If it’s +0.89bb, it’s not ‘close to the edge’. That’s 89bb/100. Since a decent player will probably make around 6bb/100 at 20-25bb stacks, turning down edges like that is not something we can afford to do.

That said, we have to leave some wiggle room for potential errors in calculation, so it’s reasonable to assume that the reality is that it’s probably somewhere between around +0.5bb and +1.5bb depending on villain’s actual 3-bet frequency.

The X-factor here is the bubble – it’s not like we cash 100% guaranteed if we fold, but we do have other options. Depending on what other stacks are left (i.e. are there 10 players with <10bb stacks or whatever) I think calling could also be fine here, with the intention of c/jamming any FD/OESD/top pair.

Either way, I doubt folding is good. +0.89bb definitely isn’t marginal, and calling is most likely profitable too.

Cheloidpro said
Hey Matthew,

Thanks for the reply, thanks for clarifying the “bubble factor” for me, that’s very useful.

Also, as a matter of fact a friend pointed out that I adjusted the ranges to the wrong player on HRC.. what an idiot I am. There also a couple of thing that I didn’t take into account when adjusting the range:

– The villain is quite tight when 3betting (4%) and seems to be liking to go to flops and pressure me from there. Seems to have more value than bluffs on his 3betting range.

– I completely agree with the fact that hat KQs is a hand that play very well postflop BUT only if we consider the first range I assigned to the villain. Otherwise I could easily be dominated.

– With a SPR of a little more than 1 (1.23) I don’t have much space to manouver when the flop comes so maybe it seems I’m just spewing money by just calling.

 I am attaching the new assignment of ranges to the right villain resulting on a -EV play to 4bet.

I’ll love to hear from the rest and of course your opinion considering this new range,

Cheers!  

I think that new range is pretty good. I might add some flexible frequencies in there – we can’t be 100% sure villain would 3-bet 88, and we can’t be 100% sure they wouldn’t 3-bet a hand like ATs or 98s. Some small frequencies with a few other hands would help.

That said, looking at that range, I think there’s two things I would point out here.

1) When it comes to calling being ‘spewing money’, I strongly disagree. KQs is going to flop top pair or better, a flush draw or an open-ended straight draw something close to 41% of the time, so you’re very often going to flop something good enough to check-jam. When you consider villain’s potential propensity to c-bet/fold or sometimes bet/call with worse hands (think of villain bet-calling JJ on a 8-3-2 flop when you have a flush draw and two overs to villain’s pair – in that spot, you’re actually a 54% favourite) I think that’s a good spot to be in. There’s very little room for you to make a mistake there.

2) You’re not really that likely to be dominated by villain’s range. There are 90 combos of hands in the range to begin with, but since we have the KsQs, we can take out the following combos:

3x KK

3x QQ

3x AKo

3x AQo

1x AKs

1x AQs

This leaves 76 combos in villain’s range. The breakdown of that range is as follows:

6x AA

3x KK

3x QQ

6x JJ

6x TT

6x 99

6x 88

3x AKs

3x AQs

4x AJs

9x AKo

9x AQo

9x AJo

If we assume that the definition of ‘dominated’ is villain having QQ+, AQ or AK, we’ve got a total of 36 out of those 76 combos that dominate us, giving us a frequency of 47%.

However, this doesn’t factor in two important things. In order for domination to actually be an issue, we need to be in a scenario where the flop is dangerous for us in terms of reverse implied odds – i.e. we flop top pair and thus want to get it in. This is obviously not going to always happen – it’s going to happen about 24% of the time when we have KQ.

In addition to this, the second factor is that the presence of a K or Q on the flop reduces the likelihood of us being dominated even further, because it blocks another K or Q – this would remove another 12 combos of hands from villain’s range. That would leave us with villain having 24 combos of dominating hands out of 64 – a frequency of 37.5%.

Combining this all together, we discover that a top-pair flop for us is going to happen 24% of the time, and of that 24%, we’re going to be dominated only 37.5% – meaning that overall, the frequency that we actually flop top pair and end up getting it in against a much better hand is only 9%. Considering that we still have some equity even in that spot (we might have five outs versus AA for 20%, or three outs+backdoors versus AQ/AK for 15%), the reality is that we’re only going to get it in against a better hand and bust the tournament something like 8% of the time. Obviously sometimes we’ll get it in good and lose, or get it in with a draw and miss, but generally the ‘domination’ scenario is a really over-estimated factor in these spots. It just doesn’t matter that much.

Don’t let your fear of a specific scenario warp your perception of reality. Do the math, figure out what the distribution of different hands in villain’s range actually is, and establish how likely it is that this thing you’re afraid of will actually happen. Usually it’s nowhere near as likely as you think.

ScotFish said
I just wanted to add a reply to thank Ginger for his excelent analysis as always! I think I often go forward with a far too tight 4bet range, or worry about calling 3 bets OOP when I’m going to have an SPR ratio of around 1 after, as it feels like it could be easy to read me for the actual strength of my hand. Now you’ve broken it down I am definitely guilty of under-estimating the effect of blockers on the other players ranges going forward in the hand. 

Thanks again, and keep up the awesome analysis :).   

No problem. Flatting 3-bets OOP with low SPRs is tricky, but if your opponent’s range is wide enough it can be pretty profitable. I think one thing many players are guilty of is not factoring in their opponent’s 3-betting range when deciding whether or not to call a 3-bet – obviously flatting 3-bets against tighter ranges is much more difficult/less profitable.