steezy

I dislike your turn play given you block flushes and straight combos. It's hard to imagine villain cold bluffing or value-raising worse.

I wonder if checking turn is ever preferable to betting considering you get some stabs and you'll rarely get two streets of value as you look quite strong. It'd also strengthen your weak checking range. Thoughts?

What is the purpose of your small flop re-raise when most turns are bad for your hand?

Cool video, really enjoyed single tabling -you had great insight and reads.  How do you have your bets auto selected and entered?

That makes sense :X

@16:50 I think you must have made a mistake with SB and BB.  SB would be OOP and be acting first preflop if SB-r and BB-3bets.

Stefan-

We are in position here so we can't check.  I'd venture to guess the further diagnosis must be off as well.  I don't think we can only have a raising range on this flop and never a flatting range.

jj-

I think it works well to call this flop (and obv balance with our draws).  This board smacks his range much harder than ours so I don't think we need a raising range. (Although I may be incorrect, especially vs certain opponents).  I like the flop and turn flat a lot here.  After this line its REALLY HARD for villian to put you on a weak range and he's going to have a lot of trouble on rivers.  This should allow you to play some monster draws this way and expect to win some rivers with those, as well. Regarding the bonus question, I think we should play the same way on a 5h. We are way ahead or way behind and we don't get value from worse by raising.

What do you think BB's range is after flatting flop CB? Is he ever folding to your shove? (Cold calling a 3b and flat calling this flop is a strong line)

I doubt your often ahead of BB's range here, nor is he folding. Not to mention in the rare 3 way allin you are probably a significant dog. PPT would help a lot as it could be a fold.

That being said, I wonder if shoving for protection is best considering the pot odds.  We'd hate to fold the best hand on the turn vs. a hand SB can pickup enough equity to shove turns.  Also, there isn't much benefit to see a turn since your never (almost never?) getting BB to lay down a hand with such a low PSR.

Jonna-

What does leading your nuts on this river and not x/r-ing it do to your range?  More specifically, what does being able to x/r bluffs and nuts in this particular spot accomplish that leading doesn't?  Also, what does putting in the last bet accomplish that the reverse doesn't?

I think you'll find there are just more benefits for your overall game being able to x/r here as opposed to lead.  Villian has a lot of missed draws and a good amount of value (besides nuts) in his betting range.  You will make more from your nuts and from villians bluffs.  What happens when you try to bluff-lead the river and villian jams?

There have been a lot of responses so far and we have a great group going.  It would be nice to have a couple more people if anyone is interested/qualifies.

Pretty easy check-back here.

Your range on the flop is extremely Axxx heavy and unless you are turning your hands into bluffs like a madman, you have A9/A7/AK here all-day. Your not getting value from worse, and I'd expect to get called by AK** on the river over half the time. Even with a loose 3b from villian, AK** make up a TON of his hand combos.

This would also open up villians turn bet-call range, as hands such as J98T would be folding to a flop shove, but would be getting it in on any 8,7,6,Q and may be bluffing a spade or a K,5.

It would be interesting to see a more mathematically in-depth analysis of what I'm saying, but there seems to be a lot of benefits of flatting here vs raising.

It is proved that shoving is +ev. However, calling may be a better play as you hold the As and aren't scared of many (any?) turns. Also, assuming you would flat this flop occasionally, perhaps with some QT**, 5***ss, etc., it's important to balance with strong hands which play well on turns.

GameTheory-
I'm on the same page as you about 3betting this flop and getting it in; however, Phil merely suggested 3-betting this flop, not necessarily getting it in. Also, he seems to infer there's some value of having this in hero's flop 3betting range.

Phil-
Would you elaborate on the purpose of 3betting the flop with a hand like this?

It's difficult to guess your range without knowing how often you are leading (both flop and turn) and with which hands. However, you have strong hands and extremely weak hands on both the flop and turn. Anyways, your range is a lot stronger than Isildur's on the turn. You probably have many strong hands and weak hands.

Isildur's flop range probably consists of strong hands with no nut outs (such as J5xx, Q5xx, AJLL, JLLL, some QLLL, and occasional AAxx, KKxx) and some very weak FD's and SD's and air. I would never expect him to have a NFD, set, and very rarely QJxx+. Considering Isildur's aggressive reputation, this is may even be giving Isildur too much credit for strong hands.

His turn raise range is probably many of these strong hands that are 'protection-raising' and also many weak-er draws such as 24xxcc, 46xxcc, 67xxhh that will want to pick up rivers, as the board changes often. This will allow him to dominate your calling range and force you into a guessing game on rivers (they certainly do change a lot, and he plays perfectly here).

On the turn you put 5bb into a 6bb pot. Isildur makes it 20bb and its 15bb to call into a 31bb pot. There aren't any other options besides (1) potting it here or (2) calling. These present four separate scenarios:

a) If we (1) and Isildur calls, we will have about 1/3PSB on the river and we get last bet. If Isildur calls our raise and folds here around 20% (25%?) of the time it is definitely +ev. I would think most of his range here misses around 60%+. This is super +ev. We should be balancing our "nuts" with our weakest hands. A678cc is certainly one of these.

b) If we (1) and Isildur shoves, we are going to have to call. However, as our range is much stronger, this probably happens less often than a).

c) If we (1) and Isildur folds, we pick up the 31bb pot.

d) If we (2) the pot on the river will be 46bb and we will each have about 77bb behind. If we bluff lead here on A,K,T offsuit rivers we can certainly be bluff-raised by Isildur. Also, many bluff and non-bluff paired rivers which also complete a flush will be very difficult to play and we can be bluffed. I also don't think x/r bluffing many rivers is a viable defense. It seems we play horrible in this spot and it seems pretty -ev.


I think we need to shove here because a) is extremely good and happens very often and c) is very good for us. This is also a perfect hand to balance our "nuts" with. b) isn't the end of the world and doesn't happen too often. It is too difficult to play most rivers when we call turn and face Isildur OOP in a guessing game.