Is this a punt or a good jam?

Despite some good analysis throughout hand, you fell pray to hubris and hopium.

think there's poor hand reading going on in the op tbh but you posted a few interesting hands and then you follow it up with this :(

one thing is you focus way too much on balance esp vs weak players lol. you are playing 1/3 vs randoms on a tuesday night, not llinus

anyways, hand is the worlds clearest turn shove, there's really not much to talk about here. maybe flop i guess but the hand seems fine and luckily (for all of us) the thread doesn't seem destined for 100 posts

Sure, I like to at least aim to be balanced most of the time, although I get that it's not the most profitable way to play against fish.

Can you please elaborate on the poor hand reading? Don't you think it's accurate that most low stakes players are raising 2 pair+ on this board and are therefore going to fold a large amount of the time facing the potsize jam on the turn? I've seen this villain make many tight folds in the past and I'm targeting Tx and worse one-pair hands, which I believe he will fold.

i think he mostly has pairs pre (similar to when people cold call 3bs) unless fish and i dont think people raise sets at anywhere near 100% frequency here. would still play your hand the same way

worrying about stuff like "i try to have 2/3 value 1/3 bluff combos otf" and "i have KQ+ for value so i must worry about balancing with bluffs" while you're playing random person at 1/3 who called 24bb preflop is missing the forest for the trees

D'oh!

I've just realized the initial post is wrong. The river was the 8♥ and not the 9, of course (which would have given me the straight).

Admin - can you please update this? I'm unable to edit it.

Okay thanks. Yes there are lots of pairs that they call pre, perhaps also suited connectors and suited aces. A lot of fish are terrified of getting outdrawn on this board (even though it misses most of my 3betting range) and raise on the flop (but yes agreed it's not at 100% frequency).

How do you advocate imbalancing against these types of players then, if balance is not important?

just do whatever you think is most +ev without worrying that this guy is going to exploit you

solvers are great but like you are playing in games that you don't need to worry about game theory and balance in at all if you don't want to

Okay thanks. Sure, I'm aware of that. I just thought you might have some ideas about how to maximize EV.

try rivering a straight

LOL

Hand is fine. Villain could have 99, 88 AT, KT, JT. Does balance matter? Not really, BUT:

1. I think it is important to understand your perceived range. Does villain have to have the theoretically correct number of bluffs to value on the turn? No. But does it help if villain can reasonably put him on hands that want to jam the turn for value (AA, KK, AQ, KQ, QQ, etc). Yes. Because of this, villain can fold a hand like 99 or 88 here.

2. It is important to foster our image. We bluff because we think more often than not we will generate enough folds to be profitable (in this case, accounting for our equity on the turn). Occasionally you're just going to run into it when you bluff. Hopefully you play with these players regularly, because when you get caught bluffing and 3betting light, people tend to way over adjust and give you too much action thinking you are just going to spew. But you're going to have value hands when the money goes in more often than not, and they are not going to have sets the vast majority of the time.

So while balance per se isn't really important, having light 3bets/squeezes and bluffs postflop can all be +EV parts of a winning strategy.

i dont make this play often enough. good for you.

only thing of note is that the fact that the board is rainbow means its much more likely to be slowplayed. its really rare in my games for someone to slowplay a two tone board. which means your bluff should work almost 100% on two tone boards.

i guess quick question with intention for further conversation - are you squeezing a linear/balance range or polar in these spots / vs this field? And I guess necessary follow up is: what do you think your opponents perceive your squeeze range to be - polar or balanced?

I ask because I dont love the flop bet here but I also dont know the general strategy your employing. if polarized you're probably connecting better here but KJs wants me to lean towards something more linear. and while you have all the big pairs and broadway, villain should have more nutted hands on this board.

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that said on the turn i think its a good card for you and betting big/overbetting etc definitely options for sure but moreso if the pot smaller/SPR higher.

Button did overcall twice here though which suggests hands that connect with that board but also a lot of low equity connecting hands so I dont think you're without FE.

I guess overall if you're pushing like this with the lower equity draw on the turn (eg not picking up the combo of FD + OESD) it may get some wider calls in the future but hard to say if its a situation where you zigged, villain got lucky with TT, and you should have zagged or if villain will be stacking off here when you have the stronger draws or top set vs their lower equity connecting hands in their range in this spot.

Thanks for the feedback.

1. Yes, for sure - villain in this hand is knowledgeable enough to know that after I go to $70 preflop, fire flop and jam turn that I have all the AA and KK that are trying to get value from a Q, as well as AQ that's trying to get value for weaker queens, etc.

2. For sure my goal in this hand was to target a player who I have seen make many tight folds in the past. That said, I would still make this play against other player types (other than huge calling stations, of course) simply to balance the value part of my range - but I was even happier to make this play against this specific villain. For sure I agree it's no bad thing to get caught bluffing and 3betting light as far as image and future action is concerned; I always try to keep doubts in their minds.

Yes, that's true about the board being rainbow resulting in its less likely to be slow-played. I'm still somewhat surprised that villain was alright with letting a card peel off here though.

One issue I've noticed recently on jamming turns is that bad players will call you with draws when they're not getting the right price (no surprise). So it's important to keep that in mind when jamming turns that contain a flush draw (when bluffing). The river of course doesn't have this issue, so there is something to be said for betting across three streets - and indeed this is what I tend to do in position. Out of position, as I mentioned in the post, I like to turn postflop into a two-street game if the conditions are right to do so, in order to reduce the positional disadvantage. Of course, this means bigger bets, and a higher frequency of bluffing as a result.

Generally in the small blind I'm going with a linear strategy here like 99+, AT+ KQo, and all suited broadways, but I will include a range of additional hands to ensure I have adequate board coverage, like a low frequency of suited connectors T9s to 54s, A5s, A4s etc. I squeeze wider in this game than I would in other games.

Yes I agree about the flop bet being debatable. Recently I have been checking range OOP in almost all spots, even 3bet pots with the betting lead. For one thing, the EV of betting/checking the flop in these spots is often almost identical, so you don't lose anything by checking. But many villains also play worse against a check than they do against a bet (credit to Marc Goone). However, I had this villain pegged as an over-folder, so exploitative mode was engaged. I've got backdoor straights and flushes, and my intention was to jam any A,K,Q,J or club on the turn. The low stakes player pool know intuitively that "everyone continuation bets" - so they are less likely to fold to a single flop bet, and will call it pretty wide. But when you rip the turn for a potsize bet, they take it seriously and can fold "with a clear conscience", after ensuring that you're not bluffing by calling your flop bet and then seeing you continue to fire.

I think the field perceive my squeezing range to be perhaps 80% value and 20% bluffs. I do squeeze a lot in this game.

Yes I agree that villain should have more nutted hands on this board, and I made the incorrect assumption that he was raising them on the flop - I thought I was safe to jam and get a large amount of folds on the turn.

This looks totally fine. Maybe not sure about the squeeze preflop since I imagine at 1/3 you're not getting a ton of folds, but basically fine.

yeah dont range check 3b pots lol

Sure, as a general rule I'd agree, and in the past I never have range checked in 3bet pots. But recently I have been experimenting with doing so. The EV of checking and betting are often very similar in these situations.

You're playing live, not online. Have more reads on your opponent besides 'V makes tight folds.' When has V made a tight fold? What was their V representing, and did their overall story make sense? Etc. What does V do with fat value IP (or OOP) on a board where you shouldn't have the nuts and are unlikely to outdraw them? Raise anyway? Slowplay?

Certain Vs will overcall twice with TT on the button, others will 3! with a caller in-between. Others still will call-4! Knowing which bucket this V falls into is helpful. TT isn't very many combos, and 98s should be an unlikely call at this SPR. Maybe you x-OOP and V lets you off the hook? (Despite sub's point about range-x 3b pots.) But I think this is hard to dodge AP.

As it is, this is a BBV thread, but adding more live reads would be helpful for you for the future.

Ooof. I can see why...

As a genuine question: IYE, what is the prevalance of raises you've seen when cbetting OOP as the 3bettor pf, on a board like this one where the 3b range shouldn't connect with it at all, and V's might?

In the games I've played (I'll be the first to say I lack the experience of pretty much all posters here), it's awfully damned high. Maybe those players were insanely aggro, I dunno? Cbetting 1/3 on T76r after a ~6x squeeze, would earn me a raise about 3/4 of the time. Even with an SPR like 2.5.

The only questionable street is the flop, as others have already said.

Just to avoid misunderstandings: of course you should not range check flop oop as the aggressor pre, much less HU.
However, this flop favors btn's range way more than yours, plus you have whiffed it with your specific hand, so I like a check (much) better here.

I'd be curious to know what a solver does in this spot (yes, I admit that sometimes I use this forum with the hope that someone runs sims for me ... )

Yes, maybe at equilibrium. I get what you mean and that massive exploitative adjustments can be made playing live low stakes. Personally, my belief is that the player pool at these stakes overcall flops and overfold turns, and I agree that one can over realize equity through aggression in these games.

Marc Goone is a big advocate of checking range OOP, but I'm not sure if that includes 3bet pots. There is certainly something to be said for simplifying strategy when OOP and range checking rather than splitting on the flop certainly makes things a lot simpler from a theoretical point of view.

I got Pio five or six years ago, but I'm by no means an expert with it, and in general I don't use it that much. However I recently had a bad downswing playing live and decided to get back to doing some studying; hence the posts on this forum and the solver work etc. Pokercode sounds interesting, were you referring to their Youtube stuff?