blonde poker forum

Firstly I'd like to say thanks to blonde, its mods and all its posters.. I have been using the site for a while (without being active) and enjoying/ learning and discussing it most days.. with blonde's and non blonde's alike.

Now down to business and its my first post so please be gentle.. (also been playing since 1pm yest and just driven home so might ramble)

Live 1/2 uncapped DTD

We have £400ish (in for £500 Villain is unaware of this) - he covers.  I'll keep names out of it at the moment, this is to check both our lines and my thought process during the hand.. results once a few people have put 'their' ranges up.

7 handed
Villain in question is 'new' to the table, a well known winning DTD reg and we believe a good hand reader both pre and post flop.

Having been called over by another DTD reg villain sits with 600ish

We have the big black thing with the word 'BUTTON' on it (think it means raise in some foreign language) and Villain is in the seat to our right..
We have NO history with villain and no hands..

We have played very few hands in 5-10 orbits and had a few 'decisions' to make, having the clock called in one spot where we played AA's terribly.. n didn't stack KK (nother story).  However the three seats to our right contain 3 DTD 'regs' I believe all winning and we're rather sure they're friendly in the least.  So them passing on any information about us having seen so few flops and appearing quite nitty (cos we was being a nit) are likely to have been passed on.  Potentially that we're 'scared money' and that big bets scare us..

Knowing that Villain is a winning DTD reg in the 1/2's and believe also in the 2/5 we expect him to be thinking about both our hand and what his looks like at all stages.  We don't expect him to spazz or blowup but establishing a table presence when he has pos on who I think he considers to likely be the 'other best players' is more than probable imo.



Hand is as follows..

V opens CO to £7
We 3bt BTN to £19, fold sb, fold bb
V smoothly but not to quick or slowly 4bts to £45
we take 20-30secs or so and slide in some betting discs to match him..

(At this point we aren't surprised to see a 4bt, and we definitely don't think he just has the top few hands)


FLOP
Ad 5h 2s  (suits might be wrong but no biggy)

V cbet of £55, we take our time and call


TURN
Qc think it is still rainbow but I might be wrong about this..

V takes his time, looks us up and down.. as we look at the board and then bets £102

We take a bit more time and put in a £100 and a £2.


River

Qs

V swiftly announces an 'All In' bet..





What I'd like to discuss is the likely ranges for both players at each point.. arriving at reasonable bluff/ value ranges given no history, no reason to think either is spewy or out of line and only some limited information that may or may not have been passed on that we seem on the snugger side of things.. possibly even scared money.


I will now sleep and deliberate some more myself on this and post my own reads/ ideas/ ranges and 'plan' for the hand both pre and post (there was a plan with our hand) when I awaken.


I would appreciate all comments/ criticism's about both the hand and the post itself (have to learn somehow).


Thanks,

JB

Unless i've missed it somehow, did you really manage to write all that and at not one point mention the hand you had? :P

So you asking us to put you both n a range? And then asking us how we will play each street according to our range? With no information about much?

The only thingi can comment on is you saying they may think you are scared money? I dont think i hear people say that much tbf. Out leveling yourself probably.

Hi Mate, welcome to PHA.

Unfortunatley I can't help you here, you're basically asking me to say what I'd expect someone who I don't know to 4bet against the 3bet of someone I don't know either, and then to try and figure out what hands I'd do what with down the streets, it's almost impossible to answer without complete guesswork, and If i was somehow able to answer this then the information I give you would be kind of pointless because no doubt me and you have different styles and different images.

What I would do If I were you, is explain the hand, what you had and breifly describe some game flow and table dynamics you think are relevant with your thought processes and we'll try pick up some errors/good points for analysis - the villain doubtless posts on blonde (there is no chance he'll come ITT and say why he does what with X hand) but there is a good chance he'll pop into the thread and provide some imparshal advice as he will be the best for it as he was there and will have a proper grasp on the table flop at that point.

Would steer clear of these "what is your range in XY spot" threads unless it's a pretty simple MTT spot as it's just too hard to answer.

Hope this helps

David

Depends really.

Was villain eating 3 meals at the time?

Or did he look like a cross schoolboy who'd just had his lunch money stolen?

Or was he so large that he took up two spots, yet played less hands than 3 ultra nits combined?

If it was A, snap him and his pudding off otr with Jack high.

If it was B, then a strong Ace is a massive part of his range, I'd only walk down the streets with him light if there were serious dynamics. I.e. I don't envisage him bluffing this spot with zero info on his villain. Therefore only calling river with Qx, AK. Your ahead of not much else.

If it was C then fold pre as he never bets that flop with less than AA.

Great poast.

LilDave got me to accept "speshly" & "prolly", now he's widened his range to include "imparshal".

I think I'm falling for him.

I thought "imparshal" was particularly vomit-inducing.

Sure,

I guess no info on hands was because I wanted to try to 'rep' the top of my range.. and as such to tell in you I had the  Qh and a  Td is obv bad right from the off.  I wanted to see what people would think about what he will do with his value 4bts which could possibly be as wide as 10's+ AJs+ - esp vs a btn 3bt..?  IMO you only need to throw a few '4bt bluffs' like a 56s or Axs for this to become an easy call pre with any two vs someone who is thinking enough to fold a real hand against an unknown.  (or maybe we're just trying to be a 'hero'..)

I decided to flat the 4bt because I think he is likely to assume that I will 5bt all my AA, KK, QQ, AK type hands initially.. but then I want to use my post flop action to make him realise that I wouldn't in this spot and that by the river I will basically have no value hand worse than AK..

tbh on the river I actually expect him to be cf everything except AK and AA exactly.. optimistic?

When I flat the flop I think we can both still have lots of hands.. Axx r is no excuse for either of us to fold a pair to one bet.  I give him credit for being able to barrell 2 streets with KK although obv he shouldn't be doing this all the time, esp vs an unknown in 4bp.

On the flop I've called because I think that AK is such a small part of his range, that by the river I think I should be able to make him fold the other 90%..  I would even suggest that he will flat AK pre some times as he will expect me to 'bluff' those cards should I not have a value hand.. and if I do have a value hand I 'could' 5bt big to make life hard for him (probably wouldn't though as said above).

On the turn he now "can't" have QQ as we have the blocker and I think our range looks exactly like AK, AQ.. would make sense that we might not want to 5bt a hand like this in pos and risk a 6bt for our stacks when 250bb deep.  We don't make any 'snap' actions in order to rep thinking about all the hands we could have (nuts and nothings) plus we would do this with value as we'd need to think about how to play the hand vs a competent villain.


And then well.. we flat the turn and we just bink what we needed to get a W.. so happy days and we snap his river shove.. with the best hand.  To say Villain wasn't happy is a little understatement..  But isn't our line really nutted?  Should I post his hand yet? or can we discuss my line vs his likely 4bt range/ play first?

John

Out leveling yourself ITT.

Nice river! You probably picked the nut low hand to defend with but hey.

I personally woould hope he had AQ so I didn't have to show.

QTo just flops terribly, and relying on making someone fold is definitively a bad thing, especially when the person in question is prob the best player on the table. You have a SPR of like 4, good luck getting someone off AK in a 4bet pot with a ace on the board, esp when he probably value shoved it at the end lol. Lots of FPS itt

agreed. Is it Mitch btw?

FPS doesn't usually work on Mitch. He's on level one mate. Seriously.

Stato

I bet he gave you (john) a really patronising look of bemusement and anger as you scooped the pot. it's the look that says "what the fuck are you doing".

As previously stated.. he definitely doesn't always have AK here.. and I don't expect him to always fold it.. but I also don't expect him to check snap the river when I'm pretty nutted here.

The main part of the point in question is that I think he should be struggling to play this river with anything except AK, AA.. i.e. what does Stato do here with KK, JJ, AJ and lower ranked hands.. I would be suprised if he does anything but check fold.. - obv I was 'think' shoving any river.. same as I would do with all my value hands.

I realise theres a teeny tiny bit of levelling ITT.. and you're right, the SPR of 4 probably makes it an 'abort' from the off..

I just don't see him flatting most of his range pre vs me in this spot.

crazy?

QTo is pretty much the worst possible hand to defend with, and attempting a multi street float with an SPR of 4 is pretty fps. I guess floating the flop is OK as it will put the villain in a tricky spot on the turn with the lower end of his range, not a big fan of the turn tho. That card actually hits your range pretty hard imo (ur hand looks quite a lot like it could be AQ and villain still wants to bet after you've called the A52r flop so is pretty unlikely to be light here unless hes just trying to barrel u off a float. Wouldn't call the turn just because we've got a pair now.

River was played well.

Also the sizings in the HH are a bit wrong. It was 7 -> 19 -> 48 pre and 42 on the flop. Don't suppose that matters a massive amount. Would also 3bet bigger pre if were gonna as we would want to make it bigger with value hands imo. Probably wouldn't 3bet pre anyway as villain is likely opening hella wide in the spot, may as well keep in T6s, Q8o etc, also let the fish in blinds peel with Q4 and T5, they are the value here. A decent villain is not gonna peel OOP with many hands that are not going to cause you problems to play against.

FWIW my stereotyping of u after a few hands was that you were far more likely to attempt to try and do something a bit crazy here than be scared money. No real reasoning for that, just a bit of a hunch from some of things you were saying. My advice would be to just keep quiet about somethings. I mean be chatty or w/e at the table that's good but I'd only been at the table 4 hands, and was already aware that you knew who Alex was, and therefore there was a decent chance you knew who I was, and also you called it a 3bet rather than a backraise! Dont let anyone know that you know a bit about what you are talking about, decent players will use all the information available to them, and after 4 hands, stereotyping u is all they've got. If you don't give them anything to go on, they have absolutely nothing, whereas you know a bit more about me, use that edge.

 Stereotyping is a pretty important tool in live poker imo. For example, had you kept totally quiet about poker, not said a word, played no hands until u 3bet, peeled a 4bet, and floated the A52r, I've got no reason not to check fold KK on the turn or w/e. If I know you are here to play the game, my perception of the likelihood of you floating is far higher.

I think you thinking villain thinks you are scared money is mainly just u levelling urself tbh.

PS Walster given credit as a winning reg ITT

PPS Yeah he got the look lol :) At least you got 800 quid for it though!

PPPS Feel free to give me your own look when you win a pot off me Al :)

Esp as i heard hero talk about sitting at the 2/5 table earlier on in the night, can't remember which table this was but Stato easily could have guessed. Generally youngish twenty somethings are solid and not scared money...

Stato_1?

Norrrr can't be, what's with the min 4b pre? To me it makes you look strong trying to keep his range wide.

My own opinion. Versus an unknown with zero history, I don't see any reason why he'd min4ball <TT, or A2s/A5s. Ip I could see it.

So when the turn bet comes, a really good ace is a large section of his range. Checks TT/JJ/KK after the flop flat. Fires with QQ/AQ/AK/AA, and the very small amount of semi bluffs he has left, AJs/ATs/KJs/KTs etc

Because of zero dynamics vs this particular villain, this kind of makes the river more of a sigh flick it in for me rather than a fistpump snap his face off call.

If I was hero and didn't know that Stato_1 was a world class 6max player I might struggle to call otr.

Hero's play is very Meh, even though he's a good friend. :p

Your perceived range is massively capped at big aces exactly by the time you call the turn, as you will have raised 2pr/sets by now. (I only make this statement due to a large history with Hero.)

Unless you've developed a nuts calling range in the last month or so?! Oh the levels are so exciting!

min 4bet would be 31, i made it 48


LOOL quoted to avoid deletion

doesn't avoid mocking though!

also,


hardly differentiates him from anyone else in the world does it :P

What? Was is correct.

I would have typed 'is', but you lost, so how crap must you be! Maybe world class is too much spin.

I stand by my opinion that the 4ball is pretty small vs an unknown, making your range look real strong.

To me it just looks like the perfect size to take back the initiative since so many people in these games would then insta-spaz with their value hands.. making it 120 so he can play his whole range perfectly.

I think the 4bt size is very well chosen for both value hands, keeping me in and also marginal/ bluff hands for allowing him to take the initiave and maybe even the pot down cheaply.

Thanks a lot Andy for your post, I really appreciate it.. you're absolutely correct about me and my big mouth.. can't help myself some times.  But I now see the hand very differently when I look through your eyes.

I guess the scared money stuff was just self-levelling.. I am currently on level 22 but struggling with enough exp to reach 23.  Can't kill the dam troll at the end of the maze.

I would like to ask you what you think villain is going to do with EVERYTHING else except AK/ AA in this spot (we're assuming he never has a Q as thats too sick to contemplate)??

We all know Alex because he's "that rude posh boy innit". :D



Going out to see Sherlock Holmes, gota admit i'll be keeping an eye on this while in the cinema. UL again sir, the douche on my left reminding the whole table of the hand to make me look bad because ive reprimanded him in the past was horrible for you.

And I will obviously give you the same look, maybe even a mini blowup.. because if a world class 6maxing stato whose a countdown champion of all time, apparently runs good in meal flips and just wins for fun.. well if he did that to me. I'd feel a little sick - minimum.

wow this is all very complex lol, are we playing ego games here or are we trying to make money?

You've picked quite a bad hand to 3bet in deep full ring holdem imo, this would be an ok 3bet online and 6max because it would be terrible to flat with it, here however you can merrily call, see a flop vs two weak blinds and a guy opening half the deck in position. If you're going to make a loose defend of a 4bet (your reasons for flatting a non premium range are fine fwiw) you really need something that flops better than QTo, which is why (again) if you're going to make complex fancy plays like this you need to be 3betting slightly better hands.  Jd 7d,  7h Th,  and so on would be ideal hands. If you're going to do anything but fold QTo a small 5bet is a better vacuum play imo - still dislike it a lot in this exact spot.

pretty sure almost his entire range, air and value now cbets this board, including KK/QQ/JJ, I don't like the flaot personally, as your range is just FULL of bluff catchers and his has nut hands, if he has air here he's likely to barrel off and thats a pretty horrible spot when you're ACTUALLY bluff catching without too much info, nevermind when you're only repping a bluff catcher. by the turn you actually HAVE a bluff catcher now and your life still sucks as you now 100% cannot bluff in this hand anymore as the only hand you can take him off is KK and you're going to get bluffed on the river quite a bit imo. (i'd be folding a lot)

I think this is just overly fancy tbh, you've basically made a big pot with a bad hand and attempted to rep the top of a range weaker than you're opponents, I really hate getting out of line in spots where you have a weaker range throughout the hand and when you try to rep the top of that range you have such few combo's that you're now very polarised and quite easy to exploit/bluff catch vs.

Yeah keep the fish in. Probs the most important thing itt.

Didn't care about the guy tbf. He was needling u not me lol!!

Also didn't think that u had a big mouth at all, its good to talk, and I definitely talk at the table quite a bit, but just realise what is relevant to the game and don't giVe away too much of that

Pretty much echo everyones sentiments on here. QT is definately in a group of nut worst hands to attempt this 'plan' with. Really really dont like your plan in this hand fwiw, seems massively spewy to decide to take a massively high-variance, questionable 'repping bluff catchers' line in a 4-bet pot against a player you have already identified as one of the few players in the club to be a very thinking player and unlikely to make mistakes.

Also think the 4-bet sizing is fine, personally would make it a little more (would use this sizing online, but I don't allow myself that much room for balancing my range, as do my best to play vs non-thinking players [Alex, Mitch etc] most of the time).

Another point of note, I would try and be a bit more concise and clear in future posts, seems like your posts are full of FPS wording too trololololl... i see what you were trying to do in the OP, but it does make it very difficult to follow.

fyp

Re: the 4bet sizing, I thought you would be expecting me to 4bet light often, and anticipated that you would probably adjust to this by 5 betting. The sizing was based on your  stack size, was planning to 6bet  shove so wanted to choose an amount where you would 5bet bluff to the largest amount i could induce and then you would fold to the shove. 49 is ok for this as thought you would make it maybe 105 in response, but maybe 51-52 actually does  a better job of this and you could make it slightly more then fold. Don't really care too much if you peel, felt I would have your peeling range pretty locked up with AK

Just like to point out that I think on level one, to stay one step ahead of the regs.

Thankyou.

I appreciate everything everyone has posted, about the OP itself, I just copy n pasted the template and changed each bit for the actual content.  I'm guessing any future PHA's will likely be simpler and require less hiding my poor and obviously FPS attempts.

It's not meant to be an Ego war, more that I thought it would be an interesting spot when I have a lot of information on the villain and he doesn't have any clue who I am.

About the hand itself, I've noticed no one has even mentioned the possibility that Stato is 4betting light..? or how this hand would play out if he was... REMEMBER this was the reason for the entire hand in the first place.. if we knew when we'd make three ladies, we'd be Mitch, right?
(If I understand Prose of a Poshboys profile of said genius).

How do we think the hand plays if Stato doesn't have the A and the K..? Obv he did this time.. and like he said, the 4bt was so obviously setting up a stacks 6bt that calling pre will make the hand very hard for him post flop if he doesn't make a pair.. (doesnt the Q10 lend itself well to boards that he will 'rep with equity' on..??)  My thinking was that even a J72 flop will be hard for him to win long term imo.  He even mentioned himself in this session a certain person he's played with that used to peel too much to his raises but over a long long time has changed their default pre-flop strategy to now counter his aggressive play better.

I also agree with the change in hands to 3bt pre.. had this been  Qh Th then i think it might even be criminal not to 3b since the blinds will call more often than they should and should villain decide to try and resqueeze once they call then we can either peel in pos again or make a big 5bt (since his 4b will have to be bigger) to really rep a monster.

I'm also wondering why at no point anyone has mentioned that there isn't any point in me 5bt-ing KK or AA or AK here when villain either has a value hand we will likely stack anyways, or has a bluff - in which case we will only lose any future moneyz he would like to donate.

Also, Stato - what is your plan if you don't make a pair?? (or some of it..)

you're thinking is pretty good but you're kind of muddling a few things up imo. "what if X doesn't happen, what if Y does etc"

WHat you should be thinking about is his range and his range when he 4bets OOP is pretty strong (assuming he doesn't make a habbit of 4betting wildly in 9handed fishfests) so what you're doing, regardless of all the fancy plans you might have is playing a hand his range crushes in an inflated pot? I mean I just don't know why we'd do that, when we can not do it and not doing it doesn't risk 800 of our pounds oop repping a range we don't even have and if we did would be under it vs his range vs one of only 3 people at the table who even know these words exist?

Posts like this just show how players in Cody's entourage like Dave really are talented poker minds.

tbh it was an experiment.. its the first time ive encountered a situation where I feel I know a lot about one player, have position on him, good stacks and he knows little or nothing about me.  I wanted to use my hand reading and position to play this hand in position with a player who is good enough to fold if he only makes one pair.. if he does.

I am well aware that I dont have an optimum hand for it but its also not going to be a situation that might arise anytime soon and within a few orbits he is likely to have a better built image of me to use to counter the knowledge I have on him, might even be an edge for a while.

It's lil'dave right? Do you really think his range is really that strong when he raises late pos and gets 3bt by the btn 'unknown' then decides to take the pot hu with the initiative?  I'm not saying he would 4bt everything.. but I think he's going to prefer to have the initiative since he doesnt have position and he has no information..

obviously this is a FPS hand that got me a W and some £'s.. it might create some levelling in the future for the players witness to it or aware of who I am but he is going to need to have a premium + hit/ find a safe board to win this hand I feel.. which was the point preflop..


Would you guys be 5bt-ing premiums in my spot, or is peeling everything to the 4bt going to be better (imo) long term???




We have to remind ourselves that he opened the CO to 2 known fish and 1 unknown btn player.. I really dont think his range has to be that strong at all tbh..

yes it is, and hello :)

I'm all for these experimental type plays, it's defo advisable to try new stuff out. However this sounds to me (and again only my opinion) like a kind of misguided experiment (no dig at all I conduct these on a regular basis and get slammed by my friends for them generally :D) the main reason I think it's misguided is you're kind of saying that you think you have a small edge should a certain spot crop up, you vs Stato in a pot together because you know quite a bit about him and he knows nothing about you, this is true, and should the spot come up I think you'd have a big advantage there, imo this ISNT that spot and you've kind of created needlessly, and you're putting yourself in a rele high V, spewy spot as a result.

on his range, I'd personally expect him to be SUPER strong here, he knows nothing about you, doesn't know if youre a huge whale or if you beat 25/50 on iPoker, if you're likely to 5bet light, peel 4bets, knowing what I know of Andy spose he opened  Qh 6h, and got 3bet in this spot, he'd just fold because whats the need of getting into a spot with terrible visibility with a trashy hand? Sure throw some air in, but given the way those games are, any non reg on reg 4bets you must give credit for being strong imo, I'd go as far to say in this spot Andy is about 98% value heavy, but again I might be wrong and I'm purely going with my instincts on the spot.

as for what you should be 5betting I think it's a very good idea to flat everything with stacks as they are. However, in a vacuum because of what I think above ^ i'd 5bet AA, KK, QQ for sure because i think he has a hand almost always.

burn goulder

i thought this was a fun experiment, because it's exactly the kind of FPS levelling ego wars I get into playing live cash as well.

trust me (not for poker knowledge of live cash...i'm fairly tez at it, but for experience) this just costs money long term and not even just little money, but bags of it. But I guess you learned that by now :D

more of this discussion in pha pls. good stuff.

fantastic first ever post by JB btw, set the standards v early.

What I'd like to discuss is the likely ranges for both players at each point.. arriving at reasonable bluff/ value ranges given no history, no reason to think either is spewy or out of line

My first thought on villains range was that it's very AK-heavy by the river so I'd call with that and anything that beats that. I can't imagine him tripling as a bluff on this runout as you should have AK in your range as well. I doubt he's barrelling worse for value either; his range should be AK, AA, AQ and QQ, and I imagine all those hands play all those streets the same way, for the most part, so AK is the most likely hand combinatorically.

I call preflop with some non-premium hands but I fold the flop unless I've connected in some way.

This thread has made my head hurt and my eyes sore.

You kids are all crazy.

It's okay to 3 bet fold, people don't think less of you for it.