Maniackid11 said
I think I prefer a call preflop instead of the 3-bet, As played, your flop sizing is good. I think you could def. keep in all sorts of worse hands like Kx, fl. drs. str8. draws, pkt pairs lower than Ks. I think I would prefer a check back though. I don’t like the check on the turn. I think we should def be firing here to something around 35-60% and checking/folding to a lot of rivers. Villains river sizing is pretty big, I would def. fold. because if he called flop and now is leading the riv, its likely he had something like 56 and just got there on the river. maybe a flush draw too, I think I might be leaniing a little more towards a str8 since we block some flushes but I guess it’s possible.  

Just to be clear, this is not me in the hand. It is a hand I saw in a TPE training video. I am going to hold off on saying what the villain had until people have had a chance to weigh in. I agree with you on not loving the 3-bet, but if you look at hero’s stats, he 3-bets a lot. I am going to hold off on saying any more since I know what villain has and I don’t want to influence the discussion just yet.

Villain had 8s, 8c. The pre-flop raise and call of the re-raise makes sense. The post-flop check call makes sense since he doesn’t want to insta fold with only one overcard on the board to his pair. The turn goes check-check, makes sense. Then after the river villain opens with a massive bet which it turns out is a stone-cold, bat-sh*t crazy bluff. The hero calls with just a pair of aces with a mediocre kicker on a board that is three to the flush and four to the straight.

The hero’s hero call was right and he wins a massive pot, but I really dislike the call. The bluff should have worked here. Here is my thinking. Calling with a pair of aces, mediocre kicker is extremely ambitious if not reckless. Although the hero has the ace of hearts as a blocker to the nuts and the king of hearts is on the board, the hero has not made a flush. So while the nut flush is not possible for the villain, a flush is nonetheless possible for the villain. Holdings like 5-5 or A-5 would make some sense for the villain to have hit the straight. All of these possibilities obviously crush the hero.

Nonetheless, if the hero has a read on the villain that this is a bluff then you could argue the case for the call with top pair, except for one major point. Even if the villain is bluffing, there are a ton of holdings in his range in which he would be bluffing with the best hand. So let’s look at possible bluffs.

Let’s look at if the villain has an ace. A-2, A-3, A-4, A-K give him two pairs. A-5 gives him a straight. A-J and A-Q outkick the hero’s A-10. Only A-6, A-7, A-8 and A-9 lose to hero’s A-10. So of the possible ace holdings for villain, seven beat hero’s A-10, while four lose to the A-10.

Now let’s look at pairs, which villain could have reasonably/ambitiously raised and then called a 3-bet pre-flop. 2-2, 3-3, 4-4 give him two pair on the river to beat hero’s one pair. 5-5 gives hero a straight. A-A and K-K gives villain trips, although it seems unlikely villain would have just flatted the pre-flop 3-bet instead of 4-betting. If villain has 6-6, 7-7, 8-8, 9-9, 10-10, J-J, Q-Q, he loses to hero’s turned pair of aces. So of the pair possibilities for villain, six of them beat hero, and seven lose to hero.

There are some K-x combos that villain might have played this hand initially the way he did pre-flop, post-flop and post-turn such as K-Q suited, K-J suited and then I suppose he loses his mind after the turn with the massive bluff. These hands hero has beat.

Nonetheless, add it all up and there are a bunch of made hands out there for villain (several possible suited connectors or A-rag suited in hearts that made the flush, and A-5 and 5-5 that make a straight). What is the major tipping point though, is that of the bluffs that villain may be going crazy with after the river, it seems to me that half of these holdings are cases where villain is bluffing with the best hand versus hero’s A-10 offsuit.

So while the call by the hero won him a massive pot in this instance (and made him look like a wizard), it seems to me that this kind of call will lose you a lot more than it will win over time. It seems very –EV over the long haul to me. The fact that the call was right in this one instance seems more results oriented than sound and it seems to me to be a losing proposition most of the time. Maybe if this were a live tournament you could make a case for having a read on the villain (still dubious), but this was online. There are no physical tells at play. Worst-case scenario, you are punting a ton of chips while completely crushed. Best-case scenario you recognize villain was bluffing and you might still lose a ton of chips about half the time since his bluff still has you beat quite often. Yes, there are calls that can win the pot, but not a lot of them.

Thoughts, everybody? Do you concur with my thinking, or am I completely missing the boat here?