- I don't think checking behind the flop loses any value unless villain is a spew machine (and in that case I made mention to bet/bet/bet as default if this were the case). Assuming he's not, we aren't getting 3 streets of value from our hand, so while he might peel with random pocket pairs or A high or other stupid things if we bet the flop, if we check behind, he'll certainly call a turn bet now that we appear weaker than the flop when he planned on calling.
Well villain doesn't have to
spew for cbetting to be profitable, he only has to call a wide range, and that's by FAR the biggest leak of your average player at the micros. We have additional info here (pf stats) to suggest he is a fish, and I believe it's safe to assume that the biggest problem fish have is that they
call too much, not that they
bluff when shown weakness too much. And we both agree that's the primary merit of checking back: taking advantage of our opponent's tendency to pounce on weakness.
So, cbetting: good when villain calls too much, checking back: good when villain bluffs/valuebets worse hands after our flop check.
If we do bet the flop and he calls and we bet the turn again he'll probably fold all Ace high/pocket pairs (not sure how often people double barrell at this limit, but Im assuming not too often) and with KJ/KT probably call 75%/fold 25% (maybe less folds at this limit i dunno). If the river blanks off and we bet a third time I assume he folds all weaker Kings at this point (as he beats nothing but triple barrells, and how often do they show up?). Your overall net is 2 streets of value.
(Keep in mind If villain will call 3 streets with weak kings my plan is to bet bet bet)
I really think your guesstimations are way off here. If an opponent is bad enough to flat KTo OOP to a steal, they're never, EVER folding top pair postflop (assuming an ace doesn't fall on this particular board texture, and in such a case we might not valuebet it often anyways...)
So yeah, I'm always going for three streets given I think he never folds a king and often peels at least one street with Ax/underpairs/sometimes as a reverse float with worse.
We also avoid weird spots like these, where villain raises and we're faced with a check/WTF on the turn.
True, but situations like these are a far second in importance since they show up so infrequently.
- If we check behind then bet the turn and river villain will probably call both bets with a King netting us the equal 2 streets of value. With a pocket pair he'll probably peel one also and fold to the river (same value)
True. Something to be said is that cbetting vs checking behind is also a very situation-dependent thing, even if the flop texture is exactly the same. Some guys like peeling lots of flops but give turn/river bets tons of respect. Others fold to tons of cbets but might think we're full of it when we bet turn/river after checking back the flop. I'm basing my line on the fact that all we know is villain is a loose, bad player and nothing else. With reads I will sometimes play it completely different.
- If we check behind, villain will bluff some % of the time hands that he will fold to your flop bet (gain value)
(...and may continue on the river), but we can also say that when we cbet he will c/r bluff some portion of the time (and potentially continue on the turn/riv). We can't possibly say how much he'll do any of those things though without specific reads, so we can call that even.
- When villain shows up with a 6, we've controlled the pot size and lost less (slash avoided tough spots like this example) (gain value)
True, that's a big one. But again, 6x/AA/AK/KK are rarely in his range, so the cost of the mistake of cbetting the flop and paying off however many streets we decide won't be all that much.
Oh also, as far as the meta game comment,
Yes our flop bet range is going to be polarized by taking this line frequently (notice i say generally, not always, and we are betting this a portion of the time for meta purposes) but if you think about it we aren't limiting it too much more than if we bet. We're just adding KQ KJ KT to the betting range, since we're checking behind TT-QQ a lot and the rest of our range is bluffs.
Well by adding KT-KQ on top of AK, that's 48 combos vs 12. There's definitely more in our value range though (6x, KK, AA) but tbh I'm too lazy to count everything and figure out how many 6x hands are in our range, so meh
But we add 36 combos to our value range. That's pretty big. When a reg can discount KQ- from our range here it makes his play a ton easier.
In addition, we could check behind super dry boards almost always (when we miss), with the intent of a delayed c bet if checked to again. We could check behind some of the time with AA and KK to balance out ranges to
help this
All this at .25/.50 NL is probably unnecessary though as I highly doubt the majority of villains are paying enough attention to take notes on meta game details like this.
Yeah again there are times for delayed cbets and stuff...I won't repeat everything I've said, feel like I'm beating a dead horse a little bit. I do think checking back AA/KK is something that should almost never be done though; we're just missing out on WAYYYY too much value on dry boards. Our primary goal here is value vs a likely calling station, so I bet
Agreed btw, good discussion.
