Beginner Limit Hold'em Poker Forums

Villain is a Taggish regular running about 28/22, plays a lot of tables. Is capable of thinking on the second level, but generally straight forward.

I think I made a mistake not C/R'ing the flop, but as played, how are you approaching this river?

Poker Stars $1/$2 Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1828199
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BB with J K
UTG raises, 4 folds, Hero calls

Flop: (4.5 SB) 8 A K (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets, Hero calls

Turn: (3.25 BB) J (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets, Hero raises, UTG calls

River: (7.25 BB) A (2 players)
Hero ...

wow, what a brick that river is... I can't think of very man hands that will call and don't have us beat here. I think I c/f that river. I'm not really sure if that is the correct play here though. I just can't imagine a hand worse than ours calling the turn c/r and not improving other than the flush draw but I also don't think would bet here.

i think i'd bet/fold

My first impression was bet/fold as well. I'm a little concerned there aren't that many worse hands that are going to call us (better hands than ours won't fold). There are loads of drawing hands we could be raising the turn with though - so maybe they will call on the river with a worse king or even Jack or pocket pair.

Tricky spot.

I don't think check-calling the flop is a significant mistake here - different story against a later position raise but your equity vs. the hands that call you down isn't as great as you think.

Anyway, once you checkraise the turn and he calls, you can get him to fold KT and maybe KQ/KJ, even though you can't 100% guarantee on him having them. I'd probably bet here but it's not really for value - it's mostly to hope I can push him off of a chop. There's always a chance he's the sort of player that makes a bad call with QQ here, but I'm mostly betting on the fact that there's a large enough chance that he folds hands that chop with me. Off the top of my head it feels like if there's a 30-40% chance of him holding KT-KQ and folding them on the river, we have a profitable bet, and if there isn't, we should probably check-fold. If he's raising a wide range of offsuit and suited aces and 100% calling them down once we checkraise the turn, we should check-fold this river though.

There's a side benefit to not allowing ourselves to be bluffed here (when he has KT-KQ, QJ, QQ), but I don't think that's a large enough benefit to really toss into the calculation too much.

Rob

My first impression was bet/fold as well. I'm a little concerned there aren't that many worse hands that are going to call us (better hands than ours won't fold). There are loads of drawing hands we could be raising the turn with though - so maybe they will call on the river with a worse king or even Jack or pocket pair.

How many drawing hands are we really raising on this turn?

FWIW, I think there's some merit for check-calling the turn here if our opponent is good and foldy. If our opponent calls down with most of his PFR range though, checkraising is definitely the correct play. Just want to make sure the s aren't forcing people to see this hand as being way more strong than it is.

Rob

How many drawing hands are we really raising on this turn?

This is going to sound stupid but I think a lot of players assume there are flush draws being raised on these double suited turns. Its true that on a high flop like this it would be normal to expect a spade draw to raise at once - after all, there aren't a huge number of overcard hands that might be peeling. Even in these small pots a lot of people will peel very widely on boards where lots of overcards are possible. If I'm utg I'm a bit puzzled and worried by this peel (unless I have a monster myself).

I agree the most likely hand we can get him to fold is another king,. I wouldn't necessarily count on being able to do this though.

Couple thoughts I had on the hand. I don't think villain folds a chop (or better) to a river bet, even if he should. I think its more likely he makes a bad call with QQ/QJ, though that is probably also rare.

When/If I check this river, this is probably the strongest hand in my potential Ch/Calling range and I don't think I would C/R this river for value very often (would that even be good?). Honestly, if I check this river its probably close to 100% counterfeited hands.

At the time I was concerned he would turn a hand like TT/JT into a bluff on the river. Is this a reasonable concern? Also, I thought villain may bet a Kx hand as type of a free roll bet considering how low my range is capped when I check this river.

Couple thoughts I had on the hand. I don't think villain folds a chop (or better) to a river bet, even if he should. I think its more likely he makes a bad call with QQ/QJ, though that is probably also rare.

When/If I check this river, this is probably the strongest hand in my potential Ch/Calling range and I don't think I would C/R this river for value very often (would that even be good?). Honestly, if I check this river its probably close to 100% counterfeited hands.

At the time I was concerned he would turn a hand like TT/JT into a bluff on the river. Is this a reasonable concern? Also, I thought villain may bet a Kx hand as type of a free roll bet considering how low my range is capped when I check this river.

I'm trying to figure out why it makes sense that he would fold QQ/QJ but call with KT - do you have a read that gives a little more information about why you expect that?

If you think that's the case, I think a check-fold is correct. I doubt you'll see an opponent who is capable of turning QQ-KT into a bluff frequently enough on this river to justify a call, given how often you'll be getting 1/2 of the pot. I'll play around with Combonator in a bit to see if I can construct some ranges that give us a good perspective of exactly what we'll need him to be betting in order for us to profitably call, but from doing basic combinatorics in my head here, it seems unlikely those conditions will be met.

The unfortunate answer here is that most of his range pips us or crushes us, and there aren't a ton of hands he has available to turn into a bluff. Like I said earlier, the wider he calls the turn checkraise with Ax, the less likely we should be willing to put in any money on the river here. I understand your reasoning about wanting to ensure that you have a check-calling range so a check doesn't mean that you're automatically giving up, but I think there are other solutions to that concern overal.

Re: Checkraising ranges on the river. It's quite possible that you should be checkraising with your stronger Ax hands if we assume that he has a lot of Ax hands - his hand strength hasn't changed significantly on this river when you bet, but when you check, it has. This means if he's playing well, he's likely to call with A3s on the river, but probably will talk himself into a bet-call with it as well.

It's a bit complex to keep all of these assumptions in my head, but overall I think if you're concerned that he bluffs you off of the best hand, you shouldn't be concerned enough that you talk yourself into a river call. I'll take a look at Combonator in a bit and see if I can export my assumptions so we can play with those a bit.

Rob

I'm trying to figure out why it makes sense that he would fold QQ/QJ but call with KT - do you have a read that gives a little more information about why you expect that?

I think my main reasoning is villain now beats J8 with Kx/QQ and will talk himself into a call.

I think my main reasoning is villain now beats J8 with Kx/QQ and will talk himself into a call.

Yeah, I was talking about thinking he'll fold QJ/QQ and call with KT, which is what I thought you were arguing he'd do, especially since you probably don't defend J8o vs a UTG raise (maybe you do - I know it's close), leaving only 2 combos of J8s in your range.

Rob

I broke this down into 4 groupings of hands just because I was curious. The 4th is basically irrelevant because it's significantly discounted b/c of turn action.

Combonator Output combonator.com
Board: As Kh 8s Jh Ac
Vs Hero Cards: Ks Js

Combinations in complete range: 117 [Hero Eq: 29.06%]

Grouped: 117 combos, 100.0% [Hero Eq: 29.06%]
Ungrouped: 0 combos, 0.0% [Hero Eq: 0.0%]

Group 1: 40 combos, 34.2% (34.2% total) [Hero Eq: 0.00%]
Group 2: 20 combos, 17.1% (17.1% total) [Hero Eq: 30.00%]
Group 3: 28 combos, 23.9% (23.9% total) [Hero Eq: 100.00%]
Group 4: 29 combos, 24.8% (24.8% total) [Hero Eq: 0.00%]

Group 1: Trips only, added A8s, A8o, removed A9s

AQs, ATs, A8s-A2s, AQo, ATo-A8o

Group 2: Second pair, added KQs, KQo

KTs+, KTo+

Group 3: Third pair+, added TT, Qh9h, Qs9s, T9s

QQ, TT, QJs, Q9s (2), QJo, JTs, T9s

Group 4: Manual selection

KK+, JJ, AKs, AJs, A9s, AKo, AJo, QTs, QTo

Check-calling analysis

If we check-call, we need him to be bluffing about 10.8% of the time. This is slightly complicated because he can bluff with a hand that chops with ours (or pips us), but since so much of his "bluffing" handrange is made hands, he may not be capable of bluffing here a ton. I'm going to assume that he's going to check-back with KQ and KJ-KT most of the time, and that he won't bluff super often.

40 ways we lose 1BB (Ax, A8) = (40BB)
8 ways we lose 1BB (KQ) = 8BB x 20% = (1.6BB)
28 ways we win 9.25BB (QQ/QJ/JTs/TT/T9s/Q9s) = 259 * 10% = 25.9BB
12 ways we win 4.625BB (KT-KJ) = 55.5BB x 20% = 11BB

It's been a while since I've done this, so I'd definitely appreciate someone double checking. Specifically of note are when we win half the pot (or the whole pot), I can't remember if you're supposed to include your bet in the total calculation - since we're weighing it against the 1BB we spend in the other calcs I think you're supposed to, but can't remember for sure.

Anyway, with those assumptions, we lose about 4.7BB over 88 hands. If there's any chance he doesn't 3-bet the turn with 88, JJ, KK, AJ, or AK, it's looking even worse for us, because we need to add them to his value betting range. If we can narrow down his Ax range a bit more on the turn, however, it becomes a little closer, and if he is good enough to turn made hands into a bluff frequently, it's going to get closer and closer to breakeven.

Betting Analysis

This one is a bit easier, I think.

Let's assume he calls with QQ, QJo+, 80% of the time and KTs+ 90% of the time. I removed JTs and TT just to be fair to the fact that he won't always call with the bottom of his known range given how strong your hand looks. I'm just weighting this because I don't have a certainty that he always calls or always folds the second-pair-ish range of his hands.

We lose 1BB 40 ways from Ax = (40BB)
With KQ, we lose another 1BB * 8 ways * .9 = (7.2BB).
With QQ/QJ+, we win 1BB * 14 ways * .8 = 11.2BB.
With KT-KJ, we win 4.625BB * 12 ways * .1 = 5.5BB.
With KQ, we win 9.25BB * 8 ways * .1 = 7.4BB.

Total, we lose 23.1BB over 74 hands, for a loss of about (.31BB/hand).

The more I look at it the less gross a check-fold feels. We need him to be willing to fold KT+ a LOT (30%) for this to be a good bet.

Of course, this is all just a model and I'm sure lots of my assumptions could be way off. I mostly posted this to get people talking more about what we expect him to do with various parts of his range (and how likely he is to have that range, given previous streets). If you're betting, why? If you're check-folding, why?

Rob

I think there is a small error in your Ch/Calling analysis with regards to results.

28 ways we win 9.25BB (QQ/QJ/JTs/TT/T9s/Q9s) = 259 * 10% = 25.9BB

If you do his bluff range this way, I think you need to multiply the 28 ways by 10% as well, so it would read

(28*.1) = 2.8 ways we win 9.25BB (QQ/QJ/JTs/TT/T9s/Q9s) = 259 * 10% = 25.9BB

So your conclusion would be we lose 4.7BB over 65 hands (not 88), or .072BB/hand if I understand it correctly.

Also, yes, I believe you include bets you contribute on the river to your analysis.

I think there is a small error in your Ch/Calling analysis with regards to results.



If you do his bluff range this way, I think you need to multiply the 28 ways by 10% as well, so it would read

(28*.1) = 2.8 ways we win 9.25BB (QQ/QJ/JTs/TT/T9s/Q9s) = 259 * 10% = 25.9BB

So your conclusion would be we lose 4.7BB over 65 hands (not 88), or .072BB/hand if I understand it correctly.

Also, yes, I believe you include bets you contribute on the river to your analysis.

Yeah, I think you're right - it only matters in terms of calculating the BB/hand and not the aggregate BB, but for comparing the two lines I think the way you defined it is better.

Rob