Maniackid11 said
I like your question rppoker. On this board, do we check QQ+ here on the flop? I am inclined to say maybe given the texture of the flop but also maybe not. So if I am villain, thinking with those specific hands, heros def. betting the flop. Even so, I think Hero might be c-betting with TT, & JJ as well. So his check has now given us possible information that Hero might not have TT+. From UTG with 33 BBs, we can remove 33 from his range as well… there’s no flush, and the only possible str8’s out there aren’t in Heros range. I would be guessing here saying that maybe villain doesn’t range Hero as shoving Top pair here, also, there’s only roughly 18 combos of those in Heros range. and since we are ranging Hero as more likely to have bet his top two sets on the flop, we could remove them from his range on his river shove. so that really leaves us with 3 combos of pkt 8s. BUT, since villain has an 8 there’s really only 1 combo of pkt 8s left. So that’s a lot of air vs monster.

So with all this in mind, IF i was actually capable of ranging Hero like this in-game, I think I might actually make this call too. Call me a payoff wizard.  

This is an excellent summary of why the call is not as terrible as it seems. Villain is holding a bluff-catcher, which means that the actual strength of their hand is irrelevant, as long as it beats the hands I would bluff. Given the action, and my likely 33bb UTG open range, 88 and JJ might be the only value combos I would ever play this way. I’m not checking many top pairs (or overpairs) on the flop, and I’m not overbetting many weaker value hands than a boat on this runout. A3s could also make sense, I would often want to bet it for protection on the turn, but it’s not always opening UTG at this stack depth (many good players still like wheel suited Aces here, but A5s is the only one in my range).

My value range may be even narrower. This is a flop that top set is more likely to bet than usual because we can get value from so many draws (and they’re more likely to call a bet on the flop than any other street). Also, in heads-up pots vs a BB defender, betting with top set becomes more attractive. BB will presumably call and check-raise wider than other positions as their preflop range has so many weak holdings. Q9s is not a terrible hand to mix into any open range, it flops decent equity more often than it might seem, but still not at all likely from a 33bb stack UTG. Also, I’m very likely to cbet a hand like Q9s, even more often than I would cbet KQ or a Nut flush draw (it has less showdown value). It wouldn’t be completely unreasonable for the villain to think that I’m literally only representing pocket 8s.

There are two reasons 85s is actually a lot better than many bluff-catchers. First, It makes my most obvious value hand 3x less likely. Second, it blocks literally 0 of my most likely bluffs. I think the hands I’m most likely to bluff this way are A9s, a flush draw that didn’t cbet (which is ~1/2 of my flush draws), or KQ/AK/AQ. None of those hands contain an 8 or a 5, and clubs are less likely than hearts or diamonds. I’m definitely not bluffing all of those hands, and I certainly won’t overbet with all my bluffs, but I can understand the train of thought that might lead villain to think that I’m bluffing more than 40% of the time here (he needs to be right 39.8% of the time to break even). If I have 1 bluff combo that plays this way and villain narrows my value range to exactly 88, his call is profitable.

Am I making this call in villain’s shoes? No. I don’t think I could put the information together fast enough in game to figure out that it might be good. Villain plays high stakes fairly often ($37 ABI usually indicates regularly playing $215 tournaments), and thus is more likely to give his opposition credit for being able to overbet bluff than I am. I think we’d all agree that this is a textbook example of a hero call, but I can see why villain felt it was appropriate.

I don’t worry if my big bets don’t get called. I have no idea which part of their range villain currently has (if my analysis of their range is even accurate, which it frequently won’t be). They’ll have some hands that won’t call any bet, like busted draws. I’ll certainly miss value from some parts of villain’s range, but I’m usually focused on maximizing value from the stronger parts of villain’s range. 

Bet sizing is an excellent (albeit time-consuming) thing to analyze when reviewing hands, breaking down the ranges and trying to figure out how often each bet size gets called. You can compare chip EVs of each bet by multiplying call frequency * bet size.

In a hypothetical scenario, if I expect a 100 chip bet to get called 60% of the time, and a 150 chip bet to get called 40% of the time, I can figure out their relative value.

0.6 x 100 = 60 and 0.4 * 150 = 60 

So the EV of either bet is 60 chips, assuming you always win when called (I didn’t intend to make those bets have equal EV lol).

Maximizing chipEV is not the only thing to consider, there is some added value in MTTs to making bets which get called more frequently. If we accept the prevailing MTT wisdom that losing chips hurts us more than winning chips helps us, not getting called when a smaller bet would have is probably a bigger mistake than not extracting maximum value from villain’s better hands. However, it’s usually not that simple.

Although smaller bets will generally get called more often, polarizing your range with a big bet can generate enough disbelief that some of villain’s folds may become calls. In most scenarios, there are a lot more value combos that want to make smaller bets than there are which want to overbet. For example, in this hand, it would be reasonable to check QJs or ATs on the flop and bet turn and river for value. That’s 6 combos, and those are not the only marginal value hands I could check/bet/bet on this runout. Would I ever overbet the river with that kind of hand?

If our range that wants to make a big bet is extremely narrow, villain only needs us to be bluffing a few combos for their call to be correct. Are 40% of my river overbets bluffs? Absolutely not, I just did a quick search in my database and it seems to be a little less than 25%. However, it’s technically a mistake to bluff less than 40% of the time if I’m betting 2x pot, and good players will eventually be able to exploit me by not calling my overbets with most of their bluff catching range. If they adjust that way, overbetting my nutty hands becomes a really big mistake. For now, I can probably get away with it (although maybe this post will hurt my overbetting EV…).

With regards to A5s, there’s a couple of reasons to prefer it over weaker wheel aces. It has much better equity against 44-22, and it dominates A4-A2. A5 and AT also make more straights than any other ace. All of the wheel Aces only make 1 straight using both cards (same goes for broadways), but a 5 will make more 1 card straights than a 4-2.

Small advantages like those may not seem like much but they are important. I think I would be folding to 3bets and flopping 2nd best top pairs too often if I raised every suited Ace from UTG at this stack depth. If I’m going to pick 4 combos of wheel Aces to raise, it might as well be the strongest 4 combos.

Maniackid11 said
Greg, I actually had something else typed up that never made it to the second post and that was, AWESOME SHOVE BRO! Not only do we all learn a shit ton from this hand, but as I was able to break it down, it became increasingly more clear that, ‘holy sh*t that’s a genius line’.  

Thanks man, but it’s important to realize that I didn’t play the hand perfectly. As mentioned by Andrew, a larger turn bet would be better. I wish I could say that my overbet game was worthy of the genius label, but it’s probably more like a monkey chained to a typewriter. Once in a while, you might get Shakespeare, but most of the time its just nonsensical bullshit. 

almofadinhas said
Also, congratulations on the WCOOP!!! From what I see on the forums you are really nice, and hard worker, you deserve it! Way more to come!!!  

Thanks Almo, I appreciate it. It was definitely a lucky run more than anything I did particularly well, but I do work really hard, so hopefully another ridiculously lucky run will come my way again someday.