wesdaco

Can you show the PIO results for this hand? What did you put for villain's preflop range?

I really like your flop bet sizing.

Very well played up until this point! What did you do here and why?

I think we do have enough Ax that we can fold all Jx. Pair that with the fact that this river is usually a scare card for bluffing (especially if you are a fish) and I'd lean even more of a fold.

If this isn't BvB, then we can lean more towards checking the turn. But with such wide ranges JT sneaks into our value range.

I absolutely love how you played this hand (with bet sizing and everything). Well done!

Because of your preflop sizing, I think this is a fold on the turn.

We should also be sizing the flop bet a little more. His range is wide and many combinations connect around this board.

It's important to realize how badly 44 plays here against all of villain's potential bluffs (not to mention his value hands). On everything but a 4s turn, you're going to have trouble continuing. This is as close to a pure air float that you'll get. Even 74o has more outs.

I'd like to hear a bit more about your flop reasoning. You seemed to skim by it pretty quickly when it is definitely the most crucial part of the hand.

There are a few questions we need ask ourselves in this spot:

1. How often will villain end up with a hand better than ours?
2. How often will villain end up with a hand worse than ours?
3. Is villain capable of turning his hand into a check/raise bluff?
4. If we choose to value bet, what sizing would work best?

This spot is obviously thin and a huge consideration is how often villain will 3bet some hands like J9s. Considering he 3bet K8s a few orbits ago, this is possible.

You mentioned this in your original post but the turn is a bet for value. I'd like to use smaller sizing to keep his donk / check range wide.

I'm unsure if villain is capable of bluffing a missed draw (by the sounds of your description, he's not) and that will play a huge factor into whether we can fold or not.

You're also pretty close to the bottom of your range on this turn.

The question becomes - Do we want to have a check/call range? And if so, what kinds of hands do we want to put in it? Does AA no diamond fit in this range?

What is your normal c-bet range on this flop texture?

All three preflop options are possible dependent on the table dynamics.

If villain is very tight and the blinds squeeze a lot you can fold.
If villain is very loose and the blinds squeeze a lot you can raise.
If the blinds play very passively and / or are tight, you can call.

I don't have much experience playing live but I'm assuming people are a lot stickier with their holdings and therefore will fold a lot less (both preflop and on each subsequent street).

In these types of situations, we need to bet more for value and less as a bluff. Which means preflop:

1. We should be isolating the stronger parts of our range.
2. Limping behind with our medium strength hands.
3. Folding the bottom of our range.

Against stronger, thinking opponents, we could definitely look to isolate some of the hands you mentioned and play aggressive postflop poker.

There's two things I want to address in your comment:

1. I don't think there's any problem with the other passive player realizing their equity. We almost want them to come in drawing dead (let's say they have a QTs) and to inflate the pot to give us better odds and more money when we hit. Also, the passive player will likely never get a chance to bet on the turn with the best hand which means we get to play perfectly against her.

2. I don't think we need to get it in on non-diamond turns which means that shoving the flop doesn't really accomplish much. We're only getting called by better and folding out worse.

I'd definitely like to use a larger sizing on the flop. Especially into two players and when the board can change so drastically on the turn.

We're often behind on villain's backraise and even if we are ahead (and he is capable of bluffing), it's not going to be an easy call down unless the board pairs.

But calling this raise does help us a bit. We can stack flushes if the board pairs on the turn AND we get to realize our equity if he has a small flush and the turn is another diamond (he'll have to slow down).

Is this at the final table?

Don't think you need to the thin the field. If you are ahead on this flop, you are probably going to be ahead on the turn as well.

The more I've thought about this hand, the more I like checking to protect my entire range here.

Turn needs to be a check because most of his range can't take another bet on this street. I'd prefer to check turn and (if it checks through) bet almost all rivers.

Really like your flop bet sizing. I think it's perfect for what we're trying to accomplish.

Well played hand. I play it the exact same way.

You can probably do both, squeeze or call, in this spot preflop. Both villain stack sizes are a negative towards squeezing so this should push the scale closer to a call.

1. If I have a better or worse hand, squeezing becomes more appealing.
2. If stack sizes are larger, squeezing becomes more appealing.

I don't think we can raise here as villain is getting too good of a price to call almost any of his overpairs. If we knew a bit more about the villain (his overfolding tendencies), perhaps we could structure a different argument. If he bets with all Jx hand but folds them to a raise, it may be closer.

I like a fold preflop vs this 3bet sizing.

This a fold preflop for a few reasons:

1. You are often behind CO range.
2. You are definitely behind SB cold call range.
3. If called, you give odds for MP to close the preflop action with almost ATC (and by his description, he will)
4. It's going to be impossible to play postflop in this position.

Complicated hand and I hope my comment brings about a discussion.

A check is definitely needed somewhere here, I'm debating between either flop or turn.

Reason being - I just can't see how we're ahead on the turn here unless BTN has a huge leak (and it's live so who the hell knows). If you're on the BTN with A7s and the CO continues into 3 players, how often are you ahead? My hunch is almost 0% of the time.

Now let's say you have JJ in the same spot. You're still not comfortable knowing there are 3's + 77 in both the BB and limper's range and QQ+ in CO's range. Some draws (straight + backdoor flush) will opt to raise you off your equity as well.

So betting to get value from these hands seems like flawed logic.

No line seems comfortable on this board with this many players so I'd probably opt to pot control as early as possible. This board is deceptively bad for KK in multiway pots (especially 4 way pots).

Ben, can you explain a bit more about this sentence? - "I imagine you're near pure continue 2PR+ and mixing these combos."

As for your first part, I don't know if those stats on villain help us much both on the turn barrel and in multiway pots (we don't have enough info?)

I like this comment the best and it sums up most of my thoughts, especially this:

"But, you're not capped and have KQ in your range as well as sets."

The overbet here is confusing and it makes me believe that villain is misapplying the concept. Which means - there's a higher chance that this bet is for value and you likely have 0 outs to improve.

I know you're most interested in the river decision but I want to take a bit to talk about preflop. AK needs to be a mandatory 4bet in this situation because:

1. You're OOP facing a decently sized 3bet range (7%).
2. You have the two best blockers to his 5bet range.
3. If AK is not a 4bet, you're likely not 4betting in this spot enough.
4. By calling, you'll often be in bluff catch mode for the entire hand.
5. By not 4betting, you allow him to completely realize his equity (at least for 2 streets).
6. By not 4betting, you don't get to realize your own equity on most runouts.