$100 NLHE 6-max: bvb, top two pair vs. river shove.

slycbnew

slycbnew

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$100 NL HE 6-max: bvb, top two pair vs. river shove.

Villian Stats (VPIP/PFR/AF): 24/23/5

Sample is 400 hands. He's new to 100nl at PS, just started a week ago but already has 30k hands in, I also have hands on him at 50nl.

How often is he showing up w better than top two pair here bvb? Are we ever folding here?

poker stars, $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 5 Players
Hand History Converter by Stoxpoker

MP: $100 (100 bb)
CO: $26.70 (26.7 bb)
BTN: $209.55 (209.6 bb)
Hero (SB): $133 (133 bb)
BB: $103 (103 bb)

Pre-Flop: Hero is SB with Qh Jh
3 folds, Hero raises to $3, BB calls $2

Flop: ($6) Js 3s 6d (2 players)
Hero bets $4.50, BB calls $4.50

Turn: ($15) 7h (2 players)
Hero bets $10, BB calls $10

River: ($35) Qc (2 players)
Hero bets $22, BB raises to $85.50 and is all-in, Hero ???
 
W

WurlyQ

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I could be way off but I'll take a stab. I'm going to assume they are relatively competent or else this analysis is utterly useless.

This hand really depends on a couple factors for me:
1. How wide are they defending bvb? I'm going to assume 76s and 54s are in their range, but are they capable of defending as wide as 76o, 54o, J6, or J7?
2. Are they capable of bluff shoving missed flush draws? There are people with laggy preflop stats but won't felt hands unless they have the goods.
3. Are they capable of slowplaying hands on semi drawy boards to mess up handreading, primarily 76 and potentially J6 or J7 which are quite vulnerable on the turn and should generally be raised?

Their line is very very strong and if they rarely bluff shove, call me a nit but I'm inclined to fold.

Hands that beat you: 33, 66, 77, 54s, (54o)
Hands that you beat: 76s, (76o), (J6), (J7), (bluffs)
Price to call: $63.5 to win $142.5 so need to be ahead 31% to break even and probably around 33% to make this a call.

Doing this with Qx is pretty lol and I think someone with an aggression factor of 5 raises Qs6s on the flop. Any other Q6 folds to the second barrel so for all intents and purposes, the river Q is a total brick except as a scare card to bluff you off Jx. Doing this with any one pair hand is essentially turning a weak made hand into a bluff because they know they are behind.

I would personally always raise J6, J7, and 76 on the turn but that's me.

Using combinatorics, relevant river value shoving ranges (range and combinations of hands we beat and lose to followed by how often they need to be bluffing to make the call profitable):

33, 66, 77 (ahead 0, behind 9): 5 other holdings or 36% bluffing frequency

33, 66, 77, 54s (ahead 0, behind 13): 7 other holdings or 35% bluffing


33, 66, 77, 54s, 76s (ahead 2, behind 13): 5 other holdings or 25% bluffing frequency

33, 66, 77, 54, 76 (ahead 9, behind 23): 4 other holdings or 11% bluffing frequency

If you add any other two pair type holdings, this is a snap call.
 
Z

Zybomb

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This is far from a snap call.

Important in this spot are villains tendencies. First off, does he have a river bluff raise in his repertoire? And enough balls (and or stupidity) to do it against a player who's fired 3 shells after his PFR?

I think that is the single most important factor in our decision. As strong as our hand is, we don't really beat too much that is shoving for value. Hands like 76 for sure pop the turn, so putting that hand into his range is generally wrong.

the 2nd most important factor is how would he play QsXs? Would he be bad enough to shove the river thinking hes getting value?

Im assuming no one at .5/1 NL is tricky enough to turn made hands into bluffs here, or expects anyone to fold an over pair, so Im discounting a lot of showdown hands in his range as well.

Blind to any information I guess it's a call, but if I know villain wont bluff raise busted draws and or overvalue QsXs it's probably closer to a fold. Eh what am I saying its .50/$1 NL ppl are morons and show up with all sorts of weird ish here esp BvB, I call. He might show up with weird hands like Q6s which flopped mid pair and river 2 or somethin else odd

IMO I think the river is an easy c/c though, to get value out of busted draws and save $ against sets and 54. Our line sort of looks double barrellish / Medium Jackish, so we'll also get "value" bets out of Qx and KJ type hands in addition to bluffs, so I don't think we lose too much value by checking, except on hands that probably won't call the river anyway. I do like betting the river if we have a splashy image though
 
F Paulsson

F Paulsson

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By the brief description you give of your opponent, I take it he's a high volume regular?

This is really important and something that you should be very aware of: If he's multitabling heavily, he's basing his decisions off of your stats. He's unlikely to take extremely unorthodox lines because he doesn't have the time to be very creative if he has to navigate 10+ other tables at the same time*. That means that your own image is the key to figuring out what to do here, assuming he has numbers on you as well. Do you regularly fire three barrels? Do you valuebet the river light? Has he seen you bet/fold the river?

As for whether or not to bet/fold or check/call this river, it's really a matter of how he'd play a flushdraw on the flop. If he raises the flop frequently you can discount flushdraws somewhat from his range, and that means that a large part of his possible draws are out the window. Check/calling is really only good if he will valuebet the river with thin hands (i.e. KJ) or he will bluff very often with missed draws. If I don't have enough information to make an educated guess whether to b/f or c/c, value betting is by far my preferred option. But then again, I do bet three barrels a lot, so my river bets don't get a lot of respect (and I will often get looked up by hands like 44 here, and J9 is never folding). Because of that, I kinda need to bet/call this river when my opponent shoves, but it's probable that my average opponent is more aggressive than this guy.

Why do you bet the turn?

* Edit: That's not to say he can't go on monkey tilt and spew left and right.
 
slycbnew

slycbnew

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Great comments all, thanks.

My image is relatively tight and relatively passive. I frequently fire three barrels, I do value bet the river light, and I'm sure he's seen me bet/fold the river (he's probably also seen me call river bets light, tbh). I have a high fold to 3bet% (he has 3bet me before), and I open the sb 11%.

Good point about the turn bet. I made the bet thinking I was probably ahead, that he'd call w any pair or the fd because of the bvb. I expected a straight or two pair to raise me, given the possible fd. I also expected a set to raise a two-toned flop, so wasn't concerned that I was behind a set. Is ch/c the better play here? I almost always bet here, thinking I'm betting for value.

Over a small sample, he has never raised the flop (58 opportunities) and raised the turn 33% of the time (22 opportunities). I didn't think about this during the play of the hand, great point.

Here's why I ended up calling the river -

1. The line doesn't make sense to me, I felt someone that agg would raise a set or a straight before the river, esp since I could be two barreling a fd on the turn (which I do regularly, and he may know this). Against a passive player, I snap fold.

2. The shove is bluffy. Of course, it may be designed to look bluffy w the nuts, but I'm having a hard time crediting him w a straight or set to make the shove because he didn't raise sooner.

3. The appearance of an overcard on the river means that if I'm betting Jx, the Q should be a reasonably good scare card, and my image is relatively passive. If he's putting me on a busted fd or a single pair as the majority of my range, he's right that I won't call the shove.

4. Since I'm having a problem w the set and straight lines, that means the best value hand he can have is 2pr - and there's a chance he's spazzing KQ/AQ, though I'd expect those to raise to $50ish, not shove.

EDIT: I timebanked almost all the way down, took a while for me to arrive at the call conclusion, literally walked through all of the above reasoning before making the call. My question is whether in the long run it's the right play.
 
F Paulsson

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Is ch/c the better play here? I almost always bet here, thinking I'm betting for value.

Versus a loose/passive the turn is a really easy second barrel. Versus an aggressive opponent, it's trickier. It depends on how lightly he floats and what he's likely to do with that range if you check the turn. I.e., would he float here with the intention of trying to steal if you check the turn? In the offchance that he has a flushdraw, would he bet it if you check to him? Would he bet a hand like JT or KQ if you check to him? If the answers to those questions is at least a tentative yes, then checking works out well, and you should probably check with the intention of raising (shoving), because while it shuts down his bluffs, you're probably not getting much more value on average from those anyway, and it puts him to a hard decision with his Qx hands. I take that line with QJ (or a set) sometimes here specifically because I'll often play a flushdraw the same way (i.e. c-betting flop, c/shoving turn, depending on stack and potsizes). I don't know how much you need to worry about balancing at 100NL, but it's starting to matter a little at least.
 
trewtrew

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i think u have to call this because if he has a hand that beats you which is at least a set i think he would have, if not on the flop, raised the turn to build a pot. He could have missed spades or this could be a triple float gone horribly wrong. He could also be overvaluing a hand such as AsQs or KsQs
 
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