This is a hand from my sweat session with PPP last night. Interested in some thoughts on this.


Game is 200nl, villain is 24/21/9 over 185 hands with an ATSB of 28%

Pre flop I think is very debatable. BB is 36/20/2. We don't close out the betting which kinda sucks I guess looking back at it now but I had no read that BB was the type to squeeze without a legit hand.

In general people always talk about 3bet or fold from the blinds but I don't think this is necessarily true. I'm a big advocator of playing pots in position but in this spot here I know my hand plays excellently against his range and I'm experimenting with occasionally calling with these types of hands.

I'd like to hear people's thoughts on the 3bet/fold rule and in what circumstances people think it can be broken (if any).

On the flop we can take any line we want here I think. Check/call, check/raise and bet/3bet shove are all arguable plays, what line do you prefer and why?

On the turn what is your plan? Bet enough to committ yourself to calling a shove? Check/fold? Check/call? Bet smaller and fold to a shove?

BossMedia Game #1000637548: Table Table TH 262 - $1.00/$2.00 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:03:45 - 2008/03/17
Seat 1: grtcllr ($51.55)
Seat 2: Hero ($203.15)
Seat 3: Mikado! ($339.90)
Seat 4: nytkeittää ($206.30)
Seat 5: _TY4$_ ($725.96)
Mikado! posts the big blind of $2.00
Hero posts the small blind of $1.00
grtcllr is the button
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [ ]
nytkeittää folds
_TY4$_ raises $8.00
grtcllr folds
Hero calls $8.00
Mikado! folds
*** FLOP *** [ ] - pot $16
Hero checks
_TY4$_ bets $12.00
Hero raises $40.00
_TY4$_ calls $40.00
*** TURN *** [ ] [] - pot $95, effective stacks remaining $155
Hero ???

Got a home game tonight but I'll be back on later or first thing tomorrow to hopefully see some discussion and get more involved myself.

Originally Posted by FaDi

According to pokerstove, this is 21% pf

66+,A4s+,K7s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,A9o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo

Now i'm going to knock it down to what i think would bet and call your raise here, tell me if you disagree with my thinking.

A4s+,910s,66+

Now putting your hand up till the turn into pokerstove
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 26.023% 26.02% 00.00% 687 0.00 { KcJc }
Hand 1: 73.977% 73.98% 00.00% 1953 0.00 { 66+, AQs, ATs-A9s, A7s-A6s, A4s, T9s }

Now things that could change this are if you've been increasingly aggro on the flop, I generally just call and reevaluate on the turn based on card/betting.

In the end though, i end up check/folding here most of the time as calling any bet you're just hoping for a club the majority of the time and that might not even be good.

Whilst his PFR is 21% it's the ATSB% stat that is more relevant here, 28%.

PokerStove shows that as 55+/A2s+/A7o+/K5s+/K9o+/Q7s+/Q9o+/J8s+/J9o+/T8s+

So it's a wide range and we are a favourite against that range

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

558,211,104 games 0.063 secs 8,860,493,714 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 48.349% 46.24% 02.11% 258120265 11770768.00 { 55+, A2s+, K5s+, Q7s+, J8s+, T8s+, 98s, A7o+, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+ }
Hand 1: 51.651% 49.54% 02.11% 276549303 11770768.00 { KcJc }

My thinking for what he'd call the 3bet with is 99+/AJs+/AQo+/KQ/JTs (just chucked this in because occasionally he'll call with a speculative hand to try and outplay me in position

Against this range we are:
Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

130,135,104 games 0.005 secs 26,027,020,800 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 35.007% 34.24% 00.76% 44561483 994715.00 { KcJc }
Hand 1: 64.993% 64.23% 00.76% 83584191 994715.00 { 99+, AJs+, KQs, JTs, AQo+, KQo }

Obviously just the PokerStove numbers aren't enough because we have to face post flop decisions.

If he is opening 28% of hands and calling a 3bet with 6.9% of hands that means that he folds approx 75% of the time. So assuming BB always folds we make $11 75% of the time. Assuming we 3bet to $28 we show an immediate profit of:

(0.75 * $11) - (0.25 * $27) = $1.50

and this assumes we always lose when called (obv not going to be the case)

I am really tired so if my maths is wrong or my logic then please say.

When we weigh in that Button's range for calling the 3bet could well be wider and BB will sometimes have a monster 3betting becomes even more marginal EV and the fact we are left OOP when called means I quite like just calling the 3bet.

If we are going to 3 betting a lot then I see David's point of merging our range but I personally prefer my range to be complete air and monsters.


misterx I think you're reading too much in to his stack size. It is only effective size that really matters which is $200 since that is all he can force me to have to call. You could argue he may be more liberal with his stack because he's clearly up for the session and running hot may make him try more moves but I don't know how material this is.

On the flop I don't like check/folding to a sizeable bet because we have a ton of equity against his range:

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

299,970 games 0.047 secs 6,382,340 games/sec

Board: 8c 5c 7h
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 59.546% 57.79% 01.76% 173353 5268.50 { KcJc }
Hand 1: 40.454% 38.70% 01.76% 116080 5268.50 { 55+, A2s+, K5s+, Q7s+, J8s+, T8s+, 98s, A7o+, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+ }


If we consider what I would perceive to be his range for stacking off our equity is:

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

45,540 games 0.005 secs 9,108,000 games/sec

Board: 8c 5c 7h
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 41.954% 41.22% 00.73% 18773 333.00 { KcJc }
Hand 1: 58.046% 57.31% 00.73% 26101 333.00 { 55+, AcQc }


So still not too bad. If we check raise to $40 and he shoves we are left having to call $152 in to a pot of $248 and will need 38% equity. So it is slightly +EV to check/raise/call.

I wonder if bet/3bet shove gives us more value though from the fold equity we gain. Maybe someone else would like to do a calc for this?

That's enough ramblings for now, hopefully someone will have comments about this post and have more to add on top.

Keep up the discussion guys!

Originally Posted by davidab157

The reason I prefer to merge my pf range rather than polarise it is with a polarised preflop range a villain can proceed fairly correctly postflop. When it's merged you put him in tough spots as you can realistically hit any kind of flop in almost any way and that can justify calling flops or c/r or whatever. Sometimes if your range is polarised you will get a ton of action just cos he's gonna be thinking that you can't have a monster "that" often, that's obv great if you have a hand, but you won't very much of the time.

Both ranges hit the same number of flops imo. Granted some greater than others. When we are 3betting with KJs we are bluffing, the hand just seems too good to me for this.

A thinking villain will be able to adjust to us if he knows we are 3betting hands like KJs just as he can if he knows we sometimes have 7 high. With 7 high we never end up stacking off light, with KJs we can get in to some pretty sick spots.

Originally Posted by davidab157

I don't think it's bluffing as such, we're definitely ahead of his raising range. I just think playing too many pots OOP against a LAG while giving him the lead in the hand is never going to be pretty.

Yeah in general I'm trying calling with these hands more in position i.e. BTN v CO than in the blinds v BTN. Before I would usually just auto 3bet them BTN v CO.

This just happens to be an example of me being OOP. I think it makes it more interesting for the post flop discussion