$2NL - TT preflop, line check

Villain is in his first orbit at the table so no reads. Pokerdarky has been pretty standard over 100+ hands, when he's had real hands he's bet them so I'm not expecting him to pull a limp-raise or anything like that in this spot.

I've been playing this table reasonably tight, but villain won't know that.

full tilt poker Game #10811224689: Table Juperana - $0.01/$0.02 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:07:01 ET - 2009/02/23
Seat 1: Busted Nutzz AA ($1.44)
Seat 2: julinhopk ($1.41)
Seat 4: pokerdarky ($4.44)
Seat 5: MaydayParade ($0.56)
Seat 6: M Lo 3000 ($1)
Seat 7: OzExorcist ($6.92)
Seat 8: nwahs111 ($0.62)
Seat 9: ChrisSiver ($0.40)
ChrisSiver posts the small blind of $0.01
Busted Nutzz AA posts the big blind of $0.02
The button is in seat #8

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to OzExorcist [Ts Td]
julinhopk folds
pokerdarky calls $0.02
MaydayParade folds
M Lo 3000 raises to $0.04
OzExorcist raises to $0.15
nwahs111 folds
ChrisSiver adds $0.01
ChrisSiver folds
Busted Nutzz AA folds
pokerdarky folds
M Lo 3000 has 15 seconds left to act
M Lo 3000 raises to $0.38
OzExorcist... ?

First off, is this a reasonable line to be taking with TT and second, what's our action once it's four-bet? What sort of ranges seem reasonable here?

I think 3betting there with TT is fine, once it's 4bet he's only made it another 23c to you, just over 2-1 pot odds... I'd flat call and see a flop, you don't have the odds to set mine but if the board comes all low cards i think you could be in front, he's bought in for a 50bb shortstack and my personal stacking off to them range is TT+ and AK.

Against a full stack it'd be different b/c your desicions a hell of a lot easier, you either set mine or just fold there and believe his 4bet, with a shortstack though, at $2nl on fulltilt.... I'd say his range is as weak as 66+,ATs+,KJs+,ATo+,KJo+ maybe even dropping the ATs+ down to A7s+ just plugged this into pokerstove and TT is 54% over that range, i'd say call and hope for a low flop personally, I think he gets it all in on a low flop with 2 overs a lot of the time. Just my opinion though, will be interesting to see what he had.

Agree. The 3-bet was fine, and since the 4-bet was very small I agree, flat call and see the flop.

Now he'll be short-stacked on the flop.. so in this situation I think you're going to end up putting the extra 60-ish cents in whether he c-bets or not (you have to shove back the check for sure).

Point is he will probably have a smaller PP or AK/AQs enough times here to be profitable. However; it is very difficult to tell with no reads/stats on him, so know that folding to the 3-bet may be very close EV wise (may be better).

Oh, and the difference between shoving pre-flop and calling the 4-bet is that if he has something like AK he may check/fold it on the flop enough to give you a little more EV in this spot.

spore said:

Oh, and the difference between shoving pre-flop and calling the 4-bet is that if he has something like AK he may check/fold it on the flop enough to give you a little more EV in this spot.

Click to expand...

If he's going to check-fold AK when he misses the flop (I'm not certain he does, BTW, but for the sake of the argument we'll say he does), wouldn't we have been better to get his money in preflop?

If we limit opponent's range solely to AK, we're 56:44 against him preflop in a $2.05 pot, giving us about $1.14 EV.

If we flat call here it's an 81c pot on the flop. He check-folds the 70-odd% of the time when he misses the flop, we bet and take down the pot. The 30-odd% of the time when he connects... what, we assume we're not folding and get it all in, likely leaving us with two outs in a $2.05 pot?

Unless my math is wrong, that gives us a rough EV of (0.81 * 0.7, when he check-folds) + (2.05 * 0.02, when we get all in and hit our set) - (2.05 * 0.28, when we get all in and his hand holds up) = 0.56 + 0.04 - 0.57 = +0.03.

Not only is that significantly lower than the AIPF EV, but it has us losing to rake (which will be 3c or more on the hand).

What if don't put any more money in on boards where an ace or a king flops? Then our EV is (0.81 * 0.7, when he check-folds) - (0.81 * 0.3, when we check or fold to an ace or king) = 0.56 - 0.24 = +0.32. Better than the call-anything case, and still positive, but not as good as the AIPF case.

The problem with the above though is it only takes AK into account. What's our action if the flop is 49Q and the villain leads into us? Do we need to be as worried about a queen as we do an ace or a king? It wouldn't affect us if we get all in preflop, because we perform the same against AQ as we do against AK. Nor does it really change the second case, as we're getting all in regardless. But it significantly reduces our EV in the third case if we have to check or fold to any ace, king and queen.

None of the above was a factor in my decision, BTW, but it's interesting to think about. Keen to hear any other persepectives on this.

I'm curious as to how this plays out - I've been assuming a 4bet here, against an unknown Villain, is QQ+,AK. In this situation (specifically with no reads on a new Villain, 4bet pot), I've folded as high as JJ once or twice (and wished I'd folded one or two other hands ), because I don't think the set mining odds are good enough at 2:1.

I would be more likely to call a 4bet shove from the short stack here than him raising to half his stack - I would've read a 4bet shove as the range orange has on him, where I'm reading this 4bet as above.

If orange's range is appropriate, I need to re-think - looking forward to further discussion.

With reads, everything changes, obviously.

OzExorcist said:

None of the above was a factor in my decision, BTW, but it's interesting to think about. Keen to hear any other persepectives on this.

Click to expand...

Neat analysis, Oz. The math looks right to me (not that I'm very good at the maths ) .

If Villain 4bets and c/f flop, I'd say he's a guy I want to have on the table for a while - frankly, I'd expect him to shove or c/r shove just about any flop.

If Villain checks the flop, what conditions would Hero need to bet, and is the bet a half to 2/3 pot bet or is it a shove? As you say, are we checking any A,K,Q? Are we betting/shoving any dry J high board? Are we betting/shoving any wet J high board? If you want him to c/f, don't you almost have to shove the flop after Villain checks?

I definitely prefer AIPF to calling pf - though I like your math version of equity better than this non-math version, which basically says in order to play postflop, you might as well have gone AIPF anyhow, unless you assume you're folding to Villain's flop bet without a set...

This is a shove/fold situation imo.
Flatting a 50BB for almost half his stack here is just burning money imo cause he is shoving allmost all flops,i dont think he is putting 40c of his 1$ just to c/f a baby flop.
I also think your giving a 50BB 2nl unknown way to much credit for a range of QQ+,AQ+. He is just as likly to be doing this with 66+,AT+,since lets face it 50BB 2nl players are bad.
Dont mind shoving,dont mind folding but i hate flatting here.

sindri_93 said:

This is a shove/fold situation imo.
Flatting a 50BB for almost half his stack here is just burning money imo cause he is shoving allmost all flops,i dont think he is putting 40c of his 1$ just to c/f a baby flop.
I also think your giving a 50BB 2nl unknown way to much credit for a range of QQ+,AQ+. He is just as likly to be doing this with 66+,AT+,since lets face it 50BB 2nl players are bad.
Dont mind shoving,dont mind folding but i hate flatting here.

Click to expand...

^+1

After his 4bet stacks are to shallow to do anything other than push/fold.
Since he's a half stack 2nl player im willing to go with at least 99+ with hands im willing to play for his stack with.
Consider he has 22- 99 for example, and the flop comes ace high and he shoves, or AKx, he shoves and you end up folding the best hand after putting in almost 40% of the effective stacks.

Fair enough. It was definitely a push or fold decision in my eyes too.

I did fold, maybe giving him credit for too good a range in the process. I figured if he really was doing this with a range I was ahead of though, then I'd be able to take his money some time down the track instead.

Do you think it was reasonable to three-bet this though? TT just felt like too good a hand for a pure set mine (especially when it was only a minraise before me), but at the same time it leaves you with a lot of difficult decisions.