wuwei

Just a tiny note on your thought process, DH: The two sentences "My hand is well defined as being Top Pair or better I think" and "and even that (i.e. A3) might bluffcatch the river" are somewhat inconsistent.

How about introducing a color code for nits and lags? How do yellow vs. purple vs. red players affect your decisions? I think these categories may be too specific. Maybe reg and tough reg would be enough.

I would suggest a smaller 4bet. With your siznig you fold out most of villains worse holdings. You really want BB to call dominated hands like AQ or AJ. I think $11 is enough.

Try to build very broad categories (like value vs bluff, made hand vs draw, etc) for a start and then try to reach greater precision step by step. Try to formulate hypotheses like "Villain is never betting worse than xx for value in this spot/ with this sizing" or "Villain has no possible blusffs in his range". Try to do this even if you have snap calls to get more feedback on your tought process. 

3) Cbetting: you find guys who cbet 80, 50 and 35 on flop, turn and river (sample size should not be too small). Against these guys you should call/raise often OTF, but fold OTR.

4) According to my experience: On the river, large bets and/or raises are extraordinarily strong, so be happy to make exploitive folds. It seems like often people have close to 0% bluffs/ thin value bets in these spots. On the other hand, people tend to hero call even against big bets on the river, so value bet thinly and choose your bluffs carefully.  

Here are some numbers.

UTG 42.65%  { KK+, TT, ATs+, KTs+, QJs, Ac9c, 9c8c, 8c7c, 7c6c, AJo+, KQo }

CO 30.53%  { QQ-JJ, 44, ATs, KJs+, QJs, JTs, KQo, AcQd, AcQh, AcQs }

CO 26.82%  { KhJh }

However, I think these ranges are too loose and that we will not realize 100% of our equity.

I would be keen to see ranges where we have more than 15% Equity.

I'd fold flop.

I understand that you want to play against him. However, I believe there isn't so much value in Ax4x oop, because you hit the flush so seldomly. Flush over flush happens even more rarely. This player probably has all the better Ax hands in his range. I'd rather play high cards. 

I would cbet 1/2 pot and only continue on one an A or a 4. Pretty sure this shows a profit. Check/folding should be fine as well. I don't know about triple barreling. Villains wtsd is low, but I have no idea for what reason.

Maybe you should fold pre with this player on the BTN.

Unfortunately I don't have a link on blocker plays OTR in mind. Maybe someone else knows something??

What I wrote sounds more complicated than it really is. When you decide whether to bluff on the river (without specific reads about your opponent) there are a few relevant factors:

(1) Do you block villains likely calling range? If yes, that's one reason to bluff. In the current example blocking KdQd, KhQh, KdJd, KhJh, KdTd, KhTh is probably good. Sp, we should bluff QhJh, QdJd, JhTh, JdTd.

(2) Do you block villains likely folding range? If yes, that's one reason not to bluff. Here, holding the Ad is probably not so good, when we want to bluff.

(3) Is there a chance that we just win the hand at showdown. If yes, that's a reason not to bluff. In the current hand we hold a pair, so we will win sometimes at showdown if we just check/fold. This means a bluff has to work more often to compensate for that.

These are of course not the only factors, but they surley have an effect.

If I had to rank my favorite bluff hands in this spot, it would very roughly be something like 7s8s (best), 7c8c QdJd, JdTd, QhJh, JhTh, 7h8h, 7d8d, AdQc, AdQs, AdJc, AdJs, AhQh, AhJh, AhTh, AdQd, AdJd, AdTd, Ad4d, Ah4h, Ad9d, Ah9h.  

Edit: ups, I thought it was SB vs CO when I wrote this post. From the BB I woukd have a totally different range to choose from. Hope you get the point anyways.

And what missed draws would that be? Are we calling hands like Ad9d-Ad2d, 8s9s, 7d8d, 7d6d, 9d7d pre, OTF and OTT? BN vs HJ vs this player?

To me it seems more like we hardly have any busted draws, whereas we can have a lot of medium to strong hands (Kx, two pairs, straights, and maybe sets). Are you talking about turning pairs into bluffs?

I'd bet rather small - 1/2 pot.

Our hand has no (significant) blockers to Villains calling range. This means that, if we could shove this hand profitably, we could (more or less) shove any two profitably. (I say 'more or less' because we also don't block villains folding range significantly. This is a little bonus.)

Our hand has some SD value, i.e. it wins more than 0% at showdown if we check/fold. This means that, if we would have a break even shove, check/fold would be better than shove. More precisely, if villain checks back a worse hand with frequency x, we need about 0.6*x more fold equity. 

Given these two facts in combination with my impression that villain isn't a great folder (btw. what's his wtsd?), I strongly prefer check/fold over a shove.

Another factor: Since all draws have busted, villain is also prone to bluff catch.

Fold BB to SB and BTN steal are important imo.

Hm,...

I didn't assume villain has a nutted range for squeezing, but I assume his 5bet range is nutted. (disagree?)

I mentioned the 3bet/call case above. It's probably good when that happens. However, if we 4bet to 2x or  more, I expect few 3bet/calls. 4betting smaller is an option, but then we probably can't call a shove.

Ok, your claim is "If you weigh out villains all 3-options, AK 4-bet maximizes our EV the most."

Maybe it's true?

What do you mean? You think calling is -ev? Or just worse than 4betting?

Two comments:

-If BB shoves, I think we have at best a BE call. In my experience, he is just never shoving JJ or AQs and even QQ/AK are not sure. So, our profit exclusively comes from picking up dead money and from cases where BB calls our 4bet. This has to exceed possible losses due to calling a shove and the profit we would make by calling.

-Positional advantage arguably vanishes when we have a very low SPR and very defined ranges. Also, this would only be relevant when BB calls.

I'am just not convinced that 4bet/calling is (much) better than calling. This, of course, depends on sizing. 

I think, with certain villains 4bet/calling is -ev, while calling is almost certainly +ev. Without further reads I think, as I wrote above, that both options are ok. 

I don't find the concept difficult. I just wanted to point out that these are layered assumptions.

We assume that (1) BB squeezes light (2) he knows that we assume this (3) he assumes we adjust accordingly (4) he readjusts accordingly.

If (1) doesn't hold true, we make a mistake. If (1) is true, but (2) isn't, we make a mistake. If (1) and (2) are true, but (3) isn't, ...

I don't really see how TT plays nicely 3way in a 3bet pot as cold caller.

You are faced with 4 potential over cards that won't just give up when they miss. Also, HJ can have every over pair.

I don't think you have an equity edge vs potential ranges. Furthermore, your range is somewhat capped and HJ can apply a lot of pressure.

Basically, I don't see any board where we don't make a set or better and can happily call three barrels.

To me it seems tricky to play profitably post flop. Of course, this is hard to estimate and a matter of confidence.

Waht's your plan for postflop when you call here. Set mining?

A problem with set mining is that your range seems so obvious when you cold call here. This probably reduces your implied odds and increases reverse implieds.

Further, in x% of the cases both HJ and CO shove. So, you actually invest more than 3.25 on your call.

I prefer folding.

Given stack sizes and the fact that CO is 3betting 11%, 4betting very small to call HJs shove might be fine as well.

"He also knows that you probably know he squeezes wider with CO and SB in
the middle, so you'd 4-bet wider as well."

That's quite an assumption :)

I think your call preflop is fine. You're getting decent odds to flop top pair in a huge pot.

I don't like 4bet/folding because (i) you fold out all dominated hands (ii) you fold a lot of equity vs hands villain could shove, iike KK, QQ, AK.

4bet/calling is close, but probably ok.

"So you want to raise the flop and fold out all hands, except for worse
sets and the occasional top pair hands, all of which we get value from
on future streets anyway?"

I don't expect to see top pair often. Why should villain lead with top pair? You seem to ignore two pairs. I think I already commented on getting value on future streets. Basically, there are a good number of turn/river cards where even 88 could get away from their hand- A8 and Q8 for sure.

"Are you saying that villain will shut down all of his bluffs and
marginal hands on the turn/river (which he didn't by the way), but will
continue versus a flop raise?"

I said I expect to get 0 OR 1 more bets out of MOST bluffs/marginal hands and commented on JT being the best possible holding for villain to bluff. I expect bluffs to fold usually vs a flop raise.

That's what I meant.

It sounds like you expect that villain will be donating tons of money with tons of hands when we call. I doubt that. You should realize that out of all possible holdings JT has most equity vs us. So this was a very sensible flop lead + turn barrel.

I expect the following to happen when we call: Most bluffs and medium strength hands either shut down OTT or we get one more bet out of them. We always pay off villains straight draws if he gets there. We significantly reduce the chance to stack the top of his flop leading range.

As said, I don't imply slowplaying is bad, but I just don't see its great superiority. 

Yeah, AA certainly seems a good hand to slowplay flop, because we block all Ax combos. However, I dont expect villain to put in a lot of money with medium strength hands (like a weak pair) or bluffs, if we just call. Also, I don't think there are many turn cards that improve significant parts of villains range to a second best hand that will call huge raises.

Also, call flop, raise turn seems really strong in my eyes. Same holds, for call, call, raise. So, in a sense, raising flop disguises the strength of our hand. What's more, if villain decided to lead flop with any two pair or better, I think he is most likely to stack off on the flop. Say, he leads Q8, then a J turn my just kill the action.

I think slowplaying is ok, but I don't really see why it's better than just raising flop.

On this particular river, I also think we should shove, but I think it's thinner than it seems.

hm, villain just hit a gutshot not runner runner. I think the river raise is actually rather thin since we can discount a lot of QQ, AQ, 77 and 99 combos and its not certain that he calls all the other 2pairs (most of which are either limited to suited combos or are blocked by AA anyway). Still, I think that shoving the river is better than raise/calling.

I think I would just raise flop usually.

Another thing: To controll your bluff frequencies- as a general rule of thumb- take hands that have at least 6-10 outs against the stronger hands in your opponents range. That is, straight and flush draws, overcards plus draws (or backdoor draws). This applies to flop and turn, obviously. On the river use blockers.

I would say you approach this problem from the wrong direction. You say you realize that you have to included value hands into your three-barrel range. I think they should be there from the start (so yes, include them for sure). Don't think too complicated. Just bet your strong hands. That's usually the easiest way to get money into the pot. I'd suggest to slowplay very rarely.

I don't think you're at the top of your range. Except for some busted draws, it seems more like the bottom to me. You can definitely have flushes, Kx, better Tx as well as some slow played boats. What worse hands do you have here? AJ? J9? Q9? T8?