$20 NLHE 6-max: Good fold? Range vs Range - how often should I defend?

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Mercurius

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Game was 16NL ($0.08/0.16 blinds), 6-Max online. No read on villain as was fairly new to the table. What range would you put Hero and Villain on?

What frequency should Hero be defending against this type of aggression and therefore what part / proportion of my range should have called down here?

Look forward to your thoughts - Hero hole cards revealed below for reference but responses are more interesting if not based on our actual hole cards.


pokerstars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.08/$0.16 - 5 players

UTG: $12.05 (75 bb)
CO (Hero): $16.90 (106 bb)
BU: $16.25 (102 bb)
SB: $6.39 (40 bb)
BB: $16.24 (102 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.24) Hero is CO
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.56, BTN calls $0.56, SB calls $0.48, BB calls $0.40

Flop: ($2.24) K 6 T (4 players)
SB bets $0.16, BB folds, Hero raises to $1.50, BTN raises to $4.15, SB folds, Hero calls $2.65

Turn: ($10.70) J (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $11.54 (all-in), CO (Hero) folds


Hero has A T
 
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Mercurius

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Then followed it up slightly later with this. This is a weak open (I know), but had a run of maybe 20 hands with terrible cards so felt the need to play something even if just to avoid being seen as a nit.

As it happened I faced more aggression from a player who was 3-betting a lot (no HUD statistics) but had 3-bet at least 2 or 3 of the last 20 of so hands and felt I was being targeted her due to my earlier fold.

Facing aggression seems to be my biggest leak and is the key difference between my NL10 games (where I do well as less players attack me with 3-bets, overbets etc) and NL16 (where I'm losing) - the aggression of NL10 players typically isn't well thought out and tends to be based on hole cards rather than board texture and ranges so it's easy to call down and let them pay you off. At NL16 you face heavy aggression more frequently but when I take them on I seem to miss my draws or they hit the nuts which makes me feel that they must be taking a different approach to applying the pressure that is setting them up to profit and me to fail.

In this hand I decided to stand firm in the face of his aggression but ultimately missed my draw and thought a shove bluff on the river would be a Tilt move after being forced to fold my earlier draw. Could I have done much differently here other than fold PF?

I'm trying to control tilt and not get all in on questionable pots / air bluffs so felt check-call or check-fold was my only river option. Presume Ad and in particularly AdQx would have been the only legit bluffs here as can rep the nuts and have good removal on the kings?


PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.08/$0.16 - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG (Hero): $15.76 (99 bb)
CO: $20.76 (130 bb)
BU: $19.98 (125 bb)
SB: $5.03 (31 bb)
BB: $16.00 (100 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.24) Hero is UTG with J Q
Hero raises to $0.56, CO 3-bets to $1.84, 3 players fold, Hero calls $1.28

Flop: ($3.92) K T 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $1.61, Hero calls $1.61

Turn: ($7.14) K (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $2.93, Hero calls $2.93

River: ($13) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $14.38 (all-in), UTG (Hero) folds
 
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fundiver199

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Hand 1
I would call him down with KT or better. There are some straights, that are possible, but its difficult for me to believe, he has very many combos of those other than clubs exactly and maybe diamonds, and Q9 is a questionable call preflop. He also dont have KK from the preflop action and maybe not even TT, so his value range is a few sets, a few two pair and a few straights, and there are a lot of draws, he could be jamming as well. If you have two pair, you block a lot of his value. On the other hand just as a pure default I am not stacking off a single pair for 100BB in a single raised pot. So I am ok letting go of your AA, AK and KQ type hands.

Hand 2
QJo is not a standard open from UTG at 6-max. It is close though, so on a passive table or with fish in the blinds, its ok. It is however never a call of a 3-bet out of position, since its the rock bottom of your range. This is pretty obvious, because if you dont fold your worse hands, you are not folding anything at all, and then people can just value 3-bet you to death. On the flop you had pretty much the best draw on the board, so if you are ever going to have any bluffs, it has to be this one. Check-raise flop, jam turn and hope he fold or that you get there.
 
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fundiver199

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So in hand 1 you had AcTc. I would probably have called to be honest, since you beat bluffs, and you have both a flushdraw and a gutshot. It is close though, so not the worst fold in the world.
 
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So in hand 1 you had AcTc. I would probably have called to be honest, since you beat bluffs, and you have both a flushdraw and a gutshot. It is close though, so not the worst fold in the world.


Yeah I felt it was close, was fairly sure he had me beat unless I hit one of my draws so figured 25% equity vs 33% needed to call. Could have gone either way but fold felt right
 
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Hand 1
I would call him down with KT or better. There are some straights, that are possible, but its difficult for me to believe, he has very many combos of those other than clubs exactly and maybe diamonds, and Q9 is a questionable call preflop. He also dont have KK from the preflop action and maybe not even TT, so his value range is a few sets, a few two pair and a few straights, and there are a lot of draws, he could be jamming as well. If you have two pair, you block a lot of his value. On the other hand just as a pure default I am not stacking off a single pair for 100BB in a single raised pot. So I am ok letting go of your AA, AK and KQ type hands.

Hand 2
QJo is not a standard open from UTG at 6-max. It is close though, so on a passive table or with fish in the blinds, its ok. It is however never a call of a 3-bet out of position, since its the rock bottom of your range. This is pretty obvious, because if you dont fold your worse hands, you are not folding anything at all, and then people can just value 3-bet you to death. On the flop you had pretty much the best draw on the board, so if you are ever going to have any bluffs, it has to be this one. Check-raise flop, jam turn and hope he fold or that you get there.


Hand 2 - agree with all and this is definitely my key leaks. Call vs 3bet too wide and lack the aggressive bluff without the nuts.

As you said at the bottom of the range it’s a fold or raise (bluff) and then check jam with the flop hitting so nicely.

This is where I fall down; lacking aggression when I don’t have a made hand. Jamming this flop must be good EV given fold equity and my outs (would need to run the numbers but intuitively feels good).

I have a fear of looking stupid when I shove with 20-40% equity and miss my outs, but ultimately if I have 30% equity and they fold to the shove half the time it’s going to be +EV right?
 
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fundiver199

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Yeah I felt it was close, was fairly sure he had me beat unless I hit one of my draws so figured 25% equity vs 33% needed to call. Could have gone either way but fold felt right

If he has no draws / bluffs in his range, it a fold, but if you start to add a few dominated draws, your equity jumps to 33+% pretty quickly. If he had 9c8c for instance, he had 3 outs, and you had more than 90% equity.
 
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fundiver199

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Hand 2 - agree with all and this is definitely my key leaks. Call vs 3bet too wide and lack the aggressive bluff without the nuts.

As you said at the bottom of the range it’s a fold or raise (bluff) and then check jam with the flop hitting so nicely.

This is where I fall down; lacking aggression when I don’t have a made hand. Jamming this flop must be good EV given fold equity and my outs (would need to run the numbers but intuitively feels good).


I have a fear of looking stupid when I shove with 20-40% equity and miss my outs, but ultimately if I have 30% equity and they fold to the shove half the time it’s going to be +EV right?

Just for clarification QJo from UTG is always a fold to a 3-bet, unless its a completely silly size of course. You are never taking your worst hands and turning them into bluffs. You are taking the worst of those hands, you are going to continue with, so a hand like A5s could be a candidate for a 4-bet bluff but not QJo. On the flop the stack to pot ratio is to deep to get it in. But you can raise to like 6$ and then jam the turn, if he gives action. Which of course you hope he dont.
 
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Mercurius

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Just for clarification QJo from UTG is always a fold to a 3-bet, unless its a completely silly size of course. You are never taking your worst hands and turning them into bluffs. You are taking the worst of those hands, you are going to continue with, so a hand like A5s could be a candidate for a 4-bet bluff but not QJo. On the flop the stack to pot ratio is to deep to get it in. But you can raise to like 6$ and then jam the turn, if he gives action. Which of course you hope he dont.


Cheers, good point. Need to do some work on my ranges vs 3bet for sure.
 
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Game was 16NL ($0.08/0.16 blinds), 6-Max online. No read on villain as was fairly new to the table. What range would you put Hero and Villain on?

What frequency should Hero be defending against this type of aggression and therefore what part / proportion of my range should have called down here?

Look forward to your thoughts - Hero hole cards revealed below for reference but responses are more interesting if not based on our actual hole cards.


PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.08/$0.16 - 5 players

UTG: $12.05 (75 bb)
CO (Hero): $16.90 (106 bb)
BU: $16.25 (102 bb)
SB: $6.39 (40 bb)
BB: $16.24 (102 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.24) Hero is CO
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.56, BTN calls $0.56, SB calls $0.48, BB calls $0.40

Flop: ($2.24) K 6 T (4 players)
SB bets $0.16, BB folds, Hero raises to $1.50, BTN raises to $4.15, SB folds, Hero calls $2.65

Turn: ($10.70) J (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $11.54 (all-in), CO (Hero) folds


Hero has A T

Hi Mercurius, thank you very much for sharing with us.
What range we can put Hero and Villain on? Hard question, since both are unknown (lack of statistics).
Well, dear friend, considering as a default, that we can be opening from 15% to 30% from the CO, for a 6-MAX table, we can have KT, maybe depending on the case K6, sometimes we are going to present AK or KQ, and once in a lifetime we are going to present here nutted hands, OTF, like KK, TT and 66.
We also can have the flush draws of clubs and straight draws, but Villains also can have them.
Now, one interesting point is when the SB comes leading OTF and we are out of position.
IMO, we can be raising here our FDs+SDs when we are THE LAST TO ACT/SPEAK/DECIDE: The BTN is ahead of you and we gotta be careful before raising either the nutted hands or potential semi-bluffs: if we get called and complete the flush or straight OTT how are going to be paid?
On the other side, if we are raising our Two Pair and Sets, we are saying that we don't care anymore for turns and rivers and we are going in with our made hand. It is kindda hard to fold Two Pair or a Set after we invest too much (raising OOP OTF).
BTN should not be jamming OTT because you are blocking a couple of straights on its range and only you have the nut flush draw: what I mean is that looks like BTN hit a Two Pair or a Set and it is going in no matter what.
Once again, let's not get on the top of our heads right now, information states that Villain is unknown, thus we cannot assume it any range, but just guess. Just because you have a player ahead of you that you have no information about it, I would not be raising anything here, neither the nutted hands (that we are not going to have so often) or the potential semi-bluffs (that we are going to have more often).

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa
 
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nzpkr

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Call and fold, both correct!

Writing this before reading the spoiler - note this is simply my opinion from looking at the hand, i am not a professional and just offering my point of view

Expected Preflop ranges -
Hero - raising from CO, expect reasonably wide, mid to high suited connectors, a10o+ and 7s+
Villan - calling from button, maybe slightly tighter than CO raise. But not AA, kk qq or AK all these would be expecting raise pre

Flop -
Hero - should be continuing with majority of above range.
Villan Ax clubs, qx clubs 10s k10 with a club QJ random AA or KK that is slow playing.
Hero - call narrows to any 2 clubs from above range, particularly 10x clubs or ax clubs, 10s 6s kk+ QJ

Turn
Hero - check, showing either a week hand with showdown equity, or drawing hand, narrows range to any 2 clubs from above range, particularly 10x clubs or ax clubs, and QJ
Villan - AQ with a club, KK, k10 1010, 66 or 2 clubs.

Now ive seen heros hand, pretty much reduces villans range on turn to qx clubs kk, 1010, 66 or AQ trying to push chasers away.

Now for your question
What frequency should Hero be defending against this type of aggression and therefore what part / proportion of my range should have called down here?

Firstly looking at your hand vs villans range on the turn you have roughly 35% equity, and there are no hands the villan holds that have you dead already. So best way to know if your making a +ev play is pot odds.

There is $22.24 in the pot, and you need to call $11.54 to potentially win. Which means you need 33% equity to make a profit. You have 35% so its pretty close, a fold will make a profit, but including rake, its probably a fold, but only just. Personally i would probably call, any club, gives you the nuts, a q at worst splits, plus you block AQ, and 10s

As for how much of your range... depends on your reason for checking the turn, if its to give villan the lead planning on check raising, then continue with pretty much whole check raise range. If its to try see another card, then your Ax hands.
 
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