$0.55 NLHE MTT: Am I being bluffed? Is villain overplaying a J?

[tewwa94]

But if villain has KJ AJ I'm loosing too. If it's weird if (s)he does that with a T. There are a few pocket 44,55 that make a similar line. Also I cannot think of that many hands that make sense to bluff with there. Only win against overplayed J9, J8, a rare 67 or T. BUT... since I only had 2 hands from villain, the hands after s(he) started to play a very loose agressive-ish style, so there's a chance that I got bluffed here against a random hand, villain thinking that I was c betting with nothing (which I was on the flop). Any thoughts?

pokerstars - 600/1200 Ante 90 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3

UTG: 30,082 (25.1 bb)
UTG+1: 35,640 (29.7 bb)
MP: 42,151 (35.1 bb)
MP+1: 25,401 (21.2 bb)
Hero (MP+2): 163,212 (136 bb)
CO: 17,555 (14.6 bb)
BTN: 29,627 (24.7 bb)
SB: 80,745 (67.3 bb)
BB: 61,550 (51.3 bb)

9 players post ante of 90, SB posts 600, BB posts 1,200

Pre Flop: (pot: 2,610) Hero has
4 folds, Hero raises to 2,400, 3 folds, BB calls 1,200

Flop: (6,210, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 1,863, BB calls 1,863

Turn: (9,936, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 5,067, BB raises to 15,102, Hero calls 10,035

River: (40,140, 2 players)
BB bets 42,095 and is all-in, Hero folds

Results: 40,140 pot (0 rake)
Final Board:

BB wins 40,140

 

[ssbn743]

But if villain has KJ AJ I'm loosing too. If it's weird if (s)he does that with a T. There are a few pocket 44,55 that make a similar line. Also I cannot think of that many hands that make sense to bluff with there. Only win against overplayed J9, J8, a rare 67 or T. BUT... since I only had 2 hands from villain, the hands after s(he) started to play a very loose agressive-ish style, so there's a chance that I got bluffed here against a random hand, villain thinking that I was c betting with nothing (which I was on the flop). Any thoughts?

PokerStars - 600/1200 Ante 90 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by Holdem Manager 3

UTG: 30,082 (25.1 bb)
UTG+1: 35,640 (29.7 bb)
MP: 42,151 (35.1 bb)
MP+1: 25,401 (21.2 bb)
Hero (MP+2): 163,212 (136 bb)
CO: 17,555 (14.6 bb)
BTN: 29,627 (24.7 bb)
SB: 80,745 (67.3 bb)
BB: 61,550 (51.3 bb)

9 players post ante of 90, SB posts 600, BB posts 1,200

Pre Flop: (pot: 2,610) Hero has
4 folds, Hero raises to 2,400, 3 folds, BB calls 1,200

Flop: (6,210, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 1,863, BB calls 1,863

Turn: (9,936, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 5,067, BB raises to 15,102, Hero calls 10,035

River: (40,140, 2 players)
BB bets 42,095 and is all-in, Hero folds

Results: 40,140 pot (0 rake)
Final Board:

BB wins 40,140

It's hard to say for sure, but I'd typically say this is a never bluff spot from villain.

Pre
We have >130BB's here, so I think we can raise larger than a min-click. By just clicking it, the BB is almost always going to call.

Flop

Cbet is fine, 50%-60% of the time on this texture, I might lean towards a check here since that board hits villain better than it does us. But Cbet is fine, and I like your sizing.

Turn
This is where it gets a little tougher. When we get check/raised though I mean.

And this is just going to be player read type stuff. Is he the type to have KQ here, or is this always two-pair plus? In a vacuum, I'd lean towards never less than two-pair, but I wasn't playing this guy.... so that'd be up to you.

Sets make a great deal of sense, even up to JJ. He can probably also have all the Jacks, TJ, QJ, KJ, AJ - but keep in mind you block all those. The only real draw combo's are are KQ and Q9, and again you block - 76 is really the only draw you don't block.

His range should look something like this (remember we min-clicked):
JJ-TT,55-44,KQs,Q9s,JTs,J5s-J4s,76s,KQo,Q9o,JTo,J5o-J4o,76o

So this gives us about 60% raw equity.

I will admit that running the numbers here is surprising me a bit. I was thinking that this is a 4-bet/fold spot - but it the math is saying both 4bet jaming and calling are fine.

However, even though calling may be mathematically correct, it doesn't account for what's going to happen on the river - we're going to be facing a jam almost every time.

River
By the math this is a call. Although I have to admit that I didn't think so before doing the math.

However, this still comes down to player reads - if it's always two-pair plus, then this is 4bet shove/fold on the turn and fold river if we get there IMO.

I Included two spreadsheets (SplitSuit) - one for 4bet shoving turn and one for calling river shove. However, remember that the river shove is only profitable if he can have draw combo's that missed and we actual have 60% equity - otherwise it's an obvious fold.

 

[royalburrito24]

I like ssbn’s answer!


I do want to add 1 thing: For the sake of pot control, I would check the turn. With top pair decent kicker you’ll want to keep pots small, as getting involved in a larger pot typically means top pair decent kicker won’t be good enough.
Just check behind on the turn, giving villain a chance to bluff the river, in which you’d have an easy call of a much smaller bet even if an A or K peels off, as players love to bluff when “scare cards” come out.
By betting the turn, hands you beat are folding every time, and hands that have you crushed are sticking around or even check raising you, putting you in a very difficult spot.

 

[Nr98]

It's hard to say for sure, but I'd typically say this is a never bluff spot from villain.

Pre
We have >130BB's here, so I think we can raise larger than a min-click. By just clicking it, the BB is almost always going to call.

Flop

Cbet is fine, 50%-60% of the time on this texture, I might lean towards a check here since that board hits villain better than it does us. But Cbet is fine, and I like your sizing.

Turn
This is where it gets a little tougher. When we get check/raised though I mean.

And this is just going to be player read type stuff. Is he the type to have KQ here, or is this always two-pair plus? In a vacuum, I'd lean towards never less than two-pair, but I wasn't playing this guy.... so that'd be up to you.

Sets make a great deal of sense, even up to JJ. He can probably also have all the Jacks, TJ, QJ, KJ, AJ - but keep in mind you block all those. The only real draw combo's are are KQ and Q9, and again you block - 76 is really the only draw you don't block.

His range should look something like this (remember we min-clicked):
JJ-TT,55-44,KQs,Q9s,JTs,J5s-J4s,76s,KQo,Q9o,JTo,J5o-J4o,76o

So this gives us about 60% raw equity.

I will admit that running the numbers here is surprising me a bit. I was thinking that this is a 4-bet/fold spot - but it the math is saying both 4bet jaming and calling are fine.

However, even though calling may be mathematically correct, it doesn't account for what's going to happen on the river - we're going to be facing a jam almost every time.

River
By the math this is a call. Although I have to admit that I didn't think so before doing the math.

However, this still comes down to player reads - if it's always two-pair plus, then this is 4bet shove/fold on the turn and fold river if we get there IMO.

I Included two spreadsheets (SplitSuit) - one for 4bet shoving turn and one for calling river shove. However, remember that the river shove is only profitable if he can have draw combo's that missed and we actual have 60% equity - otherwise it's an obvious fold.

Agree on preflop, small detail tho always look at effective stacks not our stack size. We only play 60bb effective. I'd go for a 2.3x in this case. Although with the small stacks in BU-CO a minraise can be quite effective if BB is not defending properly. That depends on your read.

However your analysis on the Turn and River is not complete imo. When I saw the spreadsheet you used, I found out why. Splitsuit is an amazing (free) content creator, which I learned a great deal from as well. However especially in his older videos he has almost an obsession with equity, which leads to flawed analysis on deeper stack sizes.

Having an idea of our equity is very important for sure, however we should always factor in how much of that equity we'd realise. For this we need to do some game tree analysis (whether that's solver work or just very basic logic). For deeper stacks imo Realisable equity>raw equity.

Now what does that mean for this specific hand?

Agree on your flop comments, betting at some frequency is fine, and I like the smaller sizing.

Although on Turn and River I disagree. Mainly 2 reasons:

1. We're talking about a 0.55 MTT here, there's no chance V is floating flop and check-raising turn with so many bluffs (on the other hand, I don't think V flats JJ pre either, but the main point being that the general population doesn't have that many bluffs here).
2. Even tho we may or may not have the right amount of raw equity on the turn (we can disagree on ranges), this is the main point: having sufficient raw equity does NOT mean a call is okay. This only holds up for all in or fold situations.

You say by the math it is a call on the river. Imo there's absolutely no way against youre average 0.55 mtt player we're good 33% (pot odds) of the time in this spot. Tbh I think it's very solid exploitatively to fold 1 pair hands here 100% of the time at these specific stakes. Unless maybe the occasional KK-QQ etc.

However, even theoretically we'd rather call AT than QJ on the river. Blocks less bluffs (which I think is irrelevent on these stakes and rather just muck).

Tbh I'm no expert on the turn decision here. Intuition says either if V does not check raise enough, bet turn once (fold to x/r) and check river behind for free, or if he actually is solid check turn for pot control and call/bet this river.

 

[ssbn743]

I like ssbn’s answer!


I do want to add 1 thing: For the sake of pot control, I would check the turn. With top pair decent kicker you’ll want to keep pots small, as getting involved in a larger pot typically means top pair decent kicker won’t be good enough.
Just check behind on the turn, giving villain a chance to bluff the river, in which you’d have an easy call of a much smaller bet even if an A or K peels off, as players love to bluff when “scare cards” come out.
By betting the turn, hands you beat are folding every time, and hands that have you crushed are sticking around or even check raising you, putting you in a very difficult spot.

Yeah, I think that's fine, to check back turn I mean. We def have some better Jacks, AJ KJ, and we have some worse jacks too down to J8s/J9o. So since we're right in the middle, I think we have a cat 2 hand and can check back.

I can see logic for betting though too. We were essentially bluffing flop, then hit a card on the turn. Plus we're in position against the blinds, which is specifically where we want to start turning hands that would otherwise be category 2 into category 1 holdings. And we really don't want to pot control in position against a weak player - however, you are correct in that an observant opponent might see a spot to rep a hand like 55/44. Even still, we could actually have 55/44 ourselves so it's a meta-game thing at that point anyway.

Not sure I have a strong opinion either way - they actually both seem fine to me. One thing I do have an opinion is that we shouldn't be calling the check/raise we face. I was surprised that the math actually supported calling the C/R - but like I said, that still doesn't account for the inevitable river shove we'll be facing on the next street.

 

[ssbn743]

Agree on preflop, small detail tho always look at effective stacks not our stack size. We only play 60bb effective. I'd go for a 2.3x in this case. Although with the small stacks in BU-CO a minraise can be quite effective if BB is not defending properly. That depends on your read.

That's fair. I exclusively a live player. In live games it's extremely rare to have a chip lead big enough where this comes into play, sizing by eff stack I mean. But yeah, that's fair.

However your analysis on the Turn and River is not complete imo. When I saw the spreadsheet you used, I found out why. Splitsuit is an amazing (free) content creator, which I learned a great deal from as well. However especially in his older videos he has almost an obsession with equity, which leads to flawed analysis on deeper stack sizes.

Having an idea of our equity is very important for sure, however we should always factor in how much of that equity we'd realise. For this we need to do some game tree analysis (whether that's solver work or just very basic logic). For deeper stacks imo Realisable equity>raw equity.

Or shorter stack sizes as well - but agreed. And realizing equity is always a thing - and our equity here comes from villains bluffs - we can never beat a hand he's valuing.

Although on Turn and River I disagree. Mainly 2 reasons:

1. We're talking about a 0.55 MTT here, there's no chance V is floating flop and check-raising turn with so many bluffs (on the other hand, I don't think V flats JJ pre either, but the main point being that the general population doesn't have that many bluffs here).
2. Even tho we may or may not have the right amount of raw equity on the turn (we can disagree on ranges), this is the main point: having sufficient raw equity does NOT mean a call is okay. This only holds up for all in or fold situations.

You say by the math it is a call on the river. Imo there's absolutely no way against youre average 0.55 mtt player we're good 33% (pot odds) of the time in this spot. Tbh I think it's very solid exploitatively to fold 1 pair hands here 100% of the time at these specific stakes. Unless maybe the occasional KK-QQ etc.

Yeah - I agree. This comes down to accurate ranging. For the analysis we assumed a villain range that had 50/50 bluff/value combo's - but yeah, if we can eliminate the bluffs - obvious fold OTR - and for the same reason, I don't like flat calling the turn just like you said.

And solver work...... ugghhh hurts my head. It's shaking up the universe for sure - some of the things that are coming out go against everything I know about Poker. Open limping is a thing now, and with a fairly wide range. I'm trying to keep an open mind with it - but jeez, that's like the first thing I learned about Poker "DO NOT OPEN LIMP....EVER" and now that's coming under question.

 

[Nr98]

That's fair. I exclusively a live player. In live games it's extremely rare to have a chip lead big enough where this comes into play, sizing by eff stack I mean. But yeah, that's fair.



Or shorter stack sizes as well - but agreed. And realizing equity is always a thing - and our equity here comes from villains bluffs - we can never beat a hand he's valuing.



Yeah - I agree. This comes down to accurate ranging. For the analysis we assumed a villain range that had 50/50 bluff/value combo's - but yeah, if we can eliminate the bluffs - obvious fold OTR - and for the same reason, I don't like flat calling the turn just like you said.

And solver work...... ugghhh hurts my head. It's shaking up the universe for sure - some of the things that are coming out go against everything I know about Poker. Open limping is a thing now, and with a fairly wide range. I'm trying to keep an open mind with it - but jeez, that's like the first thing I learned about Poker "DO NOT OPEN LIMP....EVER" and now that's coming under question.

Yeah solver's can be quite tough to grasp. Especially at low stakes there are so many spots a solver would play, that are certainly not optimal against the population. But there are some things we can take away from it though. For example, if we are essentially hero calling on the river (if we assume our TP is never good vs V's value range), we'd rather call with hands that do not block his bluffs. This would make QJ a slightly worse call than AT (if that would be in your range).

But it's always good to see what a solver suggests, and check if the reasoning behind it holds up vs the population. If a solver assumes a high x/r frequency on the turn while in fact the population almost never bluffs, we certainly want to deviate and fold more than suggested.

A general rule of thumb to beat the micro's: overfold exploitatively. Imo population does not nearly bluff enough.