$25 NLHE 6-max: Tough spot on the river with Full House...

[razzor94]

PartyGaming - $0.25 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3

No stats or notes on the villain except that he is multitabling PP fast farward tables, so I expect him to be a reg of some kind.
I post this hand as I found myself calling these spots a lot and seem to be giving villains to much credit with their bluffs.
If your assumption here is that villain has no bluffs then our equity here is 0 and that sucks.
Do you think an average 25NL reg can find bluffs here ?

BTN: $26.23 (104.9 bb)
SB: $29.01 (116 bb)
BB: $27.35 (109.4 bb)
UTG: $29.52 (118.1 bb)
Hero (CO): $36.11 (144.4 bb)

SB posts $0.10, BB posts $0.25

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.35) Hero has
fold, Hero raises to $0.57, 2 folds, BB raises to $2.19, Hero calls $1.62

Flop: ($4.48, 2 players)
BB bets $1.42, Hero calls $1.42

Turn: ($7.32, 2 players)
BB bets $3.48, Hero calls $3.48

River: ($14.28, 2 players)
BB bets $20.26, Hero ?

 

[JimmyBrizzy]

Wow that's a tough spot! I don't play 25NL yet, but I think it's the type of spot where I call half the time and fold half the time. Probably not the answer you were looking for.

Thinking through it, he probably has a little tighter 3 bet vs. CO than he would vs. the button or SB so maybe he has 88+ with a few smaller pairs sprinkled in every so often, KQs+, AQo+, maybe a few others. So a double barrel on this board would make me think he either has an Ace, King, or other pocket pair by the time we get to the turn and he probably doesn't double barrel the entire opening range.

By the time we get to the river we are maybe beating AQs that missed his flush draw (probably doesn't double barrel that turn card every time), 88-10's, and straight up bluffs - maybe add 5-10% for that. The combos other than bluffs don't 3 barrel 100% of the time so you have to discount those and it's probably safe to assume hands with K's or AA/QQ probably pull this line a majority of the time although there are less combos.

I don't feel like doing the math, but pop it into an equity/range calculator and see what you come up with. Maybe calling half the time/folding half the time isn't a terrible idea vs. another reg, but what the hell do I know?

I'd like to see what others think.

 

[300HPGOD]

This is not an easy spot as you already know. In looking through the hand, the flop bet sizing jumps out at me. Villain not only down bet but they bet 33% of pot a flop with two spades. Not knowing anything about the villain I am not exactly sure what to make of that but to me it leans towards they are not afraid of the flush nor the kings. This would make me more open to putting them on spades but also could be a play to get us to tool out. I would call this bet as you did and see what the turn brings.

On the turn the villain jumps it up to half pot on the sizing. If they were afraid of their hand on the flop for some reason they feel a little better about it now or it could be that since we did not bite on the flop they are looking to get more value on the turn relative to another small bet. In these types of spots I like a raise on the turn because it will really define villains hand here. At this point because of the pre flop 3 bet I am putting them on AA, QQ, AK, Ax spade draw or some Ax in general that they are bluffing. Raising them here (I advocate a small raise that is 2-2.5x in size) will make villain show us something about their hand. If they call raise our raise I am not sure what I would do but would probably depend on the sizing of their raise. If they call, they will also likely check the river to us and we can check behind if we so choose. They might fold which would be getting them to fold worse which is not good but it does have the value of avoiding a potential tough river spot which is what you ultimately faced. I think a small raise here will make it much easier for us to play the hand. Also note worse hands will call there like 10s, 9s, 8s, and maybe even some 7s and lower (doubt they would have 7s or lower based on pre flop but you never know).

On the river as played, it sucks because there we are in the middle of villains range. They could easily have AA and QQ here and easily could have 10s-8s. I doubt Ak based on that 3 are out but its possible and AK would play the hand close to if not exactly how villain played it. Given that we have to call a little over $20 to win $34, 1.7 to 1, I think its a call but I damn sure am not loving it.

 

[gustav197poker]

Interesting hand. I'm honestly not sure that an average NL25 player would 3-bet preflop for bluff with a hand like A2-A5, but assuming he does, I expect to see a whole ratio either at 3X or 4X. I see the intermediate term as more representative of value. So at this point we could also include some pockets like 66-TT and obviously QQ-AA. He could also do it with ATo; AQo, QTs, 8-9s, but again I'm not sure if the regular NL25 player plays that wide in his bluff range
On the flop our Jacks float comfortably at a small bet. While calling we keep the entire V range unchanged.
On the turn, BB's bet is clearly oriented towards value. His bluff range decreases because now the flush draw combos they neutralize. This is when the information we have on the villain really matters. If we follow an exploitative line, this is the moment to decide between calling or folding. In lower stakes many times the regular villain will continue here with only QQ+ . But if we choose to call, the river balances the active ranges and now a good part of the middle pocket combos will try to drive the hero out of the pot. And this is when our J-J hand represents the top of our range. If we play GTO this is a standard call. Now we are committed in the boat and the texture of the board does not change anything. Only 1 combo 5-5 is added that could defeat us, but it is very unlikely the villain has it, since he had to check the turn to protect him and keep our range of bluffs.
Greetings.

 

[fundiver199]

This is indeed a rough spot, and I dont play these games, so I dont know the average player pool tendencies. But the whole line does seem very standard for a good player. Downbetting flop on a paired board, half pot on turn and then overbet the river to polarize his range. He is essentially repping quads here, and there are not many combos of that, which would 3-bet pre, so the question is, does he ever bluff and expect you to fold a full house on the river?

As others have said, I would go a little with game theory here. On the flop you have to call with most of your range, because he bet so small, so on the turn you mainly fold hands like A high. This mean, you get to the river with a lot of pocket pairs and a few combos of quads.

Blocking spades probably does not matter, since the flushdraw became irrelevant on the turn. So from there on it made more sense for him to continue to bluff with a hand like AQ, which has more equity against your range. So I think, JJ has to be a call here and probably also TT as well, but really its just a frequenzy thing, where you cant always fold anything but quads against a competent player.

 

[Alucard]

not folding here
because yeah he can have AA,QQ,quads but at the same time he could be value jamming JJ,TT,99,88 here
+he could just be bluffing with AQ,AJ,AT, A5,A4 which has good blockers which most of you unblock
+ JJ is mostly in the top of our range because we are 4betting QQ+,AK most of the time. So if you fold JJ here what are you gonna call with exactly without being exploitative?

So we beat a lot of his value combos as well as all his bluffs which makes an easy call for me.
Also on a sidenote I think QJ,JT makes good bluff candidates for villain here because they'd block a really good part of our calling range. Have to think on this tho

also I hear the partygames are reg heavy so you might want to rethink playing there if you aren't grinding leaderboards

 

[razzor94]

@300HPGOD i don't think against a strong opponent it's the best thing to raise turn there just so we have an easy river decision. We pretty much fold all his bluffs and we put more money in when we are clearly behind. This might work when we are IP but what happens OOP?

GTO wise you are all right and and I should for sure call something like TT+ but it just seems like I am being crushed here so much at 25NL given that V is underbluffing this spot.

@alucard I don't know I find the regs are a bit weaker on PP than on PS but maybe I just got better . I am thinking about moving to 50NL so maybe you can give me some advice about the pool or differences between the stakes
Also the regular tables are much softer than fast farward.
+ The rakeback is much more rewarding than on Stars.

 

[Alucard]

lol don't move from party to stars. That's the exact opposite of what I meant. Try some fishier sites on the side. GGpoker,unibet, ipoker skins or even Apps

 

[razzor94]

GG recently restricted players from my region i was playing there.
I also played on bet365( Ipoker) but their new VIP rakeback program is similar to stars.
I will look into unibet though, thanks.

 

[fundiver199]

Regardless of site these fast forward games mainly attract grinders, and its difficult to get a read on the fish and exploit them. I gave up on this game format a long time ago. I just dont see the point in contending with these extremely tough games paying 5% rake, when literally any other kind of online games are much softer.