Flop Set as caller in 3b pot vs agro pro

Already read the reveal, but...

I think hero has gotten max value so far, by check-calling flop and checking turn. That's a line that gives V max opportunity to make mistakes.

My preferred line would be to check raise turn, but I'd generally be expecting opponents to size up on turn, and I'd usually expect more money to go in on the flop. The challenge here is V bet so small on flop and turn that we've got an SPR dilemma.

A turn jam may allow V to play perfectly. But we could argue that both opponents have played perfectly to this point, such that V has put hero into a position where he has to make a difficult choice now. V hasn't made a big mistake yet, which should lead us to ask if V will make a big one on the river. If not, that would be an argument for raising turn, to charge all of V's draws.

I don't love flatting or jamming, because I know V will fold everything worse than AK, but I still think jamming is the better play, if hero is planning to call a jam no matter what the river is, or if we're not positive V will jam range regardless of what the river is. Flatting also lets V play perfectly.

We can be results oriented and say flatting the turn was correct because V jammed as a bluff. But I would argue he wasn't making a big mistake, if we're saying hero never shows up with AA/KK/AK, or some sort of draw that comes in, but V can have all those hands, because he's capable, and because he bet so small on flop and turn that his range is kept wide when we just check call. A river jam folds out most of, if not all of hero's range that isn't some slow played monster.

If a turn jam reps exactly 66, and hero never shows up with AA/KK/AK, then what part of hero's range should V fear, on the river, when hero check calls flop and turn? It would seem to be only and exactly 66, so V's jam basically prints.

I think the solution is to have a check raise range on the turn, when V takes small sizing, and to have some thin value and bluffs in that range, as well as some thick value. This would prevent V from being able to take this line with impunity.

No slight against hero, but props to V for the line he took, if the only hand hero can have that calls and wins at showdown is 66. Hero got max value, but V got to realize all his equity, so we can't look down on his play or dismiss him as just another LAG-hole. He played it perfectly, and just got unlucky.

I don't know why you think the only hands I would call river would be 66.

I thought about this quite a bit today. I think we should call all Ax on the river vs this villain. I am kind of using 100bb UTG open 3x to flesh out my range even though it is a little shallower. I probably continue KQs, vs this particular villain pre, sometimes 4bets sometimes flat. Don't hate continue with KJs as well as a 4bet or call sometimes, but itbis an extreme scenario.

I mainly would call AQs and AJs, sometimes 4bet AJs, sometimes call ATs, sometimes 4bet (maybe should be 4b or fold). AKo I will be about 50/50 call and 4bet. KK maybe low frequency calling pre in these positions, like 25% at 100bb, but maybe less at 88. A5s will be a mix of 4bet/call/fold.

I think calling down all Ax will just print on the river vs this v. If we hold an A such as with AQ, his value region is going to be 6 combos AK, 1 set AA, 3 sets KK, 3 sets 99, so 13 combos. He has to bluff 30% of the time for Ax to be indifferent, about 5.6 combos of bluffs. But he can very easily have way more combos than that there are loads of missed draws and random low pairs by the river with suited connectors, etc.

I actually like the idea of v bluffing with KQs and KJs, and QJs on the river, the diamond and club varieties, as these block AQs and AJs. KQ and KJ block 2 combos of AKo also and those suits unblock KhXh. That would be 6 bluff combos but AQs and AJs block 2 bluffs, so that would only make 4 bluff combos, meaning AQs and AJs would not be profitable calls, so there would have to be some other bluffs as well. Maybe some 65s with diamonds or clubs which make calling with A5s worse. But if you consider all the ither hands that v could have here, QJs, QTs, JTs, 87s 65s, 76s, 98s, T9s, missed hearts it is very easy for him to overbluff river.

I actually thought all this through without looking at anything in the solver. I plugged the hand in GTO Wizard AI and I am proud the bluff combos it came up with were fairly close to what I thought of, only it does use hearts sometimes, but the main bluffs are KQs, KJs, KTs at appropriate frequencies on turn and river to make AQs, AJs, A5s all indifferent on the river, mixing call and fold. However, the solver did raise off a lot of hands on the flop. We never get to the river with 66. And some worse Ax is folding on turn as well as it is already indifferent because it loses to AQ, but AQ is no longer value betting river, so AJ, A5 will mix in calls on the river.

Because blocker effects are so important, this is a spot where if you look at pure combos, with the 74% pot jam on river, there should be about 7 value combos for every for every 3 bluffs, but because holding an A is so important, IP only bluffs about 24% of their combos which is an important concept to understand. Any time OOP holds Ax, we significantly reduce the value combos of IP, so the bluff frequency and exact blocker hands has to be adjusted to make those Ax hands indifferent.

It is also important to note that GTO Wizard AI sometimes gives pretty different answers from what a traditional CFR solver solution, but a lot of underlying concepts for practical use are the same.

If I thought that v was catching on to my strategy that I under-raise my strong hands and overcall my bluff catchers and he adjusted his bluff frequency accordingly, I would probably have to dial back some of the calls I make vs him. I would have to mix some calls and folds with Ax on the river. But as long as I think he is overbluffing, I will definitely overcall my bluff catchers vs villain and I will be much more apt to overttrap.

I wonder if including all of the 65s-T9s in V's range is reasonable. Sure, these combos are consistent with a triple barrel on this board texture, but at what frequency is he 3betting them versus an UTG RFI? I would think, although I could be wrong, that he's 3betting close to 100% of suited broadways and AJ+/99+, but 3betting suited connectors closer to 30-40%. Then again, some players do have a tendency to over 3bet suited connectors. Even with fewer suited connectors, there's still enough bluff combos for you to call river, but given the board texture a 3bet range with too many scs does make life easier.

I appreciate this hand history and the way you didn't fast play your set, but kind of wish you had AdJh and Villain had QcJc. In such a scenario, your hand blocks flush combos and his hand blocks AQ and AJ. I mean, in retrospect Ax appears an easy call down but would be more difficult if you blocked some of his key bluff combos. And, if I understand correctly, you holding Ax narrows his value range considerably, which means he should be bluffing less, although he may not be aware of this fact and therefore overbluffing (with all those suited connectors perhaps). Would be interesting to know if Villain actually believed you would have folded Ax in this particular hand. I mean, there are only 4, or maybe 6, combos of busted flush draws in your range (KhQh, KhJh, QhJh, QhTh; 6h7h and 8h7h). And does he also believe you are always 4betting AA/KK/AK or never slow-playing them postflop if you don't 4bet them?

Just call and call river. He is shoving river with a lot of the hands that call a turn check raise. It’s also good long term he sees you triple check the effective nuts.

It's not that I think the only hands you call with would be 66. It's that people seem to be discounting that you'd get here with AK, and saying a turn raise looks exactly like 66, so your range on the river is pretty capped when you flat call turn.

If we have no turn raises, V can take this line with impunity. The top of our range would appear to be 66, with the rest of our range being top pair at best. He can put a ton of pressure on our range with this line.

Yeah, if you know V is capable of running a three street bluff, you have to call his jam with more than just 66. Easy enough to call with a set when the river bricks, and we beat everything that isn't a better set. Less so with anything in our range when the river brings in a lot of his semi-bluffs, and we don't beat any of his value.

Even when the river bricks, V can still have value that beats Ax, and not just AK. If V is capable of doing this with 87dd, I'm guessing he has 99, 88, and garbage like K9s or A8s in his pre flop 3B'ing range. Hell, he could do this with AQ and you still lose calling with all your worse AX, since you said you'd have some AJ / AT / A5 in your range.

If V catches on to what you're doing, he can adjust by bluffing less on the river, and this line just prints. Then we have to start raising some turns, and the debate will be about what our turn raising range should be.

Hero has all the broadway heart combos in his range on the river (KhQh, QhJh, QhTh, JdTh) and maybe 7h8h and 6h5h. If Villain has some air (mostly suited connectors as well QT, QJ, JT) he's still incentivised to bet river, but could xb Ax or possibly Kx. Saying that Hero's value range is capped at 66 isn't that significant in my mind, even though Hero may have some AA, KK and AK at this stack depth, as he doesn't have to 4bet these preflop. I'm interested to know what you think Hero should do with his combo draws on the turn --- I mean, if you're advocating that he x-r 66 then I'm guessing you'd want Hero to do this with QhJh and JhTd as well? I don't believe he can profitably bluff any rivers with busted hearts.

I don't know if hero is getting to the turn with all those combos. I'll defer to OP about what his range looks like here.

It's not that I think he should raise 66 specifically. I'd think we could check raise a lot on the turn when this particular V takes small sizing twice. It would make sense to raise with hands that have a ton of equity when called. So we could raise AK if we get here with AK, 66, and our combo draws, and maybe even some other combos that would make sense.

If we have a robust turn x/r range that includes value, I would think we could profitably bluff on brick run-outs, because we have value in our range. Especially against this V, who we know will take this sort of line with trashy hands. We should expect him to fold a lot of his range on turn or river if we barrel.

With respect Doc, what robust value range for a turn x/r do we have on this board given preflop action? V has range and nut advantage. I think it's more EV+ and logical just to defer to circumstances and x/c. We have read the spoiler, but V can also be super strong here. What barrels should we have here beyond 66 and some Broadway hearts?

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm arguing this past the point of being reasonable.

Like I said, I'll defer to OP about what's in his range when he gets to the turn, the way this was played. He called off a >10% stack 3B pre, which would seem to dictate a fairly tight range. But I don't know what sort of range he's got when he does that against this particular V, in this configuration. If he's calling with 66, I guess it's not all that tight.

Against a competent aggro V, OP might have 99, 66, A9s, A6s, and K9s for value on the turn. He might also have some KXhh, and some un-paired Broadway heart combos. I think all of the 2P/sets could be considered value when V takes this line. The KXhh and combo-draw combos make decent x/r semi-bluff candidates.

If we look at that range, all the 2P+ that x/r's turn can barrel a lot of rivers for value, or check-call, depending on the run-out. A lot of rivers will bring in our semi-bluffs. Even if the river is just a brick, so long as we have turn check raises for value, we can barrel with our bluffs, and fold out a lot of V's range.

Yes, V may have the range and nut advantage, but do we really think he's taking this line with AA/KK/AK, after hero raises pre, calls a 3B, and flat calls the flop c-bet? Do we really think he's going to bet less than 1/3p on flop, but leave 70% pot behind with thick yet vulnerable value when the BDFD appears on the turn?

What bothers me about flatting the turn is that it allows V to realize all his equity without committing his entire stack. OP's read was that this V is going to have a wide range when he 3B's pre, and he'll barrel off with bluffs and thin value, so the plan appears to be flat calling turn, and check-calling a river jam no matter what the run-out is.

If that's true, as it appears to be, I'd prefer to not let V's semi-bluffs realize their equity, or let V decide if he wants to play for stacks after getting to see the river card. I'd rather just jam turn. If that means V gets to play perfectly by folding out everything worse, so be it, if the alternative is we let him play perfectly on the river.

Nh.

So, my only question is: is V a winning player? Holy crap lol.

Thanks for your comments and thanks to Mlark for sharing. This is an interesting spot. Let me address preflop then address your points and the hand from a different "range perspective".

1. Preflop: there's a good argument H is uncapped after preflop, having agreed to play aggro pro oop at only 10-1 IO. Perhaps V has leveled himself into this thinking, because it impacts ranges later. I didn't analyze it this way originally, but it's very worthy of consideration. Perhaps you implied this in your analysis/comments.

2. Flop x, downbet, call sequence has less significance when viewed from an "equal range" perspective. It neither compresses nor caps H nor defines V's range more. It could be argued that V should x or bet larger.

3. Turn: from the perspective of equal ranges, I think V errs here choosing an awkward sizing. It's not polar nor geometric. It's not clear what V is targeting here for 500. And if ranges are equal, why would H take a polar line by jamming? I still feel it's a flat call from this "equal range" perspective. If we concede the range/nut advantage to V, it's also a call or fold. I can't find raises oop on this board. I absolutely agree that we have x raises here oop, but on a different board.

4. I'm puzzled by your logic on turn. Are you saying it's better to make a turn mistake so V cannot play perfectly on the river? I'd rather play the turn correctly and worry about the river when it comes. Your analysis implies H actually has the range/nut advantage on the turn and we need to jam to charge V for his draws. I think you could argue this about the actual hand but not the ranges in play here.

I don't want the range/nut advantage to become a analytical straightjacket. But I think we have to decide who has it or whether it's equal and then construct a line that makes consistent sense. I think H's line from an "equal range" perspective is consistent and makes sense.

Thanks Doc! I always learn a lot from you.

Yes, honestly one of the toughest players in the pool.

Honestly I think the discussion has really got far into the weeds.

Doc I think your comment that villain gets to play river perfectly if we don't raise turn. I think that discounts the possibility of him overbluffing river but folding to a turn raise.

Also, you suggest we could raise turn with a bluff and barrel river. Even if we min-raise turn, we would have 825 left to bet into 2,790 on the river. Jam is the only turn raise size.

I also think you're overestimating the value of what you think are sizing tells. Villain's turn size scheme is a size that gets in stacks by the river and has fold equity on every street. Villain is good enough to be able to play this size with his entire range at this stack depth.

"If V catches on to what you're doing, he can adjust by bluffing less on the river, and this line just prints."

Yeah. That called exploitative play. You can always get counter exploited. Before they called it exploitative play, it was just called poker. This would be a good argument for maybe the next time I flop bottom set on an AK high board in a 3b pot I go for the check raise.

"Then we have to start raising some turns, and the debate will be about what our turn raising range should be."

You keep going back to this, but you really haven't argued your point that raising the turn is better. You would have to do an analysis of how often v will call a turn jam with worse, how often he folds turn, how often he value bets with worse on the river, how often he bluffs river.

Solver is actually raising the flop a ton with 66, Ax, and bluffs. Broadway draws with backdoor hearts are a lot of the bluff raising range on the flop (can't run into top pair plus nut heart draw on the turn). Solver very infrequently raising the turn though.

The balance between GTO and how we exploit is a complex interplay of how often v is bluffing. Flop raises are nice in that if we had a bluff like a gutter to broadway with a backdoor flush draw, we get to apply max pressure to his flop range bet. Having actual value in that spot helps to credible rep a strong hand. And we can certainly have plenty of bluff catchers simply by mixing call and raise with Ax hands on the flop, we don't need to have 66 in our flop raise range. It is just a matter of how often we face the turn barrel and river jam with a bluff, which could skew us towards exploitatively just calling all of our good hands.

If we're really worried about villain adapting to our play and exploiting us, we should probably take the solver route and be raising more on the flop rather than the turn.

You also mentioned villain could exploitatively jam AQ for value on the river if we call Ax. But it's not super clear AQ beats more that calls than it loses to since I can have AK, low frequency KK, and if villain is too aggressive with bluffs and too thin value like AQ, trapped 66. If he does value bet that thin, we can call more linearly with AQ pure on the river while folding AJ and worse if villain isn't overbluffing.

I'm not going to spell out every detail of what I think villain's range and my range is pre. You can always say, "well if you do this, then villain can just do..." That is exploitative play. That's poker. You can study the hand in solvers and in equity calculators to toy with ranges yourself and see how changes in the assumptions change EVs.

I thought the hand was really interesting and I think it is a good one to take a deep dive on by yourself. Get into the weeds of how many bluff and value combos there are on the river. Do the math. See how important blockers are for bluffs and what his range needs to look like for Ax to have a 100% profitable call, indifferent call, losing call. Get in the solver and analyze it. But at this point I think all the important discussion points have been laid out.

I can't run GTO-W with straddles, but when I ran the simple 100bb UTG vs UTG+1, it has 66 raising the flop at a 2:1 margin (as you implied), and on the turn it's raising at a 1:2 margin.

Do you consider 1:2 to be "very infrequently, " or is raising 1/3 of the time still too much (and evidence that the simpler sim is not applicable)?

I see that Mlark also directed a response at me. There's a lot here, and a lot there, so I'm at risk of making an argument that doesn't align with what Mlark and his opponent are actually doing, only what I previously thought they were doing. But, addressing the points above, in order, as reasonably as I can...

1. Given the stack depths and / or his read on V, hero may not have a 4B'ing range. If he doesn't, then yes, we could argue he's uncapped going to the flop. But does hero have a 4B range? Does V know if hero has a 4B range? We don't know if V perceives hero as uncapped.

Re-reading my own posts here, it seems I did say hero could have all the sets. Not sure why I wrote that at the time, but if I have to stand by it, I guess I'm okay with it, if we assume hero isn't 4B'ing pre.

I think my argument doesn't rest on hero being capped or uncapped, but rather that V might discount the likelihood of hero having very many nutted hands on the flop, simply by virtue of the fact that he didn't 4B pre.

We're trying to get inside V's head, by way of Mlark's head. My hunch is V might discount AA/KK somewhat, but AK/66 not as much, maybe. I'm guessing. Hero can probably have 99 and A9s. I don't know if he's opening UTG with A6s or K9s.

2. I agree that the flop action doesn't do much to define either player's range. I don't know if V should have bet more. My hunch is that the pre-flop 3B'er is going to have a ton of AA/KK/AK in his range, and doesn't want to bet huge on the flop, to keep hero's calling range wide. But maybe I've got that backwards, and V should bet large with value and bluffs.

3. Mlark says I'm reading too much into the bet sizing. He knows his man better than I do.

If I'm hero here, I'd read that bet sizing as V getting a little concerned that hero raise-called a 3B pre and check-called a flop c-bet. If V is concerned now, but still betting, I'd think he's likely to be bluffing, but picked up equity on the turn, and we don't mind charging him more to realize his equity.

Range/nut advantages are theoretical. If hero doesn't have a 4B range pre, and V is 3B'ing and c-betting very light, we're basically playing street poker. It's hero vs V in a leveling war. If V knows hero isn't 4B'ing pre, hero can donk lead or x/r this board.

4. I don't think it would be a mistake for hero to raise turn, given the bet sizing V has used, which leaves a 70% pot bet behind going to the river on a fairly wet board. I would argue a turn x/r makes sense for these reasons:

A - We may or may not be perceived as capped by V. If we're not capped, we can raise with some bluffs, and put pressure on V's marginal value hands. If we are capped, V should call our raise with a wider range, perhaps including all his Ax, because what the hell are we raising when we're capped? We need to remember that V's range isn't all value or all bluffs, it's a mix.

B - The conditional logic of the situation supports it. Hero is planning to call turn, and presumably check-call a jam on any river. But V might NOT jam. V might give up and check back, in which case he gets to keep the $1300 behind. If V does jam, he could be bluffing, but if he's bluffing flop and turn, there are a lot of river cards that will give him a strong value hand.

I suppose my point is that if hero is just going with his hand, then it doesn't matter who has the range or nut advantage here. If V has AA/KK, so be it. If V has KThh or QJhh and folds, so be it. If he calls, fine. Why do we want to let V see the river, and THEN decide if he wants to get stacks in, if we're happy to get stacks in right now?

I disagree that hero x/r'ing turn is making a mistake because it lets V play the turn perfectly. V could make a bad call with weak value, if he thinks hero is capped and / or bluffing, or if he thinks his draws have enough equity to call. He might make a bad fold when we're bluffing. We should have some value and some bluffs when we x/r here.

We might argue that V may have already made a mistake by 3B'ing and barreling too light. If V is good, he may realize he's made a mistake, and make a course correction on the river. Hero doesn't know that yet, though. V could be playing perfectly to this point, giving himself a cheap price to see the turn and river, and possibly suck out.

Just looking at the action - hero raised, called a 3B, called a c-bet - if hero calls turn, it sure looks like he's going to call the river, which should decrease V's bluffing frequency, and push him to only bet the river for value. If he's only betting the river when he has value, I prefer to get our value on the turn.

Absolutely, I was discounting the possibility of him over-bluffing the river, and I'm willing to accept the increased likelihood that he over-folds to our turn raise. My reasoning was that his river bluffing frequency may not be as high as we think, after we go call-call-call, and his turn folding frequency may not be as high as we think, after he goes bet-bet-bet.

Yes, he'll turbo-fold his low equity bluffs, but he should have some value hands that can call, and possibly some high-equity draws that may also call. But if he has value, he's definitely betting it on the river, whether it's a better flopped set or a river straight or flush. We're already losing to his better value. Why let him increase the value portion of his range on 50% of rivers?

My point wasn't that V might start trying to exploit you after this hand. If I'm V, I'd start during this hand. When he bets small on flop and turn, and you flat call, it looks like you have a strong hand, that's going to call a jam on most rivers. If I'm V, I wouldn't bluff the river. I would actually be a bit hesitant to go too thin for value.

But I wasn't your V. And you know your V better than we do. The result was flatting the turn worked out. If it's a T or 5 on the river, it's a different story. If he had 87hh, and got there, would you feel the same way about this?

Your play in this hand is exploiting him, successfully, because you were confident he'd barrel off with all his bluffs, his draw missed, and he did in fact jam as a bluff. But reduce his bluffing frequency slightly on all streets, and he's exploiting you.

The sims I was looking at were raising 66 basically pure on the turn and never ending up on turn with 66 and had very few raises globally on the turn.