What range does tag have when he coldcalls 3bet oop???

First, $30 isn't a huge size for a 1/3 preflop three-bet. He may be treating this as just a little bit more expensive than coldcalling a raise. That said, we know he's capable of squeezing so I think the range you've given him is far too strong. He's likelier to turn up here with 77 or 22 than he is AQ.

I used to c-bet here without even thinking about it, but unless they both fold you're stuck in a bad situation. I think I thank them for the free card and hope to spike TPTK.

I would mostly check with V1 in, if it was two V2s I might lean more towards betting.

If we bet we kind of have to play reverse poker and barrel off to rep. AA/KK, unless an A or K hits and then we can slow down.

V1 is very likely to have pairs JJ-?, or something that looks pretty and they can't find a fold with (like JTs) IMO. Heavily agree would lean way more towards 77/22 than AQ.

Saying that, QQ might be in there (people don't love to cold 4bet that, even knowing V2 is wide) and maybe even a couple of combos. of AA (although with V2 being wide, that's less likely).

I wouldn't put a lot of weight on what V did in a different game two months ago. In general, I'd expect a lot of suited broadways, mid pps, etc.

Regardless, my default on this flop would be to check because we have SDV, we hate a check -raise, and we don't love many turns. If we bet and get called, we still don't have any clue if we are against JJ that we can bully off or drawing nearly dead to QQ.

After the turn, Vs will tell us if we can take this pot. On the flop, they're checking everything. We can call a normal bet on any turn and consider stealing or bluff catching river.

We have weak SDV on a board that that is mediocre for our range.

We could c-bet small, like $25-$30, and take a free card if action checks to us on a brick turn.

We aren't necessarily giving up if we don't c-bet. We could be protecting our check back range, planning to make a delayed c-bet. If we check back and either bets the turn, it's a pretty trivial fold.

Don't worry about what range V1 has when he calls pre. Think about what he's likely to have if he calls a flop c-bet, or if checks again on the turn after you check back.

This is an interesting statement ... we 3bet an MP open, and then MP over called.

In 100bb GTO world, even without the cold call, MP is folding _a lot_ (~62%) to the 3bet and then 4betting about 2x as often as calling.

GTO only checks back this flop HU like 16%, the most obvious ones are JJ-88 (although those mostly call pre, and JJ that gets here still bets ~50% of the time) and A7s (maybe 30% of the time --- and good for you if you 3bet that).

Like KJs/KTs are checking maybe 5% of the time. K9s even less.

Bets are basically pure b50 too.

AKo is mostly betting, AcKd being the main outlier ... although H's combo. checks about 5% of the time. Solver also thinks check or bet is almost identical in EV unless we bet 125% pot.

Even with the extra player and yada yada nobody playing GTO ... I wouldn't be shocked if most players consider a check back a significant sign of weakness.

tl;dr We all suck compared to GTO, ldo.

I think it's the type of spot where we should be mixing between betting small sometimes and checking. If I bet I'm usually barreling pretty aggressively on the turn and river. Your flop bet is going to get called a lot by stuff like pocket pairs, but you should be able to get those to fold by the river. You might even be able to get a queen to fold to a river shove.

I don't think a queen is ever folding even to a 3barrel after he coldcalls the 3bet preflop.

Maybe they shouldn't be, but you said you have a nitty/tag image. I have found at 1/3 that generally people tend to call preflop too wide and then overfold when the big bets go in on later streets. If you're barreling off you're repping AA, KK, maybe AQ type hands and I think there's a chance they fold even something as strong as QJs or KQs by the river.

Yeah it's hard to make sense of what his bet means since his play is definitely not something that he's supposed to do according to theory. He should pretty much always be checking there. Then again he should rarely ever be cold-calling a 3-bet OOP preflop when he's not closing the action, so he's probably pretty far out of line.

He's betting 1/3 pot, which to me smells like a scared queen trying to set their own price, afraid that you will bet bigger if they check. I don't think you can rule out something like 99 betting for no apparent reason, or even a set is possible, but my instinct with that sizing is that it's some sort of medium strength made hand. I guess it could have also been something random that he made a light flop call with, realized isn't good and is now bluffing with, like a random Ax. People make random bets like this sometimes with hands that make no sense.

I would have been tempted to either float the turn or just raise the bet right there, whichever you would do if you had AA. This is getting into "street poker" territory where you have to play the player exploitatively. I guess if you read his bet as strength, like a set or queen, then you've got to fold.

My general thoughts about this spot...

OP asked what V's range is when he cold-calls the 3B pre. I think a lot of opponents are going to have fairly condensed ranges, but not necessarily weak ranges. It's going to be a lot of hands that seem too strong to fold but not strong enough to 4B.

I think V's range here is going to be PP's from QQ down to whatever, maybe 77/88, and a lot of pretty-looking Broadway combos, like AQ, KQ, and QJs.

When I look at that range, I don't think we're folding out much with our c-bet on this flop texture, and we're never really sure if we're good when we spike an A or K on the turn, when V could have some AQ/KQ/QQ/77 combos.

So if we c-bet, we're just guessing when we get called, but mostly we should know V has something he doesn't want to fold, and he could have something he's never going to fold.

Our hand has some sliver of SDV, and six outs to improve to TPTK. We block AA/KK, and V's range is somewhat capped on this board texture. Our hand is somewhat in-between, such that if we c-bet, we can't say for sure why we're betting, if we're not clearly betting for value or equity denial vs a range that mostly has us beat and isn't folding much.

On the other hand, if we check back, V should start betting his good hands on the turn. His action should help define his range more. If he checks again, we can start a delayed c-bet / double-barrel bluff, somewhat more confident that V's range is more capped. Even if he's trapping, we keep the pot size manageable and get to the river more cheaply.

If this were heads up, I'd be more inclined to take a more aggressive line. But when it's three ways, I think V1 is going to be more sticky with 1P and more trappy with his sets, when the board is dry and there's an opponent in-between. If hero's image is nitty/TAG, both V's should be hesitant to raise when we bet, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're over-folding.

My read of this action would be that V1 was calling the flop bet hoping V2 would come along, or perhaps even put in a raise. Once V2 folds, V1 is just betting a good hand to keep us from checking back.

This is why I suggested we could c-bet small and take a free card if action checks to us again on the turn, or check back and just fold to a turn bet when we don't improve. V is going to play fairly face up, and let us know the strength of his hand by his actions.

This flop somewhat smashes V1's cold calling range. He's going to have a lot of TP+ here.

Turn looks block-bety, but there's nothing obvious to block for on Q725r. H can have all the AQ/QQ+. I've doubts that V has QQ, despite what you all have been saying.

Kinda want to get Doyle-ish on what looks like a post-oak bluff or a weak queen, as GWF noted, and raise. Or call turn, raise w/e on the river. Ofc we would need the read that V can fold a Q on this dry as dust board.

Pot would be 261 with a turn call, leaving 285 back. Ofc, any typical V river bet will practically price V in to call an H shove. The largish flop cbet kind of constrains us, as I think about this more. So I see the solver's point of either x-back or go over pot on flop (& then presumably sticking it in on turn).

AP, I probably peel, then kick myself when V bets again on what'll usually be a blank river.

While the bet sizing may look weak, low stakes players will take this line with their SDV, to take control of the betting and hopefully get an additional street of value when we call, as opposed to the turn checking through, and we just fold to their river bet.

This is why it's good to check back the flop with TP+ sometimes, so we can have some stronger hands to call down with when they do this.

Yeah, we can make an exploitative raise if we think they'll fold. But they're not taking this line to fold to a single bet. We can also just make an exploitative fold and lose less.

Take it all for whatever it's worth. I don't like paying these types off, because they don't have enough bluffs in this line, and they don't fold enough when we raise.

Due to the small open and small 3bet size (i.e. this could be a single raise size versus lottsa limpers at a typical 1/3 NL table), and the non-short stacks, I don't think we can narrow his range as much as we normally could in other circumstances. If he's typical LLSNL loose, this could literally be any reasonably playable hand in this spot to this sizing, imo. ETA: FWIW, against this small sizing with non-short stacks and some capable of squeezing weak looking opens/calls, I would flat here a lot (looking to 4bet).

I don't mind a small 1/3 PSB cbet and see what happens. Also don't mind a check behind.

ETA: And I now also fold to the turn donk.

GcluelessNLnoobG

So I've been thinking a lot about this spot and also played around a little looking at it with a solver and doing a few node locks last night.

I decided that the key consideration is what kinds of preflop ranges our opponents are playing. I'm guessing dangomango might have some sort of history to fall back on, as far as what kinds of hands they have shown up with calling smaller 3-bets OOP? Or even just general frequencies of whether they seem to call or fold a lot facing a 3-bet, that kind of thing?

Going just off of what I've been given, after rereading the original post, V1's line is setting off more alarm bells for me now. The type of player that flats AQ vs a button open tends to have a much stronger range in this sort of spot compared to your average low limit player. The turn donk could easily be something like QQ for top set that called flop to try to rope in the looser V2, as someone suggested.

So reevaluating the situation and assuming they're stronger I'm more apt to check/give up flop and/or fold to the turn donkbet if I do cbet.

However the reason I say the preflop ranges are the key consideration is because I play very differently against weaker ranges. If I sense weakness I'm much more apt to barrel off and rep the top part of my range and/or get sticky/bluff vs the turn bet. I think it's really hard to discern what the turn bet means so I lean more on my reads of what their pre flop calling range was likely to be.

His range for cold-call should be something like 77/88+, aqo+, might be a bit wider than it should, than we add maybe aj/at/kqss/66.

Villain line suspect here given you say he is tight and presumably also 4! a lot of qq+/aks pre?

As played, shove over turn donk is tempting, especially if we think villain can fold some qx.

If we think BB is defending too wide Hero can punish with stronger overall range than him. We know BB is not taking the correct line, we just aren't sure on the right exploit without more info/reads.

Could BB ever take this line with like an A2ss for example? Is really important. And once BB has a bunch of illegal hands or that prefer 4! to call, thats when he will start making more and more bad/silly donk bets.

Flop is a relatively standard cbet, and Hero can size up if he feels like it. Its such a good board for Hero range, and the best hand either villain should have is a set of 77 from V1.

I like to think of this line as the "delayed check-raise". V doesn't want to over-play his hand or generate too much fold equity by x/r'ing the flop or turn, nor does he want to lose value if he checks and we check back the turn after he calls our flop c-bet next to act. So he comes out and donks turn with the top part of his range.

Like, what the hell are his bluffs on Q275rb? He's not a maniac, or super-fishy, or some other type likely to be getting OOL. I think this is always going to be TP+, very often AQ, sometimes KQ, and occasionally 77, 22, or maybe sometimes 55.

He's described as a TAG-reg, which often just means "rock". He didn't cold-call a 3B or call our c-bet next to act with some whack-a$$ hand that he's suddenly decided needs to be turned into a bluff on this completely disconnected rainbow board.

If he's able to balance this by getting here and donking with 64s or anything that picks up equity, good for him. It's not like our AK is doing great against a range of TP+ and high-equity draws. If he's over-playing something that MIGHT fold to a raise, it's fine. Let him have it this time, so that we can call when we actually have TP+.

Looking at it from V's perspective, and trying to get inside the head of this player type, he probably thinks we're range-betting the flop and checking back brick turns. He's not wrong, when we're c-betting AK in a multi-way pot.

Lots of players get flustered by donk bets, and don't know how to respond. Just look at how many people in this thread want to call or even raise. When opponents do this, they're opening the door for us to play perfectly. We can just LOL-fold when we might have barreled off, and only continue when we have value.

Would we even raise for value here? Why, when we can just call and raise river when he bets again, or put in a bet when he checks? If we don't have any raises for value, why would we turn any hand into a bluff?

Here's the thing though. Minimum defense frequency vs his 1/3 pot donk bet is more than 76%. If we don't continue with a call or raise with more hands than just our value range then he can easily make this donk bet as a profitable bluff with any two cards. So if we're massively over folding we need to be extremely confident in our read that he is strong.

Honestly if I'm sitting here with aces and most opponents make this donk bet I probably make it $150 and put the last $130 in on the river. There just aren't enough hands that beat us for this to be bad in the long run. I also might make the same raise to $150 with AK as a bluff, and then just don't put the last $130 in if he raises or calls (unless he calls and we river top pair). I think against most low stakes opponents this works often enough to be profitable.

Again, per my last post and OP's reads, I'm convinced this particular opponent probably is the rock you're describing. But against the average low stakes opponent who calls preflop with nonsense then donks turn to "find out where they're at, " I exploitatively raise all day.

If we're going to fold to a tiny donk, then we shouldn't bet the flop.

My instinct on this small donk is raise it up. It looks a lot like JJ or weak queen trying to set its price and slow us down. I don't think it's nutted because V would benefit from letting us bluff. I think $150 gets a lot of folds and if QJ gets sticky, we can get lucky. If V calls, I probably won't jam river absent a good spidey sense or lucky hit.

It's not 76% of all hands. It's 76% of the hands in our range that get here the way we did. How many hands in our pre-flop 3B range c-bet the flop? Is AKo in the top 76% of that range?

If we're only c-betting TP+ for value, or maybe also betting some 88-JJ for protection, AK would seem to be in the bottom 1/4 of our range, not the top 3/4.

The thing that sticks out to me is any competent opponent is likely to understand that this board doesn't connect well with our 3B'ing range, and so we're repping super-thin when we c-bet the flop. If V blocks top set, and doesn't think we'll ever have middle or bottom set, he can take this line with AQ/KQ, and put a lot of our range in the blender.

If we want to continue, we'll have plenty of better hands. It's not just TP+. I'd rather have 88-JJ that can at least beat his 7x and possibly counterfeit him when he shows up with a bizarre 75s that turned 2P and the river is another Q or 2, or gives us a sneaky set.

It's really hard to give V credit for a bluff or weak SDV though, when he's donking into strength. We didn't show weakness, so there's no reason for V to suddenly wake up on the turn and start a bluff. And what TAG-reg donks the turn small as a bluff on a total brick?

Yeah, there aren't many hands that beat us when we have an over-pair, but V is likely to put all those hands in this line, and will snap us off when we raise turn and jam river. It seems like this dude is just peddling the nuts.

Again I'm not necessarily disagreeing that this particular player is likely value-heavy when they take this line.

I'm just pointing out how exploitable it is to over fold against these sorts of ridiculous small bets. The closest thing I can look to for an idea of how we should be responding is the solver response vs a flop check raise (since solver is never donking turn).

In the solve I ran yesterday if we go with a B30 flop bet, the only check raise size option I had in the setup was to R130 (so he's risking more than he is with the actual donk bet). This was a heads up solve I ran just to get an idea of what we should be doing, so obviously not a perfect recreation of the situation.

Anyway in the setup I ran he was only supposed to check raise with a tight 4.7% range facing our small cbet.

Our response to his flop check raise to 130 was to pure call with AKs and mix calling AKo 30% of the time. We're pure folding KJs, KTs, and small frequencies we had of A4s, A3s and 65s. We're pure calling over pairs, Qx, QQ. We're also mixing but calling 80% with TT and folding 80% with 88. For some reason solver never 3-bets JJ or 99 in this preflop formation. I used pre solved multi way 100 bb charts for the ranges, BTW.

Oh yeah, we're also mixing and calling 50% with A5s.

So pretty much my point is just that you will get run over if you fold too much against an overly aggressive (or even appropriately aggressive) opponent.

It's worth noting the problematic logic of saying we'd raise with AA/KK and expect to get called, while also saying we could raise with AK as a bluff. There's a logical contradiction in thinking we can fold the same hands that call when we raise for value.

It's even more problematic, I think, to say we'd raise AK expecting to get called, and then either check back and lose on brick rivers, or jam the rest in when we spike TPTK. Why would we want to raise as a bluff at all if we expect to get called, especially if we think his calling range includes hands we still lose to even if we improve? Why would we expect any hand worse than TPTK to call the river bet?

All due respect to the solver, our human opponent isn't playing anywhere near GTO when he cold calls the 3B pre with the EP raiser still to act. That action alone warrants some concern about the strength of his range, suggesting he could have some slow plays pre that become fast plays post, and would be giddy if we were to call, or God forbid raise.

V has no natural bluffs here. He'd have to be getting uncharacteristically creative to find any bluffs at all. His range is so value heavy that I wouldn't think we'd have any raises at all, for value or a bluff, if we were to node-lock this, removing all bluffs, and giving him nothing but TP+.

It's not problematic logic. It's a form of "balance." Raising with AA is effectively the value portion of a polarized range and raising with AK is the bluff portion. Sometimes he will have something like a queen and call, in which case the value portion of our range benefits. Other times he will fold and our "bluffs" benefit.

The reason we check back river with AK if he calls our turn raise is because we are assuming that he has already made his decision by calling turn and will always call river for the extra $130 behind when the pot is already huge. So we only lose $150 when our bluff gets called, but when we have AA we get $280 in value because we put the extra $130 in. This is highly exploitative poker but also borrows from game theory ideas as we are "balancing" between value hands and bluffs.

Obviously though in practice if I make that kind of raise I'm going to do it more often with something like AA if I expect them to call down with a queen, and more often with a "bluff" like AK if I think they will fold a queen (or a seven, JJ, TT, whatever medium strength hand they're doing this with).

Going back to theory, when a good "GTO" type opponent starts betting into a range like ours that has only shown strength it "should" only be a strong polarized range. When a solver puts additional money in (such as by check-raising our flop bet following our pre flop 3 bet, flop bet line) it is essentially representing the nuts.

It should have something like a set and can also balance that with a small amount of bluffs. So against a solver we would only want to continue vs an aggressive action by calling or folding (because AK beats all bluffs, but loses to all value vs solver's polarized range).

The reason I am considering raising is because I am saying many opponents who donk into us on the turn do not in fact have a strong polarized range. Oftentimes their range is dominated by medium strength hands that are betting to "find out where they're at." I'm talking about hands like KQ, QJ, QT, Q9, JJ, TT, 7x I could go on and on. There are simply many more possible medium strength hands a LLNL player can possibly show up with compared to the few combos of actual nut hands (like 77). The medium strength hands can beat our "bluffs" (AK, etc) but lose to our "value, " (AA, KK, QQ, AQ, etc.).

If we think the small turn donk means a medium strength hand (why would he not bet bigger with 77 to set up a river jam?), it can make sense to raise with a polarized range ourselves, putting their medium strength hands in a difficult spot. Again though I'm doing this with AA more often if I think they will call, and with AK if I think they will fold.