dablancninja

WHAT. A. MAN.

Hands better, I make it: AJo, AT, JQdd, K6s and KT (some %).

After further work on the hand I think A9 is a call. Even though villain turned up with A4o this time.

First off, I made a mistake by saying it's a good bluff catcher. It's actually the opposite as it blocks his bluffs! So his range is more weighted towards value making a fold on the flop more profitable.

I'm also interested in why you think sets such a great hand to x/r flop

Erm, maybe someone can give a better answer than me, but basically my logic is that you need hands to c/r for value (and balance with correct number of bluffs) and if we assume we 3b JJ+ pre and we don't c/r our sets then we never have a strong c/r range so villain (or in this case, you) can cbet everything (inc 99 :)) knowing he's never going to be put in a tough spot.

What do you make of my line / reasoning?

You want to check back this flop a large %. And 99 is one of the best hands to do so. You check back because you have good showdown strength and relatively protected on all turns, making it easy to call at least a turn bet and assess river. Additionally, getting value from worse on multiple streets is ambitious.

On top of that, when you bet this flop, with this type of hand, you are in a whole world of hurt when villain raises, which ironically is the reason you posted this hand and why checking makes more sense.

As it happens, and what makes this a bit more tricky is that you do have a good bluff catcher. His c/r bluffs on this board should consist of 9T (which you block) and probably, as he flatted from the SB, only the suited combos too. Maybe 67s/56s combos make better candidates to x/r and perhaps he bluffs those too. But you're playing live, and live players, generally, ARE AWFUL! Period. I'd throw all balanced play out of the window.

I think you're wrong if you don't put sets (88, 44) in his range and even JJ some % of the time. He can also x/r AJ. Sets are a great hand to x/r flop here, why wouldn't the general population do this? (Other than the general population being bad). In fact, it's really the only viable value hand to x/r when flatting out of the SB on this board.

As played; b/f flop, especially with little to no reads.
Optimally; x flop, call turn and call most rivers with an excellent bluff catcher.

Would it have been an idea to shove over the top on the turn, putting him to a difficult decision

This is affectively turning your hand into a bluff and IMO setting money/your tourney life on fire.

I'm often confused in these bvb spots how to play my Ax hands otf on these dry boards...feels like AK/AJ at least should be played as a c/c?

On this board villain should be betting a small % of the pot a very high % of his entire range, which including all none paired Ax for value and protection in your betting range seems a fair strategy to me. If you're looking for balance x/c, 56s/46s/66-JJ seems a better starting place then AK/AJ.

FIVEbetbLUFF you mention calling with hands in the top 20% of my range. How do you work out that it's 20%? If his bluff needs to work 42% of the time don't I need to be calling ~60% of the time to make him indifferent? But that seems a large % intuitively.

Guys, thank you so much for your feedback! That really clears this up for me in my head and makes total sense. I'm pleased I played it correctly up until the tricky river decision.

I was weighted heavily towards the call at the time as I knew he's unlikely to give me many Ax in my range, and felt an "exploitable fold" but with the limited time bank I had I thought there was a few other combos I would have comfortably called with here as mentioned above (meaning I'm somewhat protected) and I had a great image and wasn't sure on his 3 barrel bluff frequencies. NH him though.

I ended up making the fold and stone bubbling the FT.

He's recently followed me on Twitter, and I've DM'd him. Not sure if he speaks English or if he'll reply but if I find out what hand he had on this occasion I'll post it. I'm hoping he says KJ :)

Thanks again all!

Hard with no reads on villain, if he's agro then I think it's fine, but I'd say a little too loose in general due to openers position. 45hh/46hh and T7hh+ I'd call.

NH, just make your c-bet smaller (100-125) with range on this type of board.

+cEV to jam for sure, especially seven handed but with ICM bubble considerations, fold. Think 99 you'd have to go with.

So!... May have been wrong about 'setting money on fire' with folding Ax/small pairs to re-shoves.

If the guy is playing NASH then this is the calling range:
(reshoving 30% over your 60% open range) = 25% calling range

And if he's shoving half of nash here's your calling range:
(reshoving 15% over your 60% open range) = 10% calling range

So I guess you're right to fold Ax and small pairs if he's playing that tight... that is very tight though. And of course we can just exploit this by then raising the button 100% rather than 60%. Anyway, hope this helps shed light on 15bbs deep HU play :)

Think you can go both ways on the flop but with all the back doors and on that flop you're going to get raised more than most I like x/c a lot.

The turn is where I think you make this hand hard for yourself. Think you can bet for value and protection, and against a good player he knows you're not checking any K twice on that board and probably not strong Ts twice. Meaning he can have tonnes of value hands and in turn tonnes of bluffs meaning he can really punish your capped range with some hefty bets. From this point of view I think it's probably a clear call on the river - as you point out you don't have that many better hands when played like this and with all the draws missing he's weighted towards bluffs.

I'm just not sure what bluffs he ends up with here. I very much doubt he's value betting worse than your hand, despite your capped range, and I think he bets his combo draws, flushes, sets (44,TT) and KT on the flop. So I think that eliminates almost all bluffs.

So that leaves me thinking is this player going to turn some random small pair or gut shot into a bluff with this line. If he's good maybe...

Been thinking about this hand for a while and I think it's a fold, my decision hinged on the fact I imagine he bluffs his combos & flushes on the flop, making him too value weighted for this sizing.

[ ] Poker is dead

I'd say 15bbs deep and raise folding small pairs/Ax you're setting money on fire. Even with a significant edge post flop I'm not sure you can be turning down such +EV spots.

With that said, your overall strategy about avoiding small edges pre flop when playing such a weak player is correct, I'd just say do some work on what's small edges and what's an edge you just can't turn down.

Some excellent HU videos on here, you'll be a pro at them in no time :)

Personally, this for me, as we get to see some of the hands you fold rather than just the ones you vpip and therefore a more efficient way to learn.

Okay, thanks - this makes a lot of sense.

@Lucas Still on that last hand, you say that when he 4b shoves AQo is in bad shape, do you still call given the pot odds you'll receive? Or are you implying you would have 3b/folded? If so, is call a reasonable option? You clearly demonstrated you're are ahead of his opening range but behind his 4bet shove range and with 20bbs effective it's a spot MTT regs find themselves in a lot.

The easy part of this equation is what's the EV of straight shoving.

According to Holdem Resources that's '+0.71bb'

Now we have to see, by asigning ranges, can we better that EV by raise folding or by raise calling.

Let's say villians are tight (as it makes intuative sense that the tighter the villians the more profitable

a r/f is), and have the same stack size as us and once villian reshoves all player(s) behind auto fold. Not

real life but it makes things easier to work out.

Full ring, 200/100 180a, pot = 480

Villian Position / Chance of reshoves % / equity vs that range / +/-bbs if r/c =

Btn = 8% (88+, ATs+, KTs+, QJs, AQo+) / 38.7% / -0.45bbs
SB = 10% (77+ A9s+ KTs+ QTs+ AJo+, KQo) / 38.7% / -0.61bbs
BB = 13% (66+, K9s+ JTs+, QTs+, A8s+. ATo+, KJo+) / 41.2% / +0.05bbs
(average = -0.34bbs)

Now finally compare the EV of the raise fold.

I make it you'll get re-shoved on 28% of the time. when this happens you lose 2bbs. The other 72% of the

time you pick up 2.4bbs. By my math that makes the EV of r/f +1.17bbs

So in summary the EV break down is:

shove = +0.71bbs
r/c = -0.34bbs
r/f = +1.17bbs

r/f is the winner.

Now, let's double the blinds and buttons ranges to give perspective;

A shove would still be the same EV. +0.71bbs

Full ring, 200/100 180a, pot = 480

Villian Position / Chance of reshoves % / equity vs that range / +/-bbs if r/c =

Btn = 16% (33+, A4s+, A9o+, KTs+, KQo, QTs+, JTs) / 38.7% / +0.67bbs
SB = 20% (22+ A2s+ A8o+ K9s+ KJo+ QTs QJo JTs T9s) / 38.7% / +0.82bbs
BB = 26% (22+ A2s+ A7o+ K7s+ KTo+ Q8s+ QTo+ J9s+ JTo T8s 98s 87s) / 41.2% / +1.44bbs
(average = +0.97bbs)

I make it you'll get re-shoved on 50.3% of the time. When this happens you lose 2bbs. The other 49.7% of

the time you pick up 2.4bbs. By my math that makes the EV of r/f +0.19bbs

Now, let's compare the results;

'TIGHT' BLINDS 'LOOSE' BLINDS
shove = +0.71bbs shove = +0.71bbs
r/c = -0.34bbs r/c = +0.97bbs
r/f = +1.17bbs r/f = +0.19bbs

Some points of note:
our 'loose' blinds are actually 2% TIGHTER than nash equalibrium, so not loose at all.
Nash reshove ranges to a 33% CO open = btn 18%, SB 23%, BB 28%

Shoving is 'unexploitable', and with players defending BBs with increased frequency in the current climate

that obviously effects r/x part of the equation.

I've taken an average for ease of displaying the general results but your EV of raise calling shifts

considerably depending on what position re-shoves on you.

Shoving into tighter players (I'm assuming they will have slightly tighter calling ranges than nash) will

yield more profit than nash shows. (3% tighter equates to about +0.13bbs difference) So you could reflect

that in the comparision chart for improved accuracy:

'TIGHT' BLINDS 'LOOSE' BLINDS
shove = +0.84bbs shove = +0.71bbs
r/c = -0.34bbs r/c = +0.97bbs
r/f = +1.17bbs r/f = +0.19bbs

10BBS
Lets use the same formula for 10bb stacks. Comparing 'tight' blinds to 'nash' blinds. Tight being half the

shoving range of nash.

EV of calling reshove
TIGHT: bu=0.53, sb=0.65, bb=0.68
NASH: bu=1.49, sb=1.86, bb=2.31

'TIGHT' BLINDS 'NASH' BLINDS
shove = +1.00bbs shove = +1.04bbs
r/c = +0.62bbs r/c = +1.88bbs

EV of calling reshove
TIGHT: bu=-0.45, sb=-0.61, bb=0.05
NASH: bu=0.67, sb=0.82, bb=1.44

'TIGHT' BLINDS 'LOOSE' BLINDS
shove = +0.84bbs shove = +0.71bbs
r/c = -0.34bbs r/c = +0.97bbs

Finally, lets use the same formula for 20bb stacks.

EV of calling reshove
TIGHT: bu=-1.98, sb=-1.44, bb=-1.03
NASH: bu=0.70, sb=1.25, bb=1.84

'TIGHT' BLINDS 'NASH' BLINDS
shove = +0.86bbs shove = +0.58bbs
r/c = -1.48bbs r/c = +1.26bbs
r/f = +1.04bbs (30.8% SO) r/f = -0.01bbs (54.7% shoved on)

CONCLUSIONS
It's hard to do anything too wrong cEV wise with a hand as strong as KJs in the CO at this stack depth. But

as always it's trying to formulate the most optimal play.

Raise deciding on the player and their position yields more EV in every case than unexploitable shoving.

However, my formula doesn't take into account allowing a villian in the BB (or any other position for that

matter) to realise his equity. With say a hand like 78s which is neither calling a shove or reshoving, it makes a lot of sense from a villians strategy stand point to call and see three cards. I think adding in this complexity makes it almost impossible to document and formulate a robust/clear 'solution' to the problem.

With that said, villain's cold calling allows them to make mistakes in a couple of ways, so as long as you're not playing against a total post-flop wizard like Galfond there's plus and minus EV to flats.

raise deciding also gives hero the chance to fold to multi-way 'all-in' action where equity is greatly affected.

Another down side to raise deciding as appose to straight shoving is it also allows hero to make a mistake when they misread villain's reshove range.

With all things considered raise decide strategy seems more +EV but I'd like to get other thoughts on my math above and my thought process for what strategy is best.

With KJs it's hard to make too much of a mistake, the only way a mistake can be made is by raise calling

versus a tight player. (Which surprised me given the strength of KJs)

Hope this helps! I'm new to all this, so my math may be off, if it is please say so!

Nice to see a pro (especially Elite) giving my comment a thumbs up, even nicer to see one comment in the mid stakes MTT forum. Please keep it up :)

I agree with this. It's not even an open, then you compound the error by 4betting.

At this stack depth he'll have a linear 3bet range one would imagine.

Deeper he'll need a polarized range as he'll want to 3bet for value, call very wide as he gets a good price and therefore balance the 3bet value range with some much weaker hands that flatting isn't the best option. If he isn't doing this, and just 3betting for value and calling then it's really easy to play against...

You can't fold here IMO, however if he had 66-99 (or whatever worse pairs he's reshoving with) he's probably just jamming to 'maximise' fold equity and to stop you flatting (which you probably never do anyway). He also just jams AK/AQ, right? So thinking about it, it feels pretty scary sizing, and I'm sure he had it this time - hence the post. However, with all this said, if he is making this sizing with any of the above then it's a weak fold. Technically speaking your hand is far too strong at this stack depth to muck given this action.

Cold call BB will be more accurate which I know (and use) is in HM2 but I'm not sure about PT4.

Raphael right. I'd choose call 100% of the time here. I'd be confident in saying I don't even think 66 is a shove in this spot.

It's probably very marginal +cEV (If SB isn't on the tighter side, which looking at stakes sizes he probably will be plus I doubt he expects BTN to fold so will have a linear range that you're behind too). Sorry to say, but I think this is classed as ICM suicide. Even if SB (and/or BTN) aggro, on the FT, I can't see too much benefit to calling.

It depends how often he's opening the CO, but given a normal range (and no <10bigs stacks in BB or Btn) you need be shoving wider than Raphael suggests IMO. Including all suited broadway a lot of suited Ax and probably as wide as A9o and KJo with be +cEV.

I have same problem. Not reported it though.