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Vilain is 14/10 over 4.1k hands
He steal 32% BTN and fold 71% vs resteal
He fold 58% vs cbet, but only 38% in 3bet bot. (he seems to fold a lot to turn and river barrels).
He raises 15% vs cbet in 3 bet pot.


I found this spot interesting and would have some toughts on it.

I mean, what is he representing when he raises here? I block TT and probably QT as well, if its ever in his preflop calling range. I really doubt he would have played QQ this way as well. Maybe he could have AQ that could play exactly like that.

He could have 44 once in a while, but don't you think he will have a lot of draws in his range here?

I am even wondering if we could be ahead a decent amount of the time?

I think that calling will put is in some impossible spots on later streets, so I am wondering is we will be ahead often enough to consider shipping? Plus, if we are behind, to dou think our outs could still be good (backdoor flush, backdoor straight, overcard, trips)?

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 1841485
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $100.50
SB: $219.92
Hero (BB): $101.86
UTG: $202.31
UTG+1: $100.00
UTG+2: $104.50
MP1: $117.70
MP2: $111.58
CO: $133.18

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with T K
6 folds, BTN raises to $2.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $7.50, BTN calls $5

Flop: ($15.50) 4 Q T (2 players)
Hero bets $8, BTN raises to $20, Hero???

If we put him on a raise stackoff range of AJcc, QJcc, AQ, KQs, TT, one QQ combo and 1 overpair combos (he might slowplay those sometimes), we have around 20% equity if we get it in.

Board: Qs Tc 4c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 78.695% 78.53% 00.17% 14771 31.50 { AcAd, QcQd, TT, AQs, AcJc, KQs, QcJc, AQo }
Hand 1: 21.305% 21.14% 00.17% 3976 31.50 { KcTh }

We risk 84,50$ to win the 43,50$ in the pot.

So our EV is (x*43,5)+((1-x)*21)-((1-x)*79) with x being his fold percentage.
If we solve that we see that we need around 57% fold equity to be breakeven here.
Don't think he raise/folds that much in a 3bet pot...
(/edit: forget to add KJcc, but that doesn't really make a difference, now we have 22% equity)

Well, I suck at math, so lets use words

You say preflop is a resteal, so I think you 3bet KTo as a bluff (not too much value in getting called, other than JTs or T9s sometimes).
So you bluff, because he folds too much and he has a hard time continuing with his wide range (which is in fact really tight from the button ^^).
Now he calls which means a pretty tight range and this is a flop which hits his 3bet calling range really good (the Q is always a terrible card if you want to bluff in a 3bet pot, cause he has a lot of AQ, KQ and sometimes QJs). He now not only calls, but raises your cbet which he only does 15% of the time (this number is lower than losing with AA to a pocket pair pre all in, just for comparison).
Does that sound like a spot you want to semi-bluffshove needing a lot of fold equity?


Lets get back to the flop and back to the math.
If he raises 32% pre (btw: we need to know a lot more about this hand to see if this is true. it depends a shitload on what kind of player you are and also what kind of player SB is. none informations about this, so it's impossible for us to figure out his BU opening range and his continuing range vs you) and only continues with 29% (just using his stats now) means that he continues with only around 9% of starting hands.
This probably looks something like this 99+, ATs+, AJo+, QJs, KQ and A7s/A5o for his bluff 4bets.
He is going to 4bet AK, QQ+, A7s/A5o preflop so his range on the flop looks like AQ, AJ, ATs, KQ, KJs, QJs, TJs, JJ, TT, 99.

Board: Qs Tc 4c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 58.329% 58.01% 00.32% 33311 181.50 { JJ-99, AQs-ATs, KJs+, QJs, AQo-AJo, KQo }
Hand 1: 41.671% 41.35% 00.32% 23746 181.50 { KcTh }

For our half pot cbet to be profitable we need to have 33% fold equity.
We are oop and he basically only folds if he has exactly 99, probably he folds AJ sometimes, but that has a gutshot and overcards and he has position.
We can't really realise our equity, cause we are going to have a terrible, terrible time oop.
So this is probably not even a cbet in the first place, although it looks incredibly weak to check/fold 2nd pair here.
It's just a board that totally smashes our opponents range...

Once he starts to call preflop with QTs, T9s, some more suited Ax and more PPs, sure, go ahead and cbet.

Great analysis Poemmel. I like your combinatoric and mathematical approach.

I did almost the same exercice after posting the hand. I am getting slightly different ranges, but I think I was a little optimistic in the first place. I probably gave him a few more suited A combos, but I doubt he have much A9-A2s in his range. I think he mostly have suited broadway and high/mid PP. Also, I did not input AA or KK that could have slowplayed or QQ. I usually like to weight this possibility by including one or few combos. In short, I think your estimation is probably closer to reality than mine.

15% flop cbet raise might be a little high, but considering he has a tight preflop range, I should not include that much bluffs and FE in my calculation. I think that my FE when I ship here is pretty low, maybe he could raise with a GS or something on the flop, but he has a tight enough preflop and flop range so he probably don't do it and don't even need to do it....

I think that check calling the flop would have been the best option, considering we are playing vs a tight opponent. Vs a looser one, cbet / ship with semi bluff some equity would probably be closer and maybe good, considering we will have more FE, facing a vilain that will raise backdoor equity, 2nd pair and GS.

and you should start thinking about just calling preflop.
I like to defend broadways in the BB vs late position opens a lot (or if I'm in the small blind and BB is a nit).

and you should start thinking about just calling preflop.
I like to defend broadways in the BB vs late position opens a lot (or if I'm in the small blind and BB is a nit).

Sure I am doing it a lot. Altough, I prefer doing it with suited broadway as they are much easier to play postflop (still I have some tricks with offsuit hands as well, but good opportunities happen a little less often )

KTo vs this specific vilain is probably very close between calling oop because we have enough equity or turning it into a 3 bet bluff. KQo would have definitely be a call pre tough.