2/5/10: Bink the nuts $2k deep and facing a PSB

I feel a call induces more spazz than a shove 4ways.

I don’t hate the shove though.

I really like your call OTF btw. Personally, I would check this most of the time as well if there are no leads.

Grunch: OTF, I think flatting is ok, though I don't think worse flush draws fold to a raise. What would you do with QQ? I think I like making it ~$270 here, which is what I'd do with QQ/KK/22/44.

On the turn, we have like $1200 left to bet if we just call, and there will be ~2k in the pot? I think we just call, overall I think that is what our range wants to do. But vs someone who is super nitty, who is going to check the river with a low flush on a blank card if we think/call the turn, then think/jamming the turn is good.

Are we folding if the board pairs and V shoves river ? if so I shove turn.
If we are calling all river action then I'm calling turn so as not to lose V and maybe pick up button call

You can go ahead and never have a flatting range when facing a big bet with action behind you in a multiway pot.

If you’re ever gonna get frisky with a flat, nut flush with another broadway flush blocker isn’t bad hand selection, which is something you might consider if raising boxes out all the promising action. But 1) it’s a higher variance option that it sounds like you wouldn’t have the stomach for this deep and 2) the bettor is likely very nutted here, you’re mega deep against them, and no one left to act is enough of a drooler that it got mentioned in your reads, so I don’t think it’s favorable EV wise anyway.

I would probably raise the small flop donkbet.

With this action, and this hand, in this spot, I probably just jam and pray he doesn't find a hero fold. Calling is going to look nutted, whereas when you jam, you could have some bluffs. If the river is another diamond or board-pairing card, that would just suck.

I'd rather have an AXdd combo that unblocks some more good flush draws, but V could have KXdd here, very likely KJdd when he calls flop and leads turn. Maybe also KTdd.

Is the determining factor the bet size (big), or the fact that there's action behind, or it's multi-way, or some combination thereof? Can you elaborate on this a bit for the dummies here (like me)?

It’s all 3 combined. It doesn’t hold true when they’re not in combination with each other.

The scenario is not unlike cold calling preflop*, and you might notice the factors that might make you exploitatively flat aren’t dissimilar. There’s really no incentive to condense our range with a call given how strong our continuing range needs to be, how low our share of the MDF is, etc.

*The sizing part’s kinda complicated in this comparison, and you basically have to treat all raises as “large” in standard cash game scenarios because of how the dead money math works out, blah blah blah.

Ask yourself this question: if you had AA with the Ad here, would you be turning your hand into a bluff and shoving this turn? I would think the answer is probably not, so go ahead and shove here.

I don’t think there is any doubt shoving is the best play against Villain. The big question is whether we make more allowing the button to call (or raise) behind us. I don’t think so, so I just jam now.

I mean...we're not folding AdAx, are we? And are we just flatting turn, to fold river if V jams on a brick, knowing he's check-folding on another diamond? Wouldn't the only play be to jam AdAx and let the poker gods decide our fate?

in my experience most players will fold worse flushes to a jam at these stacks except for kx flushes. i doubt anyone has a set. so id just call.

He just potted 4 ways in a big pot 400bb eff. Count to 20 and say all in, this is always the Kdd.

The simplest way I can think to explain it is that raising and calling each serve strategic functions.

We all know the advantages of betting/raising, and that's why we're good little b/f monkeys. These actions increase the amount of money you earn when you win the pot and/or deny equity (regardless of whether it does so by getting better hands to fold or by getting worse hands that had equity to fold).

Checking/calling, on the other hand, allows you to realize equity cheaper. This only tends to only be favorable for a condensed range of hands that have good enough equity to want to see showdown and/or another card, but not so much equity that they get value from their opponent's continuing range.

But betting/raising can be favorable for any part of your range: your nutted range gets value, your low-equity hands can win despite not having a prayer at showdown, and your medium-equity hands can win without being subject to the vicissitudes of further action.

So keeping things simple, you always have a strategic choice for how to form your range. Do you:

1) Polarize your range by betting/raising your hands that are good enough to extract value as well as your hands that aren't good enough to want to see showdown/another card, and then check/call the hands in between? Or

2) Forgo checking/calling entirely and just bet/raise all your hands, essentially just selecting hands in order of how good they are?

When facing a large bet with other players left to act, you should never be raising the action with low equity hands. Their range is so strong and you only need to continue with such an infinitesimal range that you can easily approximately capture your theoretical EV share in the pot by continuing only with your best hands, and therefore, not bothering with the condensed, in-between portion of your range and just raising a linear range.

Obviously caveats abound. I'm not going to accurately describe the entire game tree of poker in 5 paragraphs, so nobody @ me with pedantry.

Hard to believe this is a set, as why would he bet large now when the flush comes in, but not on the flop to charge the flush draws? For this particular type of player it doesn't make sense. Something like KJdd, JTdd, or KTdd fits the pattern.
could the BB player have 44/22? Perhaps OP has detected a physical tell that the other players in the hand have checked the fold box and are no longer interested...

I like a shove. Looks more as if you have the naked Ad in your hand. Flat is OK, but I don't think you get much more on the river, especially if another diamond hits.

That all makes sense. Thank you.

I don't see many people calling a small bet on the flop with AAd and then shoving ~2k with it on the turn, hoping for folds or to hit a 15%er.

Sure, if we are looking for bluffs random AdX hands that called flop are the obvious ones ... but how often do we get here with that? Why did we just call the flop, why would we then decide that the best thing to do is bluff shove turn?

I think both actions look very strong, but if anything I don't see most people having bluffs here ... but a bunch of people could have "good" hands that don't always want to put all the money in. JJ/44/22 are kind of obvious. QdJd or JdTd are also possible.

Also, from random experience, when you shove turn a lot of people will start thinking "WTF just happened" and if this is ever not the nuts ... but when you call with position the only way they find a fold on the river is if they check.
JJ, or sets in general, maybe shrug call it off. And for some people any flush they have also shrug calls it off (but then they also do the same on the river), but it doesn't take a huge brain to start thinking about being beat when you bet huge and get shoved on with KdTd here.

Realistically I think the only way to appear to have a wider range on the turn is if we raised flop.

I play against a lot of players who shove the naked Ad here. I can't imagine flatting w/ it and having to sigh-fold the river. I play with a lot of players who can't fold KdXd, too 😉

Those of you who advocate a call, is that what you'd do w/ AdJx, for example? Just call turn / give up blank river? Do you ever expect to get paid on a diamond river?

In general if you’re ever not sure what to do with the nuts and an SPR anywhere near 1 I would default to ripping it in.

Everybody check out this guy, making reasonable points on the innerwebz.

I had to go back and re-read the OP after reading your post. Here goes:

"I don't see many people calling a small bet on the flop with AAd and then shoving ~2k with it on the turn, hoping for folds or to hit a 15%er."

To be fair, how often do you see a hand play out this way, specifically meaning the BB donks for around 1/4 pot into four opponents on the flop, then checks turn, and some rando pre-flop limp-caller snatches the betting lead with a PSB?

It's not like it's a spot people study so they're prepared when it happens. So, conceivably, hero might flat the flop with AdAx, rather than announce to everyone, "Hey, guys, don't bother, I've got better than AJ here! I've got an over-pair and a BDFD to the nuts!"

Theory says the PFR can check big over-pairs when they have the FDFD suit (and particularly without the BDFD suit). If that's so, then I'd think theory would be okay flatting the flop donk with AdAx.

That's kind of the point of the thread, I think - no one's studied this spot, because it's not really something that's ever supposed to happen. We're making this $hlt up as we go.

"Sure, if we are looking for bluffs random AdX hands that called flop are the obvious ones ... but how often do we get here with that? Why did we just call the flop, why would we then decide that the best thing to do is bluff shove turn?"

If, let's say, we raised pre with AdKx, or any AX combo with the Ad, that isn't AJdd or AdJx, would we necessarily fold to a 1/4 pot donk here? Wouldn't we often continue with a fair bit of AdXx, for the express purpose of taking the betting lead if another diamond rolls off?

I know I would. I've made it here with plenty of trashy offsuit aces, and not just as the PFR. I got a guy to fold a set in this exact spot two weeks ago, with just bottom pair and the naked ace of the flush suit on a three-flush board. Dude thought maybe three seconds before folding his middle set (TT) face up.

The reason the bluff works so well is people just assume we always have it and are never bluffing, and we're not slow-playing because, as Java rightly points out, we're never getting paid if the river is another flush card.

"I think both actions look very strong, but if anything I don't see most people having bluffs here ... but a bunch of people could have "good" hands that don't always want to put all the money in. JJ/44/22 are kind of obvious. QdJd or JdTd are also possible."

I see people go HAM here with the stiff Ad all the time, even more so on the flop with AJdd, so I'd be somewhat discounting anyone having AJdd on the turn, removing one of the potential NFD combos that flats the flop from opponents' value ranges.

I think people are going to have a hard time folding sets before the river, but not struggling as much to release QJdd or JTdd.

If they do have sets, I'd think our made flushes want to extract as much value as they can before the river, and our bluffs want to fold out as many of those hands as possible, but also don't necessarily mind getting called on the turn when they can still improve to a made hand on the last card.

"Also, from random experience, when you shove turn a lot of people will start thinking "WTF just happened" and if this is ever not the nuts ... but when you call with position the only way they find a fold on the river is if they check.
JJ, or sets in general, maybe shrug call it off. And for some people any flush they have also shrug calls it off (but then they also do the same on the river), but it doesn't take a huge brain to start thinking about being beat when you bet huge and get shoved on with KdTd here."

The "WTF just happened" thought is exactly what we want when we jam AdXx. The checking from OOP on the river is exactly why we jam with both value and our NFD's on the turn - we know they're checking river when we call their pot sized turn donk.

Someone would have to be brain dead to not at least consider they may be beat with KXdd here, but that doesn't mean they're folding the 2nd nuts, for the same reason those same opponents have a hard time releasing their sets.

To the point Raise Announced seemed to be making - we shouldn't really have flat calls here. We should either raise or fold. Even our sets should be a fold, unless we think the nut flush is paying us off when the board pairs, and we're getting the correct implied odds, but that seems like a low-frequency / low-probability occurrence.

If we're only ever jamming with the nuts, then our opponents should always fold. If we ever jam with just the naked Ad, then our opponents have to call with some hands, and KXdd has to be in there at some frequency, I'd think.

"Realistically I think the only way to appear to have a wider range on the turn is if we raised flop."

I'm struggling to mentally construct a range that raises pre, and raises the flop donk, that would want to jam over the PSB on the turn.

The value seems obvious - pretty much any AXdd.

But what hands raise the flop, as a bluff, and then are still bluffing when they raise turn? Like, AdAx wasn't bluffing when it raised flop, but would be bluffing when it jams turn. Ditto and even more so for any KK/QQ combo with 1 diamond. Is anyone seriously raising the turn with just KdKx or QdQx?

JdJx is interesting - top set that raises flop for value, then gets downgraded, but can improve to the 4th nut flush (assuming the 4th nuts would win vs a worse flush) or fill up.

So, our turn jam value range is AXdd, and our turn bluff jam range is AdXx, and maybe JdJx, if JdJx gets to the turn the way hero got there. It just seems like AdXx has to be a jam some of the time.

you said this guy is an old asian nit or something? Easiest jam of your life. These guys will snap call with way worse than king flush. Like probably any flush. He's telling you he LOVES his hand, make him pay. There's also a non 0% chance he turned a goofy set, 2 pair, straight flush draw etc and will definitely try to chase. Nobody slides out a stack of green+ and then just lays it down unless you guys were like 10k deep.

I would shove. Don't want to let sets draw cheaply. Too many cards to kill the action or possibly beat you. Any diamond and any card getting paired.

It happens, sometimes, if only by accident 😉

For sure, it's a pretty unique spot ... but I usually start by trying to think about what my range looks like and when in the hand I'd want to bluff more/less. More earlier, and more vs. small bets, and even more with a small bet and a call (calling means more calls, raising means we squeeze the person who bet). Also if we can stack off to a 3bet, or should fold. Also the value of calling and bringing more people in to get "coolered" (Eg. Ad5d has a lot more value than AdQd and esp. AdKd for that).

So AdKd/AdQd/AAd/KKd/QQd/AdJx would be a lot of my "good, but not amazing" hands that would be happier to raise the flop small-bet+call, although I'm happier calling with AdKd/AdQd more than most of the other hands.

I've called AdKx HU here, but I'm not sure I call it on this flop to the donk+call ... would much rather raise it TBH. Even without the call I'd rather raise, it's not a great spot with two people behind to call and hope it's HU (as I'd want to be bluffing turn NFD into a range that's mostly not flushes).

Which is likely some of the problem ... I don't think my range is that big on the turn, and while it has some nut flushes I think I mostly want to protect the rest of my range with them. Also while it can have some AdX hands I also don't think it has a lot and they'd get here because they didn't want to bluff the flop for some reason and nothing happened to make it seem better to bluff now.

So if we change the action a bit, and H either raised the flop donk+call or nobody donked and H bet (or x/r) ... I'd be a lot more likely to shove with this hand, because I have a _lot_ more of AdX hands that might want to bluff so I need to protect those by shoving when I have it.

I think some people go HAM with bare Ad in not quite the same spot, a lot more than in this spot ... although there's for sure an argument that I'm the only idiot thinking about it that way and you can shove here as most people won't realize there's a difference.

Yeh, I'm pretty sure I have a few calls on the turn (Eg. JJ that gets here doesn't want to fold or shove IMO) ... even knowing GTO doesn't, and it's reasoning makes sense. I can probably live with being a bit worse than GTO, in this spot 😉.

I can also understand, and can get behind, the idea of "I'm pretty sure V is never/rarely folding, so shove turn because we have the nuts"