$10 NLHE 6-max: Defending with upper part of range?

ACR is down (what else is new?) so played on BOL. Had to move up stakes, I know I usually am slowly bleeding at 10nl, but no matter.

HAND 1

in CO. Folds to us and we open to 0.25. 100 bb eff.

Folds to BB who 3bets. V here has played a lot of hands thus far (I have no HUD) and has played pretty aggressively.

BB 3 bets to .80

I elect to call- we are suited and in position. He could be doing this with worse hands than ours, so let's play.

Flop comes Pot is 1.56.

V bets out .80, Hero calls. (Should we be raising here? If so, how big? If he shoves over us/reraises, what do we do? GII?)

Turn Pot is 3.07

V bets 2.40. Something like a set of nines or an over pair TT-QQ makes sense for him here. I guess potentially 78dd

We call (I think this is really bad).

Turn Pot is 7.61

V shoves (he covers us, we have $6 remaining) we fold.

We should have played more aggressively, but where? Flop or turn? If we get 3bet on flop, then what? Always fold?

HAND 2Same table, diff. V. We have a very weak image on this table

in MP, UTG limps, we raise to .35

folds to BB who 3-bets to .60 (?!?), limper folds and we call.

Flop comes Pot is 1.28.

V min bets .10 into us. We raise to .65, he calls.

Turn Pot is 2.51

V bets .70 (!) We call. (I dont like calling, but can we raise or fold? Neither makes sense)


River is the . He bets .75 and we fold.

I hate playing poker by trying to make a hand. Looking for ways to be more aggressive here.

In the first hand we could try a 4-bet, given the aggressive characteristics of our villain. Maybe we could push in preflop with that line. According to what has been played, I agree that on the turn, we are in a complicated place. That was probably the time to think about giving up. But if you think that villain was doing that with pure air, then continuing with our range is not something wrong, since we are playing with sufficient equity, in this low texture.
Finally on the river, I think we had no choice but to give up. The villain probably got some value, and now he uses it becomes a semi bluff.

In the second hand, you must increase more in preflop since you are in a dominated position, it is necessary to show more strength. That way, you can prevent another player from deciding to increase more, to remove all the smaller sizes of bets and steal their chips quickly, running out of confrontation.
When you call in preflop to 3-bet, you are not in good shape and generally you are exposed to stronger ranges, which will probably take advantage of their positional advantage over you. But in this case, you have the advantage of the position. However, an increase in BB is not a good sign, so we must pay close attention.
Either way, it seemed like a small increase.
In the flop, the villain's bet already seems mocking, so it would increase a little more than the size you chose, this would be done in order to estimate a little more, his range of calls.
On the turn the villain comes forward and catches up, with a slightly more normal sized bet. You have second best pair and flush draw. I think this is a safe call. Personally it would not increase, since it would assign some A, in the range of the villain.
In the river, the villain he continues with his mocking attitude and makes a small bet. I think its range is Ax, but if you have doubts, calling at this point is not a mistake.
Regards.

His 3 bet is lol small, I like the defend in position. Flop raise is fine but I would size .80+ given the pot size. Disregard his min raise and treat it like a check. We flopped awesome in a 3 bet pot we should want to build here. Even vs overpairs we have great equity and we block QQ. His turn sizing is actually really small, It kind of takes folding off the table getting almost 5 to 1 to peel with second pair K kicker and a flush draw. I think raising and calling are both fine vs this sizing. The problem with calling is that any decent player will barrel river. If we raise we likely buy a river check and if we miss we can give up. If he 3 bets turn we can easily fold since hitting 2 pair will likely be no good and even trips may not save us. Another tiny river bet though. Not sure if he's blocking or going for sure value with a monster. Really tempting to look him up here with over $5 in the pot for .75 but we are bluff catching against a hand like JJ who put us on a flush draw. Gross run out. I think it's a good fold vs this guys stats but it's only 27 hands. Once we get more stats maybe we can bluff catch some.

Hard spot

teh_colonel_saigon said:

ACR is down (what else is new?) so played on BOL. Had to move up stakes, I know I usually am slowly bleeding at 10nl, but no matter.

HAND 1

in CO. Folds to us and we open to 0.25. 100 bb eff.

Folds to BB who 3bets. V here has played a lot of hands thus far (I have no HUD) and has played pretty aggressively.

BB 3 bets to .80

I elect to call- we are suited and in position. He could be doing this with worse hands than ours, so let's play.

Flop comes Pot is 1.56.

V bets out .80, Hero calls. (Should we be raising here? If so, how big? If he shoves over us/reraises, what do we do? GII?)

Turn Pot is 3.07

V bets 2.40. Something like a set of nines or an over pair TT-QQ makes sense for him here. I guess potentially 78dd

We call (I think this is really bad).

Turn Pot is 7.61

V shoves (he covers us, we have $6 remaining) we fold.

We should have played more aggressively, but where? Flop or turn? If we get 3bet on flop, then what? Always fold?

Click to expand...

Hello there teh_colonel_saigon how you doing? Thanks a lot for sharing your hands with the CardsChat Forum and community.
So I assume that from the CO you could open K2s+ okay? But are you calling a 3bet out of position with K2s, K3s, K4s, when the price is good? Which was the case, Villain in the BB 3bets us for 3.2x, and giving that this player is a little bit spewy it can have a lot of trash in his range. But also value hands.
Would you picture a 3bet range for a LAG from the BB attacking the CO raisor, many times for stealing? (assuming the V in the BB is way too spewy).

22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q6s+, J6s+, T6s+, 96s+, 86s+, 75s+, 65s, ATo+, KQo (24.28%)

When it comes a lower 3bet size as that, from a weak aggresive player, in a situation CO x BB, it could many times an attempt to steal the Blinds preflop, which is the soul of the 6-Max Cash Game, in my opinion. An it is not unusual a spewy player have a lot of suited connectors that could flop well against CO and BTN's ranges.
I like our flatting here in position to play with such a guy like that, however I would be flatting in a situation like that at least with K8s+, and sometimes even K8s+ it is an easy fold to me. Flatting for trying to overplay this guy in some board textures. Otherwise I could be calling with the same range that I could 4bet a thief from the blinds.

Flop comes Pot is 1.56. (15.6 BB's)

Before we enter into the analysis of bet sizes, let's us take a closer look on how this board hits the BB's range in a 3bet pot like that, in the best case scenario for the BB:

99, 66, 33, A9s, A6s, A3s, Q9s, Q6s, J9s, J6s, T9s, T6s, 96s+, 86s, 76s, 65s (5.88%)

This line Villain took of betting 8 blinds in a pot of 15.6 (a little bit more than 1/2 pot) is very strange. BB is representing 33, 66, 99, 96s, as value hands. Because Hero in position have two diamonds it blocks a lot of Big Blind's combinations that could be doing that for bluff in the flop, and it is not a good play of the BB as well. (but BB could easily have any two diamonds weaker than yours when it c-bets strong in the flop). This bet is real bad from the BB because there are some turns and rivers that will crush sets, or if not, put sets and two pair in a very hard line. If we have a set it doesn't make any sense try to make the pot grow so strong when there are so many flushes that could be killing our set in the turn, and I would be hard for us to fold. If we were in BB's shoes. Not a good bet from the BB my friend.
By the same line of thought, if BB had TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA it could it be betting for protection (combos without a diamond), but we don't know for sure if the BB player was 3betting steal or 3betting for value, and we will never know because poker is a game of incomplete information. Even so there are many turns that could kill the action of suck strong pocket pairs, such as another 9x, a Tx, Jx, Qx, that could complete BTN's two pair and gutters.
Villain's range will miss this flop if it has a 3bet steal range, 16.14% and hit 5.88, and if we consider only the heavy values will hit this flop 3.92%. Theoretically, BB should not be firing like that out of position 95.98%! It should be simply checking either for value or for bluff.
It is not a good bet from the Villain in the Big Blind very high and when he does that he has more bluffs than values. Some of its strong values could be checking to induce some bluffs of the CO's.
I did not include many K's in BB's range because Hero blocks most of them, but it doesn't mean at all that BB could not have KQ with a club, KJ with a club, AK with a club, etc.
Summarizing, with all the diamonds in your range, and Villain in the BB with no diamonds in the worst case scenario we would have 45% equity for a call, so you had the proprer pot odds.


Should we be raising here?

If you raise here, it is a value raise or a bluff raise? Which group of hands you usually raises a 1/2 Pot C-bet, in a 3bet Pot and expected to be paid? Because if you have the nuts, raises and the spewy player folds, you lost value.
If you raise and the spewy player re-raises you, or shove, you never know if you are ahead or not and then you have to make a guess calling with a Flush Draw and an overcard. And it is not even the Flush Nuts (I don't know if you have the Ace of diamonds. You could have plenty of A's of diamonds in your range, but I am considering all the K's suited).
When you have the Ace of diamonds, it is good for bluffing, but when I guy like that bets a lot, our line is mostly calling down and see if we hit our equity or if there's a possibility for bluffing the LAG in position. (We call this bet with our sets, our pocket pairs higher than TT+ and with 2 diamonds).
However, it is very hard decision because we are not sure which kicker we have, an that affects our decision-making a lot in a flop like that. I suppose if we have AdKd, KdQd, KdJd, we can call here to fold many turns. For example any turn which is not an overcard or a diamond. Besides, when you call the Flop you may have some floats in the Turn and River, but how much this Villain would fold?
There are several turns that will block our action in the turn. The Deuce of Club is just fine, Villain still have plenty of bluffs in his range, but we never know if BB is betting strong in the turn with a 9x, pocket 9's which got a set in the flop or even JJ, QQ, etc.
We know that in the long run the call in the Turn is not that good. It causes a lot of anger, because when BB bets strong in two streets he polarizes its range for bluff. However, I'd rather die of anger and fold than pay to see and lose a big pot, just for the sake of curiosity. IT is better to fold in doubt than go a huge pot for curiosity.
Sometimes the fold preflop with strange Suited K's is okay. And sometimes the fold to a large C-bet flop is also okay, because we don't need to balance our range very much against aggro-violent-murderer players. But our call is okay because when we hit the flush in the Turn we will certainly extract a lot of value from BB's bluffs, semi-bluffs and values, that would be losing 80%, 90% or more for our flush. (and if we have no Ace of diamonds when we hit the flush turn/river we will get a cooler from time to time, because if we don't have the ace of diamonds in our range, BB's will have many of them in its 3bet range, either 3bet range light or 3bet range value).

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa