Line check $5-$10-$20 Hollywood Park. What should we bet?

Bart

$2700 effective, 5-10-20 HP, Saturday night 11PM. Hero has a neutral image. Villain in the hand is a recreational player, early 30s. He misplayed a hand vs me about a half hour before where he opened from UTG with AA and I 3 bet UTG1 with KK. He just called and the flop came out A♦ 7× 8♦. check check. TURN 5♦. Check/check. River 2♦ Check/check. Neither one of us had a diamond and he won. I showed him the KK.

Hero opens UTG to $65 with J♥ T♥. Tight Euro calls in CO and covers. V1 calls in Straddle.

$200 FLOP A♥ Q♣ J♦

V1 checks, Hero bets $100 planning to barrel across blanks if not raised. CO folds. V1 calls.

$400 TURN: 5♦ V1 checks, Hero $230, V1 thinks for a bit and calls.

$860 RIVER: 2♠ V1 checks, Hero?

maphacks

why not overbet turn if we go for it? now river follow up with your plan and bomb it. what runout do you expect that is a scary one on that flop bart?

iamallin

Given how passive he is I am not sure we can start blasting away if he doesn't raise us. This player will absolutely just flat call with 2 pair over multiple streets.

brick

Certainly doesn't look like a strong hand. Could be a weak Ace or KQ, KJ, QT, QJ.
There are a lot of Ace combinations he could have from the straddle: AT, A9, A8, A7, A6, A4, A3.

Think he would fold a weak ace for 600?

He could also have Kx and Tx of diamond combos that flopped a gutter and turned back door diamonds. Since you beat most of those I think we can ignore them in the bluff profitablity analysis. Would you agree?

Edit: I agree he might have QJ or A5 which are ahead and not folding if we bet 600, so we should add those to the combo analysis just to be safe. Assuming he folds Q2dd before the flop.

pokertime

Given the history where he saw us check down a big hand on a scary board I think we can go $550 ish and fold out a lot like KQ and AT that was hanging on with outs more than loving their pair. Sizing may be big if he sees it as bluffing so maybe $450 is the number. We rep AK at a minimum.

DrSpace

Value bet bluff or ✔️ both seem reasonable. Villain is still uncapped on this runout and we don't want to risk too much as we are trying to fold out the (presumably large, calling in the straddle) weak part of his range like AXs, AT etc. Unless villain is the type that won't fold top pair a 70% pot bluff should show a nice profit. Would be awful to lose to KQ type hand, many combos of such weak hands.

Thehammah

this hand would come down to whether or not I think he can fold a weak ace.

if he can then i say bet close to pot. if not then I would bet much smaller. like half pot to get him to fold his missed broadways that might include a pair under the ace

Bart

DrSpace said:

Value bet bluff or ✔️ both seem reasonable. Villain is still uncapped on this runout and we don't want to risk too much as we are trying to fold out the (presumably large, calling in the straddle) weak part of his range like AXs, AT etc. Unless villain is the type that won't fold top pair a 70% pot bluff should show a nice profit. Would be awful to lose to KQ type hand, many combos of such weak hands.

How is villian uncapped? Btw this is why I hate the term “uncapped”. Not the meaning of it but because i think it is misused so much.

If he completes 35% of his range preflop and reraises with AA and QQ, and also raises off a large portion of KT by the river. If he’s uncapped here everyone is uncapped in any spot.

ohsnapzbrah

The first hand shows some trappy play syndrome rather than passivity. I wouldn't necessarily assume that he is just passive, but probably a bad player.

I don't think we should be targeting folding out a hand like A2 or A5. Imo, A5 is probably raising on the turn. AQ and AJ as well. After a tank call on the turn and given the line, he can't be too strong. A range like AK, AT, KQ, KJ, and maybe QJ.

The problem I'm running into is that we should have a ton of triple barrel value hands compared to bluffs. AA, QQ, JJ, AQ, AJs, KTs. We don't really have many bluffs, and when we have so many value hands we should bet smaller. We're trying to target a range that, while weak, is still capable of calling a small or mid sized bet.

If we bet, I'd bet $750 or so. I'm not certain he will fold the top portion of his range easily, but this bet should get him to fold the KQ, KJ, and AT portion of his range easily, and maybe a couple of AK hands.

DrSpace

Bart said:

DrSpace said:

Value bet bluff or ✔️ both seem reasonable. Villain is still uncapped on this runout and we don't want to risk too much as we are trying to fold out the (presumably large, calling in the straddle) weak part of his range like AXs, AT etc. Unless villain is the type that won't fold top pair a 70% pot bluff should show a nice profit. Would be awful to lose to KQ type hand, many combos of such weak hands.

How is villian uncapped? Btw this is why I hate the term “uncapped”. Not the meaning of it but because i think it is misused so much.

If he completes 35% of his range preflop and reraises with AA and QQ, and also raises off a large portion of KT by the river. If he’s uncapped here everyone is uncapped in any spot.

He has KT

DrSpace

DrSpace said:

Bart said:

DrSpace said:

Value bet bluff or ✔️ both seem reasonable. Villain is still uncapped on this runout and we don't want to risk too much as we are trying to fold out the (presumably large, calling in the straddle) weak part of his range like AXs, AT etc. Unless villain is the type that won't fold top pair a 70% pot bluff should show a nice profit. Would be awful to lose to KQ type hand, many combos of such weak hands.

How is villian uncapped? Btw this is why I hate the term “uncapped”. Not the meaning of it but because i think it is misused so much.

If he completes 35% of his range preflop and reraises with AA and QQ, and also raises off a large portion of KT by the river. If he’s uncapped here everyone is uncapped in any spot.

He has KT @ 12 combos less his raises-- uncapped means the nut combos are in range and play this way some reasonable percent of the time. It does not mean you have the whole spectrum of nut combos obviously. Villain should trap you a lot here. Maybe your villain would not -- thats a live decision thing. This is a passive villain from what you have shared. You don't have KT ever in his spot sure, but villain should. This is uncapped but protected is another way to put it in this context -- keeping track of who has the nuts and / or effective nuts the most. The point is the villain has a wide mostly weak range but should still be able to have the nuts so we don't want to bet too big, no overbets.

Clock

If you think V is a nit and will fold a weak Ace you can try to bomb him off of that, but you made no indication of that, so I'll assume a typical player.
As such, I wouldn't.

As a side note, this board is very scary to him you being a UTG pre-flop raiser, so I can totaly see him flatting all the way down as strong as AK (sounds like he very well might not 3bet it pre too)

I would try to get him to fold the pair+gutter part of his range (KJ, QT, KQ type of hands), so I'd bet very small..maybe 275ish.

stayinschool

I like sizing up flop and turn, and then going more reasonable on river. I think boards like this where there are a lot of pair + draws we will see villians have too many hands that they call, call, fold. I like going bigger flop and turn to build a bigger pot to win on the river with a bluff. especially because V is a rec and thinks in absolute sizing.

I think we can bet 150 flop, 450 turn and then 800 on the river. assuming V peels most pair+draws on flop and turn i think river gets through the 36% of the time we need.

maphacks

I don't get this whole post. we can either try to check it down and try to win OR we bet three streets. what we absolutely should not do is betting once or twice and then check.
I guess you did not want to overbet the turn since villain showed that he is capable of slowplaying, both pre and post, so betting a normal sizing is good (overbetting is still good OTT IMO). now obviously this villain could still have the nuts but we decided OTF that this portion of his range is probably not big enough and that barrelling has a higher EV than checking down. since our goal is not to get him off 2pair, especially when we don't overbet turn, we should bet the river with a mediocre sizing. could be half pot just to get Qx and worse to fold or close to pot to get some aces to fold. this is hard to say and we could do some combo work but it will be very inappropriate since we have no idea which kind of aces he calls pre and folds the river. I prefer a bigger bet since I want to make sure Qx folds and there is certainly a chance he folds some Ax too.

DrSpace

maphacks said:

I don't get this whole post. we can either try to check it down and try to win OR we bet three streets. what we absolutely should not do is betting once or twice and then check.
I guess you did not want to overbet the turn since villain showed that he is capable of slowplaying, both pre and post, so betting a normal sizing is good (overbetting is still good OTT IMO). now obviously this villain could still have the nuts but we decided OTF that this portion of his range is probably not big enough and that barrelling has a higher EV than checking down. since our goal is not to get him off 2pair, especially when we don't overbet turn, we should bet the river with a mediocre sizing. could be half pot just to get Qx and worse to fold or close to pot to get some aces to fold. this is hard to say and we could do some combo work but it will be very inappropriate since we have no idea which kind of aces he calls pre and folds the river. I prefer a bigger bet since I want to make sure Qx folds and there is certainly a chance he folds some Ax too.

It does not seem like a good barrel spot to me as the PFR either. Flop is close perhaps mostly give up on 5 ♦️.

Anonymous

Presumably the purpose such a small turn bet was made with the knowlege that he would c/c pr+draws and weak aces and fold to a river bomb? More standard line with range advantage on a blank turn would be a far bigger bet so assume this was part of some exploitative plan?

DrSpace

@Bart
Where is this big range advantage? After villain calls the flop and the turn it is not large. The villain is passive and tightish it seems. Villain has all the two pair combos.Villain never folds two pair plus and might be unlikely to raise them on this texture -- further, villain doesn't have AAA but certainly could have JJJ and some QQQ and probably raises them but who knows for sure. Who doesn't 4-bet AA? Villain has all the two pair combos.The villain has 12 combos of KT and won't necessarily raise that often on this texture. Even if villain raises 2/3 of the time he still has 4 combos the nuts effective. Bart has 4 combos of the nuts himself maximum if he plays it like this every time. Poker theory suggests that we don't like to put in big bets when we could be getting trapped and villain won't even fold bottom two pair. So we bet medium to large at most. I think this hand was not the best line against the described villain type. Taking this line against a villain that will raise frequently early in the hand with stronger hands makes a bit more sense. Then the villain has a weaker turn range and Bart does not. Not betting the flop that often and giving up on this turn is a better plan. Villain is clearly uncapped on the river in every sense of the term.

My original post is still on point -- what a good poker theory analysis says IMO:

Villain has KT @ 12 combos less his raises-- uncapped means the nut combos are in range and play this way some reasonable percent of the time. It does not mean you have the whole spectrum of nut combos obviously. Villain should trap you a lot here. Maybe your villain would not -- thats a live decision thing. This is a passive villain from what you have shared. You don't have KT ever in his spot sure, but villain should. This is uncapped but protected is another way to put it in this context -- keeping track of who has the nuts and / or effective nuts the most. The point is the villain has a wide mostly weak range but should still be able to have the nuts so we don't want to bet too big, no overbets.

Bart

DR Space,

I entered what I thought was an accurate range for myself in the villain in Poker Cruncher and have attached it to this post. Notice I threw in a couple of backdoor double barrels from me with picked up diamonds. The problem here though is that the 5♦ coming cuts out a lot of those (like betting flop with 56 or 45, if we open that light). I also assigned 1 combo of QQ for the straddle that doesn't 3 bet preflop, include all combos of JJ and half of AK hands. I also have him raising off 50% of all KT s by the river, but not raising off any AQ or JJ. They key here, is that he has all of his Ax, suited and offsuit by the river. And I truly believe that to be the case closing the action preflop.

The results give me an equity advantage of 73-27 on turn and river.

As far as the "capped range" discussion goes I still have a huge problem with your argument. Correct me if I am wrong but you are saying that a uncapped range = "nut combos are in range and play this way some reasonable percent of the time". It seems like you are making the assumption that this villain would reasonable slowplay with the nuts across several streets because of the HH of the AA vs KK. So if we concede to your premise does that mean, in this given configuration, (UTG vs Straddle) that the villain is always uncapped no matter what the board, because he would have some sort of reasonable percentage of slowplays with the nuts across river?

Like on a board of 652KQ.. he has some 34s completing in the straddle, so he's uncapped. Board of AAK, he may flat with AK preflop and slowplay to the river, so he's uncapped.


And probably the most similar to my hand.. a Board of 44AJ4.. Say we assume he has a TON of Ax preflop, and we have JJ.
Are we not allowed to bet huge on the river with our hand to target an Ace because the villain is uncapped (he can have a 4)?

Bart

Here are the screenshots from Cruncher:

DrSpace

It is relevant that the Villain is uncapped because he has more nut combos than you do not because he has some nut equity.
Therefore we do not overbet in this spot is what I suggested. I never said do not make a bet that would get a Q to fold or maybe a naked A. For example, in a hypothetical flush board villain having one straight flush combination may be uncapped but it is not very important if we beat all his other strong holdings.

Even with these favorable assumptions (perhaps they are correct but not what I would have guessed) villain has two pair plus -- that he isn't folding ~35% of the time if I read it correctly. If the ranges are a little different where you barrel so more single paired A or other combos that have some equity (that you might do in the moment as described) and villain folds his weaker off suit A combos at some frequency -- also very likely -- things get worse for you. I also did not assume you play your value hands exactly this way. I do not see you betting half pot with nutty combos on the flop for example. I think you have a weaker range with these bet sizes on average. I also think you might bet bigger on the turn with sets and straights. That may or may not matter depending on how the villain perceives you. Maybe I am wrong, but analysis depends on detailed assumptions. You made range assumptions for both yourself and the villain and get a big equity advantage. The hand could play out in a lot of ways. If these ranges are correct it seems like it seems like you should bet like you did if villain folds an A enough; villain almost always has an A or better. You literally have zero showdown value and bottom of your range suggesting a bluff candidate combination. Whether the bluff is profitable will depend on assumptions and as I think we agreed upon its not unreasonable to bet roughly pot. It is also reasonable to give up on the turn vs such a strong range for a rec player that might not fold top pair enough.

In the appropriate spirit of CLP, we want to exploit anyway. Who cares what our river equity is, we can play our exact combo in a vacuum. A better question might be how much do we bet with JJ, QQ and AA given these assumptions? We can always bet fold safely and two pair plus calls -- that let's us exploit freely. Then we only have to worry about villain's exact number of relative nutty combos as a percentage of his range. That is the essence of live poker, we can often play our exact combination vs a well defined villain range and known tendencies.

As far as you comments:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
As far as the "capped range" discussion goes I still have a huge problem with your argument ...
uncapped range = "nut combos are in range and play this way some reasonable percent of the time".
Like on a board of 652KQ.. he has some 34s completing in the straddle, so he's uncapped. Board of AAK, he may flat with AK preflop and slowplay to the river, so he's uncapped. "
@@@@@@@@@@@


This technically means the villain is uncapped yes, that is what the language means to my understanding. It is not an argument. Cap is the top of something. It means they have the top combinations (that are possible given the assumptions to the point in the hand)
in their range at that point. For example, in a limped pot we might assume that no one ever has AA and on A62 board, then 66 is the nut combination. Having 66 at this point would make you uncapped without regard to relative equity.


So language wise in the A62 example, both players are capped in an absolute sense and uncapped relative to each other if they both limp 66. If one opens 66 and the other limps 66 & 22, the person who opens 66 is capped in a limped pot.
I believe this is the standard way that the terms are used in poker theory.


Uncapped does not mean that someone necessarily has a lot of equity. This kind of thing happens in wide range situations all the time. Each situation is different. If the range is wide an weak enough we might be able to overbet even. In the case considered here, the villain has other strong combinations in his range and under-folds strong holdings.