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Poker Video: Limit Hold'Em by Deepsquat (Mid Stakes)

While in agree that we always have this board locked down and the big blind will always call with his straightdraws drawing dead, theres a non zero chance that he`ll call with those even if we 3bet? And should he have an overpair he`ll never fold those no matter if we 3bet or not. However we risk losing bets against the other maniac if he happens to have 10x or somehow 33.

Looking at preflop and flop action, I'd think AK/AJ are by far the most likely hands for BB. He can't fold if it's one to him, he can't call if it's 2 to him.
By only calling, hero loses some value against KJ (but BB might only have the suited ones in his range) and AA/KK, which would have played flop very quietly.
So I like the play, especially when you can get the 3 bets in against the obvious T on most rivers.

Make the flop two-tone and I like a 3! on the turn more. I think the board was perfect to do something non-standard.

Time Link to 00:03:33

You comment on you wanting to have bottom pairs in you flop CR range. I can see some tight range situations and flops (e.g. UG open-hero defends BB, flop 654) where bottom pair is practically just as good as top pair. However on the particular flop, I don't get the idea of CRing bottom pair... it can't be for value even if you had 9h5h so is it for shaping your CR range or something?

Time Link to 00:04:46

I found this river interesting. Everything but T9 missed (when looking at your draws on the flop) so I'd be instavaluebetting the 5th pair, thinking villain has a lot more A-highs than say mid-pockets that maybe checked turn.
Once you don't bet your hand looks very much like a missed draw or Ax (maybe with spades), so I think villain would have a value bet with any pair or AK. So I was very surprised when you said you like a check fold. Make the 8 a T and things would be very different... but I can't see myself folding a pair here when villain could have worse in his valuebet range ( plus some bluffs).

Am I way off here?

I found this river interesting. Everything but T9 missed (when looking at your draws on the flop) so I'd be instavaluebetting the 5th pair, thinking villain has a lot more A-highs than say mid-pockets that maybe checked turn.
Once you don't bet your hand looks very much like a missed draw or Ax (maybe with spades), so I think villain would have a value bet with any pair or AK. So I was very surprised when you said you like a check fold. Make the 8 a T and things would be very different... but I can't see myself folding a pair here when villain could have worse in his valuebet range ( plus some bluffs).

Am I way off here?

Not way off at all mate

Had a good look at it then, and actually like a bet and surprised i thought it was a check. Nice one

You comment on you wanting to have bottom pairs in you flop CR range. I can see some tight range situations and flops (e.g. UG open-hero defends BB, flop 654) where bottom pair is practically just as good as top pair. However on the particular flop, I don't get the idea of CRing bottom pair... it can't be for value even if you had 9h5h so is it for shaping your CR range or something?

Ya essentially im just trying to shape my cr range so that I can have some bottom pair hands in my range. I also think theres some value in folding 6 outers on some boards.
Its only something ive been thinking about lately, and im thinking out loud, but i wonder if on some boards we need to "manufacture" some more value raises to balance our bluff raises?

f.ex- AJ3r i think cr some 3x maybe good vs a BTN/Co range occasionally to fold out some hands that have 6 clean outs vs a good opponent whom we may induce a bluff raise against or who wont barrel turn or riv?

Also, do we have enough value cr's to balance our bluffs? I think on some lower boards maybe its less important as we will have all our overpairs but on high boards seems like we have alot of gutters, bd stuff, air and only cr tp and strong 2nd pair?

What do u think?

Obv we dont want to weaken our c/c range to much, and the freq% would be sort of 1/6 of the time, maybe with bdfd

Also it cant hurt to have villain think u can show up with any pair i wouldnt think.

I think it was OTR15 that made a video and said that to keep his frequencies in order he liked to checkraise whenever he was say 3 to a straight flush as to when he`d be "purebluff-checkraising" those kinds of boards. Tbh i dont think the top gutters have much value in a checkraise on AJ3 boards because i dont see better folding unless we actually make our hand (unless for maybe better gutters by the river, and even that gets to be an expensive option), but if were going to be checkraising our good Jx hands, Ax and the low gutter, maybe that enough? Idk. I just think we need to have something left in our peeling range, and bottom pairs on this kind of board strike me as good candidates.

Time Link to 00:04:46

I took a look at CRing with 2nd pair here http://www.deucescracked.com/forums/13-Videos/topics/450381-DFM-Episode-Five?#post_3929661

That was on A high board though. I think much of it still applies, especially that reads (barrely/showdowney/playsbackatyouwithcrapeny) can turn things totally around.

On this QJ5 board, you need to have AJ+ to have over 50% equity against villain's continuing range (A high better, gs/fd or better). A weak J is in the 40% realm, and KJ/AJ have less to fear from overcards... also they're blocking off the hands that pay us off.

I'm only CRing my Q's here by default (but I don't CR every gs I have). If villain barrels me light (so I need to fold my gutters) he'll pay for it the times I show down my Jack/5. I don't think adding the few good Jacks would do wonders to my ranges. And I don't like turning the bottom pairs to essentially bluffs (they're in pretty bad shape when called) on the flop.

I don't see any intrinsic value in having some BP in our CR range. Yeah it's a nasty surprise for villain the time board pairs from the bottom and villain raises turn with his overpair, but we also have sets to combat that situation.

What kind of ratio for value/semibluffs would you prefer here, considering there's 2 more streets to go? If you only CR draws with no overs to this board, there really aren't that many you can hold.

I have to agree with pasita`s post here. Particularly on this kind of board where we have SO much other stuff that makes better candidates for checkraising (flushdraws, oesd, possibly a couple of gutters, Qx, overpairs, i like to mix in AJ/KJ sometimes too but it doesnt hurt to have a stronger calldown range and leaving most/all jacks in our calldown range). Yeah its true that we will get more "value" the times we spike the turn 5, but the times he is strong enough to raise the turn, we woulda successfully gotten in a CR and possibly cr/cap anyway, and i dont think those times makes up for the times we brick the turn and he raises us off our hand, although we problably didnt fold away much equity anyway. Basically i think its opening a huge can of worms checkraising here.

I am also unsure why you feel you have to have some bottom pair in your check-raising range. The possible reasons I can think of are

(1) allow you to be balanced when semi-bluffing a large range
(2) you just think you can get value out of them
(3) Gives you hands to fold to a turn raise, as you should have some

Or is it something else?

Theres a few reasons i feel we should have bottom pairs in our cr range. I think its hard to just look at it purely from an equity standpoint but i tend to look at it from my overall strategy.

First couple of reasons are obviously I do think our flop c/c range does become a little bottom pair heavy if we are *ALWAYS* c/c bottom pair. I think there is value in protecting a bottom pair vs high card heavy range/overcards. I also think from a balance perspective it cant be correct to always be c/c your weaker hands.

If you are always c/c bottom pair, then you should be donking out the turn when the bottom card pairs on say AJ3r3x

Theres probably slight immediate value with cr bottom pair, or at least it would be super close on many boards, like the one above. If we cr Q3dd on AdJh3c its about 51% vs a typical BTN open range. Obviously we have the turn and river sequences and how much does villain continue with etc etc

The thing you will find is that its not as simple as just stoving the flop range. There will be worse hands that villain will call down with, there will be better hands he cant raise us on the turn with, there will be some better hands that he may fold to flop and there is obviously some value in protetcing our hands vs hands that have 6 outs or protect us from being barrelled off our hand.

We arent always going to be cbetting every turn either and you will find that many villains will chk back a pretty strong range on the turn and sometimes river if we donk chk.

Its hard to know how much to adjust for positions in 6max, but i think the best HUHU players realise that there is value on several levels for cr bottom pairs.

Now to how i think it fits in well to my strategy and Ill be opening another can of worms, but its something ive discussed before about having a donk/check range on some turns. Ill do it with draws that are good enough to c/c the turn but dont want to be raised and have little FE with a turn bet.

Some of you may feel that barreling 100% of your semibluffs on the turn is correct, personally i think that its not. I think most of the time we should be, given the price we are getting on our bluff but there are definately some boards we should be checking.

Some examples:
Say we cr Q3dd on Ad 7d 8c and the turn comes Ac- i think we should be checking this turn alot when villain calls the flop as we really dont want to be getting raise, our FE is minimal.

Some more examples are Q3dd on Kd 2c 8d....Tc OR Q9 on JT7r...Ax

Obviously when we donk/check some turns it will be to c/r, c/c or c/f. Our cr range will contain strength on occassions, our cf range doesnt really care as its folding, but in general our c/c range will be very weak. It will contain draws and the occasional hand that was bluffing on the flop but picked up a weak pair on the turn. But even then you will prob still bet it alot of the time as the combined equity of the draw + pair prob makes it good to bet.

So for my range, i need a hand that can cr the flop and then c/c the turn + riv so that im not always so weak when i donk chk turn. These flopped bott pairs fit in well for me.

It may sound like fps or whatever, but if you have a look at your FE on certain turns i think u may be suprised.

Just to re-iterate, the frequencies on this stuff is pretty low, idk how often we should be doing it. I threw 1/6 of the time in earlier, its just a guess. I do feel very strongly however that occasionally cr bott pair has to be part of an optimal strategy or at least can never be an overall mistake to have in your strategy.

Also, Being able to have our opponents know that we cr bott pair makes it difficult for them to fold in future when all the draws get there and they have a weak middle pair hand or something. They will know that we are capable of cr bott pair and will assume we will still bet it on alot of T+R so we get lighter call downs on some boards.

Here are some better examples about boards where we may want to c/c with some of our draws and bott pairs that we cr flop with

Obviously we will be betting some BP for value on some turns, but i be looking to chk some FD and my BP on the below boards as an example


83dd on 3dAs9s... Qh

A4o.on Qs7s4d....Kh

J2 on KsQs2d....4x

Not totally sure where I fall on the discussion but here are a couple things that I don't entirely agree with Deepsquat:

I also think from a balance perspective it cant be correct to always be c/c your weaker hands.

If you are always c/c bottom pair, then you should be donking out the turn when the bottom card pairs on say AJ3r3x

"balance" doesn't mean you play a certain hand in multiple ways, it means you make your overall range hard to play against. It's perfectly logical that we should often and possibly always be c/c our "weaker" hands, its just a question of where we draw the line on what is 'weak' given a certain range and board texture.

Also I don't agree with your followup example in the quote, it would imply to me that you are not peeling that flop often enough and/or not playing your Ax hands sometimes tricky depending on the strength of their range. You are implying that we need to donk because villain can/should check behind turn a lot on that card, but we should have a bunch of gutshots / weak peels that will be very happy to gain a free card. I think villain will be forced to bet there a lot and our range for CRing will be strong but can also choose that spot to semibluff when we pick up a flush draw on turn after a loose peel, or pick up the combo draw with like QTs that now has gutshot and flush draw from time to time.

Time Link to 00:22:17

I guess I'd raise the turn on the right, because on this particular card I feel we'll have a ton of semibluffs, a lot of 8x, 9x, 4x, even 3x type of hands, and even if we delay our Kx type of hands I feel there won't be enough valueraises in our range to be balanced, if we don't raise nearly all of our 7x-s here. Do I miss something here? How would you balance your range here, if you don't raise hands like T7?

Ok I now see why you would want to CR some bottom pairs, it seems to fit well in your game plan. I'm certain it's not the easiest way to create balance but it may very well be an effective one. Trying to figure out stuff like a balanced turn CR range after CRing flop seems pretty tough...

FWIW, in this year's botmatch Hyperborean-tbr played 300k hands against Calamari. Having called on BB and flopped bottom pair, facing a contbet 6864 times it CR'd 2314 times. It also checked turn about half the time.
(For middle pair CR 3058 times out of 5795 opportunities, top pair 4014/4507)
Pretty much similar figures in the 3 player bot match (when 2 players on the flop). So it seems you're onto something here

EDIT: the bot is making a whopping .1BB/hand more when it checkraises bottom pair, compared to check calling. It must be doing something very right.

Hey DD, thanks for chiming in!

Ya i should have been clearer re: balance. You are 100% correct. I guess what i was meaning to say is if we are always c/c bottom pair on certain boards (as opposed to "weakish hands") then we *can* in fact potentially create an inbalance in our range if our c/c range becomes too heavily weighted towards pairs, in my opinion.

Now obviously if we feel we need to be cr more pairs on some boards, we can just work our way down the spectrum of hands and possibly not ever reach bottom pair. For example by cr more middle pairs instead. But i do feel there is value in cr bott pairs if we look at the non-equity related factors such as hand protection, getting called down lighter, unpredicatbility and obviously there are occasions where our opponent can re-raise lighter or fold to a turn or river cr easier or whatever action by knowing we either cannot have bott pair when we cr the flop or that our range is weighted quite heavily to bott pair.

I think equity wise too, we prob have enough equity to raise many bott pairs vs an opponents flop range and flop call range.

IDK how to assign a value to these things, and once again im talking out loud about a concept ive been thinking about recently and hoping to spark some discussion in this forum. Im also happy to be proved wrong too

Re donking out paired turn- You do have a very valid point that we obviously have some gutters etc that are happy to see a free river. Ill have to put some more thought into it, but looking quickly I think on AJ5..5 for.ex the turn should get get checked back a fair bit, especially vs an opponent who always c/c all his 5x on the flop and never cr.
Personally id usually chk back all of my Jx and worse pairs and all of my broadway gutters and depending on the opponents i would give up on alot of bluffs but maybe thats a spot in my own game i can look at. Ill have a think and post again later when ive got a bit of time.

I suppose if we think opponents bet this turn alot more than I speculate, then we could perhaps look at turning some of our gutters into cr bluffs on the turn occasionally. I know i rarely ever do this, and just thinking now, it could be good. Maybe a hand like QT or something if we think its too weak to call AJ55 turn.....