$5 NLHE 6-max: Zoom. Been testing myself and villains out, was this good or bad?

GDBPoker

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PokerStars - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

BTN: 37.6 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, hands: 1)
SB: 102.4 BB (VPIP: 10.34, PFR: 10.34, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 31)
BB: 191.4 BB
UTG: 95.6 BB (VPIP: 11.11, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
Hero (MP): 129.4 BB
CO: 596 BB (VPIP: 18.85, PFR: 14.02, 3Bet Preflop: 3.69, Hands: 661)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 5<font color='black'>♣</font> 5<font color='red'>♥</font>

fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, CO calls 3 BB, fold, fold, fold

Flop: (7.4 BB, 2 players) 8<font color='black'>♠</font> K<font color='red'>♥</font> 2<font color='black'>♠</font>
Hero bets 3.4 BB, CO calls 3.4 BB

Turn: (14.2 BB, 2 players) A<font color='red'>♦</font>
Hero bets 8 BB, CO calls 8 BB

River: (30.2 BB, 2 players) 2<font color='red'>♥</font>
Hero bets 20 BB

Something to note is that villains fold to flop cbet is 25% (4/16) and fold to turn cbet 50% (not as noteable as only 4 hands history for that one).

My reasoning through the hand:

Flop - Cbetting with almost my whole range here, and villain is calling Kx, flushdraws, maybe AsX, and I feel like all underpairs, or at least 6's plus. Also he may have suited 98 here, which because of his stickyness he is also calling.

Turn - Villain usually never has AK here, but I obviously still do so I want to rep it and bet. Im thinking he is still calling with his Kx, Ax obv, flushdraw/gutshot combos, and possibly JJ TT?

River - I felt by this stage I could get Kx and any underpairs to fold, and missed draws. maybe even a weird Ax he made it to the river with. I have shown strength by barreling so that counts in my favour a little. At the time i thought my sizing was fine, but after reviewing I think it should be a little higher, maybe just over 3/4 pot.

Was this a good/ok/terrible triple barrel bluff? All criticisms welcome.

Cheers
 
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TheArnie

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To me it seems like you tried to bluff a calling station, when against player like that (i dont play zoom tho) i just wait for top pair and take villain to valuetown.
 
GDBPoker

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To me it seems like you tried to bluff a calling station, when against player like that (i dont play zoom tho) i just wait for top pair and take villain to valuetown.

Yeah sorry I should have specified, villain actually evens out come the river, he's stationey on the flop, and turn he is kinda, but river he actually plays fairly normal, as in he folds rivers at the same frequency as I do (Im normal right? :S)

I feel like he is taking advantage of draw monkeys that give up on rivers, so he swoops in to steal. He's not loose enough pre for me to consider him a fishy calling station.

What are your thoughts apart from the 'calling station' aspect? Was this a good play against a non-station reg? Would love to hear your advice
 
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TheArnie

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Yeah sorry I should have specified, villain actually evens out come the river, he's stationey on the flop, and turn he is kinda, but river he actually plays fairly normal, as in he folds rivers at the same frequency as I do (Im normal right? :S)

I feel like he is taking advantage of draw monkeys that give up on rivers, so he swoops in to steal. He's not loose enough pre for me to consider him a fishy calling station.

What are your thoughts apart from the 'calling station' aspect? Was this a good play against a non-station reg? Would love to hear your advice

It's really hard to play such a low PP OOP. Why are you betting the river? I agree, turn A could have scared him to give up some Kx, but river basically comes a blank. So if he called on turn and flop, what could change his mind on river, especially as no draws complete. I'd most likely give up after cbet, or bet/bet/check/fold.
 
PokerNinja91

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The bet on the flop is not big enough, you're betting less than half pot. You say you're trying to rep AK but would AK bet less than half pot on that board with the two spades? Also, don't think about what you're trying to 'rep' at 2,5,10NLZoom as the majority of players are only really thinking about their own hand, they don't necessarily put you on a range. It's likely he had As xs here which is never going to fold. In fact no ace will fold that river now that the board paired and he's splitting pot with everything but a higher two pair. I really don't like the fold to cbet stats as you need a very very large sample to make any assumptions from them and it all depends on the texture of the flop - Especially at these limits, most players just play fit/fold and so you should be cbetting most uncoordinated boards regardless of what the stats say.3 barrelling is generally a mistake imo, when players call turn, they're unlikely to fold river. Atleast at these limits that is. Not to say he won't fold sometimes, but not often enough imo

The biggest mistake by far is the river bet. The board paired and the draws busted. My old poker coach once told me that you should never bluff when this happens as players will look you up with any pair and its true. It is a very good spot for a large VALUE bet, I could bet pot otr with A10 and Expect to get looked up by any pair almost always because players will see that the draws missed and that the 2 is unlikely so he figures I missed my draw and now I'm betting large to bluff at it. I can definately see what you're trying to do here as I used to do the same thing, the problem is that you're trying to represent such a narrow range. That being said, there is the chance that he has 10-Js or something like that which he would fold but you're already ahead of that. Basically I think that OTR if he had any pair - he calls, if he has something that missed then he folds. It's not a profitable bet Imo. Just check river and then make a decision if he bets, might sound crazy but if he bets I'm seriously thinking about calling because is he really going to go for thin value with ax on this river? Maybe but that's villain dependant - those are the kind of things you need stats on
 
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MinhANguyen

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The bet on the flop is not big enough, you're betting less than half pot. You say you're trying to rep AK but would AK bet less than half pot on that board with the two spades? Also, don't think about what you're trying to 'rep' at 2,5,10NLZoom as the majority of players are only really thinking about their own hand, they don't necessarily put you on a range. It's likely he had As xs here which is never going to fold. In fact no ace will fold that river now that the board paired and he's splitting pot with everything but a higher two pair. I really don't like the fold to cbet stats as you need a very very large sample to make any assumptions from them and it all depends on the texture of the flop - Especially at these limits, most players just play fit/fold and so you should be cbetting most uncoordinated boards regardless of what the stats say.3 barrelling is generally a mistake imo, when players call turn, they're unlikely to fold river. Atleast at these limits that is. Not to say he won't fold sometimes, but not often enough imo

The biggest mistake by far is the river bet. The board paired and the draws busted. My old poker coach once told me that you should never bluff when this happens as players will look you up with any pair and its true. It is a very good spot for a large VALUE bet, I could bet pot otr with A10 and Expect to get looked up by any pair almost always because players will see that the draws missed and that the 2 is unlikely so he figures I missed my draw and now I'm betting large to bluff at it. I can definately see what you're trying to do here as I used to do the same thing, the problem is that you're trying to represent such a narrow range. That being said, there is the chance that he has 10-Js or something like that which he would fold but you're already ahead of that. Basically I think that OTR if he had any pair - he calls, if he has something that missed then he folds. It's not a profitable bet Imo. Just check river and then make a decision if he bets, might sound crazy but if he bets I'm seriously thinking about calling because is he really going to go for thin value with ax on this river? Maybe but that's villain dependant - those are the kind of things you need stats on

4/16 fold to flop c-bet is a decent enough sample size to draw the conclusion that he does not like folding to flop c-bets. He is either a huge station or likes to float and bluff, or both. I'd just give up OTF given his stats. We can get barrelled off even if we have the best hand, barreling flop and giving up turn is bad, double barreling isn't great, and tripling is not great either.

It is true that all aces are calling down often on that river at these stakes, but calling a triple barrel here is burning money. People almost never 3-barrel draws/enough in general, and if you're calling just because "the draw missed and the board paired," you're going to be bleeding money. 3-barrels are very strong at the lower limits, and that range is going to be mainly AK/88/22/KK/AA/A8s/A2s. People shouldn't be tripling Ax here. What worse hand can call? Ax is splitting, and Kx is probably folding.

On this board run-out, a 3-barrel range by your average player is going to be super strong. There are very few draws that missed in the first place, and most give up on the river. Even if we did 3-barrel missed draws, there are very few we can have since Axs makes up the bulk of our spade range. Suited aces other than boats and two pair probably aren't tripling. Also KQ/KJs don't play this way. It's pretty hard to beat anything if you're sitting there with AJs/AQo, and folding is the correct play unless you have reads he's a habitual bluffer. Pretty much only Q10ss, J10ss, maybe 109ss are the only draws that missed since we opened from MP

I like the idea of the 3-barrel. Our opponent's range is capped to weak one pair hands like Kx, and Ax is a bluff-catcher.. He can't have AK, and stronger hands like sets would have raised the flop or turn for value given the possibility of straights and the FD out there. We basically can rep a value heavy range. But against these stations that can't hand read and see how much strength you're repping, I'd give up on the river.
 
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No Brainer

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I don't mind the small cbet on a flop like this vs an opponent with a high fold to cbet but OOP against someone with only 25% you should just give it up here. Sure we will often be giving up the best hand but there aren't many nice turn cards and we will end up check/folding on most of them. You never know he may even check back on the flop and we end up playing a nice small pot OOP with our weak hand.
 
PokerNinja91

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No I fully agree that triple barrelling is generally a good strategy when it's obvious that your opponent can't have much, however this is 5NL. And the runout, particularly the river is bad for us. He can't fold any ace on that river and he's probably going to bluff catch with a K imo. I don't triple barrel without a hand at anything less than 16NL because players will just call down
 
PokerNinja91

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Sorry MinhANguyen, misread some of that. What I basically mean is that while it may be true for villain to be making a mistake by calling that river bet, the whole 'missed draw, paired board' mentality might make him call with any piece, even if it is unprofitable, which is why we shouldn't bluff at it. Because it is 5NL and because players are very sticky with hands, it makes bluffing in general pretty bad for the most part. Had this been 25NL then maybe it is ok, but I still wouldn't be bluffing that particular river - almost ever.
 
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MinhANguyen

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My bad PokerNinja, I misread part of your post too haha. Pretty late. Didn't see the part where you said your coach told (you) not to bluff in such situations. Also thought you were implying that this is a bad spot to 3-barrel bluff in all situations. It is bad in that we are at the lower stakes against a pool of fishies who will station all the way down and for the life of them cannot find the fold button, but is decent against the right players: nits/decent regs at higher stakes.
 
GDBPoker

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Wow I really appreciate the responses everyone. I agree it was fairly loose to play the hand this way at micro's. I think I let the 'nemesis factor' get to me with this guy, and wanted to get one over him. Obviously he had called all my cbets in the past, and when I give up on turns or rivers he bets 100%. What I really should be doing is exploit that part of his game by checking monsters on dry runouts and getting max value in the earlier streets, and not play to his strategy and spew to him when he has it.

Thanks for clearing my mind on this all, I'll keep that play in reserve for when I move up and know I'll be getting folds enough times for it to be profitable. I really hate seeing this guy pop up on my table with position on me, so talking this through has helped me with more than just this specific hand.

Oh, and he did fold, but that's just being results oriented and not the point of this post.

Thanks again :)
 
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