TPTK in 3bp facing likely river give-up
I have looked at a solve of this, but mostly curious inclinations around exploitative adjustments and what to do in this kind of situation. I am obviously slightly biased knowing the result.
Villain in this hand is maybe "trying rec" grade? Struggle to apply these labels as people interpret them differently, but maybe better put V is likely a winner at these stakes but wouldn't do so well in a tougher game. Lacks obviously exploitable tendencies like most fish have but still makes significant mistakes in postflop play. Capable though, and knows how to 3b, bluff, multi-barrel bluff etc. with some frequency if not always in the right spots.
Villain is in SB with around $400.
Hero in LJ covers.
1/2 NL, 8-handed
Hero picks up Ac Qc in the LJ.
Fish limps EP. Hero raises to $12.
Villain raises to $35 from the SB.
Fish folds, Hero calls.
Flop ($67): Qh 9c 3d
Villain bets $30, Hero calls.
Turn ($127): Qh 9c 3d 7c
Villain bets $100, Hero calls.
River ($327): Qh 9c 3d 7c 6h
Villain checks, Hero...? About $235 effective now.
A solver would
Spoiler
check this one back, betting sets and 2p plus bluffs. Villain's range that takes this line and checks river is overwhelmingly Broadway club draws that will now x/f.
but more curious typical LLS line? In some ways this feel like a trivial spot, but it's a pretty big pot so even small adjustments are big EV.
Check behind.
Everything that beats you (e.g. AA, KK) likely calls
Everything that you beat (e.g. JJ, AK) likely folds
Can't really see this being JJ or worse often I think he's probably just scared with Aces or Kings and is going into check call mode. Don't bet here.
It’s usually a defensive move. He has a good hand but you called twice and now he’s not so sure. As the others have said, there’s no upside to betting here - check
Grunch:
Everything seems fine overall. I might consider raising turn when we pick up the BDFD to go with our TPTK. Don't want him getting away on a club river.
I'd think he'd barrel off with better than AQ, and he might sigh-call a half-pot bet with JJ or TT. So I might bet $150-$175. I might also just jam, if we have the right table image.
Solvers and good players check river in his spot to c/f. Humans playing low stakes are mostly checking to check-call.
there was a coinpoker wcgc video where they talked about how jasamgale plays these spots where oop is likely giving up by b10 (w balanced range). think theres merit here
You could be an annoying jerk and bet $25. Some bluffs like AK or under pairs would have a hard time folding. Though it gets uncomfortable if V raises and we have to make a decision.
The thing is that if V were really strong, he probably triple barrels, so the hands that beat us are AA/KK and those aren't likely to check raise. They'll just call the $25 a lot. V might try to turn some weaker hand into a bluff, and might call with weaker pairs. So tiny with a general plan to call might be a good exploit vs aggressive Vs.
The main reason I flagged this hand was that I was really unhappy with my thought process at the table. It went something like "oh good, I don't have to decide whether to call a third barrel, phew" and I checked back. Villain showed JJ.
In review, I definitely considered whether attempting some b10 shenanigans here could have been profitable, but I couldn't manage to think about it in a balanced way or anything other than "hopefully I can get a call from KQ/JJ/TT/etc" and also didn't feel confident if that should be a bet/fold or bet/call. For what it's worth, I really could not see this V checking river with AA or KK, and something like QQ would probably try to slowplay an earlier street if any. I should have the best hand (or maybe a chop) almost always here, but I also think V is folding quite a lot hence the slight spoiler of "likely give-up" in the title.
I know Marc Goone is all on about "recs check to check/call and regs check to check/fold" and at some point also advocates the "disrespectfully small size" here, but at the same time theory tends to be pretty clear about shunning small bets IP on the river and also the perils of reopening the betting for a tiny bet. In LLS though, Vs obviously aren't playing ideally and don't have a balanced range. To wit, I think the second barrel with JJ was a huge mistake, and in general overstabbing turns for fear of showing weakness seems to be a very common error made by almost all of the better players at these stakes. The solver is much, much more polar taking a big size on the turn and is fairly unambiguously giving up OTR when checking.
The allure of winning with the best hand was strong enough I didn't adequately consider eking out a bit more value, which at b10 is "small" but at ~15bb is large.
If we b10 here, what else chooses this size? Is it a bet/call with the read that AA/KK don't check river?
If you're going to get cute and bet 10% pot on the river, you need to have a range that includes hands that bet-fold and hands that bet-call, hoping to induce.
Personally, I hate the line when we're betting thin, because we either have to fold after we've induced, or have to call, even if V could be trapping, because we induced. I prefer the line with a polar range of nuts and air when our opponents are mostly checking to check fold their air or check raise when they're trapping.
I think you make a good point that opponents will c-bet and barrel so they don't look weak and get bluffed, but then they slow down and try to bluff catch after we call, apparently not realizing they're bluff catching after we've folded most of the weak hands in our range, and as such we won't have enough bluffs for them to catch profitably.
IMO it doesn't make sense to check back because that's what a solver would do or what we think we should do against someone who plays the way we do. V's line is pretty face up as SDV. We should just target his actual range by doing whatever our hand wants to do versus his range.
yes call if u b10 and he jams for what would have been 2/3 psb
the video is coinpoker featuring frank smith and lukabrate and the hand in question starts around 19 min in with jasamgale having a8 vs kevin paque (taxhere). if you care enough you'll be able to find it
fwiw ak will call 10% here ime
You played it fine. I don’t think you could have gotten any more value. Villain takes a big stab on the turn, but when you call - he knows he’s no good. Probably folds if you raise turn.
I’m not scared of the 3bet in this situation ever at these stakes, so going for thin value makes sense, but I think all you get is a fold. When all you have is one pair, I don’t think you press the issue.
Played fine. Don't second guess yourself -- you got the max. He's not calling a bet on the river or a raise on flop/turn.
B10 is generally pretty horrible in position in this type of spot. There's a reason solvers never make that play. The reward of getting like 70% of a 10% pot bet is not worth the risk of reopening the action and getting raised. I say 70% because we'll also value own ourselves sometimes, even when he just calls.
To want to make that play you need to be up against a fish that played their hand totally face up to the point that they pretty much never have a hand that would call a bigger bet, and never have a hand that would raise. Most players would be better off just never making that play.
Check back is good. Unless you think he would take this line and call a jam with JJ or something random like that. Then a jam is good. Lol.
I don't think we should ever take this line with bluffs. If we got here with say JT, I think betting super small would be worse than just giving up. The point of the small bet is that even super weak SDV will call like A high. If we're bluffing, we sure don't want to be called by AK. We have to bet bigger. (And really I don't think we want to be bluffing this runout regularly if at all it looks very safe for most of Vs value)
So I think we should only take this line if we are going to be willing to call down a jam. But if I'm betting tiny, it is because:
1: I want all the money to go in because I believe I'm almost always ahead.
2: V doesn't have any hands in his range that I expect would call if I jammed.
Is AQ strong enough? IDK. Depends on V. But we probably want to take this line with QQ, because we are targeting such a weak range when V checks river, especially if we think V will triple or take larger sizes with AA/KK most of the time.
I think its a line that does better versus somewhat aware regs. Because they aren't going to jam with AA/KK. But sitting there with AK/AJ/A5 facing a small bet - does H have plausible 2P? No. Does H have sets? Not likely. We didn't call with 66 to hit the river, other sets probably raise turn with the FD coming in, if we call a 3! with Q9, we probably are raising somewhere along the line against a range that includes AA/KK/AQ/KQ. So a player can reasonably come to the conclusion that our range is a lot of Qx/JJ/TT. QQ is probably our prime value candidate that might not raise flop or turn. Maybe they convince themselves that we could fold, and jamming is better than calling with SDV that is probably no good.
It's the kind of mistake that a V who is consciously trying to be more aggressive might make when forced to choose between a call that is almost never good, a fold to a tiny bet with a hand that looks like SDV, or a jam against a tiny bet from what is a weak range. H's range is weak, because we aren't flat calling with some strong hands like a solver would. So if V is good enough to recognize that our range is weak, he might make a mistake and turn weak SDV into a bluff.
B10 is generally pretty horrible in position in this type of spot. There's a reason solvers never make that play. The reward of getting like 70% of a 10% pot bet is not worth the risk of reopening the action and getting raised. I say 70% because we'll also value own ourselves sometimes, even when he just calls.To want to make that play you need to be up against a fish that play
respect the effort but you have nearly 100% equity when he c/c 10% pot here. at worst you'll have some weird 85-90 number because u chop sometimes. am also fairly happy if you think we have 70% vs calling range to put in that bet as we're making around 5bb on it (i think we are making more). i also ecstatic if we get raised because i think the chances of us inducing spaz are signifitcantly higher than villain deciding to check the river at spr .65 when there are no missed draws except jt (even if there are missed draws people don't trap in these lines imo). i just dont really fear reopening the action in a spot where its an obvious / clear jam if he has value and u r playing vs a 1/2 rec lol
"To want to make that play you need to be up against a fish that played their hand totally face up to the point that they pretty much never have a hand that would call a bigger bet, and never have a hand that would raise."
so like this spot.
eeee. however.
this is if i force him to bet turn w TT / JJ / KQss. all of a sudden his river range has way too many hands where he has to defend vs these sizes. the default assumptions are people dont protect checks enough, overplay their hands, and dont bluff enough. the ones that seem relevant to me here are not protecting his checks and overplaying his hands on earlier streets (better for our vbets otr). only argument ofc is what size to choose. the conclusion from this sim ofc is the more mediocre hands he has that he shouldn't otr, the more value our hands have. which is obvious and i think alot more important / useful than well solver wont choose to reopen action ip at equilibrium vs hyper omniscient computer playing perfectly! probably b10 is even too small vs this guy once we see he's doing this with JJ and we can either go for like a b25-b30 sizing or even go for the homerun and just jam
i also ecstatic if we get raised because i think the chances of us inducing spaz are signifitcantly higher than villain deciding to check the river at spr .65 when there are no missed draws except jt (even if there are missed draws people don't trap in these lines imo). i just dont really fear reopening the action in a spot where its an obvious / clear jam if he has value and u
I think the biggest reason I still struggle on bet/call versus bet/fold is I just find it so hard to imagine V finding a x/jam with either spaz or some trap. Maybe it means I just shouldn't worry about it - and you're probably right - but it felt like bad strategy to not be prepared to face a raise.
"To want to make that play you need to be up against a fish that played their hand totally face up to the point that they pretty much never have a hand that would call a bigger bet, and never have a hand that would raise."
so like this spot.
Yeah pretty much.. I was not certain V would take this like with JJ/TT but it seemed an obvious way for him to play air and never with KK+.
Is AQ strong enough IDK. Depends on V. But we probably want to take this line with QQ, because we are targeting such a weak range when V checks river, especially if we think V will triple or take larger sizes with AA/KK most of the time.
this is if i force him to bet turn w TT / JJ / KQss. all of a sudden his river range has way too many hands where he has to defend vs these sizes. the default assumptions are people dont protect checks enough, overplay their hands, and dont bluff enough. the ones that seem relevant to me here are not protecting his checks and overplaying his hands on earlier streets (better for
Yeah, range and sizing construction here is the other hangup I have. My original solve (without nodelocking the bad turn play) was just jamming 2p+ (it called down our sets almost pure to get here) along with IIRC most air that couldn't beat AK and using the larger sizing and polar range to get through bluffs with missed draws.
In practice we can probably get unbalanced with sizing here and size down with all value as I doubt V is going to figure out how wide he needs to defend jams and call it off with AK or TT or whatever that solve forces him to defend.
I am unsure if we try to adopt this strategy whether we really need to go for the same size with sets as we do with Qx. I guess if I think about it we're not really targeting a different calling range.
But I also get so biased seeing him show down JJ here and it's hard to get out of the rut of "what's the optimal play versus JJ" when we don't know for sure exactly what else he plays this way.
other obvious node lock is gtoesque turn betting range but never checks better than AQ otr. here with 15% aq checking freq
here with 80% checking freq
you are welcome to draw your own conclusions from these. my guess would be his river range is unprotected in general and he probably just bets aq himself so it looks closer to the first ss in this post than the second one but you will probably capture more ev by sizing down (my default assumption would be you are chopping at worse case scenario, and if you choose an annoyingly small size he will call with ~range. whether you want to make that 10%, 15%, 25%, minbet idc really. you also get the stealth benefit of him occasionally blowing up his stack. there are spots not to do this but basic hand reading to me suggests this isn't one of them. ok no more rabbit hole for me
i know i promised no rabbit hole but weak players blow up all the time vs weak looking bets ie betting to induce. you do not want to do this vs stronger players (actual stronger players not the tough regs in your local 2/5 game lol), or if you do, you want to do it in different spots with a more balanced range. that isn't what's going on here. alot of the best b/c spots otr are with hands that ordinarily make no sense to bet but v just has empty value range (they vb too thin, never protect xing range etc) and you can just bet tiny and hope they freak out x % of the time. like yeah you can get owned but theres not much i can really tell you beyond get good and figure out when and where they're going to do something stupid and when they aren't.
cannot try to find it now but theres youtube clip of phil galfond vs odd oddsen i think playing nl live where phil 3bs him ip with AK. and the board is like idk 643r it goes xx turn is a brick 7 and phil b/c AK because the idea is why would oop ever check a value hand twice and the x/r is ultra polar. thats a more extreme example and its pre river so equities are weird and they have a ton of history, but that hand should maybe give u an idea of spots to start thinking about implementing something like this into your game
Yeah that makes sense. Think my Vs are a tad more passive overall but that just means I won't be facing raises of any kind nearly as much.
I don't think your node locks are reasonable assumptions. Even after seeing the showdown of JJ I doubt he is betting JJ and TT every time. More likely it's just a random spaz bet where he didn't think it through this time.
I think there's more downside to betting tiny and calling a raise than you're acknowledging. This is a 3-bet pot and live players tend to have very strong 3-bet ranges, but can also get very MUBSY when it comes to putting their whole stack in.
AA and KK could easily get nervous and check river, as board is getting somewhat connected plus they think you could have a set or something. I'm not saying they SHOULD be checking but I see this all the time from the type of player meeting villain's description. Then when you bet tiny it might give them the confidence to jam, as they assume you would bet bigger with 2 pair plus (as you would).
I'm telling you these tiny bets in position are overdone by low stakes players and it's usually a mistake. You need a very specific set of assumptions to be true for it to be a +EV play as it's an asymmetric risk scenario. There's so much more to be lost by reopening the action than there is to be gained by betting tiny.
Now if you're doing it specifically to induce against a weak range, I think that can have more merit. I don't think this is the spot for inducing though due to his strong range with too much stuff like AA and KK compared to weaker combos.
