2 things I hate

grantorino · July 2014

Hand 1:
Playing OOP with mid pairs, I always find this tougher than I should.

Very early in session so no reads, villain seems competent,maybe slightly on the aggressive side but way too early to tell. The only hand I have played was previous one, where I 3bet a CO open from BB and took pot down with cbet on raggy Qxx rainbow flop.

Comments on all streets appreciated, anyone raise turn?

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
grantorino	Small blind		£0.20	£0.20	£43.41
BB	Big blind		£0.40	£0.60	£51.42
	Your hole cards	10 10
UTG	Raise		£1.20	£1.80	£63.04
MP	Fold
CO	Fold
BTN	Fold
grantorino	Call		£1.00	£2.80	£42.41
BB	Fold
Flop
		9 2 8
grantorino	Check
UTG	Bet		£1.60	£4.40	£61.44
grantorino	Call		£1.60	£6.00	£40.81
Turn
		J
grantorino	Check
UTG	Bet		£3.60	£9.60	£57.84
grantorino	Call		£3.60	£13.20	£37.21
River
		6
grantorino	Check
UTG	Bet		£7.60	£20.80	£50.24
grantorino	??

grantorino · July 2014

Hand 2
When my 4bet is flatted 100bb deep

Same villain, we hadn't tangled other than hand above. I kinda think I have to bet small and go with it here, but if I am raised how much do I beat, or even if villain flats whats his range likely to be

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
x	Sit out
Sb	Small blind		£0.20	£0.20	£69.18
BB	Big blind		£0.40	£0.60	£41.98
	Your hole cards	A K
CO	Fold
grantorino	Raise		£1.20	£1.80	£38.80
SB	Raise		£3.80	£5.60	£65.38
BB	Fold
grantorino	Raise		£7.80	£13.40	£31.00
SB	Call		£5.00	£18.40	£60.38
Flop
		Q A 3
SB	Check
grantorino ?????

Nuggy962 · July 2014

Second hand, Personally I would of called his 3 bet pre - two advantages - can hide the strength of hand when it hits and avoids having to face an All in 5 bet if the villian has the nuts ( AA or KK) Nothing wrong with the play pre though just how I would of changed mixed it up

As played - I raise here expecting the villian to eitheer float one street with KK or shove on us when he has the QQQ or 9 out of 10 just fold.

AK in cash is actually not my favourite hand to play aggro pre - I prefer keeping the pot at a medium level and disguising it pre as otherwise you will try to push of med pockets etc when you miss which can get costly and get no more value when an A hits as op gives up a lot of the time.

I am betting £10ish here, hoping to be honest it takes it down there and then. I would expect if the guy has it he check shoves which leaves you in a sigh call posisition.

But saying all that - I play mainly DYM so probably talking rubbish haha

First hand - I think he has told you he has a hand - I would of folded turn had you not got some clean outs with the sraight - fold the river though

CraigSG1 · July 2014

Hand one I think is fine. We keep in all bluffs and I think his river bet is weak so don't think we can fold.

Hand two. Four bet too small IMO. Prefer a flat in position. Now we have pretty much committed ourself as we hit as good as we can expect and any bet is committing us to the pot.

shakinaces · July 2014

I think I agree with Craig on this one.

A lot of people lately seem to downplay AK, much changed from when I first dipped my toe in online poker and it was always a hand you'd be happy to get in pre... albeit there were a lot more fish that would gamble any Ax (or indeed ATC) back then!

77Chris91 · July 2014

Hand 1 - Fold river. Not a card that villain is gonna barrel much and you block a lot of the turn semi bluffs having 10's.

Hand 2 - WP. 4-bet size is good imo. No need to go any bigger. As you said bet small and go with it, anything around £8-£9 is good. Pretty much never folding an A high flop in a 4-bet pot with AK barring some ridiculous read.

craigcu12 · July 2014

hand1- this board would actually make it an easier fold than you think, yes he might have been bluffing the flop and the turn but the decision to call not one but two streets will start raising the alarm because the chances are you have folded the underpairs, he'll have expected overpair to raise preflop and 3 of the 4 middle pairs have got themselves a set.

hand 2- i wouldn't actually bet anything at all, the 4bet preflop has probably scared AJ away. so you only hope now is that he has KK, so having checked the flop he might be more confidient of calling, but a bet is going to tell him your holding either AK or QQ so he''l be only likely to shove with set or maybe the AdKd.

LARSON7 · July 2014

Hand 2, i would bet about £8ish and see what villian does (you have left his name in btw)

percival09 · July 2014

hand 1 is a call unless villain can't bluff. We block the nuts, don't block any missed fd's. vs the majority of players you can probably get away with folding but almost 3/1 is nice

hand 2 can check back or bet, I think a mixed strategy is best

villains range for hand 2 should contain some gutshots, some fd's w/ gs which we're not doing great against and quite a few AQ, some AJ, some Qx etc. Depends how wide he calls 4bets.

grantorino · July 2014

H1 I folded river, idk if I should, they always seem to have it when I call. Just hands like this seem to suck don't like 3b pre, calling down isn't great either, suppose Im really looking for thoughts in general

H2 I bet 1/2 pot on flop (agree it should be less but nearly timed out), villain jammed, I called. What do we think his range might be. I know I have given very little info but he doesn't seem like a fish

On pre calling is an option, I prefer 4betting for a number of reasons though

F_Ivanovic · July 2014

H1 is well played.. I might consider sometimes turning our hand into a bluff and shoving.

H2 4bet is good given positions and villain being a good reg. I would probably bet 40% pot although HP is fine. We can get stacks in OTT or OTR if villain just flats flop. When he shoves I'm not too sure of the range as it would depend on game dynamics. I'm not foldng though - villain only needs a few semi-bluffs/worse hands for value for calling to be good.

BorinLoner · July 2014

I had a long chat with some folks last night about the second hand.

I don't think I like the 4-bet pre-flop only because of this sentence: "...we hadn't tangled other than the hand above."

If we're 4-betting these spots, we don't want our perceived range to be premiums only. If AK is going to be close to the bottom of our perceived 4-betting range, we're probably best off not having a 4-betting range at all. If you'd been in lots of pots and your perceived range was likely to be wider, then of course we can 4-bet AK. The sizing is fine, by the way.

I almost certainly check back the flop and hope for a brick on the turn. The SPR means we can play for stacks with two bets, if we want to. Generally speaking our perceived range is going to be those premium hands here, though, so betting makes it easy for villain to continue with better and fold out worse. Assuming he's vaguely competent he's not going to be loving his JJ, AJ hands here and KK have been pretty much beaten by your entire perceived range on a AQx flop. If we are betting, I probably make it as small as a fiver.

I can only give the villain credit for peeling our 4-bet with hands that can semi-bluff this flop if we've been going back and forth with aggro beforehand. Otherwise, what decent reg is peeling 4-bets OOP with KQ, KJ, QJ, AJ or even AQ?

grantorino · July 2014

In Response to Re: 2 things I hate:

I had a long chat with some folks last night about the second hand. I don't think I like the 4-bet pre-flop only because of this sentence: "...we hadn't tangled other than the hand above." If we're 4-betting these spots, we don't want our perceived range to be premiums only. If AK is going to be close to the bottom of our perceived 4-betting range, we're probably best off not having a 4-betting range at all. If you'd been in lots of pots and your perceived range was likely to be wider, then of course we can 4-bet AK. The sizing is fine, by the way. I almost certainly check back the flop and hope for a brick on the turn. The SPR means we can play for stacks with two bets, if we want to. Generally speaking our perceived range is going to be those premium hands here, though, so betting makes it easy for villain to continue with better and fold out worse. Assuming he's vaguely competent he's not going to be loving his JJ, AJ hands here and KK have been pretty much beaten by your entire perceived range on a AQx flop. If we are betting, I probably make it as small as a fiver. I can only give the villain credit for peeling our 4-bet with hands that can semi-bluff this flop if we've been going back and forth with aggro beforehand. Otherwise, what decent reg is peeling 4-bets OOP with KQ, KJ, QJ, AJ or even AQ?
Posted by BorinLoner

Why would he assume AK is bottom of my range? Why am I better of flatting it? Why have no 4betting range? I'm not so sure it's bad if he perceives my range as premiums only

For all those who say flat what's my postflop plan readless?

Postflop idk I prob bet that flop when I don't like my hand much. I donk mind checking at all, but if I get his money in (at whatever stage) how often can I expect to be ahead? That and what his range might be pre are my main questions from the hand

77Chris91 · July 2014

For a few reasons I think 4-betting pre is better than flatting...

Hard to say against an unknown but his range may look something like AA,AQ,AJs,KQs,JJ?

I think if you bet £8ish on the flop and get shoved on your not gonna be loving life but just gonna be getting too good a price at that stage.

BorinLoner · July 2014

In Response to Re: 2 things I hate:

In Response to Re: 2 things I hate : Why would he assume AK is bottom of my range? Why am I better of flatting it? Why have no 4betting range? I'm not so sure it's bad if he perceives my range as premiums only For all those who say flat what's my postflop plan readless? Postflop idk I prob bet that flop when I don't like my hand much. I donk mind checking at all, but if I get his money in (at whatever stage) how often can I expect to be ahead? That and what his range might be pre are my main questions from the hand
Posted by grantorino

Well, we've not tangled much before and now we've 4-bet him. What do we all assume when an unknown 4-bets us? We probably think they're very strong until we know otherwise.

Let's say he, perfectly reasonably, has 3-bet AQ/AJ/KQ, etc. from the blinds against a button open that could be very wide. He won't love folding to a 4-bet but he's not going to peel a flop off without knowing our range isn't those premium hands, and if this is the first time we've 4-bet and in fact we haven't even been particularly active in 3-betting him, he's just going to assume that his hand is dominated by our range. Playing a flop OOP with a dominated range in a bloated pot is not a situation any decent player wants to be in. So we're forcing him to only continue with a range he thinks won't be dominated.

Assuming you agree with that, when we 4-bet we're giving the villain an easy decision in the blinds with most of his fairly wide 3-bet range and when AK is bottom of our 4-betting range, he's just going to find a fold with all those hands that we beat. So there's no value in 4-betting AK. When we're going to give him an easy decision to fold a wide portion of his 3-betting range when we 4-bet, we may as well flat with AA, KK and QQ too, to allow ourselves to eek out extra value post-flop.

If we've established a wider percieved 4-betting range against this villain from the button, then none of that applies.

If we do flat that 3-bet, the villain's likely to c-bet close to 100% of flops because our percieved range will likely include lots of broadway combos, pairs and even SC's. AK is near the top of our range so we're probably going to be flatting the flop unless it's particualrly bad for us. We have position, we're likely to have decent equity against his range and we'll get a ton more information on the turn.

As I say, as played post-flop I'm checking because, essentially, we have the bottom of our stacking off range with AK - Practically making it a bluff-catcher. The villain's not going to be expecting us to stack off with KK for example against his ragne for flatting a pre-flop 4-bet OOP, is he?

Of course if you disagree with the perceived ranges I'm assigning then you'll think about the hand differently. Really, though, when someone that's been quiet against us either makes a 4-bet or flats one OOP, what ranges do we think are most likely?

F_Ivanovic · July 2014

Borin it's BTN vs SB.. ranges are at it's widest. Just because we haven't 4-bet before doesn't mean our 4-bet shouldn't be for value - we don't know how big the sample size is for a start. At the same time our 4-bet shouldn't just be bluffs because if villain realises this, he has a very profitable 5-bet with all of his 3-bet range.

We have to start 4-betting somewhere and AK IP in a spot where ranges are the widest is like the perfect time to do so. If villain is 3-betting "light" for value - like 88-JJ and faces a 5-bet, he now has a pretty tough time in deciding what to - if he folds, that's great for us. If he flats, it's great for us. And if he shoves, well that's fine by us because we get in a flip - but we've already won loads of ev from the times he just flats or folds pf. Villain having a dominated hands in his 3b range does not often help us post-flop. The flop comes 652 and he c-bets with AJ... who's likely to take it down? Unless the flop comes Axx, the dominating hands factor has little impact. And with the SPR as it is, and with how likely it is to flop an A (or K) when both of us have one means that we're not going to win enough when we both flop TP to make up for the times that he takes it down with a c-bet or 2-barrel.

Winning 100% of our equity pre-flop with a 4-bet and taking it down is a lot. We need to win quite a bit more post-flop for flatting to be more worthwhile.

Also, people play badly when facing a 4-bet with any hand but their premiums - lets make villain make a mistake rather than putting us into a spot where we're unsure of villains range and where we only really know how to proceed on A or K high flops.

BorinLoner · July 2014

Ivanovic, all that assumes that the villain is giving us a wider range for 4-betting. I don't think that's the case the majority of the time against unknowns.

Of course we have to start 4-betting somewhere, but not with the bottom of the perceived range he'll give us. We probably should save our first 4-bets for the occasions we're OOP... then take advantage of the image that can give us in future.

It comes down to our own experiences but, in my experience, most people give the first 4-bet they see from someone a hell of a llot of crecit. As they probably should. Even though BTN v Blind should mean ranges are wider, in a vacuum people are almost always more conervative with their 4-bet and 3-bet/calling ranges.

So we can specullate that the villain might be continuing with a wider range but we shouldn't expect that.

When we flat the 3-bet pre-flop then flat the flop, we're putting our opponent in a really tricky position. We're probably going to be folding to a second barrel but, readless, we're going to be folding the worst hand an awful lot more than we're being exploited.

When you ask about the "flop coming 265 and he bets his AJ, who's more likely to take it down?" The answer should be us on the button. We're not just folding because he's c-bet a low flop because we still beat alot of his range.

grantorino · July 2014

Sample size is tiny , prob < 20 hands, fwiw

I would think villain will assign some bluffs to my 4b range in these positions. Borin, why would he assume I only 4b premiums but flat 3bets wide

I agree with most of fivanovic post. Postflop is not going to be easy if I flat 3bet. I don't really know what type of hands he 3bets ( I would assume there are some bluffs in there), postflop I know very little other than he has shown signs of being aggro. I'm certainly not sure I would be favourite to take it down postflop, with no idea how likely he is to barrell air, or bet weak made hands etc when his 3b bluffs hit something etc. Also if he checks turn, am I checking back or firing with a hi? My equity in pot is not massive, taking it down pre isn't a bad result. I don't mind flatting 3bet sometimes though

4b AK also widens my 4b value ranges lot which is important imo if I want to 4b bluff, esp if I might sometimes flat AA etc, against thinking opponents.

I don't expect my 4b to get flatted often, and always struggle assigning ranges when it is. I was good here but was surprised by his holding