$10 NLHE 6-max: Clarkmeister hand. River suggestions

Figaroo2

Figaroo2

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Villian Stats (VPIP/PFR/AF): 20/17/2.5

I read one of the hands posted recently which mentioned the 4 flush board. Here's one from yesterday.

Here the villain is decent and aggressive.
I'm not inclined towards building big pots preflop against aggressive players who don't fold to 3 bets when I'm OOP with hands I want to see the flop with but don't want to face a 4bet. Could/should we be betting before the river here?

Party, $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 5 Players

SB: $9.20 (92 bb)
Hero (BB): $13.16 (131.6 bb) (showing to villain 26/18/AG30%/ 148 hands 6% 3bet from SB)
MP: $8.70 (87 bb)
CO: $10.43 104.3 bb VPIP: 20, PFR: 17, 3B: 13, AG% 44, Hands: 125
BTN: $10.60 (106 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q
diamond4.gif
A
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MP folds, CO raises to $0.30, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.65) A
club4.gif
5
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T
club4.gif
(2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.46, Hero calls $0.46

Turn: ($1.57) 4
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(2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: ($1.57) Q
club4.gif
(2 players)
Hero bets $1, CO raises to $2.25, Hero ?

Having checked called twice and the 4th club arriving I thought turning my hand into a bluff stood a good chance if I made it look like value.
I suppose he must have the Kc to raise here but the raise was unexpected after his turn check.
 
T

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I can understand that you dont want to built huge pots preflop with that kind of hand.
But you are only with 4 other players at the table and although the stats of the villain are solid you should 3 bet in this spot. If he calls you can set him on a smaller range, if he re-raises it is an easy fold and if he folds you have won the hand anyway.

The flop is OK for you you have top pair with a good kicker but the problem are the three clubs out there and you can not say if the villain hit the flop too.

A check call here is fine. The betsize of the villain can be a Cbet or a Value bet, we do not know it here.

The turn is a blank here and the Check is fine again, because we can not really say what the hand of the villain looks like.
He checks behind. Why? If he would have something like Ah Ks he would
definitely make a large bet to protect his hand against a fourth club on the river. But through his check it looks like he has a good club (A Kc , Jc 10 or stuff like that) .
He does not have a flush there already because then he would go for value on the turn, because you already call the Cbet on the flop.

On the river you made two pair but this does not matter, the danger of a flush is out there.
The playstyle of the villain looks like he made his flush there.
You try to turn it into a bluff because every club would beat your two pair.
The villain re-raises you there and this should be an easy fold.
Why should he reraise you?
You called his Cbet on the flop and he knows you will only do that with an Ace or a Flush Draw. I would set his rane probably to Kc X or atleast Jc X.

He would only rearaise you if he has enough showdownvalue and this is only with a Flush if he thinks you are bluffing there he just would call it with a medium flush.
I am pretty sure he has his Flush there atleast with Jc.

It would have been ok when you have checked call the river but this re-raise is just way to strong and with a medium flush like A 8c he would just call there.

I see the mistake on the river bet you should have fire a barrel on the turn in pot size, if he really has a flush draw there he would fold if he is a good player or call and loose with that move in the longterm
 
B

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hard to play with maniacs some situations, and this one quite tricky, well i'm think if viilain agressive he trying mb turn his hand into bluff, cz this turn check means he did c/r to get value with flush and then reevulate or he checks cz afraid 'wheel' and probably got A, or same two pair, but with weak kicker, about showdown value, i think on river i'd call and hope he don't have flush, cz agreessive players always fight to the end and won't fold especially on these stakes.
 
c9h13no3

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Good hand to post.

I can't decide if I'm being results oriented when I want to donk the turn. It's a terrible card for him to barrel, so rather than try to induce a bluff again, I think I just bet for value.

On the river, this is where Clarkmeister's theorem breaks down a bit. Your opponent is probably more likely to bluff than bluff-catch, and your opponent still has a ton of air in his range. I might be inclined to check/call in this spot.

His raise is pretty gross. I want to bet/fold, but his range was just so wide going into the river.
 
c9h13no3

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3bet pre .. check raise flop
I disagree with both here. Villain is 20/17, so he's likely raising 18-19% of hands from the CO. That's fairly tight, AQs isn't a huge favorite over that range. Once we 3-bet and get him to fold ~50-75% of his hands, AQ becomes a dog. I don't want to play a pot where I have a dog hand, out of position, in a big 3-bet pot.

And on this flop, if we get all the money in, we're never ahead. We're either flipping with something like AxJc/KcQx, or crushed by AK/sets/flushes. It's better to see a blank turn peel off and then go for value. Check/raising the flop lets the draws get the money in when their equity against us is best.
 
Figaroo2

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I disagree with both here. Villain is 20/17, so he's likely raising 18-19% of hands from the CO. That's fairly tight, AQs isn't a huge favorite over that range. Once we 3-bet and get him to fold ~50-75% of his hands, AQ becomes a dog. I don't want to play a pot where I have a dog hand, out of position, in a big 3-bet pot.

And on this flop, if we get all the money in, we're never ahead. We're either flipping with something like AxJc/KcQx, or crushed by AK/sets/flushes. It's better to see a blank turn peel off and then go for value. Check/raising the flop lets the draws get the money in when their equity against us is best.

I totally agree with C9 here
AQ is a favourite pre flop but not against his 3bet calling range and that assumes we don't get 4bet and have to ditch a promising hand. We will usually get more value out of this hand when we keep in his dominated aces.
My question is still how much do we bet on the river?
 
6

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I've played against these kind of aggrotards a lot at both 5NL and 10NL 6-max zoom on Stars and honestly I would just 3bet preflop. In fact, I'm going to be 3betting hands significantly weaker than this in a BB vs CO war. I consider a CO open to be a steal and I never flat-call against steals: I 3bet or fold.

His CO opening range is going to be fairly wide (since it's basically a steal) and will include things as weak as K7s, 65s and 22. It's much better to just 3bet and take the pot down uncontested than it is to play OOP without the betting initiative and leave hands like pocket pairs and suited connectors in his range that can easily outdraw you.

It's actually possible for him to flat-call your 3bet with hands that you dominate (like KQ and AJ) and he's the kind of aggrotard that will always 4bet {QQ+, AK} (and probably JJ too), which means you'll never be in a dominated spot when you 3bet: you'll be the dominator and you'll have the betting initiative.

In addition to that, it balances your restealing range. If you're not restealing with AQs, then what hands are you restealing with? Or are you just flat-calling from the blinds far too often?

Plus it brings down the SPR and makes your future decisions a lot easier on Axx and Qxx boards, since you can comfortably stack off with TPTK (something you can't comfortably do 100bb deep in 2bet pots). And when you miss on a Kxx board for example, you can take the pot down with a flop Cbet. It's just a win-win.

tl;dr: 3bet preflop.

EDIT: One of your arguments for not 3betting was that you're scared of getting 4bet. This isn't a valid argument imo. If you believe that he's going to 4bet bluff you, then you need to ask yourself what percentage of the time he's going to call off a 5bet shove. If he's 4bet bluffing a lot, then he's probably folding to 5bet shoves a lot too and you can basically 5bet shove ATC (I have 5bet shoved worse hands against laggy players that 4bet/fold a lot). And if he's not 4bet bluffing a lot, then you have nothing to worry about by 3betting. And if he is calling off 5bets with hands as weak as low pocket pairs and AQ type hands, then you should be fine GII preflop. Either way, it's never a mistake to 3bet this hand.
 
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John A

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I don't know Clarkmeister's theorem. But why would you want to turn your hand into a bluff versus someone who will bluff more often than bluff catch in this spot?

I don't understand much of this hand to be honest. c/c flop, lead turn. Your opponent isn't going to bluff the turn very often. River, if you have an aggressive reg in a spot where he clearly doesn't have much, you should be bluff catching.
 
Figaroo2

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I've played against these kind of aggrotards a lot at both 5NL and 10NL 6-max zoom on Stars and honestly I would just 3bet preflop. In fact, I'm going to be 3betting hands significantly weaker than this in a BB vs CO war. I consider a CO open to be a steal and I never flat-call against steals: I 3bet or fold.

He's not an aggrotard, just a decent winning tag reg.
3 betting or folding is fine if you have limited flop skills. If you play all the time like this you will never develop as a player. You have to have a calling range.

His CO opening range is going to be fairly wide (since it's basically a steal) and will include things as weak as K7s, 65s and 22. It's much better to just 3bet and take the pot down uncontested than it is to play OOP without the betting initiative and leave hands like pocket pairs and suited connectors in his range that can easily outdraw you.

Preflop against his range we have a 60-40 equity advantage. If we three bet and he calls with a 6% range then that equity switches around. Why do you want to do that? There is much more value to be gained by calling.

It's actually possible for him to flat-call your 3bet with hands that you dominate (like KQ and AJ)

Id rather keep in all his range than hope he calls with the few hands that I beat in his 3bet calling range

In addition to that, it balances your restealing range. If you're not restealing with AQs, then what hands are you restealing with? Or are you just flat-calling from the blinds far too often?

My 3 betting range is polarised here against a decent reg. AA KK QQ JJ AK for value.
I'm only flat calling AQ AJs KQs 77 88 99 TT
3 betting from a range like ATs through to A2s KJs QJs JTs KTs T9s 66 55 44 33 22 AJos to A8os KJos KQos


And when you miss on a Kxx board for example, you can take the pot down with a flop Cbet. It's just a win-win.

As you go up these sort of players are much happier to call 3bets in position and are stickier and rarely go away to a single c bet

EDIT: One of your arguments for not 3betting was that you're scared of getting 4bet. This isn't a valid argument imo. If you believe that he's going to 4bet bluff you, then you need to ask yourself what percentage of the time he's going to call off a 5bet shove. If he's 4bet bluffing a lot, then he's probably folding to 5bet shoves a lot too and you can basically 5bet shove ATC (I have 5bet shoved worse hands against laggy players that 4bet/fold a lot). And if he's not 4bet bluffing a lot, then you have nothing to worry about by 3betting. And if he is calling off 5bets with hands as weak as low pocket pairs and AQ type hands, then you should be fine GII preflop. Either way, it's never a mistake to 3bet this hand.

I'm not scared of being 4 bet, its just a waste of a high equity hand to have to fold if you are 4bet, that is the beauty of the polarised 3betting range, you bet your junk and value, if you get 4 bet your decisions are easier and you don't get into awkward spots in 4 bet pots oop.
I don't want to be 5 bet shoving a hand like AQ when I don't have enough hands on him to know what he's 4 betting with. maybe once I've racked up a 1K of hands with him and I know more about his bluffing tendencies.


John
Thanks for popping in on this hand,
I prefer the idea of leading out on the turn to take back the initiative. How do you play it if he calls and the 4th flush card arrives though? I not happy check calling into a 4 flush board after he calls a decent turn bet.
Clarkmeister says just shove the river! Presumably we are going to fold out everything but the nutflush against this type.
 
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