$2 NLHE 6-max: Blind vs blind 3bet pot, bluff catching?

[humanremains]

Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: $2.00 (100 bb)
CO: $2.00 (100 bb)
BU: $3.57 (179 bb)
SB (Hero): $2.00 (100 bb)
BB: $4.70 (235 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero is SB with 4♦ A♦
3 players fold, Hero raises to $0.06, BB 3-bets to $0.15, Hero calls $0.09

Flop: ($0.30) 3♣ 3♦ 7♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

Turn: ($0.30) 4♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $0.15, BB calls $0.15

River: ($0.60) 2♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $0.60, Hero calls $0.60

This is my first post and first ever upload. Its nice to meet you all and hope to have some good discussions.

Preflop: When folded to I'm using a Raise/Fold strategy to both avoid rake and punish my opponents who do not defend enough on avg. Facing a 3bet of this size the I thought this opponent could have a 16-17%-ish range of Broadways, some suited aces, 66+ and some suited connectors and maybe some of the off suit blocker hands.
Flop: This low paired rainbow flop misses a lot of what he raises with, and Ace high with the back doors could be the best hand. I play a pure checking strategy OOP to simplify my strategy. Villain insta checks and Ive seen him use the fast play x/f button before.
Turn: Given his flop check hands like 56s are less likely and the pair is likely good in my estimation. I decide to bet here for value and protection as I can still get value from backdoor clubs and hands like A6 or K6 as this player has whale-ish stats.
River: River I was pretty unsure in game what to do. I considered catching since I'm blocking hands like A5 and I don't have clubs and I thought he could have floated the Turn with over and gut shot or Flush draw type hands.
After looking at it again it seems pretty thin as I needed 33% to call and I was only approx that if he was bluffing all his missed hands.

 

[zuker]

I would play check/fold on the river.
Villain will not fold his 3bet range. It seems like he has value hand something like middle pair.

 

[mt2lhd]

Villain made a reraise pre-flop so you should let him lead this pot and follow him in special cases, I don't found A4o a hand that you wan't be so aggressive with even with good outs that you had on the flop

 

[Aballinamion]

Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: $2.00 (100 bb)
CO: $2.00 (100 bb)
BU: $3.57 (179 bb)
SB (Hero): $2.00 (100 bb)
BB: $4.70 (235 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03) Hero is SB with 4♦ A♦
3 players fold, Hero raises to $0.06, BB 3-bets to $0.15, Hero calls $0.09

Flop: ($0.30) 3♣ 3♦ 7♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

Turn: ($0.30) 4♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $0.15, BB calls $0.15

River: ($0.60) 2♦ (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $0.60, Hero calls $0.60

This is my first post and first ever upload. Its nice to meet you all and hope to have some good discussions.

Preflop: When folded to I'm using a Raise/Fold strategy to both avoid rake and punish my opponents who do not defend enough on avg. Facing a 3bet of this size the I thought this opponent could have a 16-17%-ish range of Broadways, some suited aces, 66+ and some suited connectors and maybe some of the off suit blocker hands.
Flop: This low paired rainbow flop misses a lot of what he raises with, and Ace high with the back doors could be the best hand. I play a pure checking strategy OOP to simplify my strategy. Villain insta checks and Ive seen him use the fast play x/f button before.
Turn: Given his flop check hands like 56s are less likely and the pair is likely good in my estimation. I decide to bet here for value and protection as I can still get value from backdoor clubs and hands like A6 or K6 as this player has whale-ish stats.
River: River I was pretty unsure in game what to do. I considered catching since I'm blocking hands like A5 and I don't have clubs and I thought he could have floated the Turn with over and gut shot or Flush draw type hands.
After looking at it again it seems pretty thin as I needed 33% to call and I was only approx that if he was bluffing all his missed hands.

Well mate, first you gotta know who you are facing before assuming anything at all.
What about your opponent, how many hands have you played with her/him?
Before entering into the "Leveling Wars" (vs CO vs BTN vs SB vs BB), i.e, situations where we are not expecting capped ranges, but absolutely anything: players can display as much as 32s as AKs and 22 and AA as well, because the ranges are dynamic which turn the reading much more complicated.

Without information of Villain we can never assume whether this is a 3-bet for value or for bluff, and why are we calling out of position, versus unknown with a very dominated hand in 3-bet pots, right now BB can display A5 and it is a little bit ahead of you.

Baby suited aces A2s-A5s, I am rather more inclined to be 4-betting for bluff and for value when I am in situations of SB vs BB: my strategy is very straightforward, I do not commit my stack with a 4-bet, in the case Villain pushes/goes all-i n, I can still fold if I want and if I really believe the player weak enough to be pushing dominated hands from these position, I can even call very safely, because we are blocking AA and Ax+Overcards.

We cannot simply call here down to see a flop, we are out of position and the aces we hit are dubious and can make us waste a lot of energy and time for the sake of nothing acomplished. If you hit an ace you are not happy, if you get draws you are paying at least one street of value and you don't know how often Villain c-bets, and which sizing does it use, so it is very complicated to talk about ranges, when the only thing we got is our guts/instincts and the actual perceived ranges, for a volume of, whatever, 50, 100, 300 hundred hands, which are not very good samples for optimal postflop play.

Nonetheless, we can never achieve optimal postflop play if we commit mistakes preflop, and I guess that in this particular situation, at 2 NLHE mostly, where some players only 3-bet from the BB with tiny 2%, 3% range, very dangerous and tricky sometimes, but overall we don't see many leveling wars at 2 NLHE, we see players risking their necks based on general theories.

One more thing is about pot odds: before thinking about mathematics, think about how often is your Villain bluffing: so, when you pick up a scenario where you have 30% pot odds, you gotta ask yourself if Villain might be bluffing 30% of times in some scenarios, and in some cases it is very easy to see, that many players have no bluffs at all, in some classic scenarios, for example a players who raises AA from UTG utilizing 5 x preflop, he only does it with JJ+ and AQs+, and postflop it is the same story, the guy is never folding AA, not even under a Thor hammer's falling on their heads, and they are going to bet large and fair with the top of their ranges.

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

 

[humanremains]

Well mate, first you gotta know who you are facing before assuming anything at all.
What about your opponent, how many hands have you played with her/him?
Before entering into the "Leveling Wars" (vs CO vs BTN vs SB vs BB), i.e, situations where we are not expecting capped ranges, but absolutely anything: players can display as much as 32s as AKs and 22 and AA as well, because the ranges are dynamic which turn the reading much more complicated.

Without information of Villain we can never assume whether this is a 3-bet for value or for bluff, and why are we calling out of position, versus unknown with a very dominated hand in 3-bet pots, right now BB can display A5 and it is a little bit ahead of you.

Baby suited aces A2s-A5s, I am rather more inclined to be 4-betting for bluff and for value when I am in situations of SB vs BB: my strategy is very straightforward, I do not commit my stack with a 4-bet, in the case Villain pushes/goes all-i n, I can still fold if I want and if I really believe the player weak enough to be pushing dominated hands from these position, I can even call very safely, because we are blocking AA and Ax+Overcards.

We cannot simply call here down to see a flop, we are out of position and the aces we hit are dubious and can make us waste a lot of energy and time for the sake of nothing acomplished. If you hit an ace you are not happy, if you get draws you are paying at least one street of value and you don't know how often Villain c-bets, and which sizing does it use, so it is very complicated to talk about ranges, when the only thing we got is our guts/instincts and the actual perceived ranges, for a volume of, whatever, 50, 100, 300 hundred hands, which are not very good samples for optimal postflop play.

Nonetheless, we can never achieve optimal postflop play if we commit mistakes preflop, and I guess that in this particular situation, at 2 NLHE mostly, where some players only 3-bet from the BB with tiny 2%, 3% range, very dangerous and tricky sometimes, but overall we don't see many leveling wars at 2 NLHE, we see players risking their necks based on general theories.

One more thing is about pot odds: before thinking about mathematics, think about how often is your Villain bluffing: so, when you pick up a scenario where you have 30% pot odds, you gotta ask yourself if Villain might be bluffing 30% of times in some scenarios, and in some cases it is very easy to see, that many players have no bluffs at all, in some classic scenarios, for example a players who raises AA from UTG utilizing 5 x preflop, he only does it with JJ+ and AQs+, and postflop it is the same story, the guy is never folding AA, not even under a Thor hammer's falling on their heads, and they are going to bet large and fair with the top of their ranges.

Regards;

Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa

Thanks all for the replies. I tend to agree with your assessments when I replayed the hand later but I'm finding how you got there a little strange. You seem to be advocating a raise/fold strategy with A4s vs a BB 3bet which I find very different from my own strat of raise/call. While its true that I cannot know villains exact strategy I have direct odds to call even facing a 3 or 4% 3betting range which I find to be about as pessimistic as we can get here especially blind versus blind where 3betting ranges tend to be wider than this. I would find a fold pre flop against someone I knew to be a total nit I didn't have this information. I do tend to 4bet bluff this hand if I think my opponent is more likely to themselves play a raise fold strat and not flat the 4 bet often but I wasn't sure that this would be the case and this hands realizes equity well enough to just flat. Basically I'm just a bit surprised that folding preflop seems to be on the table for you against an unknown player.

I am confused by the next few paragraphs as well. Its true I could be dominated by Ax hands here but I'm not convinced he isn't also raising other hands that Im fine against. When describing the 4b strat you purpose you then say that you 4bet and then act according to what you think of villain which seems to contradict the idea that flatting the 3b OOP was a mistake.

You're assessment of the 3betting range villain could have seems outrageously nitty and I don't agree with this assessment at all. I find these ranges among the widest 3betting ranges of all. What makes you think this, am I way off base here?

Finally your assessment of the pot odds on the river is also strange to me. Even against JJ+, AKo, AQs+ which is about 3.6% range, we would have ~40% EQ on this run out. The low nature of the board leads and the fact that he insta checked the flop made me more inclined to believe he didn't have the top of his range since he didn't even consider going three streets for value. That being said I do agree his range is unlikely to be as polarized as I thought in game and I do think I had him betting a bit too many of his air ball hands. A fold here is probably best but I really find your reasoning a bit vague and confusing since you have some weird generalizations and then go on to speak about the dangers of generalizing. I don't mean to attack you, I'm genuinely interested in the thought process and how you go about ranging and hand reading in similar spots and would love for you to expand on them if you have the time. I find the 3bet pots OOP very difficult and would love to hear anything you have to say.

 

[quant1986]

NL2 players are likely very unbalanced so you should seek to exploit whenever possible.


Preflop:
Perhaps it is the most important spot here. I would lean towards fold or 4bet against 3bet this hand. The idea is that because we know the population does not 3bet often and/or also under-defend 4bet. In-game I would adjust based on other villain stats, which should yield higher EV than calling this hand OOP which make you harder to realize equity.

Calling this hand against 3bet is ok against players who play very balanced poker even BvB which should be non-existent in NL2 player pool.

Flop:
I expect villain cbet this bone-dry flop at very high frequency as he got range and nut advantages. It is very suspicious that villain check back and this does not mean he has a weak range in general.

Turn:
Same as flop rationale so I wouldn't stab here and instead check-call.

River:
As played I would check-fold as this bet indicates very polarised range and most NL2 players wouldn't have balanced range here and underbluff here.

That said, against very competent player who is capable of bluffing two high cards here, in theory you need to defend and call with this hand.

 

[humanremains]

Thanks for clearing that up I feel like I definitely see what you all mean now.

 

[freddydr87]

I dont call a 3bet with A4s in NL2,NL5 or NL10 is beater to 4bet it off bluff or fold it.
You have a showdonw hand that beats his AX so i wounth bet any street would have played it X/Calling 1 or maibe 2 strrets depending on vilain