Do we have to defend 'top top' against a check-raise for at least one street?
I recently had a few hands with the effective top pair top kicker facing aggression. I thought it would be good to post a thread comparing the different scenarios and discuss if we should defend at least one street and further. This post can be a bit lengthy because the board texture and the villain types in all three hands are so different.
Hand 1
1/3, 8 handed. Main villain is a tight daily grinder in his 60s. About an hour ago, villain just stacked off AA against a flopped set. V seemed calm enough when he topped up.
Hero was the effective stack with about 350.
PF
EP limped.
Hero opened 12 with A♥K♦ from mp.
Main V called from SB, limper called.
Flop 258r
X, x we checked back.
Turn Ac, bringing in a back door fd.
X, x, we bet 15, Sb CR to 50, limper folded.
Hero?
If we called to play the river in position, and the river bricked, e.g. an offsuit T, how much can we call, if we can call V's river bet at all?
Hand 2
1/3. Main villain on my direct right is a bad LAG but ran like a sun so he had a monster stack. V vpips 80%, lots of over-bet, lots of stealing when the board runs scary.
V straddled 6.
Hero had AhJd from UTG +1. Mediocre hand, not doing great multi-way. Hero flat, with the intention to either back-raise, or fold, depending who opened and who 3-bet. In this table I wouldn't expect no one opened pre-flop.
A few limpers (all fish) , The two tight grinders in late positions both folded. UTG raised to 30 (as expected).
Hero backraised to 75, all folded till the villain, who clearly didn’t like this situation. V checked our stack (350 behind) and called.
Flop (170) J56 all clubs. We had exactly 2 SPR.
V checked, h bet 50, V check-raised to 125.
Hero call, fold, jam?
If we called, making the pot 420 with 0.5 SPR left, do we have to call V’s turn jam if the turn is a non-broadway non-club card, which doesn’t pair the board, such as 7d?
Hand 3
1/2. Main V is European who recently started to play poker daily for profit and is living in a hostel in my city. V showed gutsy moves in the last session I saw him (CR his opponent’s pot-size bet on the river) with a missed gutshot on a paired board with the flush arrived on the turn. Earlier in this session V limped EP with T5s, defended his top pair on a Td 8h 6d flop against my flop 4x raise. I figure that he’s the player type who over-bluffs and over-defends post-flop, but overall he vpips ＜20%。
Back to the hand.
PF - We opend A♥J♦ to 8 from mp. BTN called, both blinds called.
Flop (32) J♣ 6♦ 3♦
X,x we bet 15
btn tank called (btn is somewhat senseless and druink; he was the effective stack with 200 behind）
Main V check-raised to 50 from SB.
Hero?
OK we flat, btn flat.
Turn (182) T♠
SB immediately jammed his remaining 239, hero covers, btn has 150 behind. Hero?
Thanks everyone!
8 Replies
H1: It's really on you to know what this tight daily grinder in his 60s calls with in the SB vs. an EP raiser HU, and what his range might look like after checkraising this turn. Turn could be a fold, call or reraise.
H2: AJo is pretty meh to open-raise with in EP, and I think open-limping with it is pretty bad, especially in a straddle pot. Just fold and wait for the next hand.
H3: Again, it would be helpful to know how you're viewing the Eurofish's coldcalling range from the SB. However, I'm not folding this flop to his checkraise, especially with the BTN's money in the mix. Since we're not folding to the checkraise, this seems like an easy call of the shove to a hand that could still be behind us but may have picked up more outs on the turn.
HH#1:
I open limp from MP (looking to get in a LRR) but that's me.
I also check back this nothing burger flop 3ways.
I also bet the turn when checked to in order to charge worse hands. And I now fold to the check/raise. Our hand looks exactly what it is and he's saying he can beat it.
GcluelessNLnoobG
HH#2:
I would just fold the first time preflop (it's the hand where my line in the sand happens to be drawn). But otherwise I can get behind our limp/evaluate plan.
Even though the flop ain't great, with an SPR of 2 and TPTK I would feel committed. I think we could just open jam the flop at this SPR. Otherwise our small bet could have easily caused induced / overvalue / semi-bluff so I'm snapping it off.
GcluelessNLnoobG
whether to defend top top is primarily a math equation - i had a hand the other day where this came up similar to Hand 2. The criteria for my decision was based on the following:
1) Stack Depth - namely, if the check raise still provides 2 streets of betting instead of 1 where villain is going to profit solely by shoving almost any and all turns
2) Estimation of range of opponent both preflop but then again what part of that range we assigned takes the check/raise action on the flop
3) any information gleaned from opponents play regarding frequency of action. Frequency of action is effectively how we set ranges. If a guy opens 100% of the time, its clear they are not just opening top 8% of hands. And so it follows the tighter they are, the less hand combos they would have as pure bluff vs low equity bluff. And then again, the tigher range would also have fewer low equity bluff combos. A guy playing super snug preflop doesnt magically have 83o for a zero equity bluff come the flop because its never in their assigned range from preflop
4) frequency of action also works hand in hand with tendency/aggression etc. these sorts of things are linked such that aggressive action from tighter players tends towards a value heavy range which means that even if they DO have some bluffs, there is a world where we have to acquiesce to their bluffs and let 'em have it simply because OUR range cannot withstand the potential future betting pressure/threat of all in EXCEPT where our hand itself possesses sufficient equity to turn/river a nutted hand and the math makes sense where we are not over estimating our IO's to recapture any immediate EV disadvantage.
For the sake of anyone else who is unclear - when we talk about Implied Odds we are at present facing a situation where the immediate pot odds offered are representing a negative expectation by themselves. For exmple: say the bet lays us pot odds of 4:1 but our hand only has 10% equity and the opponents remaining stack would only provide us something closer to needing 15% if we hit our card when we call. BUT IO's would analyze the potential where opponents bet necessitates 20% equity and we only have 10% currently but the differential can be overcome due to how much is winnable when we hit our card. Example of such a situation might be: we have a gut shot against villains likely flopped set, but if we hit our gut shot, villain will still shove because the gutter is disguised:
Villain on BU raises, we 3bet from BB with 85s, board is 69Q, villain has QQ and opts to flat our 3bet IP due to how wide our 3bet range is in this configuration
We 3bet 85s here as a pure bluff against villain's likely wide BU raising range hoping we get a fold. However Villain simply calls our 3bet with value because they are well ahead of our likely 3bet range from the BB.
1) Stack Depth - namely, if the check raise still provides 2 streets of betting instead of 1 where villain is going to profit solely by shoving almost any and all turns
Hey~ Thanks so much for your detailed reply. I thought my post was too long to read, so I do appreciate everyone who gets to the end of the post.
Regarding your first criteria above, could you provide an example where we defend our top top on the flop, but cannot call V's jam on the turn (SPR=1, V shoves almost any turn)? Is Hand 3 an example for that scenario? Therefore, shall we just give up defending on the flop?
Villain on BU raises, we 3bet from BB with 85s, board is 69Q, villain has QQ and opts to flat our 3bet IP due to how wide our 3bet range is in this configuration
We 3bet 85s here as a pure bluff against villain's likely wide BU raising range hoping we get a fold. However Villain simply calls our 3bet with value because they are well ahead of our likely 3bet range from the BB.
I think the key difference between this hand and my Hand 2 is that Hand 2 has a monotone flop, so with a gutshot even if V hit his three clean outs on the turn, V can still be drawing dead against the pf aggressor, or hero could still call his turn shove with 20% equity if hero had the Ac instead of a difference Ace.
In your hand 85s vs QQ, how do you proceed with the turn & the river? And with what SPR?
Hand 1 is easy fold, unless villain aggro/capable of check/raising air/draws here.
Hand 2 we probably check back the flop, once we bet we can't fold to this small raise. We probably never folding unless clubs came.
Hand 3 unless we got reads hes crazy with bluffs/draws, with the fish in hand, its most likely not a bluff
He could be check/raising flop to get you out of the pot with worse(ie. tpgk) to play headups against the fish. But he'll need reads that you can fold better hands to him. This is very advanced play that you probably wont see.
When the fish is in hand, we can go bigger for value to like 25+.
Hey~ Thanks so much for your detailed reply. I thought my post was too long to read, so I do appreciate everyone who gets to the end of the post.Regarding your first criteria above, could you provide an example where we defend our top top on the flop, but cannot call V's jam on the turn (SPR=1, V shoves almost any turn)? Is Hand 3 an example for that scenario? Therefore, shall
I think i left out some important pieces in my reply that really muddied its intent so i'll try to clarify.
for a moment, i want to ignore reads on villain and focus solely on action and implied equity. on a monotone board without a redraw another poster pointed out that most players are not bluffing anywhere close to high enough frequency thus their ch/raise flop shove turn range is weighted heavily to value hands so overall we're crushed. Obviously its non zero there are some combos we have decent equity against, its the overall strength of the range we're going up against we have to approach as we just dont know the specific hand.
As stack depth grows however, the relative strength of hands spreads out further so we now have a little more room to catch up in equity against a stronger range especially when its highly unlikely we're facing a turn shove shutting out any way to to realize equity.
That said, its not in realm of impossibility that there isnt a bluff range on a monotone board. So applying our reads of main villain in hand 2, there is clearly evidence that their range is not as value heavy as the above example. And so in your specific encounter, I'd say jamming might be best, but this still relies heavily on the assumption villain is taking this line with a much larger range of hands that see the flop. Being wrong here in our estimation is definitely far worse for our win rate whereas the described villain is going to afford us a ton of easy spots to felt them.
As to your specific question - i would say we're never calling the check raise to fold to a turn shove, we should just be folding to the ch/raise - not 1:1 with your hand but here is an example of a hand I played the other day that I spoke of previously:
Eg. 1/3 game UTG ($800) raises 12, UTG + 1 calls ($1k), Hero ($475) in MP raises w/ KsQs to 50, UTG calls, UTG +1 calls.
($154) Qh 5d 6d
UTG checks, UTG +1 checks, Hero bets $95, UTG folds, UTG +1 ch/raises to $240
Hero...?
I dont think calling with KQ here is best practice and would say folding is best. The only time other options might be considered is if we know UTG + 1 was an absolute blaster who shovels it in with any semblance of connectivity to the board. There's a difference between playing too many hands pre and playing too many hands pre followed up with playing that entire range like its the nuts post. Its a HUGE difference; its noticeable and not nuanced or difficult to pick up on.
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As for the 85 and QQ hand, yes huge difference - i was only including it to elucidate an understanding of IO's moreso than any relevance to your specific situation. More of a tangent than specific applicability.
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I need some time to properly put it to words, but loosely: the field of 1/3 opponents arent ch/raising with a proper distribution of bluff to value often enough period full stop. Are there opponents that err on the other side of this statement? absolutely. but the predominant situation encountered is more conservative to a point where I'm releasing top top, even in situations where it feels close, especially in scenarios where we lack a redraw to improve to a flush say.
hand 1 i think you can fold to the turn cr. you are chopping at best. he knows you have AK a lot and doesnt care, its not like this is a bluff at 1/3. i do think its a good bluff to have in your arsenal though vs a capped range vs a guy with a fold button.
