2/4 250bb: Top 2 & Busted Combo facing a 40% River Lead

Just call.

I like how the hand was played, now call.

i dont see how you can fold. yes he has 99 a ton but this could also be a block bet with A7 or something.

We're probably not folding him out pre if we 3bet, so calling was fine.

He called 50 into 75 otf, then 110 into 175 ott...I wouldn't rule out a slowly played set, I would think a pro would be more likely to do it than a rec who'd be more afraid of the flush, but the pro knows clubs is only a small part of hero's range and didn't wanna fold us out on that flop with a raise. The river donk is almost always a straight (if it's not a straight it's a set).

The river seems like a clear call for this price.

However, I'm surprised no one said anything about the PF call. After a solid player's raise UTG and a flat, the solver throws away A8s from the CO, presumably because:

1. Facing a reraise would suck;
2. Flopping TP with either the A or the 8 against a TAG's UTG raising raise in a multiway pot generally isn't going to end well;
3. Your only real chance of winning this hand is by making a flush.

I've played a fair amount of hours with this villain and have seen him slow play flopped sets all the way to the river (and only check-call with like the 5th nuts), which is more a deepstack than a nit strategy, I'd say. I don't know if he's RFIng 55, 66 or 77 that often tbh. More likely 88+ but it's possible he could have these lower pocket pairs. Preflop it looked like he was going to limp and then decided to raise, so maybe we could include a few of the bottom of range combos. Keep in mind that the table was relatively passive, so Villain is sharp enough to realise he would need to tighten his EP RFIs.

Agree that the river donk looks value heavy, especially the 40% size. In fact, I think I'm more comfortable snap-calling a 70% bet, even though price-wise he'd need more bluffs/over-valued combos for me to do so.

Agree, I would not include A7s in his RFI range. I would make a case for A4s and A5s, though; spades could call the flop and continue on turn.

I tend to agree, here. My thought process in game was: (a) should 3bet or fold (b) 3betting is not good because UTG will defend/4bet and BN or BB might cold call (c) I want to play more hands versus HJ in position (d) we're 200 bb deep (e) sigh call, feels like a mistake, though.

I'm constantly at war with this kind of thought process, especially when games are slow and you can't effectively isolate weaker players IP. Overcalling with suited aces and low pocket pairs in multiway pots is a regular pressure point for me and often becomes what you might call a slow, easily justifiable and yet ultimately damaging leak.

I agree with not 3betting. And I also understand why in a vacuum we want to fold. However, suited aces are exactly the kinds of hands where we can take advantage of the fact this this table is likely too passive. Seeing a flop for 1.5% of the effective stacks with a decent chance to make a big hand seems fine. The risk is someone else 3betting; but that seems like a small risk in this lineup.

I think this is a spot where we need to be extra careful that we aren’t misinterpreting why a solver does something.

I think your bet sizing is off. Assuming this is a low frequency bet, and given how our hand interacts with the board, I think I might bet pot on the flop, and then over-bet 1.5x pot on turn.

I doubt he's getting to the river with very many combos that make a straight. If he hung in there with a straight draw, I'd expect him to bet bigger.

If your read is right, hard to credit him with a flopped set. His flopped sets probably raise flop or turn. He's probably opening 88 from EP, so maybe he rivered a set. But that's just one combo of 88.

His 40% pot bet just looks like thin value going for a block, or a weak bluff trying to be efficient. No sense in turning our hand into a bluff by raising, on the off chance he does have us beat.

I would mainly fold pre. Preflop raiser has all the better aces and recs cold calling likely have hands like AJo. We know v's range is extra value heavy since he has limps. And it's not a particularly small open size either.

On the flop I prefer to bet smaller like 1/4 pot, even 1/2 pot. Our hand plays fine as a bet call with a smaller bet size, or even a bet 3bet.

Turn I think checking back or betting are probably close. The nice thing about betting is we build the pot when for when we improve on the river and we can check back river unimproved, naming our price when they don't donk bet.

I would just call river.

I tend to favour a fold, although being relatively deep (250bb), especially against the weaker players, could push the needle toward a call. My reasoning for calling was to get involved against HJ and BN more than Villain in UTG. That I encountered difficulties playing IP against Villain when I flopped and turned significant equity suggests a fold preflop was best (although maybe I just botched the river).

When I reviewed this hand I initially thought the same as you, docvail, that is, B100-B150, particularly as this is how I'd play some overpairs and nutted hands against certain players; however, UTG is rarely betting his overpairs on this board texture, OOP, multiway, so the reality is I might not even bet 88-TT in game. Maybe A7s, K7s, 87s function better as larger bets on this board.

I believe that in game, often when I'm not sure whether to bet or check, I tend to regress to a middling size, which is perhaps a mistake here, so what Mlark says makes some sense. I mean 1/4 multiway is a classic "pot-builder" and very game friendly, not to mention less exploitable, given that I can call or 3bet a raise. I do recall being decisive about being able to call/3bet when betting myself and would've been more inclined to check Ac2c-Ac4c for instance. I wonder what sizing I would have actually used with 89s, 76s, 55-77 in game, I'm guessing these hands are best betting at least pot, but if we're betting 1/4 with a high-equity draw shouldn't we also be betting 1/4 with the nuts, at least some of the time?

I don't mind a larger, more polarising bet on the turn, as UTG's range is mostly bluff-catching at this stage --- one of the reasons why I got so flummoxed by the blocker bet on the river, since I expected Villain to check; I mean, I wouldn't expect him to even consider turning JJ into a bluff on a club river, for instance, but maybe I'm pegging him as too much of a nit.

This is a flop that we aren’t going to bet very often and our bets are going to be strong so I would come out bombing with A8cc just like I would with 77 or 89.

I would check back turn; we don’t need a lot of protection and we allow him to bluff the river.

Betting a middling size between 1/2 and full pot is generally lower EV than betting much smaller or much larger, depending on what we want to accomplish by betting.

With our exact hand and this exact board, we have so much equity that I wouldn't be worried about UTG trapping (assuming that was your concern). If he wants to x/r here, I don't think we care what he has. We're 55% against AA, and 39% against 77. We can never be in terrible shape, so I just want to build the pot with geometric bet sizing, starting from the flop.

Betting small on the flop would make more sense if we were heads up, and / or if we thought V was likely to check-raise. A small flop bet generally equates to a bet you'd make frequently, both with value and with bluffs (a range bet).

But as one of the pre flop field callers, we're not going to be betting into four opponents very frequently at all - almost never as a bluff, and rarely if ever with thin value. Any bet looks like value, so we might as well size up, to get value from the hands in our opponents' ranges which are strong enough to call.

When we're multi-way, most V's are going to be less prone to check-raising, especially on a board like this - three to a straight, two to a flush, middling cards that are more likely to connect with the pre-flop callers' ranges than the UTG opener's range, such that his opponents will have way more nutted hands than he will.

If we bet full pot on the flop (or even over-bet the flop), we can clean up a lot of equity, and possibly get this heads up. Doubtful V is going to open UTG and fold to a $75-$80 bet when we're starting out >$1k deep, especially if he's used to playing higher stakes, and confident in his own abilities. He's likely to call with all his over-pairs, and any combo that has a FD or BD draw.

So, I'd bet $75-$80 on the flop, and then $250 on the turn, leaving about $650-$660 back to jam into a pot of $727-$737 on the river.

So overbetting flop and then checking turn is more indicative of a bluff line to you? You could be right. Certainly makes the river relatively straightforward. But I wonder do you also check a K or Q turn? Are you checking the Ace merely because we now have showdown?

I would keep bombing without showdown value. Ace bad kicker can get one more street of value and it might be best achieved by bluff catching.

I get the logic of betting large on flop and turn but wonder if this is more applicable to 100bb rather than 250bb effective. At 250bb effective, I'd be wary of shoving river as a bluff where we only have A high. I don't know how often this villain is calling turn with his bluff-catchers and folding to brick rivers, particularly if he unblocks clubs and 8x. It is a polarised line that he's willing to bluff-catch IMO. If the turn was a brick like 2d, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable barreling; I'd rather xb to realise our equity. Then again, you could be right that we're rarely bluffing 5ways and that Villain merely called flop because we're relatively deep and he has overpairs as well as some bdfds/overcards. Perhaps he planned to fold turns where he didn't improve in some way; in this respect a large turn bet does make sense, in conjunction with bluff-shoving non-club, non-9/4 rivers.

The deeper you are, the stronger you are supposed to be when you put your stack in play. For that reason, I would think that a decent or good player would call turn with some hands that he is willing to fold to a river shove.

The flip side is, if you think that Villain is only getting to the river with hands that will call such a big shove, those first 2 bets must have had massive fold equity.

(Not saying this is necessarily the spot for it, just saying in general. Bigger bets are more threatening with deeper stacks.)

Yes, I understand your point, and, theoretically, I believe what you say is correct. I mean, if I'm Marc Goone and I'd established that villain is capped after x-calling a 50% flop bet and turn OB, I can routinely bet 200%+ on a bunch of rivers with my A-high and print $. Part of the reason I'd would xb a 2d turn, in this example, with significant equity, is because I don't want to place myself in this kind of spot against a player type who can bluff-catch all 3 streets with one pair, especially when a wet/dynamic flop runs out brick-brick.

I'm not buying-in for 250bb to make these kinds of plays (I'm buying to cover to weaker players who are more likely to make other mistakes that are easier to exploit).

But your original point was that big flop and turn bets make more sense when shallower. I’m pretty sure they don’t; I think they’re at least as good when deeper.

At 100bb if we bet big on flop and turn, we don't really have much behind (b100-b100, leaves only $85 into $675 on the river, so it's essentially AI on turn). My point was that it's less of a commitment at shallower stacks, so was thinking more about easy value than fold equity. If we want to generate more FE and be more polarised, deeper stacks are better, as far as I can tell.

On reflection, I can see how deeper stacks (250bb) provide us with the option of bluffing river for a little over pot if we go 100% on flop and turn. Obviously, we can tweak sizings (e.g. smaller on flop) to allow for a larger (e.g. 1.5x) overbet on the river.

So if we want to be more polar and maximize FE, deeper is better; if we want to be more exploitative, maybe a little more risk-averse, and showdown heavy, shallower is better. I'm guessing a deeper and polar approach generates greater EV overall, but also that the type of game you're playing (e.g. composition of player types, stack sizes, etc.) and ability to execute deep stack, multi-street plays is relevant too.

I'm just outlining my thinking, based on a hodge-podge of theory I've consumed over the years (e.g. Andrew Brokos and more recently Hungry Horse/Marc Goone), so might well be making some incorrect assumptions.

On the turn A, if we don't have the best hand, we have 18 outs to make 2P, a straight, or a flush. If the turn was a brick, we still have 15 outs to hit our draw. So if we bluff turn, we're bluffing with a ton of equity.

If V called flop with two overs, he's likely to fold to our turn barrel on a brick. Even if he has an over-pair, we were repping a ton of strength on the flop, essentially repping a made hand. Even his over-pairs are going to have a hard time hanging on for three streets.

If he calls turn with AA, that sucks, because it takes away our 2P outs, but we still have 15 outs to a straight or flush, and we're still repping a made hand when we barrel.

Even if the river is just an 8, that puts a one liner to a straight on board. I'd still jam, only expecting to get looked up by 99.

The fold equity is higher when we're deeper stacked and our opponent is capped. So this big bet strat does fit the situation.

I don't think V is likely to think about unblocking 8x. Even though in theory we'd rather not have clubs if we jam river as a bluff, the question is not do we have better bluffs, it's what's the highest EV play.

When we go bet bet bet for large sizings, we're clearly setting up for a river jam, telling the story that we flopped a monster and were betting for value and protection.

When the board is wet and dynamic but the run-out is clean, it's a great spot to bluff.

https://youtu.be/RZs502lh4Q8?si=qMtRScuMy4k1NSqh

YouTube

Top 5 Spots to BLUFF in Live Poker

I don't disagree with the theory here and acknowledge that a more polar, b50-b200-b200 line, at 200bb+ effective, generates more EV over the long run. Appreciate the Marc Goone video (he does make it look so easy).

However, there are some significant differences in example #4 from this video and my hand insofar as (a) it's multiway and the PFR is a skilled reg UTG, so Marc Goone is likely folding Ac8c in the CO (he'd 3bet it versus a rec); and (b) the board in my hand is more connected than his example of J92ss.

Since Marc Goone is either 3betting or folding preflop he's more likely to be in a HU situation and confident that his opponent is capped on the flop. I believe that in live games on highly connected/wet boards like 567tt players are less capped and will not always fast play sets, two-pair and non-nut straights, especially multiway and relatively deep. Of course, the fact that Villain in my example is the only player who called the flop and his range is well-defined, given his preflop tendencies from EP, means he's capped more often.

Also, I'm not sure if Marc Goone would barrel the turn for 2x in my example, even if the turn was a brick rather than an Ace. I reckon he'd probably xb or bet small because we don't need to generate FE in this case, as we can bank on realising our actual equity often enough (plus we have a smidge of s/d with A high). I could be wrong here, though. Anyway, to fully apply Marc Goone's strategy to this hand I'd say we'd need to consider the scenario where the PFR was a weaker player who we 3bet and we were thus HU to the flop. I'm not sure we are even betting the flop in this HU scenario, given how it interacts with our 3bet range, but if we did c-bet then I'm still not sure we could conclude that villain is capped. If villain called flop and a brick turn then he's more likely capped on the river and prepared to fold to an overbet.