Hand 1) We have J Diamonds 8 Spades OTB 500 chips villain has 500 chips
Reads villain is tight basic ABC, but does call down to light.
We min raise, villain calls. Blinds 10/20.
Flop; 2 Hearts Q diamonds 6 clubs
Villian Checks, I decided not 2 contin bet and just check.
Turn is 8c , we bet 60 (pot is 80) Villian Calls. (He hardly ever has a Queen here. Would have preferred a bet of 50-55
River is A diamonds (Pot is 200)
We bet 100 OTR, Villian Calls. Don't think he has many aces here, though he could have. He also doesn't have a bluffing range, he will check behind any 2 6 8.
Thoughts on River bet size, 2 much? Quite like betting about 80 on the river.
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Hand 2
ead Villian is pretty fishy. We have 550 at start of the hand, they have 450
Blinds 10/20
We have King Spades Jack Diamon OTB
Min raise to 40, call. Pot is 80
Flop
8 Club 9 club 10 club
Villian Checks, I check, don't really mind the check here given 3 clubs
Turn is 7 hearts
Check, we bet 40 villain calls (pot is 160)
River is 6 spades
Villian Checks, we move all in.
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Comments
i dont like 'i decided not to cbet'.
there should be a reason behind every decision, be it the flop smacks his range, we want to induce, we have been check-raised often etc etc. we should be cbetting all of our range here v an abc villian. we have J high so little showdown value and by checking we allow him to bluff turns.
look at the board texture: no draws. anytime you have 2 disconected low cards like 2 and 6 with a single high card its just a boss time to cbet and barrel. he is unlikely to have many dueces, maybe A2 if he flats Ax and K2s. he wont have many 6's either. just bet and look to take it down. if he flats we can barrel lots of turns and rivers to get him off stubborn 6x.
when he checks the 8 he likely has some sort of weak made hand as he would bet a queen and prolly bluff air as we have been weak.
we are right to value bet the river, though we are in position so he has already checked, yah? we are targetting 6x and the ace is an overt part of our percieved range. so a big bet will likely get him to fold. so 1/2 max prolly feels about right.
cbet that flop though and by the river we can set up a pot size jam that gets him off 6x by betting half pot on turn ansd we can eek out more value with our made hands imo.
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2nd hand, it's not the 3 clubs that would put me off cbetting: a small bet on montone flops is very profitable as villains wont bluff these boards often and they will have a club less than half the time. also you would always bet a made hand for value and protection on a montone board.
the fact it is 89T and montone means it is difficult for villain to miss that board completely. we have equity and maybe the best hand, so a check is fine imo. the turn bet is fine and the river is very interesting:
there is a straight on the board and we can beat it. when villain checks he virtually never has it here. it's set up for an overbet. we do this with our entire range and it's basically a play where we win the pot on average no matter what villian does. forget we have KJ, and give us 2 random cards:
we are risking 370 to rake back a pot of 530 with virtually no chance of losing our chips
he has to risk 370 to rake back 450 [half of a 900 pot] with a very real chance of losing his chips.
obviously if we play lots of games with villian then it mean he will strongly favour checking his flushes and Jx but this situation will come up so rarely that most villains will not want to risk losing value by checking to us when they have it. and v the population tendency, jamming 100% of the time is best.
Just some thoughts on your post re hand 1. I don't really think your wrong as such on anything you say, but I dont have your knowledge of Husng so I'd like to see your opinion on what I posted above
Villian has checked twice now (ott) he never has a queen here.
The river value bet is thin, we going for value against a 6x or 2x and expecting calls a whole lot.
I think we have to value bet the river here or are losing value in the long run.
Sure he could have Ace x, it's not overly likely.
Just some thoughts on your post re hand 1. I don't really think your wrong as such on anything you say, but I dont have your knowledge of Husng so I'd like to see your opinion on what I posted above
i'm ok 25bb deep with quickly increasing blinds HU. i'd get creamed on a 6max cash / MTT table so dont take anything i post as gospel. there are FAR better players than me posting about husng's on the forums.
Meh while I agree cbetting is the best default play here, I think deciding Im cbetting 90% of time or whatever in this situation is fine too, nice to mix it up a bit especially heads up. Im also not too sure about cbetting 100% of our range, we obv want difficult outcomes with different parts of our range
how are you deciding which 10% of hands you will be checking back? 'mixing things up' 'think i'm deciding', these are phrases that have little to do with what is the most profitable play.
our opponent will have an overall strategy on these dry flops, our job is to play each hand in our range in the most max ev way against his strategy. the average villian gives up way to easily on these flops and our initial reads are that he is tight and ABC. if we check jack high here it HAS to be because we think checking is more profitable than cbetting against this type of player.
a cbet here is very profitable. betting t40 into a pot of t80 only has to work 40/120 = 33% of the time to break even.
a smaller cbet of t30 only has to work 27% of the time to break even.
these are very profitable baselines that checking has to match up to.
cbetting 100% of our range on these flops is exploitable [and yes, we may want to check QQ or AA etc if we have reads that will induce / or allow him to catch up] but so is cbetting 90%. but think of the adjustment our tight ABC villain will have to make to exploit us: he will have to start check/raising dry flops against an aggressive player with AIR. and if he does then we can similarly adjust.
being balanced aint all that against tight players. just exploit and print money, force them to adjust out of their comfort zone.
one further point is that here we are arent getting better hands to fold, and are only folding weaker hands. this usually isnt good. but think of those T9, 75 type hands. they all have around 25% equity against us. that is if we check down they will win 25% of the time. they essentially are entitled to 20 chips out of this pot. when they fold they fold out their equity share and we essentially win those 20 chips.
and of the hands that beat us K-high, 2x and 6x we can barral off on future streets. agaisnt this part of his range our cbet is virtually a value bet.
cbet until he gives us reason not to.
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I think that's a big assumption, depends a lot on particular villain and how hero is playing. Some may want to pot control oop, or if they have Qx may check for deception
it is an assumption. and one that we have to make.
even without solid reads we are not readless. we can use correlated reads and population tendencies.
population tendencies are simply what the average villain we face at that buyin does. the average villain will not check Qx on the turn. and why would they. they have top pair in a hyper turbo. most villains are betting here so that they can get two bets in with their strong hands. in hypers we might not play 15 hands. hitting top pair is huge and you want to build a pot. pot control 25bb deep isnt where its at with a good top pair.
the average villain will also take a stab on the turn with thier air after we show weakness. not all the time, but a significant portion of the time.
we can make correlated reads that if villain has been ABC in other spots then he is likely to be ABC in this sopt. and checking a queen for deception is unlikely.
it's a guess, but we are always guessing in poker. but we can use general reads to guide us. here i would weight his range to Khigh, 6x, 2x and some weak Qx. i think he bets lots of his nonshow down air and any draws he has picked up.
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Think its a pretty thin vbet myself, he has some Ax in his range too, shouldn't have that many 6x as you said yourself
it is a thin value bet, but i do think thin value betting with reads is a great way to increse ROI. people miss value by checking too many rivers. by value betting thin we can bluff more rivers too, which is nice. there shouldnt be too much Ax, most people jam most of their Ax in hypers and will donk their made Ax that they get to the river with here at least some of the time.
we dont have to be right 100% of the time for it to be a profitable bet. as long as we are ahead of most of his calling range we are fine. and i think that is the case here. even folding out K high has its advantages in that he doesnt get to peek at our delayed cebtting and barrel ranges.
the A is a decent card to bluff catch a small bet with his 6x and weaker 8x as it is such an obvious scare card.
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It would get him off 6x, but his range is stronger when he calls both flop and turn. I'd be careful doing that without good reads, should be a decent amount Qx in his range then, although A would be perfect card
yeah i do agree that his 6x and K high should fold on the turn, and bombing the river is a judgement call, but 3 barrelling is insanely profitable when 2 overs to middle pair come on turn and river, esp when one of the cards is an ace. people will often call a card like an 8 on the turn thinking it doent hit our range. esp if we have been seen to give up after being called twice.
but yah, it should be based on reads. eg, if villain has been seen check-raising his top pairs, then that is a green light.
I typed a long reply and just lost it, will put up main points again
Good analysis of why cbetting is good. I do think at HU even poor opponents adjust given the amounts of hands played. I was suggesting a plan to cbet x% of time in this exact situation might have merit. The % of time I cbet in different situations would be different. You may well be right though. I also don't think cbetting 100% of your range all the time on these boards will be optimal.
I think on turn action you are probably basically correct. Depends how villain views flop check
River, in my experience Ax is not jammed pre by ABC villains at this stack size (I've only played low levels and not that much so you may be right). However if he rarely has Ax and there is a read he calls light its prob ok. Still think its pretty thin, but if theres value theres value
On the 3 barrel bluff I would be very careful against an abc villain who calls down light who has already flatted 3 times in the hand. Again you will have a better idea than me how much it works
it's completely exploitable, but most villains simply wont adjust over the short span of a hyper turbo. and any adjustments are often non-static. they might play back at you for a few hands before settling back into their default strategy.
against a good player i would want a checking range and i'd want to balance that. at the equilibrium some Qx is almost certainly checked back at some non-zero frequency. [note that psuedo-equilibrium [or optimal] play is maximally exploitative v a corredsponding psuedo-equilibrium strat, so our mantra of always max-exploit still holds].
against tight ABC / randoms, forget balance unless they give you reason otherwise. to take a silly example if you were playing rock paper scissors with a meat head who was convinced that throwing ROCK 100% of the time was best would you throw the occassional SCISSORS for balance reasons, or just take the guarenteed win by throwing 100% paper?
balance is mega over-rated v most players.