PAHWM: QJs in wonderland

ok probably my last post towards you as this doesn't really feel like a productive use of posting time.

i didn't personally attack you. i am unsure how to respond if you take you are a 1/2 guy who doesnt look at solvers as a personal attack. you don't use solvers and you play vs much weaker competition than the villain described in op. its all good and im not telling you that you can't have an opinion or express it, but when you dont look at solvers / the solve and just decide to say why they are wrong and you are right it becomes a impossible and pointless conversation. the sizing in the hand is congruent with similar textures in other preflop configurations, the villain doesn't seem like a stone nit, and even op who has quite literally played vs the villain in question went out of his way in the hand to mention that he thinks guy has more than the nuts (and is weighted towards air!). you just keep repeating over and over that he has a strong range and again its impossible to really talk about the hand once you do that. obviously if his betting range is 2p+ then you should not x/r hands worse than maybeeeeee 55 and that could conceivably be too loose by the time multiple bets go in.

re the hand i think this from earlier kind of sums my thoughts.
"i think people are having trouble conceptualizing a polarized range and have just decided to play vs the nuts. think also ppl dont really think in terms of strategy / ranges which works vs recs but doesn't work as well vs regs. i admit raising the flop isn't the most intuitive play of all time but i do think this hand is good ex of value of study / solvering"

anyways you are welcome to mute me, or not mute me and read my posts and not respond, or continue to dialogue with me about poker. im fine with all of those options but i dont really want to argue back and forth

I think the issue with your argument is you are thinking we can "pass on the spot" which you can do for $0 in many cases. Here, however, we have already put 1 BB into the pot. If we fold QJs here we are folding way too much in the BB and losing $3 every time. Not defending the BB enough is a serious leak. Is it a profitable call? No. But folding is a guaranteed loss.

I think y'all have way too much respect for this guy who happens to play 1/3 profitably. It's not that hard to play 1/3 profitably. As others have said OP is probably as good or better.

I think I would incline toward agreeing with you if 4x was a crazy raise size. For instance, online, I might consider it, as raises are between 2-2.5x. In this live case, villain is presumably 4x'ing his entire range. Folding the lower SCs is fine but QJs is really a quite good hand and I would prefer to defend it rather than just concede my big blind because I'm so scared of this 1/3 pro who lives with his parents.

In a typical LLSNL game (i.e. where an insanely profitable spot will likely occur in the next orbit or two) we could literally fold AA in this situation (i.e. HU OOP to a winning raiser with no dead money in a heavily rake game) and it wouldn't have any significant affect on our long term winrate whatsoever (due to this spot being so rare).

Not defending our BB enough is the exact opposite of a "serious leak". At worst, it is the most minor and insignificant of mistakes that will have no affect on our bottom line, especially due to it's infrequency. And for most (i.e. where skill of opponent and position actually matter as to whether we're going to win the HU heavily raked battle long term), it is likely far more profitable to overfold without a top 5% hand in this situation.

Gyou'reoverconcentratingonaninsignificantpartofLLSNL,imoG

As played, I probably just jam. AK/AQ (admittedly pretty much our only targets) should realize this is one of the suckiest boards possible for their hand so we should have decent FE. Meanwhile we can't fold to a bet with our myriad of outs so we might as well add a smidgeon of FE.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I kinda see both perspectives here. On one hand, if someone can argue successfully that calling in this spot beats -1Bb in EV then calling is correct, save for the variance ride it entails. (And I'm not sold on it - I think utg has a strong range and expects to be called in at least one place and be OOP, then gets the gift of playing hu ip if we call)

On the other hand, even if our EV goes from -1 to say -0.7BB then I dont know how many of us ("serious rec players") have the appetite for the extra variance in order to play on. Plus, if we lose this hand we might either be quitting before we can win from the other players, or our mood can turn slightly darker and hungrier. The non-EV concerns are real (they affect our win rate and overall enjoyment... And yeah, some of us enjoy playing the hand even if it's not +EV!)

Overall tho we are here to discuss the most +EV way to play it, so with that knowledge, individual readers can decide if they want to take the ride or fold and move on to bum hunting.

If we're going to x/r, I think we need to apply max pressure on this turn. Unless we believe that V will be bluffing off with air I think the only hands that V is betting out with that don't have us beat are something like KT/QT, and even those might check back sometimes.

So jam to maximize FE. I think even AK/KK has to at least think about it before flicking in the call. It's actually really gross for him if he has AxKh or KhKx and he could level himself into thinking you are overweight thick value. If we are snapped, we have ok equity.

If we're going to x/r, I think we need to apply max pressure on this turn. Unless we believe that V will be bluffing off with air I think the only hands that V is betting out with that don't have us beat are something like KT/QT, and even those might check back sometimes.

So jam to maximize FE. I think even AK/KK has to at least think about it before flicking in the call. It's actually really gross for him if he has AxKh or KhKx and he could level himself into thinking you are overweight thick value. If we are snapped, we have ok equity.

never x/r vs an overbet, there's just no point. On later streets it tends to be polar, on the flop it tends to be pure value since our range can consist of lots of weak TP's that 'never fold', x/r vs someone targeting that range is just pure punt. Can call flop but have to let it go on turn if he does it again. We're quickly getting priced out of chasing annnnnnd this is why you dont play speculative hands OOP vs tags.

TURN

T♠ rolls off, we shove, V folds showing 8♥ 9♥

Why would a studied grinder show his hand here?

Even if he turns his hand face up, I don't hate the shove - I think we get paid sometimes.

My line would have been to call flop, and I'd have thought about donking turn with something chunky like $125 and look to jam most rivers as a bluff (with the best hand!). Then if I hit, I size down to what I think Ax would pay.

So much for folding pre against a 1/3 pro (who lives with his parents ...) 🫣

because he's a fish and wants you to know you didnt outplay him

turn sizing preference for oop after the too large x/r. non nodelocked. the b67 thing is fairly ubiquitious in sims where i believe it wants to spread betting over multiple streets. sort of similar concept to geo sizing *i think*. would not surprise me if some of the more articulate posters have a better explanation for why this happens. is also much easier to have bluffs that are not equity bombs if you are using b65 vs all in here. oop supposed to run it sometimes with like QJ no fd here if you're interested in playing well

as for why he showed his hand probably he thought the line was odd and hoped to see op's hand or maybe just dc bc he doesn't play these games super often

oop strategy on this turn if we employ the x / minraise otf.

oop strategy on 9o turn which looks much more complicated to play but gets simplified down by aisolve to just using b100 if u want one sizing here (you do)

idk why this is interesting to me and seeing v's hand its clear he's too loose pre and otf.

re the blind defense discussion earlier, ev is ev and esp if you don't get in a ton of volume (every live player) you want as many excuses to vpip as possible since stated winrates imply our opponents must be making gigantic blunders in most nodes. also sort of think its difficult to improve at poker if your default is to just avoid difficult situations and nit it up. might be fine or whatever but seems like most of those player types get forcibly removed from the pool as winrates erode.

A great question...

OK class, who had that in V's open range or ~overbet flop range? Is this an example of what you were thinking comprised the lower lobe of V's polarized range, sub? If so, is it correct to put hands on there with things like FD/BDSD?

Does Banana actually having a pair on AhJxXh move H towards less aggro action on flop in theory? Since H actually had some value? (Though I think I might be alone in assuming V also would do this flop overbet with KK-QQ, TT-99?)

Thanks in advance.

Nothing but love for this level of sarcasm. Chef's kiss.

Tbh, if solver use becomes de facto mandatory to survive at any stakes where the house isn't clearly the biggest winner, most of us need to find another hobby.

Banana, I'm delighted you won. Not least for playing it the way I thought it would go.

If I lived in my parent’s basement, I would as hero 3bet QJs pre.

FWIW I could shrug/forgive/whatever preflop here ... It is on the edge of too wide, esp. so for a 4x open, but I wouldn't be shocked to see you do it at this table. Both flop actions would make me heavily reevaluate the reads SB gave though (everyone has bad hands/days but the call in particular seems very bad).

9h8h is one flush draw he could have, with Ah/Qh/Jh blocked. That is a reasonable hand he could be overbetting preflop, not that I think it is a good play with that hand. The overbet should usually be a big made hand or a strong draw. Hard for him to have a strong draw, and he did it with a weak draw.

Villain made the correct fold versus hero's range, even if he knew how aggressive hero was. He was crushed by hero's actual hand.

I don't see the point of the solver analysis when villain flop overbet range is so different from his cbet range.

I have extensive mid stakes experience full-time not at live NLHE cash, but don't much now. I have used GTO trainer and watched videos that use GTO, but don't use solvers.

That's my guess FWIW

Yet again, Banana inaccurately describes a V quite badly. He might not even be a winning player, just on a 2-3 month heater.

I’m 60 and that’s probably the dumbest ****ing face up fold I’ve ever heard of.

He had a medium strength draw. He likely had a strong made hand or a decent draw to do this. He wasn't overbetting or even betting pot with his whole cbet range.

I guess the show was bad, but he couldn't call the shove with that hand.

Misleading description of villain that he was a pro and decent player. Obviously, call preflop against this sort of player.

Hero's line worked well against villain's hand, but what is hero's play if villain 3! shoves the flop?