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April 6, 2015
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Hey TPErs. Thoughts appreciated on the below spot please, both my line throughout the hand and the river decision.
About 3 hours into the Big $16.50 on Pokerstars, 200 players left and 162 players paid. I’m around 60th. Things have been plain sailing and I have been chipping up steadily throughout the tournament without any marginal spots so feeling good about things. I don’t normally play this big so this was definitely taking a ‘shot’. I mainly play micros with the odd small buy-in mixed in.
I have just been moved to this table and only played 3 hands, but so far nothing out of the usual has been seen. I played one end from EP which folded around.
In this hand I am in the SB with 42bb and Kc9c. The BB has 21bb. Blinds are 350/700/85 and I make it 1575. The BB flats. I think they are going to be flatting a very wide range here, something like:
77-22, A8s-A2s, KJs-K2s, Q5s+, J5s+, T6s+, 96s+, 86s+, 75s+, 64s+, 54s, A9o-A2o, K7o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T8o+, 98o
I think 88+ ATo+ KQs A9s is probably putting in a 3-bet.
The flop is 9dQh9h giving me trips, and against the above range 89% equity. I have been betting small throughout the tournament and I don’t want the villain to feel they need to stack off: it should be easy enough to get stacks in at this shallow depth if they have any piece. So I make it 1305 into a pot of 3830. Villain flats making the pot 6440 with 11513 effective stacks.
When they flat I doubt they are floating as it doesn’t leave them much behind, and we are approaching the money. My bet size is small, but I think if they have nothing and don’t believe me then they could well be raising or jamming. So I assume they either have a pocket pair, a queen, a nine, a flush draw or an open ended straight draw. So their modified range is:
A9o, A2s-A8s, K2s-KJs, Q5s-QKs, J5s-J8s, J9o, T6s-T8s, 96s-98s, 86s-87s, 75s-76s, 64s-65s, 54s, 22-77, KQo, Q9o-QJo, K9o, 98o-9To, JTo
I still have 80% equity against that range so in good shape. Maybe should have bet larger to price out some draws?
Turn is 8c making the board 9dQh9h8c. That doesn’t change anything they unless they have 98s/98o/JTo, which is 18 hand combinations out of the 148 in their flop calling ranges so still feeling good about my hand. I don’t think they have 88 as expecting that to 3-bet pre. Still, my equity against the range has dropped a bit, to 75%.
At this point I have pretty much decided that I am going with the hand, as blind vs blind I should be well ahead, so I was trying to size my bet to make a river shove an easy call for Qx weaker 9x and underpairs. I bet 2450 into 6440. Villain again just flats. This does set some alarm bells off a little at this point as I would expect a competent player to be shoving made hands that they are going to go with, aside from their monsters. I think we can get rid of under pairs 22-77, but that’s just about it. Would some of the weaker flush draws still call? I don’t know enough about the player to say they wouldn’t, and I have set a good price for them.
So on the river the pot is 11,340 with effective stacks 9063. The river is the Js. So spade draws didn’t get there, but any T now has me beat, as well as J9. The only tens I have in his range though that aren’t already beating me are KTs-QTs, QTo, T6s-T8s and T9o.
With that card I now have 62% equity if my assumed ranges throughout the hand are accurate. Thinking about what to do on the river, I wondered what each hand would do to a bet. A missed flush draw would fold as they can assume they have no fold equity. I would get called by full houses, A9, straights. I’m not sure much else would be calling me. Maybe 97, JQ. But I decided the best line was to check, give them a chance to bluff with their missed flush draws, and call. Which is what I did, he shoved, I called.
Thoughts appreciated, and well done to anyone who read all of this. This analysis was as much for me as the reader!
PokerStars - $15+$1.50|350/700 Ante 85 NL - Holdem - 8 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 UTG: 36,204 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3) UTG+1: 54,128 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3) MP: 35,031 (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3) MP+1: 6,965 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3) CO: 17,707 (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3) BTN: 14,649 (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 50.00, Hands: 3) Hero (SB): 29,354 BB: 14,478 (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3) 8 players post ante of 85, Hero posts SB 350, BB posts BB 700 Pre Flop: (pot: 1,730) Hero has 9K
Q
9
Hero checks, [color=red]BB bets 9,063 and is all-in[/color], Hero calls 9,063
April 6, 2015
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No thoughts? Maybe I need to make my posts smaller!
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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I'm not sure it's a case of making your post smaller, so much as it is putting the hand before the massive explanation of your thoughts. We have to scroll down to see the hand, and then back up to read what you thought, and then go up and down again to read through each street and remember what happened. It's just a little clunky to read. 🙂
As far as the hand goes, I'm pretty sure the hand would be an unexploitable shove preflop if you were unsure about anything, so we always have that option if need be. However, I imagine raising will be more profitable unless the villain is reshoving very wide. Having said that, I think your judgment of the villain's ranges doesn't account for enough 3-bet shoves – I'd be very surprised if your opponent is flatting any pairs here, unless he's very passive, which you don't know yet.
Postflop, this is a reasonably straightforward hand on flop and turn, but I think I would bet bigger in both spots – you can get all-in on the river a little more often that way. The river is the really interesting part of this hand.
I haven't done any math to support this, but my thinking is that all three options could perhaps be valid here – shoving, check-calling, and check-folding. It's fairly unlikely you'll get called by worse if you shove, but it is possible in a Big $16.50 – nevertheless, this would be very thin, so I'm not sure about the shove.
Check-calling is a possibility, and I think it's conceivable we have the best hand here sometimes when our opponent shoves river, but it relies on them either turning a value hand into a river bluff, or calling two streets with a naked flush draw, neither of which are very likely. It's pretty tough for them to have a weaker 9x hand since they would probably raise flop or turn, and it's almost impossible for them to shove anything else for value. Generally check-calling seems thin too if we have no real read on our opponent, since random opponents in the Big $16.50 aren't going to always bluff with missed flush draws on the river, and there are only a few of those combos in villain's range anyway.
Check-folding is starting to look a little better once we bear all this in mind – there are certainly a fair number of Tx hands in villain's range, like QT, JT, KT, some ThXh combos, and perhaps the occasional T8 as well. However, I do think there's a fourth option, which requires a little assumption but could be better than anything else.
I think versus a standard Big $16.50 villain here, who we'll assume is fairly passive and not great at reading ranges, we can get away with a small, exploitative blocker-type bet of around 2.3k or so here. I imagine that's the kind of bet that the villain is going to call with a high % of their range, and very rarely (perhaps never) shove over as a bluff, so we can be quite confident that we're getting sigh-called a lot by hands like KQ/QJ/Q8, and villain is very rarely turning any of those made hands into bluffs since they're getting such good odds to call.
It's also a small enough bet that once we bet and get raised, we can be much more confident folding than if we had checked, since hypothetically checking is a play that might take a lot of Tx hands out of our range, whereas villain could definitely be worried that we'd be trying to induce action here with a Tx hand when we bet 2.3k, so their frequency for bluff-shoving over a 2.3k bet is a lot lower than it would be versus a check. Betting small accomplishes the goal of getting value from the hands in villain's range which we still beat, and giving us much greater visibility of the range with which the villain is going to get all-in on the river.
This is a really tricky spot versus a random, and I'm sure Foucault will turn up pretty soon and nail the explanation for this one in a much more succinct way than I have. But if you put a gun to my head and told me to play this river spot, I think I'd bet small and fold to a shove. If that failed and you gave me an extra life, I'd check-fold.
November 24, 2013
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Marginal spot but I rarely see me calling the river here against an unknown. Betting flop bigger with so many possible draws out there is certainly a good idea.
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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As played, I think ginger makes a good case for c/f, but I think front-loading value (have you seen my Getting Paid series?) is important on a board like this one. It's not just a matter of worry about him drawing out on you, it's a matter of his second-best hands, specifically Qx, getting weaker by the time the river card comes out, as they do here, combined with his draws getting to play perfectly against you on the river. Here, you've gotten only about 1/3 of the stack in on the flop and turn, where you have a big edge, and then left 2/3 for the river where you don't have much edge (as evidenced by the fact that all of your options seem to be relatively close in EV).
I like betting flop, perhaps a bit larger, to give him room to shove. When he doesn't, I'd aim to ck/shove turn. This gives him a chance to bluff if he does have a draw of some sort, and he'll have a lot of incentive to bet a Q himself because he might worry about draws.
If turn checks through, you may not get stacks in, but you'll at least have a more clear decision to value bet the river big, and a Q will have an easier time calling because your turn check adds a lot of air to your range and subtracts some monsters.
April 6, 2015
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Thanks for the thoughts, super helpful. When you lay the options out like that I have put myself in a tough spot. Just watched the first video of the 'constructing your range' series and it sounds like the options are almost indifferent? As you say this can be avoided by betting bigger earlier.
I think the discussion has more or less ended. So in case people wanted to know what he had, villain had 98o and turned a full house. What do we think of their play? Surprised not to see a small raise on the turn.
September 14, 2014
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nice post by ginger and andrew
No need for villian to raise turn with a 98o ott , the spr is very low so its easier to get stacks in by the time we get to the river. Your range seems pretty strong,so not suprised to see villian slow play the turn , it allows him to give you room to bluff with your draws or weaker monster hands like 9x AQ/KQ.
February 1, 2013
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can I just add to this that B on B it's better to raise bigger pre, say 2.8x – 3.2x. At this sizing BB is pretty much priced in to call ATC especially having postion throught the remaining streets.
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