Unload?

What else ?

What does sticky mean to you? To me it describes someone that will call too often. You beat people that call too often by value bets not by rewarding them with bluffs so calling weak is correct.

I think it also means he should have more stuff here that is able to fold because he sticks around on turn too often.

In theory QJ with a heart is a pretty decent hand to bluff with, no? We are happy to take our showdown with A-high and we don’t have many worse hands to turn into bluffs.

I understand that we need to have some bluffs here and that this seems like a good candidate. At the same time, this is a texture that does not help most of the high card hands we would have 3bet preflop. I can’t see him folding a pair, and I also don’t think he’s going to call the turn with ace high or king high to fold a river that doesn’t help any of the hands you would 3bet with.

There’s a lot to said about folding BTF especially against a sticky opponent.

Check flop?

Thought about it but don't feel confident about my arguments. Best I can say for checking is that 1) we have some equity but not so much that we are comfortable with the idea of bet-call; and 2) we have relatively little playability across runouts. Problem is that this applies to a significant bucket of similar looking hands: ATo, KTo, QJo, and maybe QTo and JTo (don't like pre with these, QJo is meh). We should pick and choose but I don't know how.

Talked to an expert who said this is a range check on the flop.

Range check on 974? That doesn’t sound right but meh

He said it favors the original raiser over the 3 bettor

As a default? Or against someone who's probably too loose probably too sticky and probably doesn't lead enough?

Against this guys range

I have never seen a solver range check in position. I don't think that happens outside of toy examples.

If I three bet BTF I will bet most of the time. Exceptions would be against very tricky players who automatically check raise if the board doesn’t match my range.

My calculation is that villain has about 73% equity on this flop, and will only fold roughly 10% of his range. While that assumes his folding range is all hands ahead of us like A2o, still not enough to bet I think. If he calls any ace high betting is even worse.

Aren’t we gaining fold equity on the turn by betting flop ?

Great question.

Following is the combos I used. My assumption was that of hands ahead of us on that flop, we could only fold A2o/A3o type hands. But I forgot KQo-KTo, so that is up to 52 combos of better hands we might be able to fold. Don’t have time to do exact math but still seems paying 1.5 big bets to increase equity maybe 10% in a 4 BB pot seems very optimistic.

But maybe I’m thinking about it wrong so let me know.

Range Heat Map: Player 2

QQ-22, A2s+, K7s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 98s, 87s, 76s, A2o+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo

Range's Equity: 72.4%
Breakeven Equity: 50.0%

Number of assign-able hand combos in range (includes card removal effect and partial range removal effect): 327

All Hands Sorted On Equity:
99, 0.92%, 3 comb, 97.3%
77, 0.92%, 3 comb, 96.8%
44, 0.92%, 3 comb, 96.7%
QQ, 0.92%, 3 comb, 96.4%
KJs, 0.92%, 3 comb, 86.9%
KQs, 0.92%, 3 comb, 86.7%
KJo, 2.75%, 9 comb, 86.7%
KQo, 2.75%, 9 comb, 86.3%
AJs, 0.92%, 3 comb, 85.4%
Q9s, 0.61%, 2 comb, 85.3%
AJo, 2.75%, 9 comb, 85.0%
AQs, 0.92%, 3 comb, 84.8%
J9s, 0.92%, 3 comb, 84.7%
AQo, 2.75%, 9 comb, 84.5%
JJ, 0.92%, 3 comb, 84.3%
T9s, 0.92%, 3 comb, 77.5%
87s, 0.92%, 3 comb, 77.5%
KTs, 1.22%, 4 comb, 77.2%
98s, 0.92%, 3 comb, 77.2%
KTo, 3.67%, 12 comb, 76.4%
ATs, 1.22%, 4 comb, 76.1%
K8s, 1.22%, 4 comb, 76.1%
AKs, 1.22%, 4 comb, 76.1%
AKo, 3.67%, 12 comb, 75.9%
A9s, 0.92%, 3 comb, 75.9%
76s, 0.92%, 3 comb, 75.8%
A8s, 1.22%, 4 comb, 75.8%
TT, 1.83%, 6 comb, 75.7%
A4s, 0.92%, 3 comb, 75.5%
A2s, 1.22%, 4 comb, 75.4%
A9o, 2.75%, 9 comb, 75.3%
K9s, 0.92%, 3 comb, 75.3%
ATo, 3.67%, 12 comb, 75.3%
K7s, 0.92%, 3 comb, 75.2%
A7s, 0.92%, 3 comb, 75.1%
A8o, 3.67%, 12 comb, 75.0%
A6s, 1.22%, 4 comb, 74.9%
88, 1.83%, 6 comb, 74.8%
A7o, 2.75%, 9 comb, 74.6%
A4o, 2.75%, 9 comb, 74.6%
A5s, 1.22%, 4 comb, 74.3%
A3s, 1.22%, 4 comb, 74.1%
A5o, 3.67%, 12 comb, 73.6%
A2o, 3.67%, 12 comb, 73.5%
A6o, 3.67%, 12 comb, 73.5%
A3o, 3.67%, 12 comb, 73.4%
55, 1.83%, 6 comb, 72.1%
66, 1.83%, 6 comb, 71.9%
22, 1.83%, 6 comb, 70.1%
33, 1.83%, 6 comb, 69.7%
QJs, 0.61%, 2 comb, 51.1%
QJo, 2.14%, 7 comb, 50.0%
T8s, 1.22%, 4 comb, 48.0%
JTs, 0.92%, 3 comb, 30.2%
JTo, 2.75%, 9 comb, 27.0%
QTs, 0.92%, 3 comb, 17.3%
QTo, 2.75%, 9 comb, 15.1%

Well preflop 3 bet is quite bad and will lead to you having too many potential bluffs here, but this hand still seems like a no brainer bluff here.

lol, this "expert" might want to spend a little more time on this one

I assume you mean 73% equity vs exactly QJo? This isn't how range vs range stuff works though, you can't take our hand against his range and play in a vacuum, our hand is bluffing, our range is strong, we need bluffs. Otherwise you will simply solve for which hands are an equity favorite and bet all those and not be playing poker anymore, just texas holdem bonus table game.

Ignoring the fact that the range you assigned is super bad and weird, I gave villain your range + all the premiums so he is uncapped and can have AA and stuff (which should hurt us even more), solver still happily cbets this flop 75% of the time and over half the time with QJs no backdoor flush draw. QJo shouldn't be in our 3 betting range pre so its a little tough to get this one accurate.

Noted, thanks.

Thanks again. I pulled out big pairs thinking he’d never check/call them on flop but that is not only a questionable assumption I’m incorporating info we don’t have when we bet flop.

I have to admit this sounds fun, especially if it’s hooked up to a progressive jackpot😉

Thanks DD. I know preflop is bad but I hate folding against droolers. This guy definitely four bets QQ or better fwiw

Fair, I mean I see myself doing similar at times. But QJo is a kinda bad hand to have vs guys that are too loose and sticky. If his range is capped pre barrel off post looks even better.

In my experience, many above average players overestimate their ability to play an inferior range and "outplay" a bad player, especially a bad player who isn't the type of bad where they are going to spew a bunch of bets into the pot on the regular with clueless hands.