Why are we checking 100% of our range here?
Just been playing around in GTO Wizard and ran into an interesting spot which seemed quite counter-intuitive to me. 100bb deep cash game, we open 2.5x in HJ and get flatted by CO or BTN. Everyone else folds.
Flop comes T♥9♠2♠
GTO says we check 100% of our range here, and even check/fold with any AKo or AQo that doesn't have A♠, all of our AJo, and all of our suited Ax and Kx if they aren't spades.
We're check/calling with the vast majority of our range, and even the ones we check/raise some of the time it's never more than 50%. Q♠J♠ and K♥J♠ are the ones we c/r most with, followed by our sets and other flush draws.
I just... don't get why we should be checking here 100% of the time. I feel like this hits villains preflop range really well and my intuition says we should be value betting all of our sets, two pair, TPTK type hands (as they aren't folding their draws or hands like 98hh etc), and then balancing it by also betting all of our decent draws.
What am I missing here? Why are we checking 100% of our range on this board? I assume it's a situation a lot of people have studied already as it's a super standard spot, so assuming a lot of y'all will already have experience taking this line and be able to offer a bit of info on why it's the right play? Thanks in advance!
4 Replies
Just been playing around in GTO Wizard and ran into an interesting spot which seemed quite counter-intuitive to me. 100bb deep cash game, we open 2.5x in HJ and get flatted by CO or BTN. Everyone else folds.
Flop comes T♥9♠2♠
GTO says we check 100% of our range here, and even check/fold with any AKo or AQo that doesn't have A♠, all of our AJo, and all of our suited Ax and Kx if they aren't spades.
We're check/calling with the vast majority of our range, and even the ones we check/raise some of the tim
It has to do with the condensed range of the preflop caller, and the fact that the HJ is OOP.
BTN has a range advantage and also the top end advantage, just due to their range containing more nutted hands as a percentage of their overall range. You can see that the BTN only has 79 overall combos in my sim, vs HJ who has 258 combos.
The actual strategy is going to depend on the inputs and different sims might have a small betting range. You can just simplify this spot and range check most boards. The boards where you probably want a betting range are K high, Q high, and some triple BW.
Just been playing around in GTO Wizard and ran into an interesting spot which seemed quite counter-intuitive to me. 100bb deep cash game, we open 2.5x in HJ and get flatted by CO or BTN. Everyone else folds.
Flop comes T♥9♠2♠
GTO says we check 100% of our range here, and even check/fold with any AKo or AQo that doesn't have A♠, all of our AJo, and all of our suited Ax and Kx if they aren't spades.
We're check/calling with the vast majority of our range, and even the ones we check/raise some of the tim
Sometimes solver results can appear surprising.
Here's what I think is happening here. Because of the specific flop and the fact that the villain didn't three-bet before the flop, his range is now, with this flop, much stronger than yours. So the solver results indicate that you should no longer be the aggressor and now become the defender and play your hand from the defender's perspective.
Also, when the flop produces many very strong hands in the aggressor's range, and remember the villain is now the aggressor, his bet should now be larger which means you should be calling less often. Also, and I think this is correct, the fact that you have some check-raises in your range means you should play less hands. Thus, that might help explain some of your folds with hands like ace-king.
Just another thought. I suspect that if the hero would have opened UTG meaning that both his opening range and the defender’s range would be stronger, the opener would still be the aggressor on the flop.
Mason
I just... don't get why we should be checking here 100% of the time. I feel like this hits villains preflop range really well and my intuition says we should be value betting all of our sets, two pair, TPTK type hands (as they aren't folding their draws or hands like 98hh etc), and then balancing it by also betting all of our decent draws.
If you would do this, your checking range would be so weak and capped that your opponent would pretty much be able to claim the whole pot whenever you check by just overbet barreling geometrically.
In order to bet aggressively without weakening your checking range you need a range and/or nut advantage, which you don't have.
Thank you all for the replies, that makes a lot of sense! Have done some research into range advantages and everything is much clearer now 😀
