£25 NL HE Full Ring: Flush draw facing aggression on paired board

[Station_Master]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Stakes

$.10/$.25

Table Format

Full (8-10 seats)

Currency

£

pokerstars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.10/$0.25 - 8 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

UTG: $25.42 (102 bb)
UTG+1: $25.12 (100 bb)
MP: $35.20 (141 bb)
MP+1: $28.87 (115 bb)
CO: $27.57 (110 bb)
BU: $13.08 (52 bb)
SB (Hero): $25.00 (100 bb)
BB: $27.64 (111 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.35) Hero is SB with 9♦ A♦
4 players fold, CO raises to $0.75, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets to $3, 1 fold, CO calls $2.25

Had only just sat down so no particular reads on villain other than he was a possible fish based on the 3x sizing and his country. I am never flatting here so its 3bet or fold with A9s being toward bottom of range

Flop: ($6.25) T♦ 5♦ T♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $2, CO raises to $5.29, Hero calls $3.29

Decent flop for my hand and range is doing fairly well here but without nut advantage (i.e. more Tx). I cbet small, but I was thinking of check raising here. Getting raised was not what I wanted, its clearly a continue but I wonder if I should have 3bet here. I wondered if villain had Tx or just pushing the fact that they have more Tx in range. 55 is also a possibility as is something like JJ that wants my AK etc to fold.

Turn: ($16.83) K♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $5, SB (Hero) folds

Total pot: $16.83 (Rake: $0.76)
CO wins $16.07

Interesting turn card but not the diamond we are looking for, obviously we have KK in range which would now move ahead of any Tx, but I'm never donking here. Facing the small bet I considered all 3 options and didn't like any of them! We are not really getting the pot odds to call with only 8 outs and could be dead already if he has KT or 55, I was struggling to find bluffs, maybe QJs, possibly AJ or AQ but we lose to these anyway (I also thought bluffs might go bigger). Of course there are some implied odds if I hit and I was contemplating calling and donk jamming any diamond, but these could be reverse implied odds if he was already boated, so I ended up folding. Jamming all-in crossed my mind but I don't think Tx is folding (and should be a big part of range).

I don't like the way I played this hand too much, as I seem to have put about a 1/3rd of a stack in and folded out good equity! Interested in your thoughts.

 

[pentazepam]

Standard GTO-charts 3-bet against CO preflop.

A small c-bet also almost 100% of the time after you have 3-bet a strong range from the SB and just get called by the original raiser.

If you re-raise the flop it becomes somewhat of a leveling war. You can probably make him fold most pairs (good) or lower flush draws (bad) but you can of course also be against a hand that totally crushes you (very bad). So calling the raise would be my choice almost all of the time. If they are bluffing you want to keep those hands in obviously especially since some of the bluffing can be with a lower flush draw than yours. But he probably just calls your bet with them most of the time.

Since, I hope, most of the players in the 10NL pool don't play GTO I also think that without reads you are up against a Tx most of the time. So to continue on the flop is one thing but after the K on the turn, it is not the time to start representing some stronger hand since he almost never folds.

So I think you played it correctly and agree with your post up till the turn discussion. You almost get the odds to call if your outs are clean but on a paired board they probably never are. So folding should not be so hard on the turn.

 

[Aballinamion]

no particular reads on villain other than he was a possible fish based on the 3x sizing and his country.

First of all, if you have no reads on villain how can you possibly know if it is a fish? And what overwhelms and makes me flabbergasted is that you are the one who 3-bets preflop, so what’s your point???
And most of all, the cherry that completes the cake is that you considered villain to be a recreational based on his country? This is narrowly a huge prejudice and you might try to work on it!
After all this mess I agree with your preflop and flop lines.

55 is also a possibility

If you had any idea about villain being a recreational, why would you assume into his range Tx, KT and 55 while it could’ve a lot of more dominated hands?

 

[Station_Master]

First of all, if you have no reads on villain how can you possibly know if it is a fish? And what overwhelms and makes me flabbergasted is that you are the one who 3-bets preflop, so what’s your point???
And most of all, the cherry that completes the cake is that you considered villain to be a recreational based on his country? This is narrowly a huge prejudice and you might try to work on it!
After all this mess I agree with your preflop and flop lines.


If you had any idea about villain being a recreational, why would you assume into his range Tx, KT and 55 while it could’ve a lot of more dominated hands?

I love your passion! But I think you are making too much of the read I mentioned. I meant I dont have any reads as had only played a few hands, but he could be a fish.

Country is a useful indicator, it's not in anyway prejudice to say there are more fish from UK, canada, germany, sweden than there are from Ukraine Belarus and Uzbekistan. This is just the reality. There are obviously very good players from the western countries too but they are more likely to be fish. I am from the UK so if anything I am being prejudiced against my own country!

Also 3x is a more typical fish size than say a 2.3x open. Lots of regs also open 3x, so it doesnt mean too much, but he could have been a fish, not saying he definitely was. At the poker table we need to take every bit of info available and apply probability weighting. As we have more hands with players then our reads improve and we have a better idea how someone plays.

Anyway, as I say I had very little in the way of reads and hence played a standard 'GTO'preflop and flop strategy . I would always 3bet A9s to a 3x open in these positions unless against a nit in which case I would fold.

 

[John A]

It's not a popular line, but I prefer x/cing flop and leading the turn in a spot like this. If it goes x/x on the flop... oh well. Opponent will bet a much wider range on the flop and won't bluff raise the turn almost ever. It just prints money. As played, you have borderline odds to call, but I don't hate a fold.

 

[eetenor]

PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.10/$0.25 - 8 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

UTG: $25.42 (102 bb)
UTG+1: $25.12 (100 bb)
MP: $35.20 (141 bb)
MP+1: $28.87 (115 bb)
CO: $27.57 (110 bb)
BU: $13.08 (52 bb)
SB (Hero): $25.00 (100 bb)
BB: $27.64 (111 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.35) Hero is SB with 9♦ A♦
4 players fold, CO raises to $0.75, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets to $3, 1 fold, CO calls $2.25

Had only just sat down so no particular reads on villain other than he was a possible fish based on the 3x sizing and his country. I am never flatting here so its 3bet or fold with A9s being toward bottom of range

Flop: ($6.25) T♦ 5♦ T♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $2, CO raises to $5.29, Hero calls $3.29

Decent flop for my hand and range is doing fairly well here but without nut advantage (i.e. more Tx). I cbet small, but I was thinking of check raising here. Getting raised was not what I wanted, its clearly a continue but I wonder if I should have 3bet here. I wondered if villain had Tx or just pushing the fact that they have more Tx in range. 55 is also a possibility as is something like JJ that wants my AK etc to fold.

Turn: ($16.83) K♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $5, SB (Hero) folds

Total pot: $16.83 (Rake: $0.76)
CO wins $16.07

Interesting turn card but not the diamond we are looking for, obviously we have KK in range which would now move ahead of any Tx, but I'm never donking here. Facing the small bet I considered all 3 options and didn't like any of them! We are not really getting the pot odds to call with only 8 outs and could be dead already if he has KT or 55, I was struggling to find bluffs, maybe QJs, possibly AJ or AQ but we lose to these anyway (I also thought bluffs might go bigger). Of course there are some implied odds if I hit and I was contemplating calling and donk jamming any diamond, but these could be reverse implied odds if he was already boated, so I ended up folding. Jamming all-in crossed my mind but I don't think Tx is folding (and should be a big part of range).

I don't like the way I played this hand too much, as I seem to have put about a 1/3rd of a stack in and folded out good equity! Interested in your thoughts.

GTO Wizard is a great place to start to understand heuristics and they adapt off of those starting points.
The free version allows you to run one hand everyday post flop but you have access to multiple preflop charts and actions
they do not have solutions for 25nl but they do have for 50nl and it can help us start from a very strong base

I ran the hand- 3 bet preflop is good used very often --flop we check more than bet- therefore we are polar therefore we use larger sizing to bet
it does bet your sizing A9s 2.2% of the time and when we do we fold to a raise most often- then Jam- no calling at all.

When studying we get to see the CO call range GTO and we can then adapt our play to exploit based on estimating V's action with over pairs and Tx frequencies preflop and on flop- GTO does not have many Tx combos but exploit players love to call with Tx hands

GTO has CO calling the flop bet most often with all the GTO range raising only slivers of %--GTO fold- Exploit fold would be your best ROI line here

That was for the solve I choose but there might be a better solve to use.

 

[Station_Master]

GTO Wizard is a great place to start to understand heuristics and they adapt off of those starting points.
The free version allows you to run one hand everyday post flop but you have access to multiple preflop charts and actions
they do not have solutions for 25nl but they do have for 50nl and it can help us start from a very strong base

I ran the hand- 3 bet preflop is good used very often --flop we check more than bet- therefore we are polar therefore we use larger sizing to bet
it does bet your sizing A9s 2.2% of the time and when we do we fold to a raise most often- then Jam- no calling at all.

When studying we get to see the CO call range GTO and we can then adapt our play to exploit based on estimating V's action with over pairs and Tx frequencies preflop and on flop- GTO does not have many Tx combos but exploit players love to call with Tx hands

GTO has CO calling the flop bet most often with all the GTO range raising only slivers of %--GTO fold- Exploit fold would be your best ROI line here

That was for the solve I choose but there might be a better solve to use.

Thanks, I ran it through GTO wizard too, but I noticed preflop CO has loads of 4 bets whereas in practice at 25NL this doesn't happen (also other GTo solutions prefer calling 3bets IP rather than 4 betting so I was slightly confused). I noticed the bigger bet size too, though again was slightly confused as I thought we should bet small when lacking the nut advantage, even AA I am not trying to stack off when villain could just have Tx

 

[eetenor]

Thanks, I ran it through GTO wizard too, but I noticed preflop CO has loads of 4 bets whereas in practice at 25NL this doesn't happen (also other GTo solutions prefer calling 3bets IP rather than 4 betting so I was slightly confused). I noticed the bigger bet size too, though again was slightly confused as I thought we should bet small when lacking the nut advantage, even AA I am not trying to stack off when villain could just have Tx

Your observations are good and show the interaction differences we face when playing non GTO players-

GTO does show 4 bets in spots when Villains normally flat- that causes us to have to adapt our post flop play because they have cards that we wanted to fold out when we were bottom of range or have them raise and let us fold so we do not face reverse implied odds spots.
If we were to node lock V having over pairs calling in this spot GTO might have us call A9s pre not raise it for instance.

As in your hand GTO V does not have a lot of TX but V we play will often have twice as many Tx hand combos or more than GTO does-

The difference in solutions calling vs raising IP occurs based on GTO V range expectations not standard V play -this is where we have to decide which line works best for our games if we are IP and what are V are doing when they are IP.
Therefore when we find a solution that mirrors our V action like calling more IP we want to follow that solver decision tree to study how we interact with it.

The bet sizing difference is based on frequency of betting in this instance not on nut advantage- When we bet less of our range that is when GTO uses larger sizing as we are polar to the nuts or bluffs we do not bet middle of our range.

That is why the solver has you bet large and fold in the hand that you played- If you were to bet small you would then call most frequently but the reverse implied odds of improving vs V's GTO raising range reduce our expected EV when we do that. That is why we bet bigger to get more folds and fewer raises and to set up our jams on flop when raised. We are lowering the SPR to make our jams look natural not forced.

The first point here in the hand that you played is the bet sizing- often bigger bets work well vs our V to get the above results from nonGTO ranges as well

That is why the play is to fold or Jam in that spot when raised not call- the solver expects the V to call most of their range on flop not raise because most of your betting range is fold or jam and it expects the V to know this.

Most of our V do not know this and that is where we have to deviate from solver play by changing our action frequency not our bet sizing

It takes a while to be able to adapt to GTO strategies but it is a great way to think deeply about the why of our actions.