ATs donkness

I thought that I was playing some good tight-agressive microstakes poker lately, till I came across this hand which I problably played terrible in the most terrible way possible

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villain is a 23/19/3 (over 461 hands)
He's been opening very loose and is been trying the steal the blinds from LP with junk like everytime
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Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.04 BB (9 handed) - Party-Poker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

UTG+1 ($1.66)
UTG ($5.81)
MP3 ($5)
Hero (CO) ($5)
MP1 ($4.60)
BB ($5.13)
SB ($1.69)
Button ($6.12)
MP2 ($1.32)

Preflop: Hero is CO with A, 10
4 folds, MP3 bets $0.16, Hero calls $0.16, 3 folds

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I normally would never call this, but since he was so laggy I put his 19% PFR (accually a little higher in LP) in pokerstove and it turned out I had a little edge so I gave it a try.
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Flop: ($0.38) 7, 8, 4 (2 players)
MP3 bets $0.23, Hero raises $0.50, MP3 calls $0.27
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Since he Cbets 55% and I guessed this flop nearly ever hits him I went for a raise.
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Turn: ($1.38) A (2 players)
MP3 checks, Hero checks

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He calls, I feel like a jerk for trying to bluff a maniac, but I also hit my ace which makes me think I'm ahead. Here is where I think it gets even more ridiculous:
He check's I'm thinking: 'Oh he checked, that ace couldn't hit him' I better check to'. That way he's going to bet the river with his hand that was good by the flop, but is worthless now that the A came up.
(I clearly didn't think that one true)
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River: ($1.38) Q (2 players)
MP3 bets $0.99, Hero raises $1.98, MP3 raises to $4.34 (All-In), Hero calls $2.36 (All-In)

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villain bets: Yes my brilliant strategy worked. Now all I have to do is call... wait a second I can make a small raise, I obviously have the best hand and he's so loose he'll call me with worse
He raises: I go donkstylez

Total pot: $10.06

Results below:
MP3 had 8, 7 (two pair, eights and sevens).
Hero had A, 10 (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: MP3 won $9.56

Questions:
PF: Is thinking like this (relying purely on stats) good or dangerous.
F: Is this stupid, since he's so loose?
T: Is this retarded
R: I rest my case

cbetting 55% isn't high, in fact it's somewhat low compared to most TAGGfish and probably around optimal in my mind.

Turn looks like a clear value/protection bet, a lot of hands will still call this card, 76,45,8x,overpairs, etc... and then you can decide whether or not to value bet river. If he were to c/shove turn looks like we can safely fold.

I understand that 55% Cbet isn't that mutch but does that mean that my flopR was bad? What is a better alternative (should we call/fold)

and most of all I would really like you guys' insight on the PF call

Pf i would normally fold ATs to a raise but in the situation in the op we are a head of his range so should call. I don't really like the raise on the flop.

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

cbetting 55% isn't high, in fact it's somewhat low compared to most TAGGfish and probably around optimal in my mind..

i'm interested in this, especially cos TAG-fish is a label i can identify with. I'm 16-12 over the last 60k hands and have been c-betting around 50%. This is heavily reduced from a previously typical 60-65%, and I think i have overcompensated.

Care to elaborate?

If you felt you where ahead of his range preflop, then why not 3bet? You could have taken it down preflop, and even if not, you haz initiative to take it down postflop. Plus you can gain more imformation on how he reacts to the 3bet. If you're ahead of his range and have like over 50% equity then you're doing it for value. I am retarded dont listen to me. I'd leike someones elses thoughts on the 3bet

You're definitely not retarded and now that you say it I do feel like an idiot for not 3-betting. I beat him equitywise and even when I have the best hand he's almost always going to take it down with aggression.
And even when he calls my 3bet light, it's got to be hard for him to call my Cbet afterwards right?

I do remember thinking about it, but the problem I guess is that I was thinking: 'He's not gonna call with worse hands PF and I can just call his bet and be fairly sure that I have the best hand on most boards his gonna bet.' Obviously that is bullshit and get's me in crappy situations like this one. So yeah I agree that a 3bet would've been better in this situation..

Anyone feeling 3bet isn't good here?

We can 3-bet for value I guess if he's a total station and open/calls really wide preflop like worse aces and shit. I doubt he's this loose though given description so we'd need more info that he was.

It's likely his continuing range to a 3-bet is a good bit ahead of us and dominates us a fair amount so I prefer calling here. The lack of initiative isn't such a big deal since his range is so wide and we can find flops to make a move like we did here. I'd probably c/r bigger on the flop though since he's probably stationy and will be like odds odds odds and call with middle pair or some junk when it's this small. Also we're giving draws that we are ahead of a really good price with this shitty little flop raise.

Without more reads on how he reacts to 3 bets, I'd probably 3 bet something like TT+ AQ+ for value. I think preflop is fine.

Turn is an easy b/f.

Just call river. He isn't value betting much worse so it's likely his range contains mostly bluffs/busto draws that fold to a raise anyway or a made hand range that beats you and doesn't fold to a raise.

(1) Why in the world would we 3bet? Being ahead of his opening range has no bearing on whether we should 3bet or not. It only matters if he's continuing with a range we are ahead of, or folding better hands often enough. I believe a call preflop here is pretty standard.

(2) The flop raise isn't 'bad' per se; however, there are a few things. This flop does hit him pretty well. 44, 65, 77, 88+, 87, T9, etc. Sure it doesn't hit his broadways, but he can still have quite a few strong hands. I'd probably raise, or maybe float, not really certain which is most +EV.

(3) Turn is meh.. I can see merits to checking behind, as well as bet/folding turn for value/protection. I'd change it up depending on how likely I think he is to continue with worse like 99+, 76, etc. The bad thing is I expecthim to play most of his nut hands like this, and not sure if he calls much worse since the "scare card" hit.

(4) Yeah, just call river. As I said, he likely bet/calls, checks turn with the majority of his range, which contains 44, 77, 88, 87, so you could very well be ahead of him on the river, but if he doesn't call a river raise with worse (99-KK, 76, etc), then a raise is no good. And I think that's prob the case.

I was ready to type up a big rant on why 3betting this is bad but stacks got to it before me.

We have a good hand that plays well in position against villains opening range here but not so well against his contiuance range to a 3bet. Sure we can 3bet this and it CAN be +EV but so can 3betting K2s in this spot. K2s is rather weak to flat preflop but we can turn it into a bluff and flop big once in awhile when called. This hand has value, and will actually benefit from seeing a flop with a higher SPR.

We don't want to be 3betting this guy with ATC just because he's in LP or just because we're ahead of his opening range. 3bet for value with hands that are ahead of his contiuance range and bluff with hands that just junk.

Just thought I'd point out a common error in the micros. Just because we are ahead of his range, does not mean we can bet/raise for value. In order to bet for value we have to get called by a worse range.

I'm not saying you're not right (I'm certainly not gonna dispute stacks), but I don't really get it. Surely I'm gonna be ahead of him most of the time, but most of the time he's gonna make me fold those hands so I would think that a 3-bet is better here. Certainly when you see that he's raising junk he can't even think about calling a 3-bet with (like in this example).

So althought I think you're advice is generally true, I don't see how you can apply it in this situation

Kinda depends on how you plan to play the hand post flop. If you're just going to play fit or fold on the flop, then perhaps 3bet>fold>call.

If you have confidence in the edge that hand strength + position gives you against this villain then you should want there to be more room eg, larger SPR on the flop. So if you plan to raise any flush draw, and call with any marginal hand as well as occasionally float or raise his cbets even when you miss then this becomes much more favorable than 3betting. You're going to pair the flop 36% and flop a flush draw another 8% - sorry if these numbers are a bit off - and you have to figure you can float/raise and use position to pressure villain at least 20% of the time with air or just overcards.

Not sure if I'm explaining this properly but I know I learned the concept in NLHETAP.

The main reasons for betting and raising are for value and as a bluff. Taking medium strength hands that can flop well and turning them into a bluff is wasting the huge potential for value when played for a small preflop investment. Since we can't profitably call raises with ATC but we can profitably 3bet light with any two, then it seems more sensible to save our bluff opportunities for hands that are no good to flat with and flat with our medium strength hands.

If you 3bet ATs+ in this spot then it is hard to incorporate more junk hands into your light 3betting range without being exploited by light 4bets. If you keep your light 3betting range limited to junk, then villain is going to be up against premium hands or complete junk when he decides to 4bet or flat your 3bet.

Originally Posted by inV1NCEble

I'm not saying you're not right (I'm certainly not gonna dispute stacks), but I don't really get it. Surely I'm gonna be ahead of him most of the time, but most of the time he's gonna make me fold those hands...

perhaps the better question is how can we exploit a villain that cbets too much?

He opens to 4x bb ($0.16c), and we are contemplating 3betting to 11x ($0.44c) IP with ATs. In order for this to be profitable, we must win 11/16.5, or 66.67% of the time. Do I believe he will fold more often than 66.67% of the time to our 3bet? Sure. I do not dispute that 3betting preflop is likely +EV. As you will find the majority of players fold to 3bets an exploitable amount, as it's just usually better to fold than to call OOP, or 4bet without reads.

Does a 3bet being +EV mean that we should do it? No. If it's not the most +EV decision, then we should refrain from doing it, if we know what the correct most +EV decision is. In this case, I believe that correct decision is to call, and play with a fairly strong hand IP against a wide range.

This is ABCD theorem at it's core. We can 3bet our value hands, ones that he will continue with worse often enough preflop to be +EV (such as QQ+, AK), and place that in our A range. Then we formulate our B range from all of the hands that we feel is profitable to call with (KQ, AJ, AQ, AT, 22-JJ, etc), and we place those hands in our B range, and call. Then from the hands left we determine the next strongest hands that we can't 3bet for value, or call with, and we decide to 3bet bluff those hands with a predetermined frequency. We choose these hands because they aren't profitable to 3bet for value with, and they aren't profitable calls, however, we feel he is folding to 3bets often enough that we can exploit this by 3bet bluffing, and therefore turning these unprofitable hands into +EV decisions.

Here, you are essentially choosing to take a B range hand and place it in your C range, not because it's the most profitable play, but because it's the easiest play. When we could show approximately the same profit (maybe a little less) by 3bet bluffing a hand like T7s, or A5s, that we can't profitably call with.

This is essentially the same way to think about hands postflop. Say we call preflop with 99, and we see this flop and villain cbets. Sure, we are likely ahead of his range at this time, as he has loads of unpaired broadways, and worse pairs in his range. However, does that alone make raising correct? No it does not. If we raise his cbet with 99, and he folds everything but 77+, 44, 87, 56, then clearly raising is incorrect. As we have simply allowed him to fold all hands with worse equity and continue with all better.

wow, answers like that make me realise that I still have alot to learn

So when we know that villain folds alot vs 3bet we expend C range and if they raise light we expend B?

Originally Posted by inV1NCEble

wow, answers like that make me realise that I still have alot to learn

So when we know that villain folds alot vs 3bet we expend C range and if they raise light we expend B?

Say we know villain opens a wide range, then we should plan more hands. That means we can expand our B range and call profitably with more hands. To determine what we should do with our A range and C range, we need to know how he responds to our 3bets.

If he folds often, then 3bet bluffing becomes very profitable, so we can definitely expand our C range. And in some situations we will likely want to narrow down our A range, because if he's folding very often it's going to be less +EV to 3bet our value hands than to call and extract money on later streets. This is situations such as villain opens UTG, we have the BU with AA, so we decide to call, rather than 3bet when he's folding everything but QQ+ to a 3bet here. That's kinda general, but we are talking general here.

If he's calling 3bets with a wide range, or 4bet/stacking off with a wide range, then 3bet bluffing becomes less and less profitable. In which case we would narrow our C range, and expand our A range (value 3bet range).