I'm unsure about my flop c-bet, but I like my 2-barrel

[DoanDiggy]

I think I'm repping AhXh pretty well on this turn. What do you think? Villain was pretty solid and tight, maybe a little weak postflop. He was running 9/5 with a CCPF of 12.5 (!?). I was running pretty laggy (26/21 or so) and he had 3bet me successfully a couple times. Anyways, here's the hand:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (9 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($2.10)
UTG+1 ($1.85)
MP1 ($2.15)
MP2 ($8.80)
Hero (MP3) ($10.75)
CO ($17.15)
Button ($9.85)
SB ($12.70)
BB ($10.90)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with 4, 4
4 folds, Hero raises to $0.40, CO calls $0.40, 3 folds

Flop: ($0.95) 6, 3, 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.75, CO raises to $1.90, Hero calls $1.15

Turn: ($4.75) A (2 players)
Hero bets $2.50


Immediately after betting the flop, I hated my bet (even before he raised), but with him raising so small, I had pretty good odds to chase my OESD. I thought the turn was a great scare card since I was putting him on something like 77-TT, maybe 76 or 75, or a flush draw after the flop. I'm unsure about my line on the river if he flats the turn. What to do on:

7 or 2? I lean towards betting full pot
a 4? 3/4 pot, fold to shove? I'm only really scared of 77, 76, 66, or 55. What about 4h?
any other heart? J-K? Is a 3-barrel worthwhile on these cards?
another A, or any other card? I lean towards check/fold on these ones.

[kb coolman]

I don't see a 9/5 raising for flush draws here. He has overs.

[DoanDiggy]

That's really what I was putting him on at the time. It just seemed silly as I was posting to put him on a range as tight as 77-TT, but that's what I was thinking during the hand.

Let's say he does have 77-TT? Is he folding to my turn bet very often? Obviously only something like 1/3 of the time is needed for this bet to be profitable. If he's calling the turn, is a river 3-barrel is worthwhile?

Edit: oh, whoops. Overcards you mean (not an overpair)? So then my flop bet is turning my hand into a bluff / protecting my hand against a range that I'm probably beating at the moment? Is that bad?

[kb coolman]

I mean he has an overpair, yes.

I'm ok with repping the Ace here on the turn, but I'm not putting anything else in. This guys insn't calling with air.

[Sir Pawnalot]

Gotta love such a strong line.

Other cool lines for this hand

Check-raise, check-raise

Bet-call, check-raise

Check-call, check-raise

Check-raise, bet-call/fold

One cent from me there.

[Erpel]

Btw you can't bet pot on the river. You'll have $5.95 left and there'll be $9.75 in the pot. If you happen to hit the straight on the river you are certainly all-in.

I'm not sure I'd put him exactly on 77-TT. There's really no reason why he shouldn't be playing a set in this way. A small raise could be one wanting you to call rather than fold - as in, a strong hand like a set, or as you suggest a small overpair. It's true that many people at these stakes illogically bets/raises small with weak made hands, whereas with a bigger overpair he'd be more inclined to price out draws correctly.

When you make the call you need to have a plan for the hand according to PNL's coverage of commitment thresholds. To this end the questions I'd first ask myself are these. Are my outs clean (are there any bigger straight or flush draws in my opponents range)? Am I willing to stack off unimproved on the flop or turn with outs and fold equity? Most importantly - what is my opponents range, and what is my equity against that range.

Ok, let's assume he has 33, 55, 66 (9 combos) or 77-TT (24 combos). If you bet on the turn will you get any sets to fold or overpairs to call? If he bets on the turn will you call? If you hit your straight on the river is he more likely to pay you off with a set if he bet the turn or if you bet the turn? If you check the turn will he bet his overpairs?

If any made straights or flush or straight draws are in the villain's range I'd fold to the flop raise.

If no made straights or flush or straight draws are in the villain's range I would perhaps:
3bet the flop to $4 or so. Problem is that if I get shoved on by sets only I almost have to call. A call would be slight -EV, but any overpairs or bluffs in his shoving range makes it around 0 EV. I'll calculate with folding as if it's 0 EV the EV comes out the same if we call the shove or fold to it. If his range is exactly as described and he folds his 77-TT range out of 33 times we pay $2.1 33 times ($69.3) and take home $3.5 24 times ($84). So I could 3bet/call and embrace variance, or I could 3bet/fold and avoid variance. But the flop 3bet I think is profitable regardless (assuming this range is remotely correct) on fold equity alone.

Check/fold the turn. The underlying theory here is that no 77-TT hand will feel so good about the turn that they will bet it. Of course, the villain may have the same thought as you, think it a scare card and bet with what he now thinks is the worse hand (you could have a bigger overpair) or a marginal favourite (to a nut flush draw) which he'll be happy to take the fold equity on. Check/fold turn doesn't really work.

Bet/call turn shove. Problem here is that while on the flop we have 27-31% equity based on how we form the shoving range (33,44,66 with or without KK is my reference) on the turn our equity is 20-21% and we have to fold. Bet/call turn shove is bad.

Bet/fold turn. We bet here to fold out the overpairs that are weak. The question is whether we can believably represent the AhXh hand. I guess we could call with it, or as I outlined above - 3bet the flop with it. If he thinks you are the kind to 3bet AhXh then he won't give you credit for it, but will instead give you credit for a bluff and call you down. With a set he may still simply call you to let you hang yourself. So bet/fold turn only becomes a river all-in if you hit your straight outs.

On fold equity alone I think the flop 3bet can be more profitable because you can get away with a smaller bet relative to the pot because people don't understand raise sizing, but with the flop bet/call, turn bet/fold line you may end up seeing your straight complete and extract from sets, which is probably the most profitable line.

Now, examine my post closely and judge all of the assumption regarding the opponent range, try to make some different assumptions and make the corresponding calculations and see where that takes you.

[Erpel]

Oh yeah - and how will you feel about a river 4? 2 out of 3 sets are bigger sets, 77 is now a straight etc.

[Sir Pawnalot]

Really nice post Erpel

Aha! Thought original poster had Tight image and that villain was LAG.
That changes everything.

Playing 44 preflop is EV- with a LAGGY image IMO. You can not assume fold equity with that image, and therefore 44 becomes a set or fold hand (which sucks).

As played I would check-raise(Pawnalot style) turn, because I do not think he has AK, AQ often enough and he will fold all pairs. We still have some equity if he calls.

[DoanDiggy]

Thanks a ton for the detailed analysis, Erpel!

Btw you can't bet pot on the river. You'll have $5.95 left and there'll be $9.75 in the pot. If you happen to hit the straight on the river you are certainly all-in.

LOL, dumb moment for me there. Yay for not paying attention to stack sizes when posting.

I'm not sure I'd put him exactly on 77-TT. There's really no reason why he shouldn't be playing a set in this way. A small raise could be one wanting you to call rather than fold - as in, a strong hand like a set, or as you suggest a small overpair. It's true that many people at these stakes illogically bets/raises small with weak made hands, whereas with a bigger overpair he'd be more inclined to price out draws correctly.

Of course you're right that this could be a set, too. With position on a loose/aggressive opponent, though, I would expect a lot of people to just call the flop with a set. The only hands continuing on a raise are pairs and flush draws, and a call would probably get more value from my entire range here. Villain probably isn't far above level 1 though, but even at that level, players at these stakes love to slowplay.

When you make the call you need to have a plan for the hand according to PNL's coverage of commitment thresholds. To this end the questions I'd first ask myself are these. Are my outs clean (are there any bigger straight or flush draws in my opponents range)? Am I willing to stack off unimproved on the flop or turn with outs and fold equity? Most importantly - what is my opponents range, and what is my equity against that range.

I'm not familiar with PNL. Pretty much everything I've learned about poker I've learned from FTR. I definitely need to take some time and read some poker books. Regardless, that's the reason I really hated my bet on the flop: I'm a pretty big dog to his flat calling range and he's not folding to a c-bet. Based on my history with this villain, I didn't expect straight or flush draws to be any significant part of his range, so I felt that my outs were clean, that most likely any 2, 4, or 7 would give me the best hand (except when he has 77 and I hit my 4).

Ok, let's assume he has 33, 55, 66 (9 combos) or 77-TT (24 combos). If you bet on the turn will you get any sets to fold or overpairs to call? If he bets on the turn will you call? If you hit your straight on the river is he more likely to pay you off with a set if he bet the turn or if you bet the turn? If you check the turn will he bet his overpairs?

A set is never folding. I assume you're talking about my play if I was holding a hand like AhJh. In that case, I think my best play here is check/call two streets, or check turn, bet river. That said, I don't think that villain here is really thinking at that level. Also, my bet on the turn is pretty small, so I think it looks a lot like a bet that wants called. Basically, I'm hoping that villain here is playing somewhere between level 1 and 2 and not 2 and 3.

If any made straights or flush or straight draws are in the villain's range I'd fold to the flop raise.

I think this is no more than 5% of villain's range here. I hesitate to say 0, but it's close to that.

If no made straights or flush or straight draws are in the villain's range I would perhaps:
3bet the flop to $4 or so. Problem is that if I get shoved on by sets only I almost have to call. A call would be slight -EV, but any overpairs or bluffs in his shoving range makes it around 0 EV. I'll calculate with folding as if it's 0 EV the EV comes out the same if we call the shove or fold to it. If his range is exactly as described and he folds his 77-TT range out of 33 times we pay $2.1 33 times ($69.3) and take home $3.5 24 times ($84). So I could 3bet/call and embrace variance, or I could 3bet/fold and avoid variance. But the flop 3bet I think is profitable regardless (assuming this range is remotely correct) on fold equity alone.

Herein lies the problem. I didn't feel like I had any fold equity. With me having a wide opening range and the board being pretty drawish, I think that a shove looks like a high-cards flush draw a lot. I don't think villain will realize that even if my range for 3betting here is probably JJ+ and broadway hearts that folding a hand like 99 (only 22% equity vs JJ+, AhKh, AhQh, AhJh, AhTh, KhQh, KhJh, KhTh, QhJh, QhTh, JhTh) is correct. I felt that I was behind here but had plenty of outs (with good implied odds when hit) to the best hand. I didn't consider the possibility of stealing the pot on the turn until the opportunity presented itself... that definitely should have been part of my though process.

Check/fold the turn. The underlying theory here is that no 77-TT hand will feel so good about the turn that they will bet it. Of course, the villain may have the same thought as you, think it a scare card and bet with what he now thinks is the worse hand (you could have a bigger overpair) or a marginal favourite (to a nut flush draw) which he'll be happy to take the fold equity on. Check/fold turn doesn't really work.

I agree 100% here. At the time I was thinking "I still have plenty of outs if called and that A is a scare card to his entire range so I have a lot of fold equity," but looking at it now, if I have any hope of winning this hand, my only chance is to bet here.

Bet/call turn shove. Problem here is that while on the flop we have 27-31% equity based on how we form the shoving range (33,44,66 with or without KK is my reference) on the turn our equity is 20-21% and we have to fold. Bet/call turn shove is bad.

Agreed. My plan was to bet/fold turn. I think he only shoves the turn with a set, and I don't have the equity to call.

Bet/fold turn. We bet here to fold out the overpairs that are weak. The question is whether we can believably represent the AhXh hand. I guess we could call with it, or as I outlined above - 3bet the flop with it. If he thinks you are the kind to 3bet AhXh then he won't give you credit for it, but will instead give you credit for a bluff and call you down. With a set he may still simply call you to let you hang yourself. So bet/fold turn only becomes a river all-in if you hit your straight outs.

I would 3bet broadway hearts as I said, but I might just call with a hand like Ah8h or Ah9h. I turbo-shove Ah2h, Ah4h, Ah5h, or Ah7h, so it turns out that AhXh is a very small part of my range at this point, but I really don't think villain would realize that. The reason is that at these stakes, a lot of players would play a flopped set, a naked AK, or AhXh exactly like this, so I think I can take advantage of that to some extent.

On fold equity alone I think the flop 3bet can be more profitable because you can get away with a smaller bet relative to the pot because people don't understand raise sizing, but with the flop bet/call, turn bet/fold line you may end up seeing your straight complete and extract from sets, which is probably the most profitable line.

This is the main spot where we disagree. I don't think I have much fold equity on the flop at all vs overpairs. I like your idea of the straight completing/extracting from sets idea, and I totally agree there. I think I accidentally took the most profitable line here, but that was certainly helped by a fortunate turn card (only a 2 or 7 could have been better for me).

Now, examine my post closely and judge all of the assumption regarding the opponent range, try to make some different assumptions and make the corresponding calculations and see where that takes you.

Absolutely. Again, thanks a lot!

Oh yeah - and how will you feel about a river 4? 2 out of 3 sets are bigger sets, 77 is now a straight etc.

Eww, tough spot. I originally said bet/fold, but that was when I was being stupid and not realizing stack sizes. Betting a set on that board would have next to 0 value. I would have a hard time folding, though, because I'm really only losing to 55, 66, 77. I think that a hand like 88-JJ might find that to be a good spot to bluff and make me fold an A. I think 55 might check behind on the river, but 66 and 77 almost certainly bet. With all the money in the pot and some bluffs possible, I think check/calling on a river 4 is probably best. Betting (all-in is all that's left) is almost certainly worst, though I suppose a 99 that was bluff-catching the turn might call the river as well, and 33 might make a crying call.

[DoanDiggy]

Really nice post Erpel

Aha! Thought original poster had Tight image and that villain was LAG.
That changes everything.

Playing 44 preflop is EV- with a LAGGY image IMO. You can not assume fold equity with that image, and therefore 44 becomes a set or fold hand (which sucks).

I have to disagree here. I'm in late position and everyone behind me (including the blinds) had been really tight. I had been 3bet a few times, once 4betting KK (BB 3bet/folded) and the rest of the time folding. This was one of the first times I had been flatted like this. For blind stealing alone, I think raising 44 (or ATC for that matter if my opponents wouldn't adjust) in this spot is +EV. When you add in some slim showdown value vs passive postflop players and the nicely-disguised sets that I hit occasionally, there is no way I'm not raising 44 in the HJ here. For those players flatting me with better pocket pairs, I can bet them off their hands a lot on K- or A-high boards.

As played I would check-raise(Pawnalot style) turn, because I do not think he has AK, AQ often enough and he will fold all pairs. We still have some equity if he calls.

I don't like check/raising the turn because my raise is almost always going to have to be a shove (I don't see him betting much less than $3 if he's betting here), and I'm getting my money in pretty bad. I do think there's a lot of fold equity in a check/raise, but I think there's nearly as much fold equity in leading out here and it'll be a lot cheaper. Even better, any pair that thinks I'm bluffing is only going to call here, giving me a chance to see a river that could give me the near-nuts. A check/raise looks even bluffier (would I really check/raise an A here when I could just put the rest in on the river anyways?) than my looks-like-a-value-bet lead on the turn, so the same hands that call my turn lead are likely to call a turn check/raise, IMO. This way, I get a chance to check/fold or shove (on a 7 or 2) on the river if I'm called on the turn.

[kettleofish]

If you're going to turn your hand into a bluff (which is fine imo ) you should be shoving almost all rivers, including those that improve you. This would be based on the admittedly rather large assumption that almost any hand he wants to get AI he would do so on the turn.

I'm not even sure that makes sense, but it's bedtime so i'll go into more detail in the moro

That said i'd c/f the turn rather than b/f, and i'd never CRAI.

[Sir Pawnalot]

The greatest players in the world- Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey and Tom Durrr- make most of their money from non-showdown pots.

My style of play works for me, because I constantly readjust to the other players. I make sure I have a ton of respect before I start attacking the turns and rivers. This is micro however, and I am more confident at NL 50+.

I just tried some micro NL for fun and found out that my super-aggressive style was not as profitable at micro compared to low-limit. And whats´up with the new breed of micro nits?

Not all advice will be useful for you. The best advices comes from other players who have a lot of experience playing micro. Playing like Doyle in SUPERSYSTEM may be a winning strategy at certain stakes, but probably not in the micros.

As boring as it may seem- my strategy when playing micro was basic TAG with a lot of emphasis on value betting and less on bluffing.

Be critical of all advice, especially mine. My style involves total lack of fear of putting money into the pot. My profit comes from attacking people with marginal holdings- which villain probably has in this hand.

Good luck finding a style that fits your personality and readjust your game according to opponents adjustments.

3 cent?

villain has 44+, two hearts, flopped straight
he doesn't have "overs" he has "overs and a flush draw" aka you're flipping at best and drawing thin at worst

you're putting in 24% of the pot, your equity is:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 68.566% 64.49% 04.07% 46608 2945.00 { 44+, AhKh, Ah5h, Ah4h, 8h7h, 64s, 42s, 64o, 42o }
Hand 1: 31.434% 27.36% 04.07% 19772 2945.00 { 4c4d }

so it's a marginal call on the flop

but you're not so happy to hit a four or to hit your straight while the flush completes
what's your plan on a blank turn?

[DoanDiggy]

I expect villain to have a flush draw, a straight, or a straight draw basically never in this spot. I had been raising a lot because of how tight the blinds were, and this was the first time he ever flatted me. Certainly if he was flatting with suited cards of some sort, he would have flatted me more than once. He really never played back at me by flatting, so all I could really put him on was a small pair. This is what led me to believe the had an overpair to the board.

If he calls (or shoves over of course) on the turn, I really don't see him folding on the river, so I probably give up at that point unless I hit my straight. I'm not sure if betting or check/calling with a 4 is best, and therein lies the problem with my river plan. If I think he's calling my river bet with a pair, I should be betting a 4 on the river. If I don't think he's calling my river bet with a pair, I should be bluffing the river.

Based on the tendencies of my opponent, I think he's playing 33-TT (maybe even JJ) exactly the way he has played it up to this point. I'm pretty sure he's folding 77-TT on the turn, and I'm pretty sure he's shoving a set over my bet since he's likely to think I've probably paired my A now and/or have a flush draw. Based on that, if he just calls the turn, I have to put him on a hand like JJ, and bluffing at another heart or a K or Q might be worthwhile, as well as betting a 2, 4, or 7. Any other card I have to check/fold, and he's probably checking behind unless he's made a set by the river.

[Sir Pawnalot]

Doandiggy>

I agree leading out represents an ace better. By check-raising you are repping a set or AKh. (depending on image oc)

My post was not well thought of. I still think we should play these hands aggressive though (pair+draw).