I want to go into this when I have time and energy, but a quick comment. You say at some point that with a known player on SB and a too tight BB, you're considering raising any two on the button. I've had some discussions about this on a Finnish forum, but I'm quite undecided.

We can easily construct a realistic scenario where the EV of a raise and a fold to a 3-bet (yeah, bear with me for a while) is something like fractions of small bet positive, which is certainly enough for almost any decision in this game. And of course, it seems that getting 5,5:1 if it get 3-bet is certainly good enough odds to continue, especially having the button. (Nevermind the meta-game consequences if you actually did directly fold to a 3-bet after raising on the button. :-)

In such a spot, where SB perhaps 3-bets 20% of the time, and BB defends with something ridicilously low percent, say, 25%, the likelihood of 3-bet is really big. But, on the other hand, when the BB just calls, you will win a fair portion of the pots with a simple continuation bet.

So, my question is that have you actually worked out the "math", even in broad terms or do you just think more situationally in these spots?

A couple of questions for Oink

Question one
Left hand table @ 3:00

Hero open raised Qh 7d from button, SB fold, BB three bets and hero calls.

Flop is Kd 7h 3c
BB bets and hero calls. Hero then says if the K had been something like a 9 then he would have raised. Oink can you explain why this is the case.

Question two
I want to make sure I understood what you were saying about value checking. Lets assume we have open raised from late position with Ax and only a loose fairly passive BB has called.
If the flop comes something like T 5 2 rainbow or similar, and villain checks and calls, and the turn is a blank then we should value check because villain is likely to now fold if we bet the turn, but he might bet the river with a worse hand hoping to bluff us out of the pot and so we gain an extra bet.

On the other hand if we again raise from late position with Ax and the same player calls from the BB if the flop is now something like Td 9d 2s and villain again calls our continuation bet, we should go ahead and bet the turn because villain is far more likely to call to see the river on this flop than he was on the first flop is this correct?

I'm copying my reply to xrosswind here too, but I'm not sure if it adds any value. At least someone can point to any mistakes I made in the comment.

Hero open raised Qh 7d from button, SB fold, BB three bets and hero calls.

Flop is Kd 7h 3c
BB bets and hero calls. Hero then says if the K had been something like a 9 then he would have raised. Oink can you explain why this is the case.

I think one argument for calling is the simple fact that the villain is much stronger here equity-wise. Also, having 3-bet the flop, he's unlikely to give up just yet with hands like 88-QQ, especially the stronger of those, TT-QQ. Any King will certainly 3-bet the flop right away. Some people will argue that it will be "cheap to get out of the hand" if the villain then 3-bets, but this line doesn't give villain the opportunity to bluff. (First, 3-bet bluffing here after a flop raise would require a pretty aggressive villain, but it would be pretty much impossible for hero to continue UI which means that hero doesn't gain much if the villain 3-bet bluffs.) In this spot, he's much more likely to continue firing on the turn with almost his full range, because he is out of position and he has 3-bet preflop.

Also, I don't remember if Oink mentioned it, but with solid reads, you can probably just call twice and fold to a third barrel. Many TAGs will probably give up on the river once you've called twice on a board like this, so it's unlikely that your pair of sevens is any good after that. It really looks like you're planning to go to the showdown. So, in a sense, the K on the flop keeps the villain more honest on the river especially, but is still likely to fire a second one on the turn. This "call twice and give up on the river" having too few outs to improve, looks kinda silly in hindsight, but it's really difficult for the player in BB's shoes to keep firing on a board like this, OOP, against a player who clearly is going to showdonw.

And as you notice, the actual hand demonstrated the power of Oink's line, because the villain did just what Oink wanted! :-)


But I think there's merit to getting him to fold hands like AQ-A whatever-he's-3-betting-preflop-with on the flop. It's 9,5:1 to call a flop raise for the villain, so it's technically a mistake for him to fold a hand with six live outs. And I think a turn bet will sometimes fold hands like 88-99 maybe even TT, depening on the card of course. (Ace on the turn would be a small disaster for hero.) All this makes me think that getting the villain fold right away on the flop isn't that bad a result.