$2.20 NLHE MTT Bounty: Squeeze preflop and hero call

The move came limp. With a pair of 10 I prefer to give a squeeze to isolate the curious and have more equity with my hand. With a fold on the A flop my play becomes more dangerous. As I had information about the villain, he was very loose and always bet on the river, I preferred to pay the river believing it was not his. Well the move worked. Would you do it differently?
https://www.boomplayer.com/32689230_6C3519CE22

deyvsonflp said:

The move came limp. With a pair of 10 I prefer to give a squeeze to isolate the curious and have more equity with my hand. With a fold on the A flop my play becomes more dangerous. As I had information about the villain, he was very loose and always bet on the river, I preferred to pay the river believing it was not his. Well the move worked. Would you do it differently?
https://www.boomplayer.com/32689230_6C3519CE22

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Pre
Standard, and I really like the sizing agsint EP limpers - go big here, this is good.

Flop
Great sizing here too - yes please....just think of the aces we can have in our range, AQo+, A8s+, and A4/5s as well. Not to mention the other combo's like TT and QJs; we are perfectly balanced here - this is very good and well played.

Turn
I get it, I do, but we need to barrel here, especially with the brick turn card. This check here is where we lose the hand.

River
Wow, we didn't lose the hand - ok. I still think we just need to barrel turn, and as played, probably fold to his river bet honestly. Unless you know this guy as an over-bluffer, I think we got lucky here; I was expecting to see him roll AXo.

Just keep your foot on the gas, that's my opinion anyway.

I like the action of raising pre flop but I think you can go smaller here. If they are calling something smaller (such as 1400) then they are calling 1750. Likewise, if they are folding to 1750 they are probably folding to 1400. Sounds like a moot point but get into enough of these situations and the 200-400 in chips you could be saving if things dont work out the way you want them to can go a long way.

On the flop I like the action of C betting and the sizing, even though small, is fine. If he doesnt have an ace then we are in good shape and dont want him to fold (although he could have over cards like Kx through Jx).

The turn is where I strongly disagree with the action taken. You should be betting here for some protection of our equity and the possibility that he has a small pair that will call. Small pairs should be a chunk of his range here as he only limped and then called a raise. You mention that he will always bet the river. If that is the case you dont have to check to him on the turn to get him to bluff the river. You can bet, get some value from the hands you beat and let him do the expected and still bet the river.

The river would usually be a fold for me but you have to trust your gut. Your gut and your read said he would bet the river almost always. If that is the case this is a must call as you did. If I were in the hand and had that read I would make the call but would not be loving it. Glad it worked out.

For the most part you played the hand well and stuck your read which is important. Always keep a look out for situations where you can potentially save chips, dont bet any more than you have to for the job to be done.

I think, this is played literally perfect. I like a big isolation size, when we are deep. We need to think of this almost as a 3-bet, and 7BB is not a large 3-bet. You still got called by suited junk, so you are printing value here. Postflop I like betting small on this kind of board, which is a way ahead way behind situation. I also like checking back turn, and when we do, it is mandatory to call his river bet. People spazz out so much, when the preflop raiser misses a C-bet, and this hand is a prime example.

fundiver199 said:

I think, this is played literally perfect. I like a big isolation size, when we are deep. We need to think of this almost as a 3-bet, and 7BB is not a large 3-bet. You still got called by suited junk, so you are printing value here. Postflop I like betting small on this kind of board, which is a way ahead way behind situation. I also like checking back turn, and when we do, it is mandatory to call his river bet. People spazz out so much, when the preflop raiser misses a C-bet, and this hand is a prime example.

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Yeah - agree with pretty much everything. I like a big size pre-flop too, though I could entertain going a bit smaller, I think the size chosen was pretty damn good.

One thing I don't agree with is checking back turn - and if we do, we're bluff catching rivers. Paired boards are a tricky subject, especially double Ace boards, but checking back a turn brick is an invitation to have the pot taken from you.

Now, if the turn were Kx, I can get behind a check, in fact, I would prefer a check in that scenario - but a deuce....competent villains are just going to jam river knowing we can't call.

you played correctly. He could slowplay the turn.
He also has many weak aces. And he could get a street.
So that everything is correct.

ssbn743 said:

competent villains are just going to jam river knowing we can't call.

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Then we just call, even though "we cant", and if they react like this, we are literally printing money.

I play this situation similar most of the time and I think it is a leak. We lose value by not barreling the turn when we check that for pot control. It is much less likely he has the A when there are 2 on board and we are good there more often than not. I think adjusting this line to when you have an ace is more profitable long term to induce the 6 to bet.

fundiver199 said:

Then we just call, even though "we cant", and if they react like this, we are literally printing money.

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I hate it - you're bluff catching for stacks. You have no idea where you're at, and he could easily show up with Ax, a hand we can generate a fold against by barrelling our range on the turn.

You could make a pot-control argument - but way-ahead/way-behind scenario's don't really need pot control, that's why we size bets smaller in these spots.

Below is his pretty liberal range, reality is probably a lot fewer, but since he showed up with Q6s - we'll never know for sure
(JJ-66, AJs-A2s, KsQs, KsJs, QsJs, KsTs, QsTs, JsTs, Ks9s, Qs9s, Js9s, Ks8s, Qs8s, Js8s, Ks7s, Qs7s, Js7s, Ks6s, Qs6s, Js6s, AJo-A8o, A5o) 154 combos

His range that beats us (I'm leaving out 44 and 22 since I'm hoping he doesn't call flop - if he does, this gets worse)
(JJ, 66, AJs-A2s, AJo-A8o, A5o) 112 combos

There's no way we're printing when better than 70% of his range beats us - unless you know this guy to be a over-bluffer, I hate it - just keep barreling our nearly unbelievably strong range in position.

ssbn743 said:

I hate it - you're bluff catching for stacks. You have no idea where you're at, and he could easily show up with Ax, a hand we can generate a fold against by barrelling our range on the turn.

You could make a pot-control argument - but way-ahead/way-behind scenario's don't really need pot control, that's why we size bets smaller in these spots.

Below is his pretty liberal range, reality is probably a lot fewer, but since he showed up with Q6s - we'll never know for sure
(JJ-66, AJs-A2s, KsQs, KsJs, QsJs, KsTs, QsTs, JsTs, Ks9s, Qs9s, Js9s, Ks8s, Qs8s, Js8s, Ks7s, Qs7s, Js7s, Ks6s, Qs6s, Js6s, AJo-A8o, A5o) 154 combos

His range that beats us (I'm leaving out 44 and 22 since I'm hoping he doesn't call flop - if he does, this gets worse)
(JJ, 66, AJs-A2s, AJo-A8o, A5o) 112 combos


There's no way we're printing when better than 70% of his range beats us - unless you know this guy to be a over-bluffer, I hate it - just keep barreling our nearly unbelievably strong range in position.

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You say, we are behind 70% of the time, but you still want to bet. That simply makes no sense, unless you want to turn your hand into a bluff. Which in my opinion would be really bad, because most people just dont fold trips. Period.

Also I am not saying, that I want to call an overbet jam on the river. I am just saying, that if you believe, that checking will induce a competent Villain to overbet "because we can not call", then you have found a spot, where calling is extremely profitable.

This is just common sense, because if he is betting for value, why on earth would he choose a size, he think, we "can not call?" So when you expect this reaction, you must be expecting him to bluff, and then it makes no sense to try to avoid that.

The way, we win in poker, is to find spots, where our opponents make mistakes. Or if you will are unbalanced. And it does not matter, if those spots are high variance or uncomfortable. We should still take them. And actually it is quite a great feeling to let someone bluff off their stack and send them out of a tournament. If you have never tried that, I can highly recommend it

fundiver199 said:

You say, we are behind 70% of the time, but you still want to bet. That simply makes no sense, unless you want to turn your hand into a bluff. Which in my opinion would be really bad, because most people just dont fold trips. Period.

Also I am not saying, that I want to call an overbet jam on the river. I am just saying, that if you believe, that checking will induce a competent Villain to overbet "because we can not call", then you have found a spot, where calling is extremely profitable.

This is just common sense, because if he is betting for value, why on earth would he choose a size, he think, we "can not call?" So when you expect this reaction, you must be expecting him to bluff, and then it makes no sense to try to avoid that.

The way, we win in poker, is to find spots, where our opponents make mistakes. Or if you will are unbalanced. And it does not matter, if those spots are high variance or uncomfortable. We should still take them. And actually it is quite a great feeling to let someone bluff off their stack and send them out of a tournament. If you have never tried that, I can highly recommend it

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We seem to have gotten off on a tangent here because of a semi-amusing antidote I made.

If you want to talk exploitative play with a leveling war, that's an entirely different conversation. If you know this guy is going to jam river because he knows what you know that he knows what you don't know, so we check/call, you know - then fine I guess, that's going to be impossible to discuss. What we're talking about is having a merged and balanced range OTF and OTT. What combo's are you going to check turn with and be profitable calling his river jam, or even his river 1/2 potter?

And we're not turning our hand into a bluff, we're betting our entire range, some combo's of which are bluffs - but villain doesn't know any of this except that we can have all 3. By checking we allow him to keep A2o and Q6s.

Sure, we're probably not going to get him off trips of any real strength, like A9/A8+, but we can get him off some of the lesser combo's while balancing our range and making him make a tough decision. We could still have AK, by checking, we can't.

The turn is pivotal in this hand and we need to be firing. Checking back river is where what you're saying is going to come into play.