igotya

I do think we have to size up for stacks in a 3b pot as long as it is possible anything else is suboptimal I would probably have a bigger flop sizing so I could maintain about the same percentage sizing on flop&turn.

Preflop is standard vs a 20% 3b range but if you dont have a sample for it can be too loose. Flop is standard.

When villian goes c/c OTF he almost always have a madehand and you then have to decide whether you are going 3streets or you give up.

It would be nice if you added some more stats.

You have to make some assumptions:

- How often is he gonna be c/c Jx OTF (I would not assume he folds that).
- How often he has Tx (Tx is what you would aim to fold if you 3barrel).

Another thing to point out is that you probably dont have as many valuecombos in your perceived range as you actually have (I assume you flat all Axs when you flat Q8s.) Besides that you have a lot of go to bluffing combos in your perceived bluffing range "KQ&AQ" which usually is greenflag to calldown with a bluffcatcher for a loose guy.

Turn feels like a dreamspot to actually have a flush which makes me wanna shutdown at turn.

All that matters is my perceived range, how I actually play my range is irrelevant.

River is a pot jam btw.

Even with lack of reads I would like to say that I think his sizing is just kinda unbalanced on this texture with these stackdepth and therefore I would definitely discount some of the already very few valuecombos he can have. Also because he is likely raises most of his setcombos OTF 200bb.

The above might have gone through villians head in some way given that OPs sizing also looks quite unbalanced and I would therefore also like to to add that I definitely think you should increase your sizes (flop is about fine) but turn is just waaay to small, I tend to think of the sizing I would go with topset.

From a exploitative standpoint you can obviously play around with smaller sizes to induce spazz like this or light calldowns and then perhaps go bigger with toprange and bluffs and then go FOS-sizes with your "medium" valuerange or something like that but in general as you move up in stakes I think having perceived balanced betsizes is a really good idea.

FWIW I have at 200nl seen a lot of my fellow regs have socalled splitranges according to their sizing. This happens when stacks get deeper in a 3b pot since they are so used to the 50%ish at 100bb stacks and they just tend to forget to adjust their sizing as stacks get deeper, its quite cool to exploit!


-igotya

#Event78:
That will indeed be the case vs the more str/f fish and in those cases folding straightahead OTF is usually very solid. But this guy is playing 56/18, so he seems quite aggressive and you can therefore easily see some Tx play like this.

#Thedoors:
Yeah if we 3bet the flop here we are obviously NEVER folding.

Flatting and jamming almost any-nonspade turn is also a line that could be viable but I think this guy can easily end getting stacks to the middle vs a 3b OTF with e.g. JT, QT, KT, AT, 98, 9J etc.

His range is all over the place, there isn't not really any structure, there will be a lot of trash, slowplays etc.

You need 43.5% vs his range to jam here assuming he always calls (This is not the case, he will also be folding random bluffs like QJ, K9 etc. and he can even spazz with those).

I don't think it is close at all tbh, if villian was a passive 35/3 and we had 100bb stacks then we could discuss folding but not in this case!

Definitely prefer raising over calling, I don't think he has a lot of "pure air", but actually only madehands and draws:

The value of raising and putting money in the pot vs Tx, draws etc. outweigh by far the value of flatting to let him continue bluffing with hands that otherwise would fold to a 3b (Like i said, theres not a lot of those).

Yeah I raise bigger pre, at least 4 (I would make it 4.75).

Does this sum it up?

I have quite a hard time putting words on cbetting flop vs checking back. As I see it now checking back flop is a viable line as long as we assume that our opponents arent too passive on future streets (in that case cbetting flop and folding their equity share is better).

Preflop:
We are 175bb deep with CO does that have a big significance for our flatting range OTB?

So assuming we 3b JJ+, AK for value.

Is this flatting range fine?

TT-22,AQs-A2s,K8s+,Q8s+,J8s+,T8s+,97s+,86s+,76s,65s,54s,AQo-AJo,KQo

Also from a range construction perspective how much offsuit can we flat and do we even wanna 3b hands like KJo or do we rather pick some suited like 96s?

I would probably fold flop just given that your range for isoing from the SB and cbetting this flop 3way is quite strong and he very likely has very few bluffs.

His range is polarized to kdxd, kdxx and some sets OTT for value given that he should check back any non-nut flush.

I wouldn't assume that he is folding kd OTR especially given his odds. (he needs to be good 25% of the time). It could happen but I think its irrelevant anyway.

Preflop call is too loose imo, you just don't hit a good hand enough of the time and even when the flop comes txx, jxx and the reg cbets you will have to fold.

I don't like donking flop without equity at all, the reg will indeed be str/f but a decent part of his range is overpairs which I doubt he will fold and the fish will continue a lot aswell and you can't do anything but give up if that happens.

If you wanna bet somewhere, you should bet turn to make him fold some AJ-AK but I dont like that either.

I don't like cbetting given that we don't really wanna be barreling because we won't have a lot of FE OTT so for that reason I rather just ck back and play it from there. (I would like to hear some more thoughts on this though).

I ck turn aswell as played and will c/c if i get immediate odds i assume (will lead hearts&J river) vs a potsize bet you have a easy c/f.

First of all I understand why you hesitate whether or not to 3b, theres a lot of value in 3betting CO and I think it is likely the highest EV.

Even though the fish is terribad, it'll just result in him CC your 3b more.

I think flop is suboptimal, you are probably isolating your hand vs a range that kinda crushes you, even though he isolated a fish, the amount of worse kx combos that you get value from are quite limited, at best some K9o & Kxs. (imagine a BTNvBB scenario, then he suddenly has shitloads of kxo combos).

Flop is a very standard c/c, you have the best hand a lot and you will be able to valuebet river comfortably when it goes xx OTT and you can call a barrel on almost any turn and if he 3barrels you should be able to make a good decision especially vs described villian.

-igotya

Could you provide some stats on how UTG is playing? Maybe you meant UTG and not CO? in your "reads sector".

Hmm preflop is close I think, not too sure about this one.

I think 3betting here MPvUTG in a vacuum is best by far given how much he flats etc. (just imagine what happens when he flats AQo and the flop comes Axx... or he flats KQs and the flop comes Kxx) etc.

However with the whale OTB it does change a bit, if UTG had been a player I normally flat AKo MPvUTG vs. then I would flat with a whale OTB too.

However if UTG is "bad" enough to 3b in the first place, I think 3betting is gonna be higher EV overall, the whale will overcall a decent amount anyway.


Postflop:

I suppose flop cbet is fine as long as CO doesn't play back a lot.

I think when UTG c/c OTF, he has a lot of Tx hands (mostly weaker ones I believe but there will be combos of AT and of slowplays like AA too.) Not sure if you think he is bad enough to c/c like 88 here?

So yeah OTT you have the option of 3barreling or giving up pretty much, given that you flatted MPvUTG and bet when he checked you do have quite a lot of air and not a lot of madehands except Txs combos, sets and (JJ)&(QQ) (few combos) that you did flat pre (however its hard for me to know how you think he perceives preflop range).

He is blocking Tx himself so I doubt you will get any folds OTT and maybe not on the river either (depending on card). He might only think that you have 7combos of sets that 3barrels here for value.

I would not expect to get c/r OTT at all (even if it should happen its with such a low frequency that you don't really care and you can just muck, what you care about is the EV of 3barreling in total). Also, the c/r turn stat is irrelevant anyway, first of all given sample but also because its such a generalized stat and this situation is quite specific.

I probably just give up OTT, if I would decide to continue, I would bet turn, jam river given that his is capped to Tx and therefore he is bluffcatching with his entire range vs your 3barreling range.

On broadway rivers I might not jam given that they heavily improves the amount of valuecombos in your range and therefore also decreases the amount of bluffcombos. (Random thought).

If it wasn't clear I think he is gonna snap the river pretty much with Tx. It looks FOS given that any better madehand in your range bets turn, lets say hypothetically that this isn't the case for your range, it doesn't change anything because your bet OTR will still very likely be perceived as "unbalanced".


-igotya

Yeah I call too, its impossible for him to have 22 and 77 is likely folding at turn.

On the other side theres not a lot of combos that can go c/c c/c and bluff river except some fds and they are very discounted given that he flatted in the SB and you block Ts.

You should have an idea of how wide he flats in SB, the more hands like 78s, A7s, the more I lean towards a fold.

So yeah if his calling range pre is tight, i call and if it is loose I might find a fold unless I think he can play As8s like this or worse sets...

This is a wierd spot i must admit.

A good tip is to search for your opponent to see how many tables he is at, if he is hidden you can try harder and find him in the lobby. This will give you a very good idea of how he is playing. I'm uncertain if this is as "easy" as it is on stars :-)

He is likely a fish given that he pots OTR so for that reason I would raise really big given that im quite certain that there are more random 8x & random bd clubs in his range than 22, 44, 88, A8 (If he has A8, he also have K8s, Q8s, J8s, T8s, 98s, 78s etc.)

Given that you don't know him, you can't assume that he is tight enough for you to just flat river.

If he 3bets you can fold comfortably.

I think river is a clear valuebet unless you KNOW that he is gonna bluff with his draws. He has a lot of worse Qx, shitloads of worse Jx that can call a valuebet.

Even though the guy is playing 85/14 you don't know how valueable it is gonna be to c/c, even though he always bluffs he might only bet 12$ or something like that though call a 50$ vb with JT.


I call river as played too, given how hard it is for him to have you beat, you don't need to find that many spazz-combos.

The group 2 was meant to be the hands that I beat that calls a jam just to make it more readable.

Btw I apologize for the bad grammar in my previous post, no edit option yet.

I don't think theres much more to the hand tbh, I think most is covered.

Group 1: hands that I don't beat

Group 2: hands that I beat.

Combonator Output combonator.com
Board: Jh Jc 5h 7c Ad
Vs Hero Cards: Qs Jd


Grouped: 16 combos, 1.6% [Hero Eq: 21.88%]

Group 1: 14 combos, 87.5% (1.4% total) [Hero Eq: 10.71%]
Group 2: 2 combos, 12.5% (0.2% total) [Hero Eq: 100.00%]

Group 1: Manual selection

77, 55, AJs, AJo, KJs, KJo, QJo

Group 2: Manual selection

J9s+

1 combo of 77


Here is how we do equitywise vs. that range.


Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

16 games 0.000 secs 3,200 games/sec

Board: Jh Jc 5h 7c Ad
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 21.875% 12.50% 09.38% 2 1.50 { QsJd }
Hand 1: 78.125% 68.75% 09.38% 11 1.50 { 7h7s, 55, AJs, KJs, J9s+, AJo, KJo, QJo }

If we jam OTR at least BTN will probably realize that he is bluffcatching with the few combos that I beat and I will never have the required "50%" vs their calling range for it to be a profitable VB and I think a lot of the time given how the hand was played one of them will have a Jx+. (I don't think the bad reg calls Ax at all).

However I do not need to have 50% vs their calling range for the VB to be neutral EV, this depends on how often they're gonna fold when we jam, and when thats said, them folding shouldn't be a good thing per se since those folds will all be worse madehands/potentially bluffhands. I'm clueless mathwise to say a lot more to this.

However if we check and one jams we only need ~33% equity but I realize now that at least BTN should realize that it probably is a bit tough to get value with J9s, JTs so I think he might check those a decent amount.

If we however think that he jams all of this range { 7h7s, 55, AJs, KJs, J9s+, AJo, KJo, QJo }, we need to find very few combos as Lefort already pointed out - 4combos (and that could e.g. be KhQh, KhTh, QhTh, Th9h) to give me over 33% equity vs BTNs range.

However as I pointed out, I'm uncertain whether or not he will be jamming worse hands for value at all and even though BTN should jam all his bluffs when i ck, I'm not sure he will given that I do have some Jx that c/c in my perceived range and SB have a lot of Jx+ aswell.

It is quite amazing how Ah is so different compared to 3h or even Kh (given how many combos of nutfds that suddenly have a pair and most likely will ck back for SD-value.)

Actually imagine the scenario where the river isn't Ah but instead 3h, checking our entire jx+ range could be way higher ev than jamming as long as we assume that BTN jams any draw/jx which is equal to 100% of his range?

Well at least checking the part that isn't too high EV to jam ourselves like QJ should so easily become better to c/c.


-igotya

I didn't notice it was 7handed actually, then i am not sure if we need to defend this hand.

Yeah I think folding is a bit too weak.

You will have the best hand here a decent amount of the time and if you think he barrels a lot you can just call twice and OTR just bet if he checks and maybe raise if he dosen't.

If villian in this spot is capable of folding you could raise flop and barrel off (though this hand is good enough to have in our flatting range).

Some reads on how he is playing would be useful aswell, I think vs some you can fold flop.

Okay guys.

nl 6m.

First of all folding some small pps from UTG has become somewhat standard nowadays (There are still very good players who dont.) Basically from UTG it'll be very hard to defend vs 3bets and for that reason you want to keep a tight opening range (somewhat around 13-15% I think is perceived as optimum).

So you can choose to fold some lower pps to get your open % down a bit or you can open all pps and then remove e.g. some Axs from your opening range depending on how you wanna construct your range.

If it is a micro stakes game then I would assume that people are calling too much preflop & postflop, hence the value of hitting a set even with a tight opening range is gonna be quite decent. Also the frequency of getting 3b is lower aswell.

At low stakes you will get 3b more frequent, a lot of regs will probably not be bluffcatching enough vs a lot of postflop aggression from a UTG open (because people usually have valueheavy ranges in that spot). Therefore the value of actually hitting a set will vary a lot depending on your opponent & dynamics.

However I do agree that there will occur exploitative opportunities from time to time, e.g. if you expect to get called by some fish (who aren't short), then you can basically just minraise pre (to minimize the lose the times you are 3b or don't hit a set) as long as the regs don't pick up anything.

Also when it comes to postflop, small pps will have quite bad playability and will always be the bottom of your range and is therefore usually a c/f unless you wanna be cbetting your entire range theoretically = 100% cbet.


-igotya

You have nuts, defi don't get away from this :-)

You don't rep a lot of madehands by flatting flop, raising turn in this spot since most setcombos are perceived to raise flop.

I think preflop is too loose aswell.

Yep his range is quite strong OTT at least KJ+ and he might fold a few combos of jx but I think the majority of the time hes gonna go broke with an overpair for the reasons mentioned above.

I just noticed that he is fishy, defi do not raise at any point and pre is now a clear 3b imo.

Given that he squezzes you defi wanna 4b here, theres not gonna be a lot of value for you in slowplaying since it'll be 3way to the flop.

If he had 3b you "HU" here, then flatting is very fine.

Jamming here should be higher EV than folding, calling is out of the question given stacksizes. He should be be b/f & calling with worse enough - You need 37% equity vs his range to jam here (math right i hope) so assuming you do have a little bit of FE and you can have the best hand vs some worse draws and even have decent equity vs KK (25%) and like 33% vs JT.

wp. If we call flop it is with the intention of jamming any spade even if he bets.

Yeah you can defi can go advanced about it, though you dont have to.

I think example will sum up what you just asked about including an example of how to use combonatorics:

Imagine a scenario where you flat on the BTN vs a UTG raise from a taggish unknown reg.

The flop comes As8c3d, he cbets, you call - Turn is 4h, he bets you call, river is 7h, he bets...

In this spot we assume villian (or you for that sake) is valuebetting AK+

- A3s, A8s, A4s = 6 combos (3 if you have AQ)
- AK = 12 combos (8 if you have AQ)
- AA, 88, 33, 44 = 12 combos (10 if you have AQ)

So lets say he bets 70% of the pot and you are holding AQ in this spot which is quite a common scenario, then you have to be good 29% of the time to b/e, even though we are blocking a decent amount of his value range, you still have 9 combos of "pure bluffs" to call profitable : x/(22+x)=0.29 = 8,5

Now in this spot at lower stakes vs what you presume is a str/f tag, can you find 9 combos of bluffs? Are you
even bluffing in this spot? - Not saying you should since I would never expect a e.g. nl20reg to fold AQ OTR.

Imagine the same texture in a MPvBTN or even COvBTN scenario, now it wont just be 22combos for value but 40+ and some just dont bluff at all on these textures because there are no "go to bluffing hands".

The spot itself can be very profitable to 3barrel bluff since people will be folding too much thinking that you have no bluffs in your range, though it can also be very easy to overbluff because there aren't really any "go to bluffing hands" as already mentioned. (from a range construction/balance perspective, always 3barreling 78s, 98s is good)

Hope I didn't add too much needless stuff.

Here is another thread where I used combonatorics.

http://www.runitonce.com/nlhe/std-check-call-or-std-bet-call/

Cheers,

-igotya