[2-4]: How do you play this 2p on the Turn?

I don't quite get that you decided to provoke him, but don't know what to do now! Surely when you provoked you had a plan if he raised????

Now we are here, definitely not 3 betting given he may have a 5 here.

I call, but if we don't hit our boat on the river, and we're facing a big bet, we have to soul read to see if he's overvaluing an overpair or he really does have a 5.

need more info like position

as played, i think you gotta call this because there's a big spazz factor on boards like this and you're not drawing dead if he has a naked 5

as played, if you don't improve and he bombs river it's an easy fold

Yeah just call the turn. If he’s got a 5 you can still boat up. Don’t 3bet, you’ll only scare off his bluffs. If river bricks and he bombs, just fold.

UTG+2 vs BB (it's in the OP); 9handed table

Of course! By which I mean no. And then I made the wrong call when it happened. I already kinda thought it was the wrong call, and responses bear that out.

Continuation:
Hero raises to 110, Villain jams, Hero folds.

I still kinda wonder "but what if he just bluffed/massively-overplayed an overpair??" but he has to give me credit for having 5s in my range, so it really wouldn't make a lot of sense. He's not a maniac. And he plays weird ranges so I guess he just actually had the 5 in his UTG+2 raising range.

If I just call the 40, then the pot is 126. If he has the 5, he probably bets something like 80 on the River and I probably call, then I lose about the same amount (but if he ever bluffs, it's way better). Also I get to realize my 8% of hitting a boat; that's something.

What I was hoping for with the 3bet is that he just flats the 110, I can safely put him on an overpair, and put in another value bet on the River.

I don't understand the 3bet. You're only folding out worse hands.
Turning our hand into a bluff is crazy.

Grunch:

PRE - I mean...surely it's okay to fold 63s in the BB, even to a smallish 3x open, no?

He's UTG2. He has position. He isn't that deep, nowhere near deep enough to think we've got the right amount of equity in our hand or are getting enough implied odds.

I understand you believe you have a skill edge on your opponents, but I question how that can be, considering the threads you post which start out with you VPIP'ing or raising terrible hands.

FLOP - Wait...a donk?

Why? Our hand has enough equity to check-call, but doesn't really love getting raised here. Why would we want to start turning top pair, crap kicker into a bluff?

If you want to play it strong, I'd prefer a check-raise to a donk. Otherwise, I'd just check-call and see what develops.

I don't understand why you think 6x is stronger than whatever V has. Why can't he have 77+?

TURN - I'm struggling to imagine myself getting to the turn the way you did, such that I'm not sure what I'd do here.

If I was going to barrel, I think I'd go for max value and make it full pot, for the simple reason that we were already off the rails on the flop, so V likely has no idea how to respond.

A check with the intent of check-raising would be interesting, but could be over-playing our hand somewhat, inasmuch as he could conceivably have a 5 here, and our hand isn't really nutted.

Your 1/3 pot barrel is...well, it's not what I'd do. I'd either want to induce him to do something rash or go for max value. I'd think it's too likely he's just going to flat call because he's already confused by our flop donk, and this absurdly small barrel would only further confuse him.

But, it seems to have worked, sort of. He's raised, albeit he's basically min-clicked it to 2.5x, leaving us in a bit of a pickle.

My first instinct is to 3B, but...I'm not convinced he doesn't find a fold here, if we do, or that he doesn't have a 5 and we'd just be value-owning ourselves.

What hands can we target that are A) worse than ours, but also B) strong enough to raise and also C) strong enough to call a 3B, but also somehow D) weren't strong enough to raise on the flop?

I think his range here could be bucketed thus:

1. Bluffs that will snap fold to a 3B, but might occasionally bluff again on the river if we can convincingly feign uncertainty about continuing.

2. Value hands that will probably fold to a 3B, but might occasionally call, but probably fold to a river barrel, or check it back rather than betting if we check.

3. Value hands that are turning this around on us, praying we 3B so he can stuff it in our faces.

I hate how we got here, and now that we've gotten here the way we did, I hate all our options. But I'd probably try to act like I hate his raise, and I'm on a flush draw that is praying for a diamond, while actually praying the river isn't a diamond, so we can bet out again, as if we're bluffing, because what else would we do with a busted diamond draw?

Seriously, stop doing this. You're getting in your own way with all these fancy plays.

What in tarnation?

You induced him to raise by betting small, then you fold? What 5's do you have in your range here? What over-pairs does he have that just flat the 3B, and then call again on the river?

I'd like to try whatever it is you're ingesting.

call and blocking rivers seems way better for what you're trying to do but i think standard is call and x river

vs an utg+2 open we are incredibly unlikely to be facing a naked 5, there's some A5s and 55, 56s perhaps but in general not much

so i am never folding as played here - way too often you see people blast off on boards like this thinking they hit the perfect board for their JJ type hand

no idea why you decided to turn your hand into a bluff - because again, that's all you beat if you play for stacks is a bluff - so why are you the one bluffing?

you beat 80% of any shoves you call but beat only about 10% of any hands that call your shove

i would opt to take a passive line here turning your hand into a bluff catcher

i am also ok with the preflop call - but wouldn't rec the same for you given what you did with this hand post flop

Fold pre.

Flop w/e. I don't hate it if you think he's going to fold crappy overcards for a small price but the problem is we don't have many cards we can naturally continue on. Would be better if we flopped a heart so we can barrel all heart turns.

Also not sure that you have the range advantage given Villain's range is uncapped and yours is not, plus you are clearly calling with all kinds of rubbish here.

Turn is a x/c surely. I guess he has all the sets, 55, A5s and maybe other 5x in his range given his "weird + odd ranges", so just x, call a non-crazy bet to boat up OTR. I'm not betting another chip unless we boat up BTW. I don't like the donk or the 3bet.

These ranges may be off but if I give:

- Villain a plausible slightly-too-broad EP range and assume

hero - 3bets A2s->A5s/ATs+/KQ/99+/AQo and calls any two suited, any unsuited 8 or better and A6o, then we're only 60/40 on this board.

http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Board: 6d2d4c
Equity Win Tie
MP2 59.85% 58.82% 1.03% { 22+, A2s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T9s, 98s, 87s, 76s, 65s, ATo+, KJo+, QJo }
MP3 40.15% 39.12% 1.03% { 88-22, A9s-A6s, KJs-K2s, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 92s+, 82s+, 72s+, 62s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, AJo-A6o, KJo-K8o, Q8o+, J8o+, T8o+, 98o }

So I disagree that we have a range advantage on this flop.

Even if we clean hero's range so that unsuited is only T+, we are still only 44.81%.

If we remove 22->66 from V's range to take out all sets, we're 48.92%.

I don't see where our range advantage is coming from.

@WereBeer: Woah, thanks! Really great critique.

(Though, why is your second range called MP3? I'm assuming this is just a mistake and you meant BB? Edit: Ah I see it's just the two first ranges that Equilab uses, I assume that's the reason.)

I'm really terrible at getting any intuition for written ranges, so let me visualize them (just copy-pasted your ranges into Equilab)

Your ranges:

Spoiler

Show

UTG+2:

BB:

Right so I definitely don't think those are correct. You've made Villain very disciplined and me super splashy. I think Villain is goofing of way more than this, and well I know how I play, and that's definttely not my calling range. I also didn't have a 3bet bluff range against this player. I 3bet bluff people who I think lean careful and view me as nitty.

Here's how I'd make the ranges (I'll submit these before checking the equity to keep myself honest, I may still not have the range advantage after this, I don't know yet):

Spoiler

Show

UTG+2:

Edit: looking at this again this is too splashy, with more time I'd probably guess something in between this and yours, but whatever, it won't make more than a few % difference. The splashier range isn't even at that much of a disadvantage on this Flop.

BB:

Alright so checking the calculator now, we have (according to my ranges)...

UTG+2: 53.72%
BB: 46.28%

So you're right regardless, I don't have the range advantage! Although it's much closer. Very interesting. This definitely means I'm too quick to give the BB a range advantage on a flop of low cards.

Right so I obviously agree that the 3bet was a mistake (said this in the reveal and I figured it before I even posted the hand).

I'm hmm unsure of how I think about leading the Flop now. It doesn't necessarily turn on whether we actually have the range advantage; it matters more what Villain will think about how well I hit it. I tentatively still like it. (And it's not like Villain has a huge range advantage if my ranges are correct; it's pretty close, so it's not really donking.)

Turn uuhmmmm I don't know, is x/c better than lead-small/call? Don't really know how to approach this question now.

idk whats going on in the thread but when i look at like mp open bb defend for 2.5x (id have used 3 but i think u wont see flop with 63ss) bb is leading flop for block 55% of the time w every combo doing it some amount, and 63ss leading signif more than global freq (75%). turn has 2 sizings for oop and its continuing to lead 80% of the time w range. 63 makes it into the small size exclusively. if he raises it mixes 3b and call and will fold to jam. bb has small-med equity / large polarity adv on this turn. people thinking turn lead is a mistake should try to estimate what % of the time ip has a straight here (solver thinks its 5%) and decide what would be a significant enough amount to play defensively

personally i think people will spew more if u just b/c the turn and block river lol. it also feels like it would take a very specific player type to not raise overpairs otf but raise them on this turn, even vs the sizing. i will concede that live low stakes guys are probably not used to dealing with donking strategies and will respond poorly. i do get the decision to 3b the turn though when he sizes like this

idk what the equity and range calculations are or what you guys are doing with them, but { 88-22, A9s-A6s, KJs-K2s, Q2s+, J2s+, T2s+, 92s+, 82s+, 72s+, 62s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, AJo-A6o, KJo-K8o, Q8o+, J8o+, T8o+, 98o } this is not really the range we are playing here lol. we have very slight equity disadvantage in the sim im looking at 49.61 for bb, but ev favorite even while oop which implies polarity adv (and subsequent leveraging) to me

really cannot overstate this. you are much better off copying solved pre ranges than trying to make up your own

everything you've told us would indicate that, if you're defending with 63s then do you even have a folding range?

and your fold strongly indicates you find him disciplined, enough for you to commit serious stacks and then fold because of monsters under the bed when he pushes back

I once got a free play in the BB with 74o and the flop came 74A. I got money in and was counterfeited on the river after turn 3, river 3, and losing to AQ. Lost too much with a hand I would never play.

I think about this a lot. So, I simply don’t understand willingly calling a raise with 63. Position is second, but nothing is as important as the cards you play. I hope that is what we learn from this.

There's a difference between thinking someone is goofing off with too many hands preflop and makes goofy raises vs small Turn bets, and thinking that someone 4bet bluff allins a one-line-to-a-straight board. It's not a contradiction to think he does the first and not the second. If a live player 4bet jams this type of board, he probably has it regardless of spewey tendencies. I don't really get why this is a confusing point.

(For clarification: the range you quoted is the one WereBeer made up.)

Thanks. Though since it's in vogue right now to trash every aspect of my play, let's see how wrong my defending range was. Looking at GTO Wizard, this is the range it defends vs. HJ open (I use HJ rather than UTG+2 because I think that's most likely closer to what this player actually opens):

And here's the range I used earlier (which I didn't do by copying a solver, I just did with with Equilab knowing what I actually defend; this is TT-22, AJs-A2s, KJs-K2s, Q2s+, J7s+, T7s+, 96s+, 85s+, 74s+, 63s+, 53s+, 43s, AJo-A9o, KTo+, QTo+, J9o+, T9o, 98o, 87o, 76o, 65o)

actually closer than I'd have guessed tbh, I felt like I was getting more out of line than this. It is notable that it prefers suited double-gappers over unsuited connectors, should probably make a note to ditch those.

The point on overpairs already raising the Flop is probably a good one, this could skew him more toward either nutted hands or total air; I wouldn't be shocked if he did this with KJo (up to the 4bet jam). But even then, probably calling the Turn (and maybe leading River, I don't think I'd have made that play but it might be a good one) is better than the 3bet.

This guy is such a weird player that I still don't feel sure, but yea my prior on "people don't 4bet jam as a bluff" is too strong for any splashy reads I had so far to overrule it.

would you have 3b the turn vs a larger raise?

am aware the range i critiqued was not yours

ppl are trashing you bc they have no idea whats right. your line is approved at some frequency and i think all of your actions make sense in the hand

do believe there are better places to focus study time on though than this esp if u dunno preflop ranges. donking usually one of the last places to work on from ev standpoint since at least in theory they add little ev to strategies (i think unstudied populations / maybe all pops play poorly vs them though)

Thanks. (& yea didn't mean to suggest you weren't aware, was worrying about others reading along.)

Probably not. Against most live players, generally I think strong means strong, so larger bets and raises indicate stronger hands. The only time where I think the opposite is if I get a vibe that someone is trying to bully/intimidate me, and I wasn't getting that here at all. So if he raises 80, I'd think bluffs become less likely, and I'd probably call, check River, and fold to a big River bet. But I would still call because I think overpairs could raise big and then give up on the River. (Sets as well but I wouldn't try to turn my hand into a bluff.)

do you not understand the inconsistencies of "in live poker strong means strong" but then you assign a range and gto response based not on live play tendencies but rather the far more disciplined online

so it goes back to - why did you 3! the turn where all the hands you beat fold, all the hands you lose to call/raise?

this is especially bad given that if he did have a 5, or a set, you forfeit the chance to boat up on the river

basically you need to ask, if you weren't willing to play for stacks on the turn, why on earth did you opt to 3!?

I don't know what you want me to say about the 3bet that I haven't already said. I thought it was probably wrong right after the hand, I thought it was probably wrong when I posted the hand, I said that I think it was wrong when I posted the reveal, and I said that I think it was wrong two more times since.

(I haven't used GTO ranges for Villain, I adjusted GTO by two positions to account how splashy he is (HJ instead of UTG2). I only used GTO react ranges for me.)