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Grim spot in the Sunday Major
| Player | Action | Cards | Amount | Pot | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| loololollo | Small blind | 60.00 | 60.00 | 6440.00 | |
| Hoff92 | Big blind | 120.00 | 180.00 | 20982.50 | |
| Your hole cards |
| ||||
| HAYSIE | Fold | ||||
| ZORRO55 | Call | 120.00 | 300.00 | 10077.50 | |
| MynaFrett | Raise | 360.00 | 660.00 | 8715.00 | |
| myjokras00 | Fold | ||||
| loololollo | Fold | ||||
| Hoff92 | Fold | ||||
| ZORRO55 | Call | 240.00 | 900.00 | 9837.50 | |
| Flop | |||||
| |||||
| ZORRO55 | Check | ||||
| MynaFrett | Bet | 240.00 | 1140.00 | 8475.00 | |
| ZORRO55 | Raise | 720.00 | 1860.00 | 9117.50 | |
| MynaFrett | Call | 480.00 | 2340.00 | 7995.00 | |
| Turn | |||||
| |||||
| ZORRO55 | Bet | 480.00 | 2820.00 | 8637.50 | |
| MynaFrett | Raise | 1920.00 | 4740.00 | 6075.00 | |
| ZORRO55 | Call | 1440.00 | 6180.00 | 7197.50 | |
| River | |||||
| |||||
| ZORRO55 | All-in | 7197.50 | 13377.50 | 0.00 | |
| MynaFrett | Fold | ||||
| ZORRO55 | Muck | ||||
| ZORRO55 | Win | 6180.00 | 6180.00 | ||
| ZORRO55 | Return | 7197.50 | 0.00 | 13377.50 | |
Comments
1. 5c4c
2. AA
3. AQ
4. A3
5. A2
6. QQ
7. 33
8. 22
9. Kcxc
10. Bluff
Unless you strongly believe the villain is capable of shoving a pure bluff on a board that wet, it's a fold. It is practically screaming House or better.
Betting with a lower Flush? Possibly. But shoving? Weaker hands fold. Almost all stronger hands call.
I'm not saying I'd never shove the 13th or 14th nuts. But I am saying I'd never shove the 13th nuts with the aim of getting a call from a weaker hand...
We all see things differently.
For me, I would never shove with a weak made hand there. Betting 2.5k-3k or check-calling makes far more sense with 10cxc. It's the 13th nuts. A bluff-catcher at best.
Whereas I might shove with air.
When we hit a pretty carlsberg flop for this sort of hand, I would ask why would you bet so small - is it to induce bluffs cause if you want to bet for value - versus perhaps a weaker type of player then we just go big to create a pot when we do hit our flush. Personally when I bet what you have and get raised I may just juice up the pot on flop to make it easy to get in a lot of our stack on turns when we improve
As played once again on turn I just pile in chips
River leaves us guessing badly, and just re-iterates we have made mistakes on previous streets as we should really know what we are going to do before it happens in most situations so we have a clear plan in the hand for turn and river!
Hope that makes sense
"If you are willing to play QJs like this firstly maybe beef up your isolation bet if this is your objective"
I might well sometimes be limping behind and sometimes isolating depending on things like stack sizes of players currently active in the hand and the stack sizes (and sometimes the ability) of those yet to act and also what I know (or think I know) about the players limping range. My "objective" on this occasion was to hopefully isolate what I knew to be a wide limp-calling range. This player had already limped with a number of holdings from early position and called the isolation out of position in similar spots that went to showdown. I knew that QJs should have good equity and play well IP HU against this range but limping behind with some decent players at this table still to act and potentially playing a multiway pot OOP, which may also end up being a raised pot I wasn't in control of, was less attractive.
I completely get the point about the ISO size though and it's actually something I've been thinking about lately. I've always naturally just wanted to ISO the same way I would 3 bet vs an open at the same stack sizes; so if we were at a stack depth where a 3.5x 3 bet size would be appropriate IP I would just ISO 3.5x the limp as well, same with 3.25x, 3x etc as the effective stacks get shallower. I always felt like this gives me a good price on the isolation attempt whilst simultaneously allowing me to play a slightly wider range without bloating the pot too much pre. It also means I don't lose too many chips if there is more action behind when I am lower down in my range. The thing is with this approach I am also losing some value with the top of my range preflop whilst also giving the limper his second cheapest option for the hands he wanted to see a flop with. I see some players isolating limpers to the size the limper would have to pay if they had opened and got 3 bet and I do see the merits. If blinds are say 50/100 and effective stacks were 50bb they isolate the limper to 600 (in position) whereas I isolate to 300 . I'll really have to think about the advantages and disadvantages of switching to 5/6x ISO instead of 3x. I assume you employ a larger ISO size and perhaps a tighter range to go along with that from early positions especially?
"When we hit a pretty carlsberg flop for this sort of hand, I would ask why would you bet so small - is it to induce bluffs cause if you want to bet for value - versus perhaps a weaker type of player then we just go big to create a pot when we do hit our flush. Personally when I bet what you have and get raised I may just juice up the pot on flop to make it easy to get in a lot of our stack on turns when we improve"
I feel like I want to just simplify to betting my entire ISO range for a small size on this AcQh2c flop in position. I don't think I'd be bothering with splitting my range and using different sizes with big sizes/small sizes/checks for different parts of my range - I'll just bet small with everything. It might not be GTO but I feel like it's quite appropriate to only use a small size here anyway. A decent part of their limp-calling range is small to middling pairs and small to middling suited connectors/gappers. Much of that range (that doesn't have front door or backdoor flush draw) doesn't continue anyway but some of the weaker and backdoor stuff is put in a tougher spot vs a small size. Also the 55/44/33 with a club which also connect to the A and the 2 are now in an awkward spot facing the small size but wouldn't have been facing a big size. If I were to use a big size or check strategy here I think it makes their continues vs the big bet much more intuitive and gives much easier decisions. I might be wrong but I don't think I necessarily just want to target the strongest parts of players ranges and give easy decisions to the middling/weak parts of their range in these spots. If they are already overfolding hands that need to continue vs the small size here then my bluffs/semi-bluffs/bottom of range does very well. If they start to call or raise too many hands then the value/top of my range does very well.
Also, this ace high board is very different to say a jack or ten high connected, two tone flop in the same spot for example. If that were the texture I wouldn't be c betting range for a small size, I'd be using only big c bets or checks in that scenario with suits and over cards/blockers becoming much more important in determining which hands prefer betting and which prefer checking. Betting everything and using a small size in that scenario would be very bad I think.
As for just trying to shovel chips in on the flop with this kind of hand specifically I do think it would be fine for me to just 3 bet the flop vs their xr like you say obviously with the intention of running it if they were to just jam. However, we are still deep and I do potentially get stacked a lot against A2/22 if those are amongst the few hands they want to run it with on the flop.
Although the small size isn't necessarily an induce or intentionally an induce (like I said I'll be betting 99 here and JdTd for this small size and all the other hands in my ISO range as well on this AcQh2c) I do think some players start over bluffing with some random hands or overplay marginal hands facing small c bets on flops that they perceive to be "draw heavy". A lot of players play a very face up post flop strategy (especially the players who also like to limp a lot of hands) where they like to min bet/small bet marginal draws and marginal made hands and then size up with strong made hands or vulnerable top pairs or very strong draws on what they perceive to be draw heavy flops. I feel like they are also likely to assume you are doing the same at least until they have evidence to the contrary.
If they are turning a random hand with very little equity into a bluff on the flop facing the small size I don't want to discourage that (certainly not when I have hands like this or the other parts of my range that are performing well here). It's definitely possible they just have an ace as well, wouldn't surprise me to see this xr with even A4o vs this small size on this flop. Having said that some of the wheel aces would be decent check-raises here anyway. So lets say A8/A7/A6 instead. Those also wouldn't surprise me. It's quite funny playing on GG sometimes where mostly Chinese players (in my experience) want to fast play/overplay ANY ace on ace high flops regardless of the preflop action and regardless of how deep the effective stacks are. It's not quite the same on Sky for the most part but do still see it occasionally.
"As played once again on turn I just pile in chips"
Agreed. That's what I did. Making the chunky raise on the turn to set up river shove on rivers I still want to shove on and providing I don't face a donk jam on some board pairing rivers.
"River leaves us guessing badly, and just re-iterates we have made mistakes on previous streets as we should really know what we are going to do before it happens in most situations so we have a clear plan in the hand for turn and river!"
Whilst I agree that the donk jam leaves us guessing a little bit I don't think that necessarily highlights any mistakes on previous streets. The flop thought process I've explained and the turn has been raised to set up a reasonably sized river jam (or at least the prospect of a river jam). On this river exactly and facing a donk jam my decision is obviously going to be much easier when I have full houses (or quads), much easier when I was bluffing and much more difficult when I have exactly QcJc. Problems could of course arise against players who might have had a hand that they felt had to call turn, get to river then think I only represented a flush on the turn and so turn trips into a bluff on the river blocking quads and full houses. But this was an isolated pot vs a limper, I don't think that's happening here, they're not intentionally turning trips into a bluff...
there is a chance they only had trips and something else could be going on though but I'll get into that when I respond to @Essexphil tomorrow as he is the one who talked more about opponents range, possible hands and how they might play those hands.
Very pleasing to see this level of hand discussion.
Probably a few different ways to play it but second hand looks fine. Should be enough missed flush draws for the price and you don't really get there with much better.
As you two had a bit overlap and also a bit of discussion amongst yourselves I'll look at what you said together.
Firstly I see a bit of discussion about showing up with "air". I just don't see it as played. The only air that can feasibly even get to river as played (and I still think it's way too much of a stretch for this kind of player, if assumptions are correct) can surely only be offsuit KJ/KT with Kc. The fact I have both the Qc and Jc makes it very, very difficult for them to have combo draws other than a few offsuit combo's with the Kc. IF they can get to river as played with a few of those combo's AND donk jam river I would have to tap the table and say well played, look what you made me fold.
I also think it is very, very unlikely to be either the king high flush or any other flush. Firstly because I don't think this kind of player raises flush draws often enough on this ace high flop, especially getting the price I am laying them to just get there on the turn, but I also think that if they do raise some flush draws on the flop occassionally I also think that they try to play for stacks on the turn when they get there rather than bet-calling and donk jamming river instead. When they turn the flush it doesn't matter how inexperienced they are, they still realise I raised pre, bet-called the flop and I can easily have AA/QQ/AQ hands which they might anticipate nobody is going to fold on the turn vs a re-raise or even an all-in. I could be wrong but my instinct is that they don't play the flushes like this facing this line on this board.
Of all the proper 'value' hands mentioned that can take this line 22 is the one I expect to see the most along with A2 and AQ. A3 is less likely but as I said in the previous post I do feel like we see flop xr versus my small size with every ace at least at some frequency so I feel they can definitely turn aces and threes as well sometimes.
So that gets me onto them showing up with trips instead. Although it seems completely bad/counter intuitive to just donk jam with a hand like AJ/AT I do think it can happen and I do see it. I do see inexperienced/weaker players make these kind of mergy donk jams in these spots with trips sometimes. It's partly because they don't fully understand the difference between absolute and relative hand strength in different spots but it's also because they don't want to check and face a big river shove themselves. They might realise their hand isn't really robust enough to check-call a river shove as played but they also have a decently 'strong' hand that they don't want to be forced to fold or be forced to consider folding and end up making a 'bad call' against a player who isn't bluffing or a 'bad fold' against a player who might be bluffing.... I know it makes no sense to jam trips into a player who might be capable of bluffing river but the whole thought process is flawed anyway and with the additional pressure of the short timebank on Sky I do see players just shove trips here (not intentionally as a bluff) and hope for the best.
There is also a bit of a pretext and already a dynamic between myself and this player which I neglected to mention at the start to see if opinions differ on what the ranges look like as played with no history/expectation/dynamic and what the opinions are after I explain a little bit of the subplot and talk about a couple of hands which happened prior.
Hand One: 100bb approx I think this one was. At this point it was already apparent opponent was a serial limp-caller and we'd see hands like 65s and A5o already. They open limp CO and I decide to ISO BTN with Ad5d. The merits of this one can be debated and as I definitely have position regardless of whether the blinds squeeze or not it might be better to just limp behind this one. Flop comes Ts9s6c (ish. It was definitely two tone Ts,9s and a low/middling card). As I mentioned in the previous post I will be pure c betting some boards for a small size with my entire range in some ISO spots IP and being selective and more polarised in others. Unlike on the AQ2 I need to be much more selective with my range on the T96 2 tone and I feel like it is a larger c bet or check back spot. Ad5d doesn't make the cut for betting. It wouldn't strictly speaking be a pure 'bluff' either as it can easily be ahead sometimes. It just has bad properties for betting in this spot because of the suits and works better as a give up/showdown/potentially bluff catch some rivers when turn also checks through. Turn is a repeat 9. Check and check back. River is a repeat T. Now my ace high has even more SDV as it has counterfeited all of their pocket pairs and also any 6X they may have had trying to showdown. We also know they have small to middling connectors in the limp-calling range. Board is T,9,6,9,T. He bet half pot, I called and they showed 5c4c.
Hand Two: Still around 100/90bb approximately effective. I open LJ with AsKc folds round to our friend in the BB and they defend. Flop is 9s,8s,7d. They min donk lead. They don't know and probably don't care but donking isn't really a thing on this one. Coincidentally I don't have JTo in my LJ range here, especially not when deep and in a non bounty hunter specifically, but it's still not a donk lead flop. Most players don't care about that, they just lead because they have a T or a 6 or a pair or a T with a pair or a 6 with a pair and you have ace highs and broadways which miss, so they just lead. The annoying thing is it is actually quite effective in these spots and quite difficult to play against. I find it quite difficult and annoying sometimes anyway, especially if they are also doing it with 2 pair+ and flopped straights. Anyway, I have to call and particularly with the As for the backdoor nut flush draw. Turn is an offsuit J. Check, check. River is the 3s or the 2s I remember it completing the front door flush and not completing the low end of the straight. they bet third pot and I decide that whilst I still expect them to play some of their T for a straight like this they will also have one pair hands and maybe even two pair hands which are going to be in a tough spot facing a big raise. I decide that I have all of the nut flushes (most), lots of King high flushes, some Queen high flushes some Jack high flushes all getting to river the exact same way so I decide to bluff this AsKc this time. I make a 5x raise and they snap T8. Fair play. Not targeting the straights necessarily although some players will bet-fold a straight here vs the big raise with no spade blocker knowing that the spot is under bluffed and I do have so many strong flushes getting to and playing river the exact same way and also cognisant of the fact that they also have lots of flushes from the BB.
Do people think this dynamic - we'll call it a dynamic even though it's only a few hands - can have any bearing on the way the QcJc hand on the AcQh2c3cAd plays out? Should it in fact make me more inclined to call? Would it make you more inclined to call? Does it increase the likelihood of them perhaps 'making a stand' with some more marginal hands against someone who has already been caught bluffing or does it actually make you less inclined to call because you think they are more likely to try and bluff catch river instead now? I had a niggling feeling that he didn't know what to do with trips, he didn't want to face a river shove and have to guess for (effectively) their tournament life in a £100 tournament if I was bluffing again or not so they took that 'tough' decision out of the equation and took that power away from me... then I thought about it some more and put them back on 222.
Can I ask where you stand on the ISO sizing in particular? Do you prefer/use the smaller size yourself generally like I did here or do you go bigger in these spots?
With the second hand (the AQ on A5372) I agree I'm basically top of range as played and they should have enough bluffs. Someone said mistake was not c betting flop which is a reasonable thing to say. They probably don't realise we're supposed to check more often than bet in this spot but also play quite an aggressive flop check-raise strategy which is what I was going for. The mistake was the turn sizing I think. On this turn with some missed flop check-raise supposed to either bet small or over bet, there is no 66/75/90/100% betting. We are either trying to get in the chips on the turn which we were unable to get in on the flop because opponent didn't oblige us with a c bet or we are going with the 33% size to be able to bet wider/bluff cheaper with some hands and also put more of their range in a tricky spot. I need to get better at remembering this and recognising those spots.
Out of position is very tough. The problem with always check raising this type of hand is that by the time all the money goes in you need to expect to run into AJ/AT much more often than sets and 2 pairs Also you lose value from opponent bluffing 0 equity hands and he might do the betting for you with worse Ax anyway. And because you check call strong hands on the flop it allows you to continue more with weaker holdings- like a K6cc that can improve on the turn or bluff later in the hand. So it probably depends on what you think about the villain and how sticky you expect them to be when you raise vs how aggressive you expect them to be when you call. His flop bet size is important to. The smaller he bets= the wider value range he is representing = the more you would want to play aggressively with a hand like AQ/ and find more bluffs to attack the weaker range. I checked solver as wasn't 100% sure and the expected value of call and raise are the same so there is not really a 'correct answer' for this one. One noteworthy takeaway is that in position is supposed to check back top pair often here so if they bet them too much you might 'cooler' him more often when you raise- if you expect him to be sticky with them. You are right about splitting a smaller or bigger size on the turn being a more efficient strategy but I wouldn't be too harsh on yourself for it, very few people play this way on sky. I consider playing OOP a weaker area in my game personally and I believe a lot of people struggle with it.
+1 to that.
4x for the ISO size in these spots rather than my current 3x or the larger 6/5x seems like a happy medium and I might look to switch to that. I have already played a session since reading that comment though and still found myself automatically isolating 3x. Naturally our games change/evolve as we get better/more experienced but that 3x ISO has been a constant in my game since day one. It's not easy breaking those long standing habits or modifying those behaviours. The brain likes those patterns and repetition whether it's stimulating or comforting. It might take time to wean myself off that one. It's the same with switching to using bigger 3 bets both IP and OOP in bounty hunters specifically when covered by the opener. I still either autopilot to the sizes I've always used (which are confirmed too small) or have trouble forcing myself to do it when I do remember. Funnily enough though I've had absolutely no trouble switching to using bigger sizes blind vs blind and that has been a seamless transition. Not sure why modifying that behaviour has been easier than the others but it might be something to do with a natural risk aversion. There isn't so much at stake (necessarily) in the blind vs blind spot, not immediately anyway. In the 3 bet spots, especially with some hands we know we are 3 bet folding to the 4 bet and also knowing that the covering stack is still going to call frequently, it can feel more uncomfortable using the bigger sizes/committing more chips.
Agreed. OOP is tough. I've always naturally been way too passive/bluff catchy OOP and I'm trying to find those spots (which aren't always comfortable) to be more aggressive, go thin enough for value as well as find more bluffs. My default with that AQ (for example) would have been to too often play it as a bluff catcher and allow opponent to use small size flop, medium size turn and check back river with either a worse 'value' hand or high equity combo draw that missed and gave up. I'm actively trying to stop that happening so much but like you say it should be villain dependent as just copying the aggressive line in the game tree too often with some of these combo's can easily be pure spew in game if far too often you only succeed in folding out worse/dominated hands or run into nutted hands.