Phil Galfond Analyzes Cardschat Member redwards92's Hand

Phil Galfond analyzes a hand played by Cardschat member redwards92 - who was the winner of the Runitonce.com promo we ran last month.

Here is the hand:

No Limit Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 113 BB (VPIP: 15.23, PFR: 12.76, 3Bet Preflop: 3.30, hands: 245)
Hero (SB): 191 BB
BB: 105.5 BB (VPIP: 18.37, PFR: 16.33, 3Bet Preflop: 15.38, Hands: 50)
UTG: 143 BB (VPIP: 15.04, PFR: 10.62, 3Bet Preflop: 6.98, Hands: 116)
UTG+1: 98 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 16)
UTG+2: 105.5 BB (VPIP: 9.59, PFR: 4.11, 3Bet Preflop: 2.94, Hands: 73)
MP: 91.5 BB
MP+1: 100 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
CO: 99.5 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has T♦ T♣

fold, UTG+1 calls 1 BB, UTG+2 raises to 5 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 4.5 BB, fold, fold

Flop: (12 BB, 2 players) 9♥ K♦ 7♣
Hero checks, UTG+2 checks

Turn: (12 BB, 2 players) 7♠
Hero checks, UTG+2 checks

River: (12 BB, 2 players) T♥
Hero bets 14 BB, UTG+2 raises to 100.5 BB and is all-in


Bit of a sick spot on the river here vs what appears to be a huge nit.

Here is Phil's analysis:

Preflop

Our villain opens in early position to 5 BB. He’s got stats thus far of 9.5/4.

I think the most important thing to consider here is how much we can trust these stats. We’ve got a 72 hand sample which is enough to give us a very rough idea of his tendencies, but not enough to be 100% confident.

If he’s only raising 4% of hands, we’d assume that he’s even tighter than that from early position. Additionally his raise sizing, and the fact that he’s raising after a limper, shows strength (though that’s up for interpretation).

For reference, a range of AA,KK,QQ,JJ and AK = 3.0% of hands

Take out JJ and you get roughly 2.6% of hands.

Add JJ back in along with TT and AQs and you get 3.8% (though we have TT and a T hits the river, so we can of course discount that possibility for this specific hand)

All of these sound like reasonable ranges for him to be opening given what we know about him so far.

Calling on the button with TT is a standard play for us, not only for the implied odds of our set against this villain’s tight range, but also against the BB and the EP limper, who may come along as well.

Flop & Turn

I’ve lumped these together because no interesting action takes place. Our hero has played his hand in an extremely standard way on both streets, so nothing to discuss there.

In a poker hand, each street gives you more information about an opponent’s hand. So, what can we glean from Villain’s check back on flop and turn?

Let’s start with his preflop range, and decide to put him on JJ+ and AK.

JJ & QQ: Both make perfect sense for him to have checked back on the flop and turn. We can keep those in his range.

KK: This is trickier. I personally view it as a very big mistake to check back with KK on the flop and especially on the turn. He needs to be trying to build a pot with this hand, and a slowplay across two streets is making that extremely difficult.

From my experience with weaker players, they love to slow play spots like this, especially on a rainbow flop. I’m going to assume that this is a low stakes game, though I don’t have that information, which would slightly change things.

Let’s say that he will slowplay on the flop half the time, and on the turn another half of the time when he has KK.

AK: This is a hand I wouldn’t expect him to check twice. It’s not strong enough to want to super-slowplay, but not weak enough to check twice- he’d be missing too much value.

AA: Same thing as AK but even more true. I think this is a hand he’ll almost always bet before the river.

I think it’s extremely unlikely he’d play AK this way on the flop and turn, but not impossible. Nothing’s impossible.

River

Here’s where things get interesting. Let’s start with the range of hands we think our Villain has here.

QQ, JJ: We’ll give him all combinations of these hands, meaning we’ll use the rough assumption that he will always play these hands this exact way up until the river. There are 6 combinations of each of these. By that, I mean: QcQh,QcQs,QcQd,QhQs,QhQd,QsQd

Combinations can give you the frequency at which someone has a certain hand in their range. That’s because every combination specific of two cards is equally likely to be dealt to an opponent preflop. So, the more card combinations there are with a specific type of hand, the more likely our opponent is to have it.

For example, if an opponent raises in a certain spot with only AK, AA, and KK, what hand is he most likely to have? A pocket pair or AK?

There are 16 combinations of AK but only 6 of AA and 6 of KK. That means this opponent is more likely to have AK than he is to have both AA and KK combined (16 vs. 12).


KK: There WERE 6 combinations of KK preflop but once one of them shows up on the flop, it reduces the combinations drastically. Specifically, it leaves only 3 combinations from the original 6, since the 3 combinations that included the Kd are now impossible for our Villain to have.

In addition, we decided that our Villain would bet the flop half the time (reducing the 3 combos to 1.5), and bet the turn half the time (reducing that 1.5 to .75).

AK and AA: We decided that both of these hands are unlikely to have been played this way on the flop and turn. For the purposes uncertainty, out of these 18 combos (12 AK after the flopped K, plus 6 AA), let’s include 1 in his range.

After all of that, we’ve given him a rough final range:

QQ/JJ: 12 combos
AA/AK: 1 combo
KK: .75 combos

Our first decision is whether or not to bet, and how much to bet.

Given that the overwhelming majority of our opponent’s range is QQ and JJ, we absolutely want to bet. He will not bet these hands for us.

In addition, if we decide to check-raise and he only bets with AA/AK and KK, we actually are just barely ahead of his betting range… certainly not a good spot to be check-raising.

So, how much should we bet? We are targeting QQ and JJ specifically with this bet, so we want to bet an amount we think that they will call (while still getting as much value as we can)

I would suggest something along the lines of 7-10 BB, but knowing your opponent, or the average player at these stakes would help a decision like this tremendously. I unfortunately don’t know enough to make a great guess here.

Our hero bets 14 into 12, which I think is definitely too much. It scares out QQ/JJ and leaves us getting called by only AA/AK (which he rarely has) and raised by KK (also rare, but not much more rare than AA/AK).

I view this as Hero’s first and only mistake in the hand.

Next, our Villain raises all-in (wow) for 100 BB.

Hero has the 3rd nuts, and given that we think our opponent doesn’t raise 99 preflop, is only beat by one hand (KK).

Looking strictly at hand combinations, our opponent only has KK on this river around 5.5% of the time(.75 out of 13.75 total combos). But that’s obviously not the whole story.

Our opponent made a huge raise, which is very important information.

So, let’s start with what’s easy: AK/AA

I would argue that our opponent will almost never shove with these hands. He has a very easy call and it would make no sense to raise with a hand like this. He’s not getting called by worse, and I doubt he thinks he’d be bluffing or even needs to bluff with these hands.

KK:

Yes, of course he would play KK this way if he’s gotten here. That means all .75 combos of KK are still in his range.

QQ/JJ:

What is the likelihood that our opponent will make a play like this with QQ or JJ… turning them into a bluff?

My opinion is that it seems near impossible, but that is up for debate.


The crux of this river decision is the following:

How likely is our opponent to make a completely nonsensical play, and shove this river with AK, AA, QQ or JJ?

We need to call around 86 to win 126, meaning we have almost 1.5:1 odds.

Using odds works well with combination math. We have .75 combos of KK, and we’ll need him to have .75 / 1.5 (.5) combos of bluffs or bizarre value shoves to make this call.

He got to the river with AK,AA, QQ or JJ with 13 combos.

If he takes .5 of these 13 and plays this way, we have a break-even call on the river.

This means that if you think the chance he makes a bizarre play like this when he has those hands around 4% of the time or more, you have a call.

Notice that the fact that we have a monster hand has almost no impact on this calculation. It’s all about figuring out what our opponent has and how he will play it.

I would argue that our opponent, sitting there with QQ or AK, will shove less than 4% of the time. I’d bet it’s under 1%, as it’s such an unusual way to play the hand.

This means that we have a clear fold.

Notice that if our opponent had many more hands in his preflop range, then the strength of our hand probably would force us to call. That’s because we need to heavily consider the fact that our opponent might play a worse hand for value, like 77, 97, T9 or K9 this way.

As it is, we only beat a bluff or a ridiculously bad and bizarre value shove. I think we can lay this down.

WOW. And while we are playing, we should be zipping through an analysis like that in our heads in 10 seconds or less?

What i find most interesting about this analysis is that whether or not to call or fold did not really take into consideration the fact that the hand HERO held was pretty damn strong. Instead, the focus was on what VILLAIN could be holding.

Would love to see more breakdowns like these in the future. Thanks

wow quite the analysis, very nice and insightful. Don't think I could ever lay down the 3rd nuts given how it played out so always nice to see in depth analysis like this.

+1 cc, +1 phil and RIO for such a great promotion.......and really hope he didn't turn over KK or 77 red

very very thoughtful analysis.
thanks cc for bring in so much helpful thoughts here.

Nice analysis, PG.

IMO, what makes this hand really gross is the small hand sample we have on villain (73 hands). Clearly he's a tight player, but I highly doubt he's a 9/4 player (is it even possible to enjoy poker at 9/4?). I've been on plenty of 75-hand runs where I'm almost exclusively folding preflop - mostly rags but occasionally a good hand that needed to be mucked because of the actions of other players. My guess is villain's stats will even out enough to realistically include 99 in his range throughout the hand.

It'd be funny if Phils analysis was just "Yea, I would have called"

Lots to take in there and a good read. Thanks CC + PG!

thx Phil,
and CC and rewards92

wow, the thought process...
curious as to what limit was being played
gonna have to read over a few more times to absorb it all too

very nice of you to do this, thx again

Holy Hand Analysis Batman!

Great post, Thanks CC!

punctual said:

WOW. And while we are playing, we should be zipping through an analysis like that in our heads in 10 seconds or less?

Click to expand...

I don't think it's realistic to think we should be able to analyze in a few seconds at the table to the depth that a great player does post facto. That said, there are elements in his analysis, both what he looks at and how he looks at them, that I can certainly apply or improve during play.

9.5/10*

wow, impressive analysis. very insightful
thx CC and Phil

Mr Sandbag said:

Nice analysis, PG.

IMO, what makes this hand really gross is the small hand sample we have on villain (73 hands). Clearly he's a tight player, but I highly doubt he's a 9/4 player (is it even possible to enjoy poker at 9/4?). I've been on plenty of 75-hand runs where I'm almost exclusively folding preflop - mostly rags but occasionally a good hand that needed to be mucked because of the actions of other players. My guess is villain's stats will even out enough to realistically include 99 in his range throughout the hand.

Click to expand...

A good point about hand sample, but irrelevant in this case I think. (Ok, not irrelevant, but shouldn't change our decision in this spot.)

Let's say that, for the sake of argument, villain is actually a 15/10 in spite of his 9/4 stats over 72 hands (pretty unlikely, but definitely possible - though I wouldn't go much beyond that).

His opening range of ~10% probably looks something like: 66+/AT+/KQ

The reason I think this hand is a pretty straightforward (if not easy to actually make) fold is that villain takes such an extreme line. In a way his line is semi-polarizing, because the action dictates that he's either got marginal SDV, or an absolute monster after the flop and turn play.

Notice that his hands still fit into the same types of categories as before. 66, 88, JJ, QQ all play the flop and turn the same. AK/KQ/AA all bet either the flop OR the turn, because they just aren't strong enough to super-slowplay. AT, AJ, and AQ might bet the flop as a cbet, or might check it back for SDV. Same with the turn.

I think again we can extremely heavily discount any mega-airballs on the river from this player. Any hands that would want to bomb this river as a bluff would likely have done so on an earlier street, or can easily make a bluff-catching call. Which means again, we really only need to consider flopped sets.

Your main point was that villain might be able to have 99 in this spot. Certainly possible. If he has 77 (1 combo), 99 (3), and KK (3) in his check two streets/bomb river range, then that's 7 combos, but before we said he bets KK half the time on the flop and half the time on the turn if he checked the flop. I think there is an even stronger case for him betting 77 or 99 OTF, right? He's not blocking top pair any longer, so he's not as afraid of crushing the board. I think the same goes for 77, but let's just ignore that hand, since maybe he's a 12/8 and doesn't open it or something.

So he bets KK half the time and I would argue 99 at least 75% of the time on the flop. KK half the time on the turn and at least 75% of the time on the turn. So after the river jam, villain has (3 combos)(.5)(.5) = .75 combos of KK, and (3 combos)(.25)(.25) = .1875 combos of 99.

As Phil already calculated, we need about 1.5:1 card odds to call. But we're getting .1875:.75 = 1:4... Noooot ideal. And I actually think the numbers above are pretty conservative. I think villain likely slowplays KK more frequently than what we've suggested, and slowplays 99 less.

So basically, unless villain is running 9/4 but is actually a spewtard in disguise over the last 70ish hands (< 1% chance imo), we can just fold and silently thank villain for playing his hand in a way that allows us to put him on approximately his exact two cards.

My thoughts exactly, Mr Galfond

I think it's instructive for people like myself to read these types of analyses because it really hammers home the fact that we don't know how much we don't know. I like to think I would have folded in this spot but I don't think I could have, and with those stats I'll bet villain had KK here. It's frustrating to finally pick up a monster hand after being patient and folding hand after hand, only to have it be second best, which of course makes it hard to let it go.

Thanks Phil and CC for this :top:

phils such a nerd omg < lol jokes >>>

You lost me at hello! LOL!
Great analysis with tons to think about.

I notice there was hardly any analysis of the opponent possibly having 77. If he did have KK, then he did an excellent job of slow playing it. Wonder what he would have done if hero had just checked on the river, too?

Villain probably misclicked

Very good and instructive analysis.

Well, what was the bottom line?
Villain has QJ? That's my guess.
Hero should have bet on the turn when V checked the flop with K on the board.

Totally thought I posted in this thread a while ago but just to confirm results, I called, villain had KK. I can't find the hand right now in my database but I know I posted it somewhere here on the forum.

After reading through this review from phil a few times I can honestly say I've learned a lot about how and what I should be thinking during hands. This one hand alone has helped me improve my thought process during hands by a huge amount. I honestly didn't think I was going to learn as much from just one hand but I can say I was honestly blown away.

here is my comments from the previous thread

redwards92 said:

Looking back I feel like it is a pretty clear call and don't think I was ever close to folding in-game either although I can admit I didn't snap the river shove.

At this level villain probably ships AA for value which means we are always calling especially with a sample size of 73 hands. Not much post flop info with only 73 hands and narrowing his range to nuts/2nd nuts for shoving that river based on his nitty preflop stats would be silly although I doubt it goes any further then AA which is all we need.

Also I can't really explain river sizing maybe I went to pot and misclick added another BB lol

Maybe I am wrong though does a nit really just ship this river with AA or worse ?!

Click to expand...

Again thanks a lot to CC for the promotion I have been watching a lot of sulsky vids lately

*edit nvm found it

PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 113 BB (VPIP: 15.23, PFR: 12.76, 3Bet Preflop: 3.30, Hands: 245)
Hero (SB): 191 BB
BB: 105.5 BB (VPIP: 18.37, PFR: 16.33, 3Bet Preflop: 15.38, Hands: 50)
UTG: 143 BB (VPIP: 15.04, PFR: 10.62, 3Bet Preflop: 6.98, Hands: 116)
UTG+1: 98 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 16)
UTG+2: 105.5 BB (VPIP: 9.59, PFR: 4.11, 3Bet Preflop: 2.94, Hands: 73)
MP: 91.5 BB
MP+1: 100 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
CO: 99.5 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has T:diamond: T:club:

fold, UTG+1 calls 1 BB, UTG+2 raises to 5 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 4.5 BB, fold, fold

Flop: (12 BB, 2 players) 9:heart: K:diamond: 7:club:
Hero checks, UTG+2 checks

Turn: (12 BB, 2 players) 7:spade:
Hero checks, UTG+2 checks

River: (12 BB, 2 players) T:heart:
Hero bets 14 BB, UTG+2 raises to 100.5 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 86.5 BB

UTG+2 shows K:club: K:heart: (Full House, Kings full of Sevens) (Pre 81%, Flop 95%, Turn 100%)
Hero shows T:diamond: T:club: (Full House, Tens full of Sevens) (Pre 19%, Flop 5%, Turn 0%)
UTG+2 wins 205.5 BB

Wow, that is what goes through a top players mind when they are thinking...great post. Thanks!

Great post, great analyse!!!!!!

Sick hand Red, sick outcome now when i saw it... I would most probably call there too...

oh yeah and fwiw I remember typing in "wow you really have KK LOL" before calling lol

BOOM.
What a masterful slow play!!

V checks twice with the nuts.
Once with trips. Once with boat.

You got played like a flute, son!!

Thanks for sharin'