Your thought process should have led you to play call rather than jam. If you decide not to believe this lead, call. 9x and bluffs have close to 0% equity vs you. There are no bad runouts really. By raising all you achieve is getting him to call better and fold bluffs. You also give 9x the opportunity to fold.
Can't argue with that at all. Would you have had the same thought process as me in terms of either putting him on 9x or a bluff?
Mini's Bet vs @cal69 (read below): Played: 1 - 1 Cashes: £0 - £0
It's certainly been an interesting 24 hours for me.
Played a number of satellites yesterday with no success, and by the end of the day I was mentally exhausted and quite literally just throwing money away by making the most ludicrous plays. Honestly, it was a real low point in my poker "career".
I realised that if I am going to succeed at this, which I desperately want to do, I needed to re-energise and re-motivate myself. I did two things to make this happen. Firstly, making a personal plan (non-poker) for how to spend my Sunday which would allow me to relax, but still be productive. Doing this got me in the right frame of mind. Secondly, and more importantly, I made a little £10 bet with a friend regarding who can make the most profit from mini tournaments between now and the end of April. I'm a hugely competitive person, so this really got me focussed.
I did play the mini tonight, and didn't cash (neither did my friend). However, I feel like I played better than ever before. I know it's only one tournament and that's not a significant sample size. But the decisions I made all had some form of logical reasoning behind them, and I feel like I made some incredible calls. I was able to put people on a range of hands, and be right for the most part. It's difficult to explain, but I strongly believe I played on much higher level tonight.
Perhaps this hand below says it best. After he bet the river, I felt near certain that he had the KQ. I had to call with the straight. The reason why I realise this is a big step forward is that two weeks ago, there is zero chance of me still being in the game after this hand. I would have certainly shoved.
I was more than happy to call pre-flop because I had been fairly card dead just before then and had a tight image that I wanted to widen a little bit. Considered betting on the flop with two overs, but the T9x on the flop felt like it could be part of her pre-flop raising range quite easily.
Bet on the turn is pretty standard I think, but the fold to her re-raise not so much. Now that I am re-visiting it, I feel like maybe I should have called. However, that is a big amount to re-raise and she's effectively going to shove the river. She also felt like a slightly tight player based on other hands, so that was the reasoning for folding. Very keen to get your opinions.
The hand was from the early-mid stages of the mini event, which was not a bounty hunter.
I am starting to get frustrated at my lack of cashes. Need to come back with a cool head tomorrow.
I do feel like I have all the elements required to be a really strong player, I just need to bring them all together at the same time, on a consistent basis too.
I'm trying to get better at ranging opponents, so I'm going to have a punt at offering some analysis here. I will caution you that I'm not a strong player myself so take this with a pinch of salt. I'll look forward to any corrections and criticism.
With AJs: You need to ask yourself what is he check-raising flop with? There are "right" and "wrong" answers here, theoretically, but at low stakes all the rules go out the window and it becomes very player-dependent. I popped reasonable pf calling ranges into an equity calculator and you came out pretty much dead even on equity but you're uncapped (ie, you can have KK, QQ, AK, etc and he can't) so you shouldn't be seeing many light check-raises. Whether the villain is aware of this is down to you to determine. He probably isn't and is just playing his hand. In general, flop raises skew massively towards value hands at low stakes and the majority of players are taking very passive lines with more marginal holdings and draws.
So I would expect to see KQ, KQs, or 88 here a large amount of the time. JTs/o could take this line sometimes but I don't think most people are and I think the offsuits should fold pre (but won't). Other straight draws like J9s and T9s probably just call or fold pre. You also block quite a few Jx straight draws. The only other likely candidates I see are K8s and Q8s. He shouldn't have KK, QQ or AK but it's possible sometimes.
Calling turn is obviously fine but I think you should be raising for value here. You have the nuts and he's probably going to call with all his two pairs, sets and heart draws (he can have KQ, JT, T9, some AK).
These tiny turn and river bets are weirdly polarizing at low stakes. They either have a very weak hand like second pair or missed draws and are hoping you'll fold or a very strong hand they're trying to vbet without folding you out. Since his most obvious flop raises have improved to full houses by the river and he sizes up his bet considerably in relative terms, I'd be very inclined to think he just rivered a full house. You pretty much only beat K8s at this point and he just almost always has a full house. It really doesn't seem realistic for K8s to keep firing so small after the board pairs since he beats next to nothing.
You need to be right about 7% of the time for the river to be a profitable call I think. In the best case scenario, where KQo, KQs, 88, JTs, JTo, K8s, Q8s are all still in his range, you're beating 14 combos and losing to 17 (winning 45%). If we take his missed straight draws out, you're down to 10% and you only beat K8s. Basically we need him to be calling out of the SB, raising flop, and firing turn and river at sizes which make nothing fold with straight draws (many of which missed and some of which you block) and/or at least a few combos of random Kx hands for this to be a good call if I've done my sums right. (I've just noticed I forgot to include 3 combos of J9s but it doesn't change things drastically and is one of the more unlikely holdings here.)
It doesn't seem realistic to me from an obviously weak player and I think it's fine to fold river as played and be grateful villain didn't charge you too much. I think you should have raised turn but you were never getting KQs to fold so I guess you saved yourself some chips there.
It's a decently interesting hand to think about though. Better players would be more likely to show up with the junk you need but they would also be sizing their bets up a lot giving you worse odds. Not sure if it would become a call or not at that point and I've spent too much time on this one already to have a go at figuring it out.
With KJo: I think folding is fine here too. You're losing to straights, sets, and AJ and I can't think of many worse hands they raise and commit their stack with. You're probably drawing to a Q when you call, which they will block a lot of the time. I can't think of any reason to donk the flop, just check to the PFR.
I'm trying to get better at ranging opponents, so I'm going to have a punt at offering some analysis here. I will caution you that I'm not a strong player myself so take this with a pinch of salt. I'll look forward to any corrections and criticism.
With AJs: You need to ask yourself what is he check-raising flop with? There are "right" and "wrong" answers here, theoretically, but at low stakes all the rules go out the window and it becomes very player-dependent. I popped reasonable pf calling ranges into an equity calculator and you came out pretty much dead even on equity but you're uncapped (ie, you can have KK, QQ, AK, etc and he can't) so you shouldn't be seeing many light check-raises. Whether the villain is aware of this is down to you to determine. He probably isn't and is just playing his hand. In general, flop raises skew massively towards value hands at low stakes and the majority of players are taking very passive lines with more marginal holdings and draws.
So I would expect to see KQ, KQs, or 88 here a large amount of the time. JTs/o could take this line sometimes but I don't think most people are and I think the offsuits should fold pre (but won't). Other straight draws like J9s and T9s probably just call or fold pre. You also block quite a few Jx straight draws. The only other likely candidates I see are K8s and Q8s. He shouldn't have KK, QQ or AK but it's possible sometimes.
Calling turn is obviously fine but I think you should be raising for value here. You have the nuts and he's probably going to call with all his two pairs, sets and heart draws (he can have KQ, JT, T9, some AK).
These tiny turn and river bets are weirdly polarizing at low stakes. They either have a very weak hand like second pair or missed draws and are hoping you'll fold or a very strong hand they're trying to vbet without folding you out. Since his most obvious flop raises have improved to full houses by the river and he sizes up his bet considerably in relative terms, I'd be very inclined to think he just rivered a full house. You pretty much only beat K8s at this point and he just almost always has a full house. It really doesn't seem realistic for K8s to keep firing so small after the board pairs since he beats next to nothing.
You need to be right about 7% of the time for the river to be a profitable call I think. In the best case scenario, where KQo, KQs, 88, JTs, JTo, K8s, Q8s are all still in his range, you're beating 14 combos and losing to 17 (winning 45%). If we take his missed straight draws out, you're down to 10% and you only beat K8s. Basically we need him to be calling out of the SB, raising flop, and firing turn and river at sizes which make nothing fold with straight draws (many of which missed and some of which you block) and/or at least a few combos of random Kx hands for this to be a good call if I've done my sums right. (I've just noticed I forgot to include 3 combos of J9s but it doesn't change things drastically and is one of the more unlikely holdings here.)
It doesn't seem realistic to me from an obviously weak player and I think it's fine to fold river as played and be grateful villain didn't charge you too much. I think you should have raised turn but you were never getting KQs to fold so I guess you saved yourself some chips there.
It's a decently interesting hand to think about though. Better players would be more likely to show up with the junk you need but they would also be sizing their bets up a lot giving you worse odds. Not sure if it would become a call or not at that point and I've spent too much time on this one already to have a go at figuring it out.
With KJo: I think folding is fine here too. You're losing to straights, sets, and AJ and I can't think of many worse hands they raise and commit their stack with. You're probably drawing to a Q when you call, which they will block a lot of the time. I can't think of any reason to donk the flop, just check to the PFR.
Wow. You say you're not strong player, but by the way you talk about the hand it's pretty clear you have an incredibly strong grasp of the game, far superior to mine! I genuinely appreciate the time you've taken to go through all that.
You did lose me a couple of times when you brought percentages into play such as "you need to be right about 7% of the time" - my education hasn't gotten that far yet. But, for the most part, I followed your analysis and completely agree with your assessment also.
Which equity calculator do you use? I have never tried one of these.
Mini's Bet vs @cal69: Played: 3 - 3 Buy-Ins: £22.00 - £22.00 Cashes: £1.88 - £1.88
My utterly dismal run has come to and end as I won a £100 Turbo Freezeout tonight. I'm really hoping this marks the start of an upswing in results for me. I do feel like I am doing a lot of things correctly at the moment.
Wow. You say you're not strong player, but by the way you talk about the hand it's pretty clear you have an incredibly strong grasp of the game, far superior to mine! I genuinely appreciate the time you've taken to go through all that.
You did lose me a couple of times when you brought percentages into play such as "you need to be right about 7% of the time" - my education hasn't gotten that far yet. But, for the most part, I followed your analysis and completely agree with your assessment also.
Which equity calculator do you use? I have never tried one of these.
I appreciate you saying so. If even half of this stuff went through my head in-game I might win some money.
Seems you're getting massively carried away in pretty marginal spots, like shoving Kings on the AA9 flop, and that hand above.
The guy has put half his stack in on the turn and then you go over the top, what are you hoping he turns up with? Cos he ain't (or shouldn't be) folding and anything he's calling with is gonna have your hand in bad shape. You don't even scoop vs A2/A3.
You posted a few days ago about the mini where you felt you played amazing, on a much higher level and your decisions all had logic, so I'm curious to know the logic about the hand above....
Think shoving pre would be fine (subject to small blind tendencies if we have any info)
I was more than happy to call pre-flop because I had been fairly card dead just before then and had a tight image that I wanted to widen a little bit.
So you peel from the sb? Are you not better to 3b if you are going to play the hand?
With the A4 hand as hhy said it doesn't really make sense the way you have played it. Could of shoved pre, could of bet flop. Could of folded pre depending on reads on the shortie jam. You then raise turn with no fold equity beating nothing.
AJ hand against that sizing we have to raise.
Kings hand it makes no sense to raise, if he is bluffing let him bluff or over valuing 9x let him do that. What turns are we scared of?
I would be trying to get some reads/notes on opponents, especially regs, as this can make some spots a lot easier based on the hands you have posted.
Think you can make a case for calling/raising/folding pre-flop there, though think folding is the worst option of the 3..
But on that flop, you have to shove. What turn cards do you want to see? A 4 would be good. an A would make you further ahead/further behind. Every other card is bad. For example, that 10 on the turn. Whole bunch of hands that were behind have now overtaken you. It's not just K10-QJ would think his birthday arrived early.
If you are in a hand with A rag, what card is better than A on the flop-checking there is setting fire to money.
I think calling pre with A4s is pretty bad. Am I mad? You can easily call versus the initial jam but when SB calls behind your equity goes through the floor. Against equilibrium ranges (per ICMIZER, which is very useful here and gives you one free calc per day free of charge) you're at 28% and losing money by calling, largely I assume because both ranges are Ace-heavy and dominating you.
So you need to fold or jam.
You need to SB to fold to a jam 57% of the time to break even (fold equity calculator here) and I think you get there quite easily with the range ICMIZER gives them.
We don't know how close to optimal SB is here but I think they would need to be very tight or very stupid for you to not be getting folds 57% of the time versus a 34bb jam, even with bounties. I think many players in the low stakes pool would call pre with almost anything here and jam themselves with anything approaching a strong hand, because they tend to go absolutely HAM for even min-bounties, so you should be getting plenty of folds. Once again, player notes are helpful here. If they know how to fold you're in business. If you don't anticipate them folding to a jam, just fold IMO.
As played, I agree with everyone else that checking this flop is criminal. It's about as good as you could hope for when you call pre. I think jamming is probably better than cbetting. You're ahead about half the time on the flop vs their assumed range but almost nothing helps you and a lot of cards hurt you. You're more or less pot-committed when you just cbet anyway and getting it in on the flop folds out a lot of their hands that want to see the turn.
Raising the turn is suicidal, as noted above. Nothing he bets is folding and you beat nothing that calls.
Thanks for the feedback everyone, flattered that you all care enough to bother responding
Agree with everything said, apart from that A4s hand. I do think the best play was to shove pre (even though I didn't reach that conclusion at the time).
However, as played, my logic was that I had top pair, and he's unlikely to have the ace following his flat pre-flop. I can certainly see the argument for shoving on the flop, but let's ignore that as the turn is where I'm conflicted by your comments.
I do feel like many players would make that pot-sized bet on the turn having just hit the king or the ten - even though that's a wrong play. That was the reason for the shove, I felt like there are many hands he could have that I'm beating e.g. T8, T9, TJ, K8, K9 possibly even a raggy K or T too given that the bounty was in play. And, as I'm not putting him on an ace, how often does he turn up with two pair? Not very.
Given that you all seem to be in agreement, I know I'm wrong. Just struggling to see it.
I booted into Windows so I can look at this in Flopzilla for you. Normally I would include some screenshots but that's much more of a pain in Windows and I don't feel like it! I strongly recommend downloading Flopzilla and trying it out for yourself, it's very useful for evaluating these kinds of spots.
I gave villain this SB flatting range: A2s-AKs, K6s-KQs, Q9s-QJs, J9s-JTs, T8s, T9s, 98s, 87s, A2-AK, K7-KQ, Q9-QJ, JT, 22-AA. First thing to note is that, disregarding the effect of the bounty, this is comically wide for the SB. JTs is the worst suited connecter he should flat with according to HRC. But if you think it's possible, we'll include T8s and T9s. I gave him a few more junky hands on the edge of his "correct" ranges too and went with the assumption that he flats his premiums. Let's just assume he's your typical loose, passive fish.
On the flop, he has top pair that beats you approx 20% of the time and a negligible amount of sets and two pairs. A whopping 25% of the time he's completely missed the flop. Almost everything in between is middle pairs, bottom pairs and gutshots.
Now look at the turn. His straights (5.4%), two pairs (12.2%), top pairs (23.8%) add up to around 41.5%. Another 31% is gutshots. He's only missing this board completely 8% of the time now.
So you're in pretty good shape on the flop, ahead of almost three-quarters of his range. He has a good number of middle pair, bottom pair and gutshots you can extract value from but most of the time he's just going to fold and gift you a showdown with the CO for a 13bb pot. By the turn, he's made a bunch of two pairs and straights and a whole bunch of gutshots and is only rarely missing the board entirely. In other words, in his range he has a ton of value and you have very little fold equity. You were looking pretty good on the flop but things got very dicey on the turn.
So what is he actually leading out for pot and committing his full stack, with here? Let's start with your best case scenario and assume he bets hands as bad as third pair. Including his straights, sets, two pairs, middle pairs and top pairs along with that, he has 225 combos and you beat 68 of them. So you're ahead 30%-ish of the time. But, IMO, that is comically optimistic. Realistically, he's usually got a straight, a set, two pair, or top pair here. That's 132 combos, of which you can beat 16. So you're ahead only 12% of the time.
Does that sound good to you? At best you are winning 30% of the time but it's much more likely you're in considerably worse shape. He's laying you 2/1 pot odds on a call here, which you need about 33% equity to profitably call. There is almost no scenario where you get there. So calling is bad. Easy enough.
So how about a jam? If he calls your jam with top pair and better, you have about 12% equity when called meaning you need him to fold 44% of the time to break even (using the fold equity calculator from before). If you are right and he bets half pot with as bad as third pair, you are actually making him fold almost 45% of the time. So you have a break even jam. Congratulations.
But remember that we are being incredibly optimistic here. We've given him a very wide flatting range preflop that assumes he doesn't rejam his premium hands, we've assumed he leads full pot with only third pair, and we're assuming we can get folds when he already has more than half of his stack committed.
Under realistic conditions, this is an absolutely awful line that is burning EV. In Fantasy Land where we are playing clueless morons, this could just about be a breakeven play. But we've already established you had many better, more profitable options here. Jamming preflop is pretty good. Betting or jamming the flop is slightly worse but probably pretty good too. Raising the turn is not good almost ever.
We need to be looking for the most profitable lines with our ranges, not breakeven lines. As much as you could just about argue for your line it is far, far, far from the best line. It's almost certainly more profitable to just snap-fold preflop since that line only costs you 1bb.
It's also worth noting that we should design our strategy around what good players will do, not what bad players will do. Lines that work well against bad players don't work against good players. Lines that work well against good players work extra well against bad players.
Not sure about this bit though tbh. Could you expand on it at all? I realise you’re talking mtts here but certainly in dyms i’m having to adjust. Stacks that i should normally be able to attack and get folds from easily are calling and so my approach has to be different
“Lines that work well against good players work extra well against bad players.“
“Lines that work well against good players work extra well against bad players.“
It's definitely a blanket statement that isn't always true. I should have said if you're playing in a profitable manner you'll crush bad players in the long run.
I booted into Windows so I can look at this in Flopzilla for you. Normally I would include some screenshots but that's much more of a pain in Windows and I don't feel like it! I strongly recommend downloading Flopzilla and trying it out for yourself, it's very useful for evaluating these kinds of spots.
I gave villain this SB flatting range: A2s-AKs, K6s-KQs, Q9s-QJs, J9s-JTs, T8s, T9s, 98s, 87s, A2-AK, K7-KQ, Q9-QJ, JT, 22-AA. First thing to note is that, disregarding the effect of the bounty, this is comically wide for the SB. JTs is the worst suited connecter he should flat with according to HRC. But if you think it's possible, we'll include T8s and T9s. I gave him a few more junky hands on the edge of his "correct" ranges too and went with the assumption that he flats his premiums. Let's just assume he's your typical loose, passive fish.
On the flop, he has top pair that beats you approx 20% of the time and a negligible amount of sets and two pairs. A whopping 25% of the time he's completely missed the flop. Almost everything in between is middle pairs, bottom pairs and gutshots.
Now look at the turn. His straights (5.4%), two pairs (12.2%), top pairs (23.8%) add up to around 41.5%. Another 31% is gutshots. He's only missing this board completely 8% of the time now.
So you're in pretty good shape on the flop, ahead of almost three-quarters of his range. He has a good number of middle pair, bottom pair and gutshots you can extract value from but most of the time he's just going to fold and gift you a showdown with the CO for a 13bb pot. By the turn, he's made a bunch of two pairs and straights and a whole bunch of gutshots and is only rarely missing the board entirely. In other words, in his range he has a ton of value and you have very little fold equity. You were looking pretty good on the flop but things got very dicey on the turn.
So what is he actually leading out for pot and committing his full stack, with here? Let's start with your best case scenario and assume he bets hands as bad as third pair. Including his straights, sets, two pairs, middle pairs and top pairs along with that, he has 225 combos and you beat 68 of them. So you're ahead 30%-ish of the time. But, IMO, that is comically optimistic. Realistically, he's usually got a straight, a set, two pair, or top pair here. That's 132 combos, of which you can beat 16. So you're ahead only 12% of the time.
Does that sound good to you? At best you are winning 30% of the time but it's much more likely you're in considerably worse shape. He's laying you 2/1 pot odds on a call here, which you need about 33% equity to profitably call. There is almost no scenario where you get there. So calling is bad. Easy enough.
So how about a jam? If he calls your jam with top pair and better, you have about 12% equity when called meaning you need him to fold 44% of the time to break even (using the fold equity calculator from before). If you are right and he bets half pot with as bad as third pair, you are actually making him fold almost 45% of the time. So you have a break even jam. Congratulations.
But remember that we are being incredibly optimistic here. We've given him a very wide flatting range preflop that assumes he doesn't rejam his premium hands, we've assumed he leads full pot with only third pair, and we're assuming we can get folds when he already has more than half of his stack committed.
Under realistic conditions, this is an absolutely awful line that is burning EV. In Fantasy Land where we are playing clueless morons, this could just about be a breakeven play. But we've already established you had many better, more profitable options here. Jamming preflop is pretty good. Betting or jamming the flop is slightly worse but probably pretty good too. Raising the turn is not good almost ever.
We need to be looking for the most profitable lines with our ranges, not breakeven lines. As much as you could just about argue for your line it is far, far, far from the best line. It's almost certainly more profitable to just snap-fold preflop since that line only costs you 1bb.
It's also worth noting that we should design our strategy around what good players will do, not what bad players will do. Lines that work well against bad players don't work against good players. Lines that work well against good players work extra well against bad players.
Thanks for attending my TED talk.
That's got to be one of the most helpful and insightful posts anyone has ever made on this forum. Much to my amazement, you have talked me round. I completely agree with you.
Comments
Tournaments: 49
Buy-Ins: £359.21
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Live:
Tournaments: 7
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Cashes: £100.00
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Mini's Bet vs @cal69 (read below):
Played: 1 - 1
Cashes: £0 - £0
It's certainly been an interesting 24 hours for me.
Played a number of satellites yesterday with no success, and by the end of the day I was mentally exhausted and quite literally just throwing money away by making the most ludicrous plays. Honestly, it was a real low point in my poker "career".
I realised that if I am going to succeed at this, which I desperately want to do, I needed to re-energise and re-motivate myself. I did two things to make this happen. Firstly, making a personal plan (non-poker) for how to spend my Sunday which would allow me to relax, but still be productive. Doing this got me in the right frame of mind. Secondly, and more importantly, I made a little £10 bet with a friend regarding who can make the most profit from mini tournaments between now and the end of April. I'm a hugely competitive person, so this really got me focussed.
I did play the mini tonight, and didn't cash (neither did my friend). However, I feel like I played better than ever before. I know it's only one tournament and that's not a significant sample size. But the decisions I made all had some form of logical reasoning behind them, and I feel like I made some incredible calls. I was able to put people on a range of hands, and be right for the most part. It's difficult to explain, but I strongly believe I played on much higher level tonight.
Perhaps this hand below says it best. After he bet the river, I felt near certain that he had the KQ. I had to call with the straight. The reason why I realise this is a big step forward is that two weeks ago, there is zero chance of me still being in the game after this hand. I would have certainly shoved.
There is one hand I would like some advice on:
Bet on the turn is pretty standard I think, but the fold to her re-raise not so much. Now that I am re-visiting it, I feel like maybe I should have called. However, that is a big amount to re-raise and she's effectively going to shove the river. She also felt like a slightly tight player based on other hands, so that was the reasoning for folding. Very keen to get your opinions.
The hand was from the early-mid stages of the mini event, which was not a bounty hunter.
I do feel like I have all the elements required to be a really strong player, I just need to bring them all together at the same time, on a consistent basis too.
Online:
Tournaments: 52
Buy-Ins: £377.41
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FT's: 2
Wins: 1
Live:
Tournaments: 7
Buy-Ins: £380.00
Cashes: £100.00
FT's: 0
Wins: 0
Mini's Bet vs @cal69:
Played: 2 - 2
Buy-Ins: £16.50 - £16.50
Cashes: £1.88 - £1.88
With AJs: You need to ask yourself what is he check-raising flop with? There are "right" and "wrong" answers here, theoretically, but at low stakes all the rules go out the window and it becomes very player-dependent. I popped reasonable pf calling ranges into an equity calculator and you came out pretty much dead even on equity but you're uncapped (ie, you can have KK, QQ, AK, etc and he can't) so you shouldn't be seeing many light check-raises. Whether the villain is aware of this is down to you to determine. He probably isn't and is just playing his hand. In general, flop raises skew massively towards value hands at low stakes and the majority of players are taking very passive lines with more marginal holdings and draws.
So I would expect to see KQ, KQs, or 88 here a large amount of the time. JTs/o could take this line sometimes but I don't think most people are and I think the offsuits should fold pre (but won't). Other straight draws like J9s and T9s probably just call or fold pre. You also block quite a few Jx straight draws. The only other likely candidates I see are K8s and Q8s. He shouldn't have KK, QQ or AK but it's possible sometimes.
Calling turn is obviously fine but I think you should be raising for value here. You have the nuts and he's probably going to call with all his two pairs, sets and heart draws (he can have KQ, JT, T9, some AK).
These tiny turn and river bets are weirdly polarizing at low stakes. They either have a very weak hand like second pair or missed draws and are hoping you'll fold or a very strong hand they're trying to vbet without folding you out. Since his most obvious flop raises have improved to full houses by the river and he sizes up his bet considerably in relative terms, I'd be very inclined to think he just rivered a full house. You pretty much only beat K8s at this point and he just almost always has a full house. It really doesn't seem realistic for K8s to keep firing so small after the board pairs since he beats next to nothing.
You need to be right about 7% of the time for the river to be a profitable call I think. In the best case scenario, where KQo, KQs, 88, JTs, JTo, K8s, Q8s are all still in his range, you're beating 14 combos and losing to 17 (winning 45%). If we take his missed straight draws out, you're down to 10% and you only beat K8s. Basically we need him to be calling out of the SB, raising flop, and firing turn and river at sizes which make nothing fold with straight draws (many of which missed and some of which you block) and/or at least a few combos of random Kx hands for this to be a good call if I've done my sums right. (I've just noticed I forgot to include 3 combos of J9s but it doesn't change things drastically and is one of the more unlikely holdings here.)
It doesn't seem realistic to me from an obviously weak player and I think it's fine to fold river as played and be grateful villain didn't charge you too much. I think you should have raised turn but you were never getting KQs to fold so I guess you saved yourself some chips there.
It's a decently interesting hand to think about though. Better players would be more likely to show up with the junk you need but they would also be sizing their bets up a lot giving you worse odds. Not sure if it would become a call or not at that point and I've spent too much time on this one already to have a go at figuring it out.
With KJo: I think folding is fine here too. You're losing to straights, sets, and AJ and I can't think of many worse hands they raise and commit their stack with. You're probably drawing to a Q when you call, which they will block a lot of the time. I can't think of any reason to donk the flop, just check to the PFR.
You did lose me a couple of times when you brought percentages into play such as "you need to be right about 7% of the time" - my education hasn't gotten that far yet. But, for the most part, I followed your analysis and completely agree with your assessment also.
Which equity calculator do you use? I have never tried one of these.
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My utterly dismal run has come to and end as I won a £100 Turbo Freezeout tonight. I'm really hoping this marks the start of an upswing in results for me. I do feel like I am doing a lot of things correctly at the moment.
The percentages refer to your pot odds. There's a good explanation here.
For equity calcs you can try Equilab, Flopzilla, or Odds Oracle
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Was going really well in a £400 bounty hunter just now until I got into trouble on this hand.
The guy has put half his stack in on the turn and then you go over the top, what are you hoping he turns up with? Cos he ain't (or shouldn't be) folding and anything he's calling with is gonna have your hand in bad shape. You don't even scoop vs A2/A3.
You posted a few days ago about the mini where you felt you played amazing, on a much higher level and your decisions all had logic, so I'm curious to know the logic about the hand above....
Think shoving pre would be fine (subject to small blind tendencies if we have any info)
So you peel from the sb? Are you not better to 3b if you are going to play the hand?
With the A4 hand as hhy said it doesn't really make sense the way you have played it. Could of shoved pre, could of bet flop. Could of folded pre depending on reads on the shortie jam. You then raise turn with no fold equity beating nothing.
AJ hand against that sizing we have to raise.
Kings hand it makes no sense to raise, if he is bluffing let him bluff or over valuing 9x let him do that. What turns are we scared of?
I would be trying to get some reads/notes on opponents, especially regs, as this can make some spots a lot easier based on the hands you have posted.
Think you can make a case for calling/raising/folding pre-flop there, though think folding is the worst option of the 3..
But on that flop, you have to shove. What turn cards do you want to see? A 4 would be good. an A would make you further ahead/further behind. Every other card is bad. For example, that 10 on the turn. Whole bunch of hands that were behind have now overtaken you. It's not just K10-QJ would think his birthday arrived early.
If you are in a hand with A rag, what card is better than A on the flop-checking there is setting fire to money.
So you need to fold or jam.
You need to SB to fold to a jam 57% of the time to break even (fold equity calculator here) and I think you get there quite easily with the range ICMIZER gives them.
We don't know how close to optimal SB is here but I think they would need to be very tight or very stupid for you to not be getting folds 57% of the time versus a 34bb jam, even with bounties. I think many players in the low stakes pool would call pre with almost anything here and jam themselves with anything approaching a strong hand, because they tend to go absolutely HAM for even min-bounties, so you should be getting plenty of folds. Once again, player notes are helpful here. If they know how to fold you're in business. If you don't anticipate them folding to a jam, just fold IMO.
As played, I agree with everyone else that checking this flop is criminal. It's about as good as you could hope for when you call pre. I think jamming is probably better than cbetting. You're ahead about half the time on the flop vs their assumed range but almost nothing helps you and a lot of cards hurt you. You're more or less pot-committed when you just cbet anyway and getting it in on the flop folds out a lot of their hands that want to see the turn.
Raising the turn is suicidal, as noted above. Nothing he bets is folding and you beat nothing that calls.
Agree with everything said, apart from that A4s hand. I do think the best play was to shove pre (even though I didn't reach that conclusion at the time).
However, as played, my logic was that I had top pair, and he's unlikely to have the ace following his flat pre-flop. I can certainly see the argument for shoving on the flop, but let's ignore that as the turn is where I'm conflicted by your comments.
I do feel like many players would make that pot-sized bet on the turn having just hit the king or the ten - even though that's a wrong play. That was the reason for the shove, I felt like there are many hands he could have that I'm beating e.g. T8, T9, TJ, K8, K9 possibly even a raggy K or T too given that the bounty was in play. And, as I'm not putting him on an ace, how often does he turn up with two pair? Not very.
Given that you all seem to be in agreement, I know I'm wrong. Just struggling to see it.
I gave villain this SB flatting range: A2s-AKs, K6s-KQs, Q9s-QJs, J9s-JTs, T8s, T9s, 98s, 87s, A2-AK, K7-KQ, Q9-QJ, JT, 22-AA. First thing to note is that, disregarding the effect of the bounty, this is comically wide for the SB. JTs is the worst suited connecter he should flat with according to HRC. But if you think it's possible, we'll include T8s and T9s. I gave him a few more junky hands on the edge of his "correct" ranges too and went with the assumption that he flats his premiums. Let's just assume he's your typical loose, passive fish.
On the flop, he has top pair that beats you approx 20% of the time and a negligible amount of sets and two pairs. A whopping 25% of the time he's completely missed the flop. Almost everything in between is middle pairs, bottom pairs and gutshots.
Now look at the turn. His straights (5.4%), two pairs (12.2%), top pairs (23.8%) add up to around 41.5%. Another 31% is gutshots. He's only missing this board completely 8% of the time now.
So you're in pretty good shape on the flop, ahead of almost three-quarters of his range. He has a good number of middle pair, bottom pair and gutshots you can extract value from but most of the time he's just going to fold and gift you a showdown with the CO for a 13bb pot. By the turn, he's made a bunch of two pairs and straights and a whole bunch of gutshots and is only rarely missing the board entirely. In other words, in his range he has a ton of value and you have very little fold equity. You were looking pretty good on the flop but things got very dicey on the turn.
So what is he actually leading out for pot and committing his full stack, with here? Let's start with your best case scenario and assume he bets hands as bad as third pair. Including his straights, sets, two pairs, middle pairs and top pairs along with that, he has 225 combos and you beat 68 of them. So you're ahead 30%-ish of the time. But, IMO, that is comically optimistic. Realistically, he's usually got a straight, a set, two pair, or top pair here. That's 132 combos, of which you can beat 16. So you're ahead only 12% of the time.
Does that sound good to you? At best you are winning 30% of the time but it's much more likely you're in considerably worse shape. He's laying you 2/1 pot odds on a call here, which you need about 33% equity to profitably call. There is almost no scenario where you get there. So calling is bad. Easy enough.
So how about a jam? If he calls your jam with top pair and better, you have about 12% equity when called meaning you need him to fold 44% of the time to break even (using the fold equity calculator from before). If you are right and he bets half pot with as bad as third pair, you are actually making him fold almost 45% of the time. So you have a break even jam. Congratulations.
But remember that we are being incredibly optimistic here. We've given him a very wide flatting range preflop that assumes he doesn't rejam his premium hands, we've assumed he leads full pot with only third pair, and we're assuming we can get folds when he already has more than half of his stack committed.
Under realistic conditions, this is an absolutely awful line that is burning EV. In Fantasy Land where we are playing clueless morons, this could just about be a breakeven play. But we've already established you had many better, more profitable options here. Jamming preflop is pretty good. Betting or jamming the flop is slightly worse but probably pretty good too. Raising the turn is not good almost ever.
We need to be looking for the most profitable lines with our ranges, not breakeven lines. As much as you could just about argue for your line it is far, far, far from the best line. It's almost certainly more profitable to just snap-fold preflop since that line only costs you 1bb.
It's also worth noting that we should design our strategy around what good players will do, not what bad players will do. Lines that work well against bad players don't work against good players. Lines that work well against good players work extra well against bad players.
Thanks for attending my TED talk.
Not sure about this bit though tbh. Could you expand on it at all?
I realise you’re talking mtts here but certainly in dyms i’m having to adjust. Stacks that i should normally be able to attack and get folds from easily are calling and so my approach has to be different
“Lines that work well against good players work extra well against bad players.“
I am definitely going to check out flopzilla.
Thank you.
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