I don't really have 56s in my range here calling CO from BU, I would probably 3-bet A2s and A5s as well, so if I want a check-raising range for value here (which I think I do) I think QdJd and 9d8d are the most clear candidates with the flush draw and backdoor straight draw. I have 9 combos of sets so I would probably check-raise all my diamond draws even (AdQd,AdJd,KdJd,KdQd) at the least to compliment that.

Now on the turn my bluff:value ratio should naturally decrease, and the T hitting the turn not only slashed my TT combos from 3 to 1 but also probably reduced my 33 and 44 holding to check/call hands. So it seems to be really hard to continue to bet a balanced range here, is giving up on the aggression and hoping to hit a diamond the best move here? Hard to imagine Villain actually believing me when I bluff turn here if he has a made hand here which he probably does when he calls the check-raise. Is there any way to play this hand differently or was it just a case of the worst card in the deck hitting the turn for us?


888Poker Snap, Hold'em No Limit - $0.05/$0.10 - 6 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

beOrNottoBe (UTG): $10.00 (100 bb)
Blufftard (MP): $24.43 (244 bb)
k.d.24 (CO): $10.05 (101 bb)
JackOscar95 (BU): $10.00 (100 bb)
andrys.xxx (SB): $1.67 (17 bb)
YoureMagical (BB): $3.60 (36 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.15) Hero (JackOscar95) is BTN with J♦ Q♦
1 fold, Blufftard (MP) raises to $0.30, 1 fold, JackOscar95 (BU) calls $0.30, 2 players fold

Flop: ($0.75) 3♦ 4♥ T♦ (2 players)
Blufftard (MP) bets $0.50, JackOscar95 (BU) raises to $1.20, Blufftard (MP) calls $0.70

Turn: ($3.15) T♥ (2 players)
Blufftard (MP) checks, JackOscar95 (BU) checks

River: ($3.15) 4♠ (2 players)
Blufftard (MP) checks, JackOscar95 (BU) checks

Total pot: $3.15 (Rake: $0.15)

Showdown:
JackOscar95 (BU) shows J♦ Q♦ (two pair, Tens and Fours)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 50%, Flop: 57%, Turn: 32%, River: 0%)

Blufftard (MP) shows 6♠ 6♣ (two pair, Tens and Sixes)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 50%, Flop: 43%, Turn: 68%, River: 100%)

Blufftard (MP) wins $3

It seems like you did not x/r flop but raised his c-bet. I really don't know whether it is a good idea to have a raising range here.

Originally Posted by arenaci

It seems like you did not x/r flop but raised his c-bet. I really don't know whether it is a good idea to have a raising range here.

Hm, yes you're right my mistake. We have a lot less reason to raise when in position so perhaps it's a lot better to just float the flop, then we have a lot more credibility to bet this turn as well

Preflop
Calling and 3-betting both seems fine here. My choise will often depend on HUD-stats. If Villain fold to much to 3-bets, then lets give him a chance to do that again

Flop
I like the bluff-raise here, since Q high dont have much showdown value. I would go a bit bigger though. You raised 0,7$ into a pot of 1,75$, which gave him really great odds to call. If you add another 50c, I think, you get significantly more folds including from a hand like the one, he had.

Turn
I agree, that this was a bad card to continue bluffing. It will have helped him something, in which case he might even raise you, and then its pretty much game over. In general paired boards are just not great, when we have a draw.

River
When he check to you again, maybe there is some argument for bluffing? The issue is, you are not really representing much other than maybe JJ exactly? You likely wont get a ton of credit, so I think, its fine to just give up and cut your losses, even though you never expect to be good at showdown.

Conclusion
The only thing, you could have done different here, was size your raise bigger on the flop, and against his exact holding that might actually have changed the outcome.

So what is your button Vs CO calling range?

Based on that can you construct how you would play your whole range?

How many rasies for value?
How many raises for bluff?

How many calls?

How many folds?

What do your ratios look like?

How would you play some different turns?

Sorry lots of questions but I have been trying to work on this stuff myself recently and would love to see some other people's points of view.

I think, its pretty unnessesary to worry about balance in a fast-fold game like SNAP or ZOOM. You have new opponents every hand, and just as it is difficult for you to get a read on them, its also difficult for them to get a read on you. So these games are best played on a hand-for-hand basis. You can even do things like using staggered bet sizing, because nobody knows, what your "normal" size is.

Originally Posted by fundiver199

I think, its pretty unnessesary to worry about balance in a fast-fold game like SNAP or ZOOM. You have new opponents every hand, and just as it is difficult for you to get a read on them, its also difficult for them to get a read on you. So these games are best played on a hand-for-hand basis. You can even do things like using staggered bet sizing, because nobody knows, what your "normal" size is.

Well I think the answer you arrive at is the same regardless of how you pose the question, does it really matter if Villain thinks "Hmm, the T turn pairing the board makes Hero's range consist of a lot more bluffs than pure value hands so unless he's very disciplined it's likely that he will be unbalanced towards bluffs when betting here. Calling with my bluff catcher is likely the most +EV play" or if he think "T turn change nothing. Me have pair. Me call down!"? The problem is still that we don't have a lot of fold equity on the turn.

So in my opinion here I think the best play in a balanced strategy and in a vacuum are the same.

Originally Posted by MidnightSleepless

So what is your button Vs CO calling range?

Based on that can you construct how you would play your whole range?

How many rasies for value?
How many raises for bluff?

How many calls?

How many folds?

What do your ratios look like?

How would you play some different turns?

Sorry lots of questions but I have been trying to work on this stuff myself recently and would love to see some other people's points of view.

I don't think we need to start from the beginning with a pre-flop range and constructing sub-ranges for check/folds and check/calls on this turn. It's enough to say that in our calling range pre-flop we have 33,44 and TT but not 34 (we maybe could but I wouldn't call with it). That means that on the flop we have 9 combos of sets that can be check-raised for pure value (3 combos of each 33,44,TT). On the flop you can have around a 1:2 value:bluff ratio, so we can afford ourselves around 18 bluffs as check-raises. 65s is 4 and the rest are flush draws. We 3-bet AK,AQ and probably some of our other Axs hands pre so of the 9 other available combos (can't have Ad3d) we can maybe say we have 5 of those. So we can fill the rest with 98d,J9d,QJd (have backdoor draws also so start with those) and then add in Q9d,KQd,KJd maybe you have K9 but that's pretty bad because it only has 1 blocker to overpairs. So yeah since the board is so dry I think we can raise most of our flush draws, probably don't have to raise all of it though tbh.


On the turn you want less bluffs:value, more like 1:1 so we should give up on around half of our bluffs and which of those will depend on the turn card. If 98s picks up extra equity by getting a straight draw then we continue with it if not we fold it since it doesn't have any good blockers, then we might continue with KQs instead etc. If a complete brick hits we only continue with our strongest draws. We should also be aware of which of our draws actually get there on different turn cards, if a blank hits then we will give up 56s but if a diamond card hits then that means almost all of our draws we had are now value hands. In that spot we must continue with 56s if we want to aim at having a balanced range, similarly if a 2 or 7 hits we continue even with our bad flush draws. If an Ace hits then we might want to start checking with some of our weaker Ax hands, so then we can be more liberal with our remaining bluffing range as well.

So the problem with this turn card, a T, is that now we suddenly don't have 9 value combos anymore. There's only 1 combo of TT left and 33 and 44 just lost a lot of value since they now lose to villains Tx hands so they probably want to check. So really now in order to have a 1:1 value:bluff combo on the turn we have how many bluffs? That right: One lol. So yeah maybe we continue with only AdJd here or something like that if we want to be completely balanced and give up the rest.

I might have made some mistakes since I'm just learning this stuff myself, but this is how I would view the situation.

If you're interested I would recommend The Grinders Manual by Peter Clarke. It puts a lot of focus on this type of analysis.

Originally Posted by JackOscar

So the problem with this turn card, a T, is that now we suddenly don't have 9 value combos anymore. There's only 1 combo of TT left and 33 and 44 just lost a lot of value since they now lose to villains Tx hands so they probably want to check.

33 and 44 filled up on the turn, and a full house beat 3 of a kind

Originally Posted by fundiver199

33 and 44 filled up on the turn, and a full house beat 3 of a kind

Well that's embarrassing lol I guess we should continue with a lot of our bluffing hands on the turn still then, but giving up a few extra of them because we still lost 2 combos of TT. So I think we should still probably give up on QdJd and continue with Ax[dd] instead, but you're right of course that's very silly of me.

Funny though in this spot if we do continue bluffing with a large part of our range on the turn then on the river instead we would have to give up a lot of them still because now all of a sudden Villain's Tx is actually beating our 33 after another 4 hits the board

I like the call pre

I like to call here, but if we do 3b we need to 3b bigger

I also like the check back on the turn.

I would have preferred the bluff on the river as vill only checked the turn and now checking the river, it looks like he's giving up with his hand.

i think we can pot the river and representing a delayed value from a coy TX that acts passive on turn, esp. since we min raise the flop half heartedly like a TX w/ a meh kicker