Jblocher1
Legend
Silver Level
Hey guys, I played a really cool hand the other night that encapsulated a lot of concepts really nicely and I wanted to share it here as a learning tool because it presents what I think is a unique opportunity to really walk through an analysis of a more complex spot.
The game is a 1/3 home game with an 800 max BI to start and optional UTG/ button straddle for any amount up to 20 dollars. I know a lot of the players in this game and this particular villain I have played hundreds of hours with. He's a good 2/5 reg and is willing to put you in spots and he will put the chips in motion. He is generally theoretically sound to some degree and is a talented thinking player. I make a lot of population exploit folds and hes seen me make a lot of very large folds. That is the context for this hand. Additionally he is stuck 1500 and table agreed to let him buy in for 1500 instead of 800. I have caught him bluffing several times in the last hour. Let's get into the action:
Playing 6 handed, folds to CO villain who opens 15, hero has AAsd on button and 3 bets to 55, BB tight fish cold calls, CO calls
Flop (166): 3510dhh
BB check, CO check, hero bets 75, BB fold, villain calls
Turn (316): Ks
CO checks, hero bets 175, villain raises to 525, hero tank calls
river (1366): 10s
CO jams 840 and hero enters tank
Preflop: There is not too much to analyze about this spot, we obviously have an easy 3 bet pre and CO villain folds nearly 0% to 3bets oop vs me for some reason. I guess he just has enough respect for my ability to mix lighter 3 bets on button so he is more comfortable taking flops OOP vs what he perceives to be my wider range. Ultimately I think his reasoning is faulty because when two competent players play postflop the obvious edge is going to the competent player who is IP so he definitely needs to fold more to 3 bets than he is folding to 3 bets, especially when BB tighter fish cold calls. Presumably BB has a pretty narrow range here with a lot of mid pocket pairs and AQ/AK style holdings that should be a 4 bet but in real time he just calls. I don't expect CO to continue a ton given the action but he does call and take the flop so on to the flop we go.
Flop:
This is clean for us overall. Our opponents have more sets than us. We will only have 1010 here, presumably BB will only have 1010 here, and CO being aggressive in nature will probably set mine all of his 33/55 multi way and also just flat his 1010 rather than 4 bet. Regardless, im very near the top of my range with only 1010 being better, and lacking a heart my hand does require some degree of protection and so we are going to cbet here. I select half pot-ish sizing which should get called by all 10x and all draws which is what we want here. BB folds and CO does call. So let's adjust the CO's range given the new information we have. We started this hand 1500 effective with CO, so if he has 33-55 I expect him to raise that on flop at remarkably high frequency, because he needs to turn his attention to stacking my 24 combos of overpairs that will be unable to fold to a raise of any sizing on this turn. When he doesn't raise we strongly discount 33-55 and give him a mix of 1010/10Ks/A10s and then a variety of strong heart draws that he mixes raise and call with. Overall, we are very comfortable with the situation in which we find ourselves and are ready to evaluate a turn.
Turn: He checks to us, which I expect him to do with his entire range. There is no reason for him to develop a lead range on this turn since its a turn that favors my range and which I will be betting a lot of the time, so when he checks we learn nothing. Vs a lot of the population I think AA can check back here, because a lot of the 10x that calls flop will fold to more pressure on turn when this particular card comes off. So it is not clear to me that there's much more value to be had unless villain has a Kxhh combo and improves to top pair. Population may also raise flopped sets at lower frequencies on flop and so it may be wrong to totally discount 33 and 55 vs the normal population. Villain is not normal population however and I dont expect him to x/c his strong draws in this spot, I expect him to either x/r or x/f depending in large part on the sizing I select for my bet. This makes me more inclined to bet than check back because i'm not especially fearful about getting raised, recognizing that almost his entire continue range is going to x/r here instead of x/c. Under those circumstances we cannot be afraid to get chips into the middle because even though his 10Ks improves (if he ever calls with those combos once BB tight fish cold calls), the vast majority of his range remains unimproved. We bet, do get check raised as expected, and tank to make it look like we have some sort of decision even though I had already opted for a b/c line before I even put out the bet. I will do whatever I can here to increase the likelihood that villain decides to go for it on brick rivers.
River: 10s
This is perhaps the single best river in the deck for me. Before he had 3 combos of 1010 and now he only has 1. Before he had 2 combos of 10Ks and now he only has 1. If we were correct to remove 33/55 from his range on flop we are now only losing to 2 combos when all draws brick out. Villain surely recognizes that this is the worst river in the deck for him. It is truly terrible. When he jams he represents exactly 2 combos and his range is dramatically weighted towards bluffs if he jams all the draws that he gets to river with. So we expect that villain will mostly give up and check to us on this exact river but he thinks for a bit and goes for it. This puts me into a blender for the exact reasons i've already explained. Villain is strong enough on theory to recognize that this river is one that he needs to bluff at dramatically reduced frequency, especially given the extremely good price im going to get while deciding whether to call. So when he does jam, we expect him to be very weighted towards his value... but wtf there's only 2 total combos if we are right about villain's flop approach with 33/55. I'm being tasked with investing 840 to win around 2200 dollars so I only need to win 38% of the time here to break even and villain arrives at river with way more bluff combos than he does value. If villain has 2 combos value and 0 combos bluff we have a fold. If villain has 2 combos value and 1 combo bluff, we have a fold (but its very close) and the second he adds a second bluff combo we have a money printing call. So we arrive at the dilemma. Does villain have 2 bluff combos, in a spot where he needs to dramatically underbluff because of how often i'm going to need to call given the brick nature of this river? Being very uncomfortable in the spot we now look to contextual details for assistance. Factors we consider:
1. Villain is down 500BB going into this hand and so seems less likely to give up on river at the frequency he may otherwise recognize he should.
2. Villain has seen me make massive exploit folds and so if any member of population will overfold this spot in his eyes, I would be that player.
3. Villain is just one of the more aggressive players in population in general and so will go for it at higher frequency regardless of whether he's tilted or not.
All contextual factors point to call. We announce call and villain snap throws his cards into the muck and silently walks out.
The game is a 1/3 home game with an 800 max BI to start and optional UTG/ button straddle for any amount up to 20 dollars. I know a lot of the players in this game and this particular villain I have played hundreds of hours with. He's a good 2/5 reg and is willing to put you in spots and he will put the chips in motion. He is generally theoretically sound to some degree and is a talented thinking player. I make a lot of population exploit folds and hes seen me make a lot of very large folds. That is the context for this hand. Additionally he is stuck 1500 and table agreed to let him buy in for 1500 instead of 800. I have caught him bluffing several times in the last hour. Let's get into the action:
Playing 6 handed, folds to CO villain who opens 15, hero has AAsd on button and 3 bets to 55, BB tight fish cold calls, CO calls
Flop (166): 3510dhh
BB check, CO check, hero bets 75, BB fold, villain calls
Turn (316): Ks
CO checks, hero bets 175, villain raises to 525, hero tank calls
river (1366): 10s
CO jams 840 and hero enters tank
Preflop: There is not too much to analyze about this spot, we obviously have an easy 3 bet pre and CO villain folds nearly 0% to 3bets oop vs me for some reason. I guess he just has enough respect for my ability to mix lighter 3 bets on button so he is more comfortable taking flops OOP vs what he perceives to be my wider range. Ultimately I think his reasoning is faulty because when two competent players play postflop the obvious edge is going to the competent player who is IP so he definitely needs to fold more to 3 bets than he is folding to 3 bets, especially when BB tighter fish cold calls. Presumably BB has a pretty narrow range here with a lot of mid pocket pairs and AQ/AK style holdings that should be a 4 bet but in real time he just calls. I don't expect CO to continue a ton given the action but he does call and take the flop so on to the flop we go.
Flop:
This is clean for us overall. Our opponents have more sets than us. We will only have 1010 here, presumably BB will only have 1010 here, and CO being aggressive in nature will probably set mine all of his 33/55 multi way and also just flat his 1010 rather than 4 bet. Regardless, im very near the top of my range with only 1010 being better, and lacking a heart my hand does require some degree of protection and so we are going to cbet here. I select half pot-ish sizing which should get called by all 10x and all draws which is what we want here. BB folds and CO does call. So let's adjust the CO's range given the new information we have. We started this hand 1500 effective with CO, so if he has 33-55 I expect him to raise that on flop at remarkably high frequency, because he needs to turn his attention to stacking my 24 combos of overpairs that will be unable to fold to a raise of any sizing on this turn. When he doesn't raise we strongly discount 33-55 and give him a mix of 1010/10Ks/A10s and then a variety of strong heart draws that he mixes raise and call with. Overall, we are very comfortable with the situation in which we find ourselves and are ready to evaluate a turn.
Turn: He checks to us, which I expect him to do with his entire range. There is no reason for him to develop a lead range on this turn since its a turn that favors my range and which I will be betting a lot of the time, so when he checks we learn nothing. Vs a lot of the population I think AA can check back here, because a lot of the 10x that calls flop will fold to more pressure on turn when this particular card comes off. So it is not clear to me that there's much more value to be had unless villain has a Kxhh combo and improves to top pair. Population may also raise flopped sets at lower frequencies on flop and so it may be wrong to totally discount 33 and 55 vs the normal population. Villain is not normal population however and I dont expect him to x/c his strong draws in this spot, I expect him to either x/r or x/f depending in large part on the sizing I select for my bet. This makes me more inclined to bet than check back because i'm not especially fearful about getting raised, recognizing that almost his entire continue range is going to x/r here instead of x/c. Under those circumstances we cannot be afraid to get chips into the middle because even though his 10Ks improves (if he ever calls with those combos once BB tight fish cold calls), the vast majority of his range remains unimproved. We bet, do get check raised as expected, and tank to make it look like we have some sort of decision even though I had already opted for a b/c line before I even put out the bet. I will do whatever I can here to increase the likelihood that villain decides to go for it on brick rivers.
River: 10s
This is perhaps the single best river in the deck for me. Before he had 3 combos of 1010 and now he only has 1. Before he had 2 combos of 10Ks and now he only has 1. If we were correct to remove 33/55 from his range on flop we are now only losing to 2 combos when all draws brick out. Villain surely recognizes that this is the worst river in the deck for him. It is truly terrible. When he jams he represents exactly 2 combos and his range is dramatically weighted towards bluffs if he jams all the draws that he gets to river with. So we expect that villain will mostly give up and check to us on this exact river but he thinks for a bit and goes for it. This puts me into a blender for the exact reasons i've already explained. Villain is strong enough on theory to recognize that this river is one that he needs to bluff at dramatically reduced frequency, especially given the extremely good price im going to get while deciding whether to call. So when he does jam, we expect him to be very weighted towards his value... but wtf there's only 2 total combos if we are right about villain's flop approach with 33/55. I'm being tasked with investing 840 to win around 2200 dollars so I only need to win 38% of the time here to break even and villain arrives at river with way more bluff combos than he does value. If villain has 2 combos value and 0 combos bluff we have a fold. If villain has 2 combos value and 1 combo bluff, we have a fold (but its very close) and the second he adds a second bluff combo we have a money printing call. So we arrive at the dilemma. Does villain have 2 bluff combos, in a spot where he needs to dramatically underbluff because of how often i'm going to need to call given the brick nature of this river? Being very uncomfortable in the spot we now look to contextual details for assistance. Factors we consider:
1. Villain is down 500BB going into this hand and so seems less likely to give up on river at the frequency he may otherwise recognize he should.
2. Villain has seen me make massive exploit folds and so if any member of population will overfold this spot in his eyes, I would be that player.
3. Villain is just one of the more aggressive players in population in general and so will go for it at higher frequency regardless of whether he's tilted or not.
All contextual factors point to call. We announce call and villain snap throws his cards into the muck and silently walks out.
