[5-5]: Combo draw against check-raise into check-in-the-dark

I’m maximizing fold equity and jamming for V’s remaining ~350

Grunch:

Leaving aside any critique of your play leading up to the turn...

The line of dark check after check-raising flop seems meant to slow you down on brick turns.

The story he's trying to tell is that he has a made hand, yet he isn't worried about you being on a draw, or checking back a worse value hand, which doesn't make any sense. If he was x/r'ing with a made hand, he'd likely use a larger size, and he'd be intent on barreling on a brick.

More likely he's on a draw, and is hoping you'll take the bait and bet when his draw hits, or check back when it doesn't, so he can get a free card.

Think we can bet to deny equity and get value from his naked draws. But we only have 1 SPR now, so it gets awkward if we bet small and he jams, or calls the bet and jams river.

You picked up a pair to go with your combo draw, so you have some SDV. We could just check it back and look to bluff catch.

I don’t know what to make of check-raising the flop and then checking in the dark on the turn. How do you range that?

I’m a little more cautious against unusual lines.
The 4d on the turn may have helped him more than it did you. I’m taking the FreeCard

In theory, your hand can be raised on the button. In practice, you put yourself in a muddy spot that probably should have been avoided with a fold.

If I play this type of hand, I want a high card flop I can represent and bluff it hard to get folds. I’m not really happy with a low flop hitting all around my hand.

But as you say, here we are so see what the river brings and maybe it will make how to proceed more clear.

I'm all in on the turn. We might even get called by draws we're beating.

I guess, if you squeeze pre with suited 1-gappers, with this board and stack depth you have to gii, either on the flop or on the turn.

Continuation:

Hero does not pull the trigger. (It was only ever between jam and check for me, and I didn't jam.)

Villain checks in the dark again.

River (315€😉: 3♥
Hero ???

Full board:

Mostly just checking back here. But I think we can utilize a very small bet size, like 10% pot, $30, to get looked up by ace high. Occasionally he'll spaz raise with air, usually for a small size, like 3x, and we can get a little more value.

Jam turn; check back river to realize your showdown value. You could bet, but he's going to (should) look you up light (any pair or better) after you checked the turn.

Feel like we’re just going to be shown 9x/7x a lot now, but also don’t feel great about getting villain to fold given all the draws bricked and low card pairing so I’m sigh checking back wishing I had b/3b flop or jammed turn

This would be a very strange line with 9x or 7x.

It was a strange hand! What do you make of the double check in the dark after x/r? I think it can be some sdv that spazzed a bit on the flop and doesn’t know what to do now

Please understand I'm responding because you're asking, without wanting to make you wrong so that I can be right.

So...reads - I'm mostly ignoring them. This isn't a dig at OP. I just don't see anything in the description of V that has much bearing on the hand, and as such I'm just defaulting to low-stakes population tendencies.

PRE - Two players limp. Hero raises to 7BB from the BTN. V flat calls in the BB. What does this mean, and what is his range?

I'm discounting the top of range, like QQ+. Occasionally low stakes recs won't 3B 99-JJ, so maybe sometimes he can have 99-JJ. A lot of players won't 3B suited aces. Some won't 3B AK from the blinds. V can have all the PP's from 22-88 that don't always get 3B pre, a lot of suited connectors, some suited and unsuited Broadway combos, some suited and unsuited AX combos...you get the idea. His range can be pretty wide.

But, just flatting here when there are two limpers in the pot is kind of fishy. Either limper could be going for a limp-3B, and even if there's no 3B, V will be OOP and multi-way, with the worst relative position post, so I'm not giving V credit for being a very competent player. I think he's going to make a lot of mistakes post-flop.

FLOP - We're three ways. V checks. Limper naturally checks in flow to the PFR, who puts in a very standard 1/3-ish pot c-bet. BB check-raises, but he doesn't even go 3X.

Right off the bat, I'm suspicious of this x/r. The limper in MP is still uncapped. If V had a really strong hand, he'd likely either come out and donk, or more often, he'd use a larger size for his raise. So what does this mean, and what's his range?

I don't think this is only and always 2P or a set. I think he's going to have a lot of draws, and maybe 1P with a draw, like A7cc. I don't think many low-stakes recs are just randomly x/r'ing 9x or 7x with nothing else going on. If he just wants to "see where he's at", he could do that with a donk and find out for less.

I said above he might not 3B pre with TT/JJ or AK, or 22-88. This could be AKcc, or TT/JJ that thinks this is a "safe" board for him to x/r. It might just be some random AK combo that thinks he can fold out whatever we might be c-betting here, because we're mostly just range-betting as the PFR and we don't necessarily need to have a hand to c-bet.

Generally, I don't think this x/r is necessarily a strong hand. It feels a bit bluffy to me. The dark check just reinforces that. It's sort of like a snap bet or snap call. A "real" hand would require some thought. When someone check-raises, and then checks dark on a super wet and dynamic board, I think they're completely FOS.

TURN - Hero checks it back. It looks like hero is on a draw and is happy to take the free card, or hero has SDV that doesn't need to bluff and doesn't want to get double-check raised. Hero's check-back opens the door for V to bet 9x or 7x for value on a brick river, or bluff.

But then V checks dark again. What does this mean, and what's his range?

If he had 9x or 7x, and thought his hand was good, he'd want the chance to bet the river. It looks like hero is just going to check it back. If he had a draw, he'd want the chance to bet if his draw gets there.

I don't think his line makes sense for value. It doesn't make sense for a semi-bluff. It smells like some total air-ball that was just hoping to take it down with the flop x/r. It just smells like ace-high to me, that decided not to 3B pre, took his shot with the flop x/r, and then gives up when he gets called, hoping to spike top pair on a later street.

Maybe he check-raises flop with A3 that rivers trips, but that would be quite the play on the flop, and quite the bit of dumb luck on the river.

That's why I said we could bet small, to induce a spaz-raise, and call it off. If he's fishy enough to take this line with AK, he's fishy enough to try to steal it again on the river if we convey weakness by betting small.

Small bet to induce is very clever, definitely not a spot I’m actively looking for and probably should be!

The only hand that makes sense to me for v to play this way is A7cc, which he’s never folding at any point, but jamming the flop might fold a 9.

I don’t see how ap he ever folds any winner or calls with any loser, but the hand had to have been posted for some reason.

yea I also didn't really much relevant for the hand. I'm generally not cherry-picking reads that I think are relevant; if I did that; that would be smuggling in my own interpretation. I just do them separately, and maybe someone else sees something I don't.

Reveal:

I posted because after playing this, I thought the jam was a huge blunder, like worst-poker-decision-I've-made-all-month level blunder, but I talked about the hand to another pro who said he might have done the same, which made me doubt it again, like mb I'm just being results oriented? (Also the hand is another double check in the dark, and I'd like to understand those better.)

But yea, still think the jam was really bad. Seems like most here agree. My reasoning in the moment was that I could play a better value hand this way, which fwiw I still think is true. Like I'm the preflop aggressor, I'm not really the one representing a draw here. If I had KK, I could call his bluff, try to let him bluff again, and then he he doesn't, go for the rest. So what I thought was probably true, but it doesn't matter because it's not a good reason to bluff a weak-ish player. What matters is what he has, and I don't think his range is very bluffable here.

I guess the point where I disagree with folks here is that I kinda don't think jamming the Turn is very good, either. Maybe it's better than jamming River because I still had showdown value? But I don't see it getting a lot of folds. The way I'd read the check-in-the-dark now is that it kinda invites a bluff, so it probably skews more toward hands that have some strength. And a medium overpair also makes a lot of sense with his preflop action.

I think I should have either 3-bet-jammed the Flop or just given up.

Assuming the check in the dark is not a deliberate attempt to provoke a bluff (in which case it could be a monster), what would make the most sense is a hand that has showdown value but is not so strong that it needs to get more money into the pot. Like, I think he genuinely feels satisfied with the amount of money that's already in the pot, so he's fine just checking and evaluating. Like it's not actually deceptive, it means exactly what it looks like.

Apologies for going off topic, but this actually does touch on something that I think is pretty interesting, which is broadly what people are trying to achieve with behavior in poker.

I think for sure the bulk of behavior (maybe 70%, 80%) is first-level deception, like strong means weak, weak means strong. (Zach Elwood also says this.) Like sighs are strong, looking away from the board is strong, staring at the board is weak, quick calls are weak, hand-range-weakening statements are strong. And so on.

But then a really underrated category is just 0th level, like not deceptive. Sometimes people are just fine giving you information without any ulterior motive. I remember a hand where player A value-bet on the River, player B asked "do you have the straight", player A says "yes", player B folds, player A shows the straight ¯\_(ツ😉_/¯. He wasn't playing a mind game, he was just already running hot and didn't feel like he needed to win more money. This is an extreme example, but in case where the meaning is more difficult to interpret, I think it's somewhat common.

Like, this guy was friendly with me, I told him I play for a living, I think he was up that day, and most importantly he had already gotten value from his hand with the Flop raise. So he just honestly didn't think he needed to take more money from me. It makes sense.

And then I think anything else (like 2nd+ level deception, false tells etc.) is extremely rare. So almost always it's either first-level deception or no deception, and the key is just to figure out which is which. And generally the clearer the meaning of something is, the more likely it should be deceptive. E.g. if a player sighs, that has an obvious meaning, so most likely it's first-level deception and he's strong. But if it's something trickier like checking in the dark then it's pretty likely the player just doesn't worry about leaking information and it's non-deceptive.

Or maybe I'm reading way too much into this, but this is kinda something I've been thinking about for a while. I think people genuinely go wrong assuming that everyone is always lying.

I didn't see, was there a result somewhere?

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showp...

Ok thanks, missed that it was within a quote.

Seeing the actual hand I can interpret the check -dark as a hand which recognizes the dynamic nature of the board and does not want to look scared upon seeing the actual card and checking in the light.
A lot of hands fit that description but yes medium strength made hand is the general idea

he's checking the turn because he's afraid you have QQ-AA. when you check back turn you dont have those. so give up river.

obv the exploit is to take your line with QQ-AA, but nobody does that

So villain said I’m strong with the check-raise, but vulnerable - understanding that it normally takes a stronger hand to call than to bet.

So he checked dark, but I would be really surprised if ever folded this hand. With this hand a strong player would likely bet you off your hand, but this straight forward player traps you. I think we know there are a lot of players in the pool that won’t bet their hand, but will also never fold.

I find it ironic that you launched into fancy play syndrome and beat yourself against a guy just playing abc.

I’ve noticed a lot of players are betting AK, missing everything and then shoving when they again don’t connect on the turn. Still trying to consider when/if this is ever a good idea. It just makes me feel stupid to put all my money in with nothing, when value-betting is the name of the game.

I think bluffs have to be tailored to the situation and I don’t think the check dark caps his range here. When villain takes an extremely aggressive line and check-raises, what do you think he has? I don’t see the obviously can’t fold part. You know this is not a bluff.

Pokercruncher has villain at 58% on the flop. If 2 more clubs come, you lose to the jack of clubs. As you consider a jam on the turn, villain has improved to a 64% favorite. I feel like if you think this through, you obviously can fold.

Interesting side note when I plugged in A4 of clubs, villain’s equity dropped to 56% flop, but jumped to 71% turn - A6 clubs was 56% & 68%

Bottom line: Villain has shown no sign of weakness until the turn. It’s natural to think you can snatch it away now with a big turn bet. I can attest to this plan working often. The key clue to me is the check-raise - I’m almost never going to bluff into a player making that move.