It is a known fact that
Microstakes and a lot of
SSNL regs do a lot of things poorly. This
post addresses barreling. A decent reg at our
level opens in the BTN and we
flat in the
big blind with some hand that’s too strong to 3b
bluff. We
flop TPTK OOP on something like J92tt and we have AJ and are trying to
extract maximum value.
We snap
check because we want our opponent to
bluff, which they do often in this
spot. This example applies to the
flop because a lot of regs at
microstakes are going to be cbetting a ridiculously high % of flops vs. you because we're a reg. Therefore, we know how to
fold. When this is combined with the fact that they have a hard time reading
flop textures so they just cbet when they
don't know what to do tbh.
Great, we c/c and the turns an 8o. One of the biggest leaks that I hear about right now is regs not barreling enough. Meaning that checking here and “hoping” that they continue to
bluff works only if he maintains
aggression a decent % of the time, which many regs
don’t. Given that he's cbetting
flop like 80-85% of the time against us, he has a ton of
air in his
range that cbets
flop, but he'll usually recognize this as a very bad card to
barrel vs. us without
equity so he checks
back with a lot of
air.
Thus, the
turn is a good time to
lead for value because he’s checking
back a lot of worse hands with
showdown value that will
call a bet.
Now let’s say that the
turn was a Qo. We notice that BTN is fairly fishy, but not a massive
drooler, so his opening
range doesn't have a lot of Qx(maybe just AQ,KQ,QJ,QT,Q9s). Along with Qx, he still has
QQ+, 22, 99, and
JJ that beat us. He still has AJ, KJ, JT, J9s, A9, K9s, T9, 98, 97s, 33-88, (and I guess some AT/KT type hands) in his
range with
showdown value that we're trying to get value from by leading. Leading here is pretty thin with just those hands in his
range, maybe even -EV because
river is hard to play (we get less value and we're OOP). So we have the
option of leading
river if
turn checks through, which seems like a super duper amazing idea because we're pretty much always
ahead once he checks
back turn.
However, there’s a part of his
range that we haven't really addressed yet because we have discounted it somewhere. We do get value from
FD's sometimes if we
check here(given this is
villain dependent), but most/many regs at
microstakes will mash
call with
FD's here. So we do get more value from just betting. The reason why betting is better than checking if
villain is still betting when checked to is because
he's not betting a range that isn't calling. So adding
FD's into his
calling range, leading 2nd
pair here seems +EV in a vacuum from what i understand(not taking into account future betting being OOP).
Sorry that this thread doesn't really have a defined lesson
behind it, or paragraphs/subtitles for that matter, it's just going through some thought process that could be done in real time instead of autopilot trying to get to
showdown because overcards are bad and we're playing too many tables.
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