blonde poker forum

Here is an interesting one for you all

HU in the $3k vs Brynn Kenney

Eff stacks ~14k

blinds 100/200

He raises btn to 500 I call in the BB with  Aspades 4s

Flop (1,000)  Jd 7c 3d

I check, he checks.

Turn (1,000)  Ac

I check, he checks.

River (1,000)  Ad

I bet 500, he raises to 2,400.

no history at all.

how thin has he v bet 1 pair type hands?

and is this level 1?

interesting hand.

i dont think we are good here, but he has 0 full house combos and almost 0 flush combos as I'd expect him to bet flop. I guess we should shove and he should had a non existent calling range. We can legit rep full houses and flushes. I'm not sure if 7750 is better than jamming or not.

I wanna put more than 1900 in the pot here.

Prob a thread for sickos so should prob keep out, but my 2pence worth is I cant see what hands he raises for value that beat us that he wouldn't bet on earlier streets other than Ax but there are 3 of those out, it looks like a hand with showdown value that he turned into a bluff, or thinks he can get thin value from?! call river for me

IMO Raising > Calling >= Folding

Obviously the aim in raising is NOT to get called by worse, it is to fold out his entire range including the parts of this range that beat us. We can credibly rep all full houses, and also flushes. It would make sense for us to have played a flopped set this way, because the turn card was an Ace so it is highly reasonable for us to have checked the turn after whiffing the flop c/r. No idea who this player is, but you have given his name so I assume he is some sort of well-known dude, and hence a presumed 'thinking player'. So he should be able to work out he is beaten even when he has a weirdly played trip Aces or a weirdly played flush.

Pleno and P2k responses are interesting.

When he raised my initial reaction was that he has a flush a HIGH% of the time, but I agree he literally CANNOT have a full house, it's as unlikely as anything is ever in poker.

Problem is with jamming imo, he obv knows that his range cannot include boats, so theoretically he shouldn't EVER raise/fold a flush although he would havee to give me credit for knowing this which IDK if he would as we have literally played less than 15 hands at this point. I'm assuming ofc, that we're jamming as a bluff, no-one thinks we should jam for value?

What do we think of a chk/raise OTR btw? it flashed through me head in game...can you see him betting anything worse than he'd call with OTR?


yes level 1. Only hand that might be relevant is a couple earlier. I open Qc 8c and he peels the BB, we check through a 3c 5c 9h flop, he leads 700 into 1k on a Js turn then bets 2.2k into 2.4k on a Tc river. I make it 5.8k and he tanks for a while and folds. I think he had a decent Jack here so there is a piece of bet-sizing info, this is early on though so expect him to be switching it up a ton.

Fwiw though I can't see any 1pair (would be 2p here) hand he can have - he can't really have a JACK, or a 7, or KK/QQ/TT and I can't see him bluffing with the worst 1(2pair) hands he has because he cannot rep any boats.


Don't worry about thread for sicko's :D What you're saying is kinda true, what value hands can he have? He can't have a boat, or a Jack+, wont value raise worse and we'd think he'd bet a FD some good% of the time and an ACE OTT almost always. But the other side to the coin is, what the hell has he gotten here with he decides he wants to bluff with. Lets suppose he has no hand at all, the best and most traditional place to bluff is on the flop, he has the betting lead and the board isn't too connected. He might opt for a delayed C-bet, in which case he hits a gin turn card to delay bluff on - as he has more Ax's than me, and a lot of legitimate hands for hi to check back OTF would be stuff like A9 etc so he could very credibly rep an ACE on the turn.

On the river however he can credibly rep really very little, so for a player of his caliber to decide now is the spot to bluff after refusing two excellent opportunities to stab at the pot previously seems VERY strange to me. With no fell for my game (I might be very tight, very loose, a massive station etc) I always feel like when stuff doesn't make sense there is usually a value bet somewhere behind it. For this reason I think calling is the worst of the three options I have.

you think calling is better than folding?

Approximately equivalent, hence the >= thing. Tbh though, when I first typed my reply out I had it as Raising > Folding > Calling. But then I changed my mind because I am a horrible station and a sucker for a price. I could very easily be re-convinced that folding > calling. But I am pretty certain that raising is a LOT better than either option.

Who is this guy BTW? It would suck if he was some old-school live pro who thinks it is good play to trap check strong hands to the river in the Chan styleeee, and then snaps you with 7s full or something.

Don't worry about thread for sicko's :D What you're saying is kinda true, what value hands can he have? He can't have a boat, or a Jack+, wont value raise worse and we'd think he'd bet a FD some good% of the time and an ACE OTT almost always. But the other side to the coin is, what the hell has he gotten here with he decides he wants to bluff with. Lets suppose he has no hand at all, the best and most traditional place to bluff is on the flop, he has the betting lead and the board isn't too connected. He might opt for a delayed C-bet, in which case he hits a gin turn card to delay bluff on - as he has more Ax's than me, and a lot of legitimate hands for hi to check back OTF would be stuff like A9 etc so he could very credibly rep an ACE on the turn.

On the river however he can credibly rep really very little, so for a player of his caliber to decide now is the spot to bluff after refusing two excellent opportunities to stab at the pot previously seems VERY strange to me. With no fell for my game (I might be very tight, very loose, a massive station etc) I always feel like when stuff doesn't make sense there is usually a value bet somewhere behind it. For this reason I think calling is the worst of the three options I have.
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would he do this with something like 99-TT that he a) might get you to lay down Jx or even Ax or b) Level you into calling with 7x or 88 something like that, or is that really crazy :)

I usually see this completely the other way round... if it makes no sense I always suspect a bluff.

ohh that's what >= means lol. Never was good with maths, I still get confused with which way round the < > < > thingys go :D

Brynn Kenny = won a lot of money at a lot of different types of poker. Id be very surprised if he isn't extremely extremely good. Defo not the type of player you described I think it's safe to assume he has a boat here once in 2,500 times (if that :D)

Yh well, If I could think of any thing he value raises that's worse, or is bluffing with id happily have calling > folding (that's the right way yh?) but as I can't for me I think folding > calling....

mmmm yh, in a lot of spots I guess you're prolly correct, thing is with good players who are well aware when they are making no sense whatsoever it just always seems like they wouldn't risk taking completely bizarre bluff-lines into reasonably uncapped (albeit quite wide for value) ranges without a good hand. Could well be wrong though everyone is up to mischief all the time in these silly tournaments.

hes never ever raising Jx on the river as a bluff, nor 9's or 10's.

I have no idea who is right or wrong here. All I know is that a lot of 'good' players seem to believe they can get away with trying to run over their opponents in spots where they rep very thin value ranges. It's like they have such little respect for their opponents that they think they don't need to rep anything, they just expect their opponent to fold anything but a really strong hand. And they often get away with this against weak opponents who only consider the strength of their own hand. Presumably he would not do this if he knew his opponent was a strong thinking player... but he's probably heard of you and so knows you're just a weak-tight scared money type lol ;)

BK is a tourny sicko fwiw.

mmmmmmm. interesting ideas.

I mean, he certainly could, and it's some creativity he is most defo capable off. However, I think he'd bet the flop a LOT with 99/TT? He could defo be planning on showing a hand like those down and then when I bet realize he can't call and go for quite a cheap bluff. Problem he has is that I CAN have full houses, and he can't, which makes it quite a tough spot for him to bluff in, and a pretty bad one at that, I think he has to respect my range and fold those hands OTR.

Also I'm not sure he would expect me to bet a 7x or 88 all that often, in fact if he gives me some credit he'll prolly realize I'm betting them near enough never and very good players like him don't try to affect the "levels" with no history. So I think he couldnt realistically expect a "merge" (folding better and called from worse with the same bet) to work here ever. I think if he thinks I am betting 7x/88 here then TT has a pretty easy call.

haha yh, eeeeezzzzzzzz lil dave monies up for grabs. TBH he's prolly 1,000,000 to have heard of me, I don't talk about 3 or 4betting at the tables or have a ridic expensive watch - I was however wearing a bright yellow hoody, am pale, look about 17 and needs glasses, usually the look of someone who has played a decent+ amount of internet poker :D

I agree that 'good' players do this - like EXACTLY what we discussed recently, however we're not dealing with a 'good' player here, we're dealing with a legitimately excellent player.

Fair play if you say this guy is excellent. The thing is though... he has not taken a very 'excellent' line. I can't really think of any value hand that a legitimately excellent player would/should play this way. When it is very unlikely that a player is making a bad bluff or is spazzing, but EXTREMELY unlikely that he has any sort of value hand... well then the bluff/spazz becomes the most likely. Which is why I ended up deciding that calling was marginally better than folding. Like I said though, I am far from 100% in my mind about this.

I think checking the flop with some FD's would be quite a nice play here tbh. however I'm not totally convinced that checking the TURN with them would be all that great, unless it was Kd Xd which I think would be ok/maybe even best idk.

Yep checking the flop with some % of your flush draws is a really good play that very few players do. It means your checking back range is uncapped if the turn/river brings a flush. It is also incredibly tricky and you deserve a medal if you manage to make a flush after checking back the flop. It might seem counter-intuitive, but probably the best flush draw hands to check back are some of your nut FDs, as opposed to your baby FDs. They have showdown value etc.

yh agreed, with K or A high diamonds he could well find himself in a decent bluff-catching spot later on in the hand.

Come on Dave, time to post results of this hand.

I folded.

Initial reaction was to Jam, however I didn't know how much credit he would give me, I think if he gives me credit for knowing what I actually know then he won't be folding a flush and I honestly felt like it was the most likely thing he had.

Fish. You need to grow a pair ;)

haha yep, no balls :)up

Only read OP but I'd fold.

I assume that he perceives you as an unknown, in which case its perfectly reasonable for him to take this line with an Ace. He's obv smart enough to know that when you check here you are almost never checking to fold. Your range is almost entirely weak-ish showdown value (you just happen to have the top of that range) and I think vs that range he does better by checking here and raising river because most randoms will just call because they think that when he checks back turn and raises river he doesn't rep anything. If he bets turn you are almost always going to c/c c/f.

I think raising/jamming here is absolute suicide. No way he gives you credit for being able to resist betting a flush draw or a hand better than his on the turn. If you are unknown to him I think he's going to expect you to bet Ax/sets/2prs/FDs on this turn almost 100% of the time. He is also well aware that the vast majority of people will view this river bet as him repping absolutely nothing and in those kind of spots, tend to find the button in the middle a fair amount.

In my experience I'd say that in these spots where people know that they are likely to be perceived to be repping nothing they have it more often than not.

Also I've never actually spoken to him but from his online persona I'd say he is far more likely to just play a standard aggro strategy and not get out of line too much because he feels like he has a big edge anyway. Obv you can't know this at the time though.

This is the kind of guy we're dealing with:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/61/mtt-community/scoop-bets-1183840/

this

This is not at all true IMHO. It is perfectly consistent/reasonable/likely for hero to have checked the turn with a big hand. And the reason for this is because the turn card is an Ace. For example, if hero flopped a set he would obviously be planning on betting the turn once he'd whiffed the flop check-raise. But when an Ace hits the turn he would likely change his plan and go for a delayed check-raise. This is, of course, because the Ace hits villain's perceived range well, and thus it is a card that villain is going to make a delayed cbet on very often. If a complete rag had come on the turn then I agree hero cannot rep very much by 3betting the river, but on this particular board run out hero can rep all the full houses.

If anyone should not be given credit for being able to resist betting a good hand on this turn card... it is villain, not hero. Hero can credibly be going for a check-raise on the turn, villain cannot. So, when villain checks back he doesn't get much credit from me for having a strong hand like two pair/a set, nor even usually a FD for that matter (although I concede villain can have a FD here sometimes).

What this means is that when we get to the river hero's range is still nutted, yet villain's absolutely is not. When this occurs, it does not matter how great a player villain is nor what level he is capable of thinking on ... if he puts himself in a situation where we are able to take a big position against him then there is nothing he can do about it. Villain is quite entitled to go for thin value with, say, trips Aces by raising our river bet. But once he gets 3bet he should be folding his entire range. No amount of levelling can change the fact that we are nutted here, and there is not a thing he can do about it.

Seriously Dan, put yourself in villain's shoes and imagine you have somehow got to the river with trip Aces. Let's give you ATo. You decide to raise the river donk for value, thinking you are likely to get called by worse cos you have played it weirdly etc. When that big 3bet comes back at you are you seriously telling me you're doing anything other than folding? I think you are folding, and moreover I think that you should be folding. It is all very well thinking "Wow, I am almost at the top of my range here and my opponent knows I am capped and so could be making a big move on me". But this still does not mean it is a call if your opponent's range is nutted, and Lil'Dave's range clearly is in this spot.

Edited to say: If villain does not give hero credit for being good enough to check the turn with a set/two pair, then he is definitely not going to give hero credit for being able to 3bet bluff the river to exploit villain's capped range.

If this was event 3 then he has heard of you now as I guess you beat him on your way to the money  ;D

gg from lil d