$1/$2 live hand, calldown TPTK in 4-bet pot?

Griffey will hate this hand

$1/$2 at Borgata


Villain is aggro/competent-ish. Some history: I had squeezed his CO open and showed a 2 when everyone folded, he had min-checkraised me on the flop in a suspicious spot (he was the 3rd of 4 people to check flop on dry board) and I folded, I raised him pretty big on flop another hand and he folded. So there's a chance he's getting sick of my ****.


I have $540 and he has me covered by about $40
He opens UTG to $10, 2 quick calls, I make it $30 on BTN with
:ah: :kd:


He makes it $75, 2 folds, I flat.


Flop: :ks: :5s: :3h:


He thinks a bit and bets $100 into ~$170. I call.


Turn is :qc: He asks how much I have, I tell him it's around $350, he bets $175. I sigh and call.


River: :7h: He jams I tell him "AA is good bro" and call.


Thoughts on preflop/turn decisions?

Turn action is extremely concerning. Doesn't really seem like he's trying too hard to get you to fold. Of course, he could be sizing on Level 3, but I very rarely get confirmation that players at 1/2NL are trying to level me that much with their sizing (or if they are, the results are baffling; not something that makes this much sense). But I digress ...

I also think he has plenty enough nuts in his range once the Q hits that folding isn't too bad. I also don't give players a whole lot of credit for 4b'ing light. Even aggro/competent-ish players are probably adjusting by flatting your 3b with playable hands and going nuts postflop.

I also think that it's understandable to think folding is a bit nitty given dynamic and relatively safe runout. One of those it's close enough that I wouldn't sweat it too much either way.

BTW, I'd rather shove turn than flat, no? Don't think he's going to just fuck-it shove almost 100bbs with air on the river when he has to think we're never folding.

Shoving seems really bad IMO, it's not like he's going to hero fold AA or call off with worse, unless you think Asxs is a significant part of his range.

He'd be folding $175 (or I guess more like $215?) with a chance to win $1,075. I assume that we're not so far ahead of whatever we beat, that we're sad to see him fold.

What hands does Hero beat that play this way?

bluffs, and our chop equity is enormous.

How many pure air bluffs do you expect him to have?

This is one of those spots where I just hate it when the Q turns because my AK just turned into a bluff catcher so I'm really interested in talking about this.

Well the thing is we're chopping most of the time I think.

his value range that beats us is such a tight range that if we give him 1 combo of a bluff that he'd play this way we pretty much have to snap call.

question of, does he has any is a fair one.

If I thought his 4-bet range was only KK+ I would have folded pre.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by baudib

his value range that beats us is such a tight range that if we give him 1 combo of a bluff that he'd play this way we pretty much have to snap call.

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This inspired me to run the numbers. I think it's easiest to treat this like an all-in call for $350 because that's pretty much what it is. So if his range is QQ+/AK and ATss-AQss + 98ss, then it's a $100+ mistake for us to call. If we add KQ, then obviously things get a lot worse.

So it'll take a lot of bluffs for anything other than fold to be good here. Which, maybe given history he could be doing with a sizable range, but not when he asks how much you have left and bets half of it. He wants you to call and we don't have a hand that beats anything that wants us to call, and the chance at a chop isn't worth chasing.

no it's not in any way a $350 call

while we may be committed to calling the river, there's no guarantee he'll bet the river.

second I'd discount QQ+ quite a bit. I'm not sure he bets the flop with KK or QQ. Frankly I'm not sure his preflop sizing gives him a range that includes AA, I think 90%+ of all players 4-bet AA to like $130 or something. But whatever, I'll give him all AA and 1 combo of QQ.

I mean I don't hate you guys for wanting to fold, believe me, I thought his turn bet was pretty gross, and I hated the Q as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by baudib

no it's not in any way a $350 call

while we may be committed to calling the river, there's no guarantee he'll bet the river.

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What I'm having trouble conveying is that when we flat turn, villain escapes with his last $175 when he's behind far more often than we escape with our last $175 when we're behind. Because of this, the discussion is essentially fold ? shove > flat.

Villain is clearly conscious of how much you have left behind and is committing both of you to put the rest of your chips in, and he's not going to try to trap you on the river for a 1/4 PSB; that's just silly. The best we can hope for is he gets cold feet with AA on a spade river, but even then, villain is both aggro and competent so all signs point toward him recognizing that he's committed and preferring to put the money in himself than x/c'ing.

You're right that it's no guarantee, which might make you think that we should shave at least a few dollars off the $350-to-call number, but it's FAR more likely that the hands we DO beat escape with the last bit of stack when we let him see all 5 cards. All of this combined with the fact that we don't really have any opportunity to leverage the information that the river card provides (when he shoves on a spade river, we're basically in a neutral EV spot). So there really isn't going to be a scenario where flatting improves our EV over shoving.

And all this is just theory and numbers talk. Again, the real-world read is that villain isn't bluffing. He is trying his damnedest to commit us to the pot while folding us out of the hand as infrequently as possible. I'm trying to think of a single combo of bluff that A) asks how much you have left, and B) when he gets his answer, he commits himself without making a bet that blows you off a marginal hand, and it doesn't even make sense with AQss or 43ss. This is a spot where you fold and thank the dealer for putting such a bad card out there to save 2/3s your stack.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by baudib

Frankly I'm not sure his preflop sizing gives him a range that includes AA, I think 90%+ of all players 4-bet AA to like $130 or something. But whatever, I'll give him all AA and 1 combo of QQ.

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95% of all LLSNL players don't 4b anything short of KK+, so any theory that leads us to conclude that we should bluff catch is dealing in the improbable as well. It makes sense to me that he'd do this with AA because he thinks you're FOS and doesn't want to fold your garbage when he holds a hand that is practically immune to bad flops. It's not what most people do, but FAR less people 4b QJs/J8s/76s/ATs/AQo, so I feel comfortable counting each combo of AA for at least 4:1 as any of the other possible 4b'ing hands.

In fact, even when we weigh combos based on sizing, I prefer the AA theory over the theory that he's doing this with a hand that he's trying to win without showdown, unless we're giving him credit for the incredible foresight to keep our range wide so he can bluff postflop (NOBODY thinks this way at these games). It could maybe be a strong broadway or medium pair that he thinks is too good to fold given the dynamic but doesn't want to play without initiative, but A) I still don't think that's any more likely than the AA theory, and B) that only adds a few combos of hands that have a ton of outs against us.

Now, the fact that his 4b'ing light range is {who the fuck knows}, there are going to be SO many possible combos, that even if they're weighed at 20%, there is a lot of room for an unpredictable range versus just 3 combos of AA. So if their line makes okay-ish enough sense with a wide range of bluffs, then we'll be committed to calling down even though we're not totally sure what the hell he's gonna flip. This is why I think we can call here if he shoves:

Board: Ks Qc 5s 3d
Dead:


equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 47.608% 31.82% 15.79% 266 132.00 { AhKd }
Hand 1: 52.392% 36.60% 15.79% 306 132.00 { KK+, QdQs, AKs, AsQs, AsJs, AsTs, As3s, QsJs, JsTs, Js8s, 9s7s, AKo }


But when his line from beginning to end looks so incredibly valuey, I think it's just wishful thinking to expect him to flip a bluff. Once that initial improbability is multiplied by yet another tall improbability, the number of remaining combos can and will be dwarfed by a measly 5 not-so-improbable combos.

In my head I was stoving him at ~ AA, AK, A4ss, 1 combo of QQ.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by surviva316

What I'm having trouble conveying is that when we flat turn, villain escapes with his last $175 when he's behind far more often than we escape with our last $175 when we're behind.

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I think you are definitely correct about this.