AQ NL10

I have to say that the guy had the following stats in 48 hands:
vpip: 7
pfr 2
AFq: 71

I know the hand sample is small, but am I too wrong to think he would't open hands like TKs, TJs, JQs or two gappers like J9?
I thought for some time to call the river. I decided to call because I had the ace blocker, and actually didn't put him on a set or doubles because he would have bet bigger on the flop or turn, am I right? So I thought he either had AQ or he was bluffing. He could have flopped a flush, but what hands would he have? I could only think of KJcc, 89cc, 78cc, 56cc and if I am too kind I can add 34cc. Only 5 hands and he can have lots of bluffs in his hand. Any thought or different ways I could have played the hand?

here's the hand:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (9 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://poker-tools.flopturnriver.com/Hand-Converter.php

MP2 ($13.37)
MP3 ($10.15)
CO ($12.04)
Hero (Button) ($13)
SB ($10.09)
BB ($25.71)
UTG ($10.63)
UTG+1 ($9.60)
MP1 ($11.20)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Ahttp://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ilies/club.gif, Qhttp://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...lies/heart.gif
3 folds, MP2 raises to $0.30, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.30, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.75) 8http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ilies/club.gif, Qhttp://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ilies/club.gif, 10http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ilies/club.gif (2 players)
MP2 bets $0.36, Hero calls $0.36

Turn: ($1.47) 5http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...lies/heart.gif (2 players)
MP2 bets $0.70, Hero calls $0.70

River: ($2.87) 2http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...es/diamond.gif (2 players)
MP2 bets $2.74, Hero calls $2.74

Total pot: $8.35 | Rake: $0.38

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matiusaa

I have to say that the guy had the following stats in 48 hands:
vpip: 7
pfr 2
AFq: 71

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Are you sure about those stats?
3/48 = 6.3%
4/48 = 8.3%

I don't see how Villain's VPIP is 7... but anyway.

What do the VPIP 7, PFR 2, and AFq 71 tell you?

I think J9 is out of the question with the current info. If I see J9 at the end, then I write it off to him running card dead for the past 48 hands. There's no way a player with VPIP of 7 is playing J9 from MP unless it's a misclick or he's just bored. Villain may not even play it from the BTN.

Your call OTT gives him a pretty sweet price to C-bet with draws. Why did you call there?

We can talk about his range on the river once we understand his range to get to the river. Given this Villain, I'd suspect he takes this line a lot. So it's a matter of his starting range and the flop. The turn and river don't change anything.

The more extreme or "atypical" the VPIP/PFR stats are, the faster they mean something. If the player is super tight or super loose over ~50 hands, that's plenty of information to peg them as a certain type of player. In this case, it means he's going to have extremely strong ranges and he's probably not going to bluff much post-flop (partially since his ranges are so strong he won't have that many hands to bluff with).

Calling on the flop and turn are both really good because you aren't going to gain much from raising. There aren't really any draws in his range that matter, and you aren't going to get value from any worse hands that call except for maybe KQ. There are a lot of instances where you might want to raise the flop or even the turn, but this hand isn't one of them.

The river is kind of tricky. I think KQ is all that we beat, and he could definitely have flopped a set or have KK+. KQ is 8 combinations, KK+ is 9 combinations, and flopped sets are 7 combinations, which comes out at right about 33 percent of his range that we beat. We have to decide the chances of him playing KQ like this (and possibly playing QJ like this) if we want to decide if we should call.

Note that his bet sizing post-flop is consistent with the type of player we can assume he is from his stats. He bets smaller on the flop and turn because he's afraid of a club coming. Once there's no club by the river, he floors it.

Something else to notice is that we hold the Ac, so he can't have AcKc or AcJc. That means that if we're calling with AQ ever here, it should be when we hold the Ac. If we aren't calling with AcQx, then I think we should be calling with KK (which could probably be in our range since 3-betting pre-flop may not be profitable).

Also, get your ass over to the BC and do the exercises for part 4 of the NLHE Foundations Series.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

Are you sure about those stats?
3/48 = 6.3%
4/48 = 8.3%

I don't see how Villain's VPIP is 7... but anyway.

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You can have multiple chances to trigger a VPIP in a single hand in some database programs (they base it on % of actions instead of % of hands), and that can throw off what you're getting at here. If you open raise and 4-bet shove in a single hand, that would give you a VPIP of 2/2 in some programs while it would be 1/1 in others. Another possible explanation that I've ran into with some HUDs is that they round up by default, so 6.00001 would display as 7.

Thanks, spoon.

If we take the 7% from Equilab, Villain has:
{ 88+, ATs+, KTs+, QJs, AQo+ }
assuming he's playing the same range from all positions.

If we assume he's playing a bit tighter from MP than his 7% average, then we can guess a range of maybe 5%:
{ 88+, AJs+, KQs, AKo }

Note that KQo isn't in either range. However, it is right on the edge of being included in the 7%.
If Villain is playing KQo, then he may be less likely to have { 88,99 }.

Either way, there are no hands that miss this flop entirely.

Is Villain likely to bomb all 3 streets w/ { JJ, 99, AT, KQ, KT }?
He probably shouldn't; it's burning showdown equity and bluff catching OTR... but is he?

Is he bombing the river with all his missed draws { AK, AJ, KJ+ }?

Are you sure I can rely on thos stats with confidence? Villian had 89dd, which surprised me a lot. I actually thoughtthat if he had a set he would have bet stronger on the flop, because he wouldn't like to see a club coming. I'll start my weekend hollidays on wednesday, so I will download HM or PKT, because I have to study and trials only last 30 days. The hud I use is called jivaro and only shows vpip pfr and AFq

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matiusaa

Are you sure I can rely on thos stats with confidence? Villian had 89dd, which surprised me a lot. I actually thoughtthat if he had a set he would have bet stronger on the flop, because he wouldn't like to see a club coming. I'll start my weekend hollidays on wednesday, so I will download HM or PKT, because I have to study and trials only last 30 days. The hud I use is called jivaro and only shows vpip pfr and AFq

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I'd be interested to know if the stats you were seeing were accurate since I've never heard of that HUD before, but assuming they were correct, you can't be results-oriented after the fact because of the randomness involved. If you have a 2/1 over 1,000 hands who open raises UTG at a nine-handed table, there's a chance that he has 82o. If he shows up with 82o at showdown, that doesn't mean we start questioning his stats, etc.

If you're familiar with the binomial theorem, then the way these stats work can be seen relating to that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matiusaa

I actually thoughtthat if he had a set he would have bet stronger on the flop, because he wouldn't like to see a club coming.

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Please include all of this kind of info in your OP.
This kind of tidbit can change the advice you get on the hand.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matiusaa

Villian had 89dd, which surprised me a lot.

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I am always expecting to see some surprises. :)

My statements were cleverly worded as to not overstate my confidence.
This statement holds for T9s as much as for J9s:
"If I see J9 at the end, then I write it off to him running card dead for the past 48 hands. There's no way a player with VPIP of 7 is playing J9 from MP unless it's a misclick or he's just bored."

When he shows up with T9s, I expect the VPIP of 7 to indicate that he's been card dead for a few orbits. It doesn't mean that I treat him like he's playing at 14%, but I will definitely note that he will bet OTF and OTT with a low pair and a draw, and he does big-bet bluffs OTR when he misses his draws.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by matiusaa

Are you sure I can rely on thos stats with confidence?

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I used two numbers (VPIP and number of hands) and I extrapolated into a range of ranges.
Somewhere in the 5 - 9% is likely. With all stats, the most likely value is the current value, but the confidence on any single value is 0.
I have no confidence that any stat is exactly what it says it is. I only have confidence when I acknowledge the error of my guess.


The stat is 7
not convincing

The stat is between 6.5 and 7.5
somewhat convincing

The stat is between 6.5 and 7.5 80% of the time, but 10% of the time it's lower, and 10% of the time it's higher
convincing if you can show your work

***
It's about to get a bit nerdy up in here.

If you want the specific confidence intervals, then you asked the right guy.

Assuming Villain's VPIP is 6.3% after 48 hands:
We can say that the "true" value of Villain's VPIP will eventually converge on a value of:
1.6% to 21.5% (99% of the time)
2.1% to 16.8% (95% of the time)
3.3% to 11.6% (75% of the time)
All of these are true at the same time, according to statistical analysis and applying the Wilson Score for the confidence intervals.
Note that the smaller the range we assign to the value, the lower our confidence is in that guess. This is always the case.

We can assume that Villain's VPIP is between 3.3% and 11.6%. We know we will be wrong 25% of the time. 12.5% of the time, Villain's VPIP will eventually converge on a value smaller than 3.3%. Also, 12.5% of the time it will be higher than 11.6%.

We have literally solved mathematically how often we allow ourselves to be wrong. It is our choice which confidence we use. If we pin ourselves down to demanding a very tight range, then we choose to act with low confidence.


However, what if a Villain was showing a VPIP of 6.3 after 240 hands? Now we have a lot more data backing up the value of 6.3. What impact does that have on our confidence?

We can say that the "true" value of Villain's VPIP will eventually converge on a value of:
3.3% to 11.6% (99% of the time)
3.8% to 10.1% (95% of the time)
4.7% to 8.3% (75% of the time)

This time we can assume that 0.5% of the time, Villain's VPIP will eventually converge on a value smaller than 3.3%.
Also, 0.5% of the time it will be higher than 11.6%.

So the fact that we have collected more data gives us higher confidence with the same error bars. OR it can give us thinner error bars at the same confidence.

His bet size on the river is a little strange given his bet sizes on the flop and turn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eric

His bet size on the river is a little strange given his bet sizes on the flop and turn.

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More so given the river is the blankest of blanks. I would be tempted to look this bet up.

Having read spoon's post, I agree that this could be a tight player scared of the club and then being happy with his overpair at river. That said, nits tend to play overpairs hard and fast, especially when it's a wet flop. At the very least, after we flat the flop, I'd expect a bigger turn bet with an overpair because he knows he's a big favourite against our flop calling range.

But I've seen people taking these kind of lines as bluffs, all too often. The pot size river bet doesn't look like value to me. It looks like he's trying to get us to fold our busted draws. This doesn't look strong to me. I wouldn't be all that surprised to be proven wrong though.

I would say this looks more like QQ than KK/AA.

Even then, I'd expect bigger on turn.

yeah I'm definitely talking myself into calling this river bet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

Having read spoon's post, I agree that this could be a tight player scared of the club and then being happy with his overpair at river. That said, nits tend to play overpairs hard and fast, especially when it's a wet flop. At the very least, after we flat the flop, I'd expect a bigger turn bet with an overpair because he knows he's a big favourite against our flop calling range.

But I've seen people taking these kind of lines as bluffs, all too often. The pot size river bet doesn't look like value to me. It looks like he's trying to get us to fold our busted draws. This doesn't look strong to me. I wouldn't be all that surprised to be proven wrong though.

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I want to point out that the bold is true (and extremely important to know when dealing with this type of player). The biggest and most common exception to that particular generalization is monotone flops. For some reason, it flips their "oh shit" switch fairly often.

I tend to bet more with a weak overpair on mono flops than 2t flops. I see it as high value with minimal reverse implied odds. I'm likely to pay a flush off with aces if there's only three of a suit down, but I'm folding easily to a reasonable bet when I'm losing to a one card flush. I'm no nit though.

It's interesting cause I was going to say the opposite of spoon in one of spots.

I almost dislike having the Ac, because if we have Ac, then he can't have AcKx (3 combos) or AcJ (3 combos). That being said, even random nits might raise A2cc+ out of nowhere, so it may be better to block flushes afterall. It's probably close enough to blocking both bluffs and value to not be a big variable.

I'm folding river to this level of nit. I highly doubt a nit is shoving KQ here.

God I almost need to call this out of curiosity

i guess he always has like KcKx

i mean jamming is probably better than calling tho

If stats of 7/2 are to be relied upon, should we not just throw this in the muck pre flop? Yes yes AQ on button etc, but if he's raising 2%, then AQo is in pretty bad shape. I think I prefer 22 or 78s here.