c-bet sizing set aces

[aardvark]

Hi, I'm a 8/16c lag reg and had been playing full ring against 2 particular villains for about 2 hours on 250bb and got into a slightly strange hand.

vill1 (270bb) is tag and, apart from some dubious low opening bet sizings from early pos, was fairly solid and demonstrated some thinking ability.

vill 2 tag(100bb), fairly weak, will not raise draws but chases them and will raise sets and 2pair. I have shown that I'll always raise those, as well as sometimes raising draws, though probably not oop, if he was observant enough.

Button opens 3bb, sb and I call.

Flop comes As8s5c

cbet 1/3 pot 3bb. I could go into the play and player tendencies more, but I'm mostly interested in whether that size is ever sensible if he had a set of aces. Is it player dependent or just a bad sizing?

Thanks.

 

[crazycitizen]

cbet 1/3 pot 3bb. I could go into the play and player tendencies more, but I'm mostly interested in whether that size is ever sensible if he had a set of aces. Is it player dependent or just a bad sizing?

Thanks.

Hellooo,

I think it's a fine sizing. I think as long as villain sometimes bets big and sometimes bets small it's absolutely fine.
Thing is, villain kinda smashes the flop, and no way he should check with the draws out.
Yes if he bets bigger he can charge the draws more. But he will force a lot of hands to fold which have a tiny amount of equity (which villain would want to keep in).
I think 1/3 pot is kinda nice, as it probably keeps most 8X in the pot. And induces all lower sets, 2 pairs (mainly A8) and draws, to check raise.

That's how I see it anyway

 

[aardvark]

Thanks for the reply cc. Like your reasoning

 

[aardvark]

Hello again guys/cc if you're still there

I've been giving this more thought and maybe over-analysing it at the level I'm playing, but I'm trying to learn and improve and it's a really intriguing play that I've never seen before.

Maybe I'm giving the guy too much credit but I suppose he knew it was going to be hard to get much value. I can see how it could be very useful to underrep, esp v high spr (does that mean the sizing matters less?) The small cbet still feels fundamentally wrong though. I know we don't have to play optimally, if there even is an optimal play here, but this is where I'm at...(any thoughts?)

I don't think we need to be induced to raise strong holdings and draws will call/raise v a bigger bet if they're going to chase. I reckon cc was thinking/implying more that it's great to be under-repped if you come up against a raise.

It's extremely unlikely that someone also has a set or 2 pair on that board if he has 3 aces, especially as played...he knows either of us may well be 3betting 88 55 pre.


It's unlikely 8x without a club (gifting flush) continues beyond the turn with his read on our play, but if we are calling flop we'll probably call bigger at this level (well, sb will anyway ;-). So there's only realistically draws, and they're the one hand you're trying to deny. So should we not maximise our value and give the wrong odds as normal? Even if it's just a few more chips. I know the spr is still going to be v large, and he's still well in it if a flush/straight hits, but I can't help thinking that we should just play fundamentally correctly? Thanks

 

[crazycitizen]

It's unlikely 8x without a club (gifting flush) continues beyond the turn with his read on our play, but if we are calling flop we'll probably call bigger at this level (well, sb will anyway ;-). So there's only realistically draws, and they're the one hand you're trying to deny. So should we not maximise our value and give the wrong odds as normal? Even if it's just a few more chips. I know the spr is still going to be v large, and he's still well in it if a flush/straight hits, but I can't help thinking that we should just play fundamentally correctly? Thanks

Yes, it's hard for villain to get value here.
When you say 'optimal' it depends if you mean GTO or the optimal exploitative play.

Betting small with top set here (sometimes) is GTO - to protect his small cbetting range.
Exploitative will depend on how you and sb are perceived.
If you and sb are known to over-call and never check raise, maybe BU should only be betting large here. As you say, to give draws bad odds.
Thing is, draws have really bad equity either way in this spot.

But even BU checking flop is fine imo.

If I understanding your thinking correctly. I believe you are looking at BU thinking he should bet big because his hand is so strong. But BU should actually be looking to keep you and the SB in the pot, rather than pricing you out.

If you really want to dive deep, you will have to run this hand into a GTO solver.
I would highly doubt it would say to bet large here, because almost no hands will realistically call a large cbet on this board. But a lot of hands would call/check-raise a small cbet here.

Hope that helps

 

[crazycitizen]

Oh and I don't think spr doesn't means much when over 100bbs deep in a non-3bet pot. It's going to be hard to get stacks in, in a non-3bet pot, especially when 1 player holds nearly all the good cards.

 

[Sidetracked]

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but what is your hand?

 

[ventrolloquist]

Hi, I'm a 8/16c lag reg and had been playing full ring against 2 particular villains for about 2 hours on 250bb and got into a slightly strange hand.

vill1 (270bb) is tag and, apart from some dubious low opening bet sizings from early pos, was fairly solid and demonstrated some thinking ability.

vill 2 tag(100bb), fairly weak, will not raise draws but chases them and will raise sets and 2pair. I have shown that I'll always raise those, as well as sometimes raising draws, though probably not oop, if he was observant enough.

Button opens 3bb, sb and I call.

Flop comes As8s5c

cbet 1/3 pot 3bb. I could go into the play and player tendencies more, but I'm mostly interested in whether that size is ever sensible if he had a set of aces. Is it player dependent or just a bad sizing?

Thanks.

A set of aces is just so very few combos, so I'm not sure why you chose to focus on that. He's probably betting range on a flop that he has more aces on then you though, that flop does somewhat equalize with the big blind but mostly your range wont hit it much, meaning you have few sets and 2 pairs and he can put pressure on you on future streets. Guessing what his sizing means from an exploitative pov would require more reads though

Edit. So I just saw its a sizing question for top set. I dont think I would bet big here as bu personally because you block their calling range, you can make an argument that since you have 2 blinds one of them might chase a flush draw so you can maybe size up a tiny bit.

 

[aardvark]

Great replies guys, thanks

Sorry for the ambiguous use of "optimal"...was very tired and not thinking clearly. I was aware of GTO and exploit but had never given much thought to when to use them...your replies have got me wanting to work on that though

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 

[aardvark]

PS, sorry...forgot to address the question about my hand, and why wonder about pocket aces when it's one hand out of many.

It was a real hand that didn't show, so my question was hypothetical. I had A9, so it was extremely unlikely he had aaa. I got to thinking afterwards about how to play various holdings, based on the sizing and how the hand played out and with different sprs.

You rarely see 30% cbets at all at 8/16c, which was the first thing that got me wondering...what hands would do that? I've rarely played much higher so had barely seen it at all.

I'm not, and wasn't, sure about the wisdom/validity of this, but I raised a decent amount (can't remember the sizing, but not small or v large) as a probe and for value and protection. I rarely do this with top pair, but thought I'd take a punt. The guy 3 bet (not prohibitively, given that we're 250 eff) sb folds.

I tanked a bit and decided to call and throw in a decent lead on the turn with a view to getting out to a good raise. He jammed huge ob. I'd seen him get into all in raising wars on the flop and turn with draws before, and thought there 's a decent chance I'm ahead but folded, losing 65bb out of 250 I think.

I realise he could have been doing that with various hands, especially with his draw raising tendencies but your thoughts would be appreciated

 

[aardvark]

Brick turn btw, can't recall what it was. At least it seemed like a brick, but you never know at this level lol. Wasn't gonna change my play though.

 

[aardvark]

Obviously it was a good move on his part if he had a set of 8s or 6s, trying to induce a raise from an ace, which of course he did, especially with him knowing that I'd seen his draw raising and reraising

 

[Antlys13]

this is a very interesting topic, especially considering the programs for the GTO, but unfortunately it is a very multivariate problem and if the opponent makes such bets, he probably has something else, those who bluff a lot quickly merge.

 

[yezzrr]

It all depends on who I'm playing against and how I think they value their hand.. IDK if there's a one size fits all here

 

[gustav197poker]

I'm not sure that studying GTO for 16NL is very useful. But since you're interested, the 1/3 size makes sense in this case, as villains from the blinds are less likely to have the relevant blockers for this texture (Ks and Qs) because hands that have Kx or Qx should do 3-bet preflop on a medium-high frequency. Since they interfere a lot with the upper part of the BTN range. Also in this texture, our bluff range is made up of minor flush draw combos and they can generate folds at a higher frequency, since there are fewer, in relation to all the possible hand combinations that the blinds could have. As for example, suitable connectors not spades, with gap. So possibly with 33% cbet size can more times keep, BSD + BFD type hands in V ranges.
Also, aces do not play optimal in multi-way pot, because their equity is significantly reduced on wet boards like this one. So a smaller size allows us to maintain wide blind ranges and at the same time protect our hand. In addition to offering the possibility of inducing raises, when our opponents have minor sets or combined draws.
Greetings.