Hand analysis

Effective stacks here are 400 BBs because of the straddle, which is deep, of course, but not insanely deep for a live game.

That said, I would much rather flat here preflop with 60 BBs in front of me than 400 BBs in front of me. If we are shallow, crai all in on the flop becomes much more viable.

This is pretty funny. I have played a little bit with this kid (I am also a New England-area player) and keep up with his vlog output. I watched this episode and figured you must be a massive whale, haha.

Clearly you aren't, and I have enjoyed reading your thread, but this is a very high variance approach to the game. I don't doubt that you have big winning sessions (and are even winning big over an extended sample) but, as GG alluded to, if you are regularly putting in 250bb with Q8o and raise-calling AA for piles on this turn, things can go south fairly easily. Good luck and maybe see you on the felt sometime!

Ha, haaaa! Yes, I'm sure that one raised a few eyebrows. Dukey had me pegged as a guy who plays wide on the button (good insight), but because I play a tight game, he also concluded that any big bet would equate to big cards. That's the advantage of being a TAG...you can leverage your table image into monstrous bluffs.

In heavily limped games I will open any ace, king or queen when on the button or cut-off. I learned that trick from an online pro who talked about leveraging position over hand strength. Those overcards provide just enough equity to make it a profitable play overall.

Once a month I go to Encore in Boston to play the 5/10 game which usually plays with a $20 straddle. In that game I play STRICT to a GTO hand chart and never open outside of it. That game has some serious players and if you don't know what you're doing, you will definitely get hurt. Happy to say I've walked away a winner 3 out of the 4 times. The only reason I had a $900 loss during my first outing is because I didn't realize they did a $20 straddle which totally threw me off. I was not sure exactly how to play hands when the action folded so often to the button or the small blind. This forum helped a lot in plugging that leak. The second time I walked away with $4,000 and each time after I've been the player with the most chips. I'll be there again next week and will hopefully keep up the trend!

Without understanding the nature of the math, you can't know if your exploits are effective or not. In the first hand, apparently you were trying to exploit, but ended up being exploited yourself.

1: why would we believe that a" ultra aggressive" player is going to fold 55 pre-flop to a three bet? If anything, a three-bet pot should motivate this opponent to be even more aggressive with this particular flop. The flop was quite bad for your three bet range, and quite good for the buttons Three bet calling range. So I reject your assumption that you would have won a small pot pre.

2: V was bluffing this hand, but the reason why he felt confident to barrel away at this runout is because his range absolutely crushed yours. He had both the range advantage and the nut advantage the whole way. To know whether or not your passive approach pre-flop and on the flop is profitable, we need to do the math and figure out what his range might be and how often he might be bluffing.

3: If our exploit is that V bluffs too frequently, then I do not see how the river can ever be a fold. We are getting great pot odds, and the reality is that V does not have that many hands with a single club that would have 3! turn. If we were good on the turn because if V is bluffing too much, then we are good on the river too. I find it very hard to believe that V is over bluffing so much as to make this line profitable, because he has so much value that he can bluff a ton and it is printing for him, especially if we are calling flop calling turn and then folding river. Maybe he is bluffing too much, so maybe there is an exploit here. We have to be willing to call every single river if that is our assumption. If you are going to exploit, exploit. You can't play passively, and allow him to bloat the pot as an exploit, and then fold when our pot odds are the best.

4: The second scenario you offer, is completely different. The reason we want to three bet aces is in order to build a large pot with a great hand. The first scenario was a case of a SRP, where we allowed V to determine the size of the pot and when it would grow. If the flop came AK7 would V have been willing to put in over $1,000? I doubt it.

In the second scenario, the pot has already been 4!, and if V calls, we should have a nice, easy path to get all the money in on a lot of runouts because spr is low. So a flat call probably is best and I don't think you'd find anyone here who would argue that a call is outright bad.

But then on the flop, we use a sizing that allows us to be easily played. And obviously V is not a typical 1/3 fish, he finds the correct fold. All the dynamics point to a very small flop bet or a check. The side pot is dry, we cold called a four bet, and now we are leading into the guy who initially 3!. I would check 100% of the time here, but I think an argument can be made for a small stab like 25% pot looking to bet/bet/bet. A big bet here screams JJ-AA and lets V off the hook. You aren't making this bet with AK. Once we build up the side pot a little, it becomes a lot more difficult for V to get away.

We shouldn't fear the flush draw in that situation, because the most likely player to have the flush draw is the one who is all in.

Honestly this entire thread feels like some kind of stupid ad to get players to go play these games where people are spewing $1ks by clicking buttons and pretending they are Tom Dwan.
But feel free to make another post "explaining" your genius 30x raise with Q8o and then the min. click 4bet praying for a fold "it's not spew if it gets through" indeed.

I mean, facts don't match reality.
H had AA from the straddle and V had 55!c from BTN on 4c9h7c Tc

vs. hero's exact hand "obviously" you can pile money in with lots of bluffs ... but there's no reason H can't have nut flushes on the turn, and esp. on the river.

And to put it as kindly as I can, I just don't see either H or V doing much range analysis at any point in any hand.

I didn't say H couldn't have the nuts - but many of H's Acx combos would play differently preflop and on the flop a large portion of the time, while Vs Acx combos would play this way nearly 100% of the time.

If you were in Vs seat, aren't you discounting Hs AK/AQ significantly and AJ/AT/A5 slightly?

Then when flat calling the flop, a reasonable V might discount A9cc, Ac9 which would x/r sometimes.

So H only has cc of A2,3,6,8 pure. While V has every Axcc combo pure going to the turn. Additionally, V has all the sets while Hs failure to x/r the flop discounts those a ton.

The flop was relatively good for a flat from the BB, but by failing to x/r that advantage goes away on such a wet and dynamic board. Going to the turn V has more very strong hands. Hs range is super weak because the flop really demands big hands and strong draws start building a pot.

i missed this but did one or both of ya'll go to St johns College or similar?

I'd probably discount AA a lot more than AQs.

No. But they teach Plato's Republic in a lot of universities. 😀

I don’t remember where my head was when I first responded but rereading the post and some responses - I think there’s good general advice being stated but just as a guardrail regarding very deep stack play: hands like AA aren’t the nuts post flop anymore, ESPECIALLY when villains are loose gamblers on run outs this deep without some back door equity -(as in not all the time but usually) It’s still a great hand but not one we’re fist bump taking to the felt this deep unimproved.

The repop to 500 is wildly reckless to me and now knowing the hand he held too, if anything you should be ****ing salivating. This dude is sending 400bbs in with a pair of 5s on a 4 club board without a club? Dude: this is gonna be so easy to re-extract this temporary setback. Think of it as a cash flow problem and less of a loss. It’s flowing in the wrong direction for that moment, but if this is normal start for this player they are only gonna win vs passive weak tight opponents and when they’re on a heater.

Even on a four club board you’re gonna find a call there with something lower than a flush sometimes.

I’m not sure I love calling the 500 on the turn tho. And I failed to address this in my prior post - and reading that again it almost sounds like I glossed over/was unconcerned, which was bad job on my part.

Taking AA to the mat 400bbs deep on this board unless you know he overvalues too pair way too heavily seems like a bad play. I’m not sure what I missed when I responded earlier if I thought you had the A flush but I should’ve been more explicit bout the turn decision because it sets up expectation for a pricey river.

But as said earlier if he’s taking a line like this 55 it’s gonna be easy to reapportion the funds

So much to follow up on!

To Yamihere:

1. Villain is aggressive, but he's not a maniac and he's not stupid. This is someone who plays a solid game. he opens a lot of hands and will three bet more often than I think he has it. By the same token, when players are aggressive, it doesn't mean that they can't figure out when they're behind. As I said before, a three-bet coming from the big blind is a pretty clear message that I've got a very strong hand. I also specifically said that we don't know for certain if he would have called or not if I did 3-bet him, but more than likely he would have which is what I described in my previous post.

2. On this point --- where I feel that aficionados of this game sometimes overthink things --- is that you are trying to play 4 levels up, and as Alec Torelli would say, play only ONE level. I know from the outset that I am way ahead pre-flop. It's basically 80/20 or at worst it's 75/25. I took a very calculated risk in playing OOP in favor of disguising my hand. Yes, when the flop comes it favors him more than it favors me, but it doesn't mean that he's ahead and sometimes players trying to do higher math overlook this. The odds are in my favor that he's still behind. He didn't flop a flush or a straight. At best he could have a set but he's worse than 1 in 8 to have done that. When the 10 comes, no help to a straight but a possible flush which is still not all that likely. Knowing this player's tendencies, I'm willing to bet that he's trying to get away with one and I was correct on that.

3. "I do not see how the river can ever be a fold". Ummm...maybe because he tried to bluff me on the turn and it didn't work so he might not want to blow the rest of his significant wad in the process...? He gambled big time that I did not have any club, and yes, it paid off in that instance, but he just as easily could have been lighting his money on fire. As I said earlier, run those cards out 10 times and probably 7 out of 10 I end up taking it.

4. In this other situation, I see guys go all-in on this allllll the time. Checking it though is inviting trouble IMO. If a turn card comes and makes two-pair or a set which we see constantly in this game, then that's a quick way to lose this monster and have it blowing up in your face.

To illiterat:

I play a big isolation game. What I don't do is follow some generic formula where I put in a standard 4BB opening bet that has a table full of callers. Every game plays to a different level where you have to find the "temperature" of the table and discern what amount will narrow the field down to just one or two callers. Would you rather open to $15 and get 5 callers or open to $75 and get 1? Both generate the same amount of villain-money in the pot. The argument for the former is that H only risks $15 to do that while I'm risking $75. The argument against is that I don't have to navigate through five other players to get the win. Instead, I go head's up. I've shown great strength and the hand plays out on my terms. Having done it the other way in the past, I can tell you that this approach is soooo much easier, and for me it's far more successful. I can't tell you how many times after players fold that they then tell the player next to them about how if they had stayed in the hand they would have taken it down. The ironic part is that when I play the 5/10/20 game, all I ever need to bet from every position is 2.5BB or just $50 and I get the requisite folds. It's very, very, different because the players are seasoned and they don't play junk. Get a table full of deep-stacked limpers and it's critical to get your opening sizings right to whittle it down. I didn't start really winning until one pro in particular spelled it out, "The name of the game is isolation. Find the number of each game that gets it down to only one and no more than two callers." So with my Q8 that fired back, I explained already that I only play it from the button/CO and only in the limped games. When I play a hand like that, most of the time I'm just scooping up dead money, sometimes I have to fold it and other times I fire back big. Boys and girls, what does GTO say to do when you have AK OOP against a 3-bet? You go all in. Why? Because it's profitable. I can tell you that it's very profitable with low-grade hands as well IF you choose your spots carefully. Not because GTO or any higher math says it is. It's because of understanding general human nature. Do you really want to take a $500 chance that I don't have AA or KK? Exactly.

To BB_Love

Thanks for your responses on my posts. Very helpful! Yes, the way you describe it as being a setback is exactly my mentality. In fact, I would call it more of an investment where the information will help in the next big tango :-)

Grunch:

Not 3betting pre is bad. If you're not 3betting anything because you're not comfortable playing this deep OOP to an aggro player that's one thing, though it implies it may be time to go home or change tables. If you have any 3bets here at all, removing your best hand from your raising range is suboptimal.

Flop is fine.

Turn is LOL. You waited until your hand is a bluffcatcher, then started bluffing. It's the exact opposite of what you should do. I'd rather fold than raise but I'm not doing either.

Grunch: haven't read any other posts yet, but I'll be surprised if people haven't already said you shouldn't slow play AA pre from OOP this way. Just put in the 3B. At low stakes, I'd go bigger than we're "supposed" to according to theory. If the BTN opens to $35 I'm raising to $175.

The rake in lower stakes games is a profit killer, so we don't mind taking pots down pre flop (assuming that means pre-rake), and otherwise want the pot to be as large as possible when we have a strong hand.

I'm not a proponent of betting or raising "for information", but that's mostly a post-flop consideration, when we learn more when we check. When we're pre-flop, betting and raising is the only way to get information that will help define our opponents' hands.

We can 3B pre, and be happy to get stacks in if our opponents want to 4B. We can still check flop from OOP and be less concerned about giving up the betting lead when the pot is larger. It's harder to play SRP's from OOP with a larger SPR.

As for this hand, it's a hot mess. If I'm teleported to the flop after not 3B'ing pre, and checked, I'd be check raising huge on this very dynamic board, especially with no club or backdoor straight potential.

Once we flat call flop, we're somewhat handcuffed into playing our hand as a bluff catcher. Raising the turn is just terrible. When he 3B's over our check raise, I'd insta-fold. We shouldn't even see the river, but if we do, it's a trivial check-fold, unless we want to turn our hand into a wild bluff and donk-jam from up front, which is borderline suicidal, and not recommended.

Even players who bluff a ton catch real hands just as frequently as anyone else. Until the turn you have absolutely no idea what he could have because you have taken zero actions to force him to narrow his range. You seem to have just assumed he is bluffing too much. Maybe he is, but my point is that he can be +EV while bluffing a ton on this runout when you play this passively. That's what the math shows, and ultimately poker is a math game. Failing to raise pre-flop is one thing, but if you did it as an exploit, you made a charlie foxtrot of the way you played the rest of the hand. You managed to lose $600 while having a hand that was ahead the entire time. The only logic for playing the hand this way is that you "know" he is going to barrel off too often. Yet even with that logic, you failed to call down the last bet ensuring that you lost the absolute max, and declined every opportunity to seize control of the hand and put pressure on his weak value/bluffs. Either the guy is bluffing super wide, or we should have folded turn. Calling turn and then failing to call the river is just baffling to me. When you called the turn, did you seriously expect him to give up on bluffs on the river? When V 3!s here, he is super polarized. He either has a play for stacks hand, or he has complete air. He isn't on a club draw.

He wasn't gambling that much because your actions made it clear that you almost never have a club. His big gamble was on the turn, where you still could have had several flushes in your range. When you flat call the $500 and then check the river, live players just aren't nutted taking that line. If you had shipped all in OTT, then he has to consider he might have ran into a brick wall. If you shipped the river, he has to consider you have a club. Heck, maybe if you bet tiny like $100, then he might have to give up. But so far, you made one aggressive action the whole pot - you x/r the turn. Which is reasonably strong, but doesn't match your pre-flop or flop play to tell a convincing story. He didn't buy the story and responded with aggression.

His actions are consistent with almost every club combo in his opening range. He has a ton of flushes, you don't. Especially when you check the river. That's why V should be shoving anything but SDV here. If he has a SDV hand that will win like a set, he should check. But with almost all his flushes and all of his bluffs, he should be jamming because you need to find a call about 80% of the time against his bluffs, while he likely has value more frequently than 20% of the time. If you were so sure he was bluffing the turn, I don't know where that certainty went on the river. The turn call was horrendous, it was absolutely wrong in any mathematical way. The only way to salvage it as a sane play is as a soul read that he was bluffing. But the action on the river isn't consistent with that soul read.

I would expect 100% of Vs bluffs that have gone this far are sticking in the last amount when we check. If he is going to check back and lose to pocket jacks, that's a disaster and makes his turn bluff a complete burn. He opted to pursue the idea of taking an underpair and pushing it hard as a bluff. Usually the solver prefers to use 22 or 33 in this type of line, but the idea is certainly sound - it unblocks a lot of hands that can fold, has a smidgen of SDV against the weakest bluff catchers, can occasionally catch a miracle runout for a strong hand and is near the bottom of the opening range. He arrived at the river with no real SDV, the pot was huge and the last card was a scary one, so its a necessary shove if you're going to play this line. Taking this line is like a 10% or less option in solverland, but if you're going to go down it, you need to commit. If V is doing this all the time with every combo of underpairs, then he is barrelling off way too frequently and the best response is to play back with aggression. If he is taking this line rarely when he senses weakness, you're dealing with a very dangerous opponent.

You seem to be implying that you would call if the river was anything other than a club? If we believe V is likely on a club draw, we should just gii on the turn. I view calling turn with a plan to fold to a club river as a mistake because the fourth club makes it more likely V is bluffing. The reason is that I don't think V is 3!ing much with a FD. After getting x/r, a one club hand is going to be far more comfortable calling and trying to catch river rather than raise to a commiting size where if H has a made flush or a set might just jam forcing V to call off while obviously way behind. So unless V is a clueless maniac, I would expect that his range when 3!ing turn is primarily made flushes and sets for value and bluffs that don't have a club. As a result, when the Kc comes, V just lost a huge portion of his value range, because a lot of his cc hands include the K. I think his range is still value heavy, but it's a lot less value heavy on the river than the turn.

oh yeah i dont doubt it. jsut the "forever applicable/lives rent free in the head" felt like it nudged it in my alma mater specific direction; b/w there were a few other folks i didnt realize went to my college WITH me that were on here for a time (goin back but Georgia Avenue of bbv4l/oot hall of famer) so even tho the school was small as ****, i'm here to be surprised to learn/see a wild coincidence.

I find it hard to believe you put this spot in a solver. Esp. with a solver line that is 7x preflop and 2/3 pot on the flop.
Trying a hacky "normal" GTOwiz 9max CO vs. BB and solver starts checking almost all AA without a club and all 55 on turn. Even 88 is a pure check, JJ will bet even without a club but then folds ~99.5% to the raise (to be fair that ~0.5% of the time it will 3bet turn, and then shove the Kc river).

Solver does bet turn with 33/22 (but doesn't bet flop much even for it's 33% size) but pure folds to the raise without a club.

So the assumption that a solver is magically blasting 55!c on turn and 3betting it 10% of the time seems ... unlikely.

Almost as unlikely as V giving this anywhere near the kind of analysis you're trying to do.

This might be an amazing population read, but it's not backed up by a solver where it's mixing TT between shove/check on the river and is shoving the AcQx hands that got there.
To be fair the solver range is constructed in such a way that JJ/TT are half checks and 99 is a pure check ... but pretty much everything else is shoving.

Ah, but I do have an idea of what he has or doesn't have because I'm familiar with the player. Likewise, he doesn't know exactly what I have but he has his ideas. Sometimes the line of logic in these threads is like some theoretical one-way street that in reality doesn't exist. I do find it both interesting and bizarre.

Look, the bottom line to ALL of this is, are you winning? Is what you are doing working for you? If what you all are doing has made you winning players then you should stick with your methods. What I'm doing is winning what I would consider to be significant sums and it's happening at all stakes across hundreds and hundreds of hours. With this one hand, I was just curious if anyone could see a reason to make the call at the end and the general answer is "no," so I appreciate the feedback.

I'm so confused.

We slow-play a monster pre, to trap our too-aggro V who likes to bluff, then instead of letting V blast off and playing our hand as a bluff-catcher, we decide to turn our hand into a bluff with a check-raise on a flush and straight-completing turn, then we call a 3B, but then we fold the river getting 2.6 to 1, and it turns out V was bluffing, and we folded the best hand?

So we wanted to play a big pot, but then we didn't, and settled for losing $585 to a guy we know likes to bluff, and who in fact turned out to be bluffing?

Did I get all that right?

I mean...if what you're doing is working for you, don't let anyone here persuade you to stop doing it.

Call me crazy, but if V is too aggro, and likes to bluff, I think I'd just 3B him pre, and hope he 4B's light, or calls too wide, and tries to bluff us off our hand on the flop, when we're definitely not folding.

Say we make it $175 pre. He folds 55. Fine. He 4B's with 55. Awesome. He calls with 55. Okay. The pot will be over $350 on the flop. We c-bet $120, and he makes it $500. Okay, let's party. We 3B-jam, because FAFO.

We could also just check to induce him to bet, then put in an obnoxious check-raise for a huge size. I like c-betting the flop better than checking, but even if we check and he c-bets, maybe he c-bets big, perhaps even full pot, and just folds to our x/r.

We could have won $525-$675 and taken it down on the flop. Instead we "sniffed it out", and it only cost us $585.

Well, I think I explained about a half-dozen times why I deviated from my normal approach which would have been to 3B and play it as most have suggested, but let's try another angle. I flat his initial raise, and yes, by his shenanigans on the turn I have "sniffed it out" that the guy is bluffing BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT HE DOES....lol...hellloooo... and for that reason that I'm making another calculated decision that he does not have me beat on that street...and I'm right...yes, I was right...100%...thank you! I have him firing a big reraise to get me out which is great because he's now committed. I am taking this all the way unless another club comes, which it does, BUT (and here is where it should be simple math) the club is less than 1 in 4 to do that. 3 out of 4 times I am taking the hand down and the player likely shoves at the end no matter what so I stack him. Yes, it works for me to stack this player 3 out of 4 times doing it this way. Give him one...take three. In fact, that REALLY works for me. Like, I-am-loving-it works for me. My original question was solely to see if there was any way that it would make sense to call with the 4th club.

There you go! Simple, easy to understand...the only thing missing was drawings. I will try to include those next time :-)

Oooohhhh....maths.

Now I get it....except, I don't. Maybe because I think I understand variance?

You're starting $2k deep. You're putting your entire $2k stack at increased risk on every street by taking the line you have here, in the hopes of winning another $450 on the river.

Your hand progressed from nuts to bluff-catcher to bluff to dust because you got greedy and thought you were brave but actually turned out to be scared. That's quite a fancy play.

Most good players (and most bad players, for that matter) would try to get more money for their hand when they know it's best, or at least have good reason to believe it's best. You managed to lose the max while risking the max.

You could have just taken a less "creative" line, and added $500-$700 to your stack. Instead you torched $600.

For all your bluster, there's no guarantee your V was going to bluff off the rest on the river, and if he spikes the 5h, and jams, you get stacked. I can just imagine that thread, "Can we call a LAG V's jam with our under-repped and slow-played AA on this board when every conceivable draw gets there?....Oh, BTW, V was bluffing and I actually had him the whole way but he rivered a set. How bad do I run?"

What if the river isn't another club, but completes a straight, or pairs the board, possibly making him trips? Are you calling a jam on any 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, T or J that isn't a club? That's 21 cards.

So, you're folding on any of the 9 clubs, because he has to have a flush when he jams, because he's always bluffing on earlier streets, but you're calling on any of those 21 other cards, because even though he's always bluffing on those earlier streets, he was ONLY bluffing with flush draws, but NOT straight draws, and not combo-draws, or pairs?

It sounds like you're saying he's not crazy enough to bet the river without a flush, but then you said he showed 55 with no club (no flush). He actually was bluffing, the whole way, with just a measly PP, with no draw.

So...yeah, all I'm taking away from this is that you decided you were going to let this guy bluff off all his money to you, but then you $hlt your drawers when he actually tried to do it, and couldn't find the call button, so you let him take you for $600 and made you look stupid and chicken-$hlt in the process.

Tell us more about how awesome you are at this game.

Seriously, WTF is going on in this forum? Marc-lose-e-oh and bb love both posted rambling screeds last night lambasting everyone and claiming how brilliant they both are.

My answer was "yes" - if you're going to play this crazy line based on the assumption V is bluffing when he 3!s $500 on the turn, the river is an absolute mandatory call imo. Everyone is saying you shouldn't have put yourself in that position in the first place, but once you get to the river- it's a call.

If you're that certain of your read, you should have jammed turn and made him fold, jammed river yourself, or call him down. All three options would have won you this pot, and while a losing line long term, maybe V is bluffing way too much so it's an exploit. Calling the $500 and folding to the river jam is the worst possible option, both in theory and in this actual hand.

I see what you did there.