but mostly to just call a lot more. I mean it makes sense if we are getting better pot odds we can call with a wider range.

I would liken this to when people first started min raising from the button in heads up, the general consensus was that the BB should adjust by making less light 3bets (or 3betting a more linear range) and calling a lot wider than when the BTN was opening 3x.

I may be wrong here, but this is my intuitive response. And obviously it should go without saying; it all depends on how much the opponent is 3betting, if they are 3betting very tight and going this small they are just losing a ton of value with their big hands and we shouldn't worry about them exploiting us with their bluffs as they clearly are not.

Far too many comments are getting likes in THIS of all threads haha ;)

Not a nice river card. I would end up clicking call here. 

If he is a regular: he will probably (correctly) assume we can never have a full house here. We are never check - calling flop and check raising the 4-to-a-straight turn with a set or twopair. This should be pretty obvious to him, and a decent regular will usually assume given his line that he can get credit for having a set or twopair on the turn that turned a full house. Therefore a lot of regulars are quite likely to call turn with a flush draw here and shove this river once the board pairs. Furthermore since it is so unlikely you ever have a full house here he may well turn any made hand he could have that isn't a full house into a bluff. Your betsize would likely have further encouraged him to do this.

Another factor that makes me lean towards a call is the fact that there is a decent chance he is just checking back this turn with a set or a twopair since it is so likely you have hit a straight. 

Since he is an unknown playing on a mobile device, there is some chance he is a huge donk and he did this with like A9 or something.

Now I am not saying that I expect to be good a lot here but given you are getting around 3-1 on the call you only need to be good a bit over 1 time for every 4  calls. Furthermore a lot of people would encourage you to call because you are at the top of your range, i.e if you fold this hand you never have a hand that can call and villain can make a huge profit by shoving every hand in his range.

Don't forget about this please Mikey! Not that I'm impatient or anything ;)

I'm leaning towards a bet here. I think he has a lot of AJ and AQ here and I doubt he ever value bets these, although  there is a decent chance he might fold them. 

On the other hand I don't see him turning many hands into a bluff here; I would imagine you have a better chance of a call from KQ than him turning it into a bluff (not that I think he is particularly likely to call). I just think most hands you can give him that he isn't happy checking back for showdown value are pretty contrived. Like 98 or J9 with a backdoor fd maybe, or a T that turned hearts. 

No problem, lack of HU tables sucks haha