blonde poker forum

Table '612020018 9' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: rubenrtv (105712 in chips)
Seat 2: bullyon (78554 in chips)
Seat 3: Gigacide (104250 in chips)
Seat 4: blinchik (52268 in chips)
Seat 5: Skilled G (281364 in chips)
Seat 6: anneka_15 (64224 in chips)
Seat 7: stato_1 (146194 in chips)
Seat 8: g0epr0 (89681 in chips)
Seat 9: BizBills (254554 in chips)
rubenrtv: posts the ante 400
bullyon: posts the ante 400
Gigacide: posts the ante 400
blinchik: posts the ante 400
Skilled G: posts the ante 400
anneka_15: posts the ante 400
stato_1: posts the ante 400
g0epr0: posts the ante 400
BizBills: posts the ante 400
BizBills: posts small blind 2000
rubenrtv: posts big blind 4000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to stato_1 [Th Ts]
bullyon: raises 4000 to 8000
Gigacide: folds
blinchik: folds
Skilled G: folds
anneka_15: folds
stato_1: ???

Guy is good winning reg
Thoughts?

looks pretty similar to this:

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=58552.0

Although the few less bb's makes it more awkward imo. I think fold or 3b/f is better in this scenario with the few less bb effective. (think we do horrible vs his 4b jam range) He can still be opening some random ATs/AJs stuff like that people dont like to just open fold these very often. Think i 17420/fold in game.

Calling doesnt seem all that appealing vs a winning reg harder to outplay post with the effective stacks even with position.

Think 17420/fold is slightly better than just folding, but I may be wrong

You have to call, got enough chipolatas.
not familiar at all with this level buy in
But to 3b his open you are folding to a 4b on his perceived range?
what's the tables image to him here? will it look like your iso'in to stop the blinds jumping in?
if table dynamics has been rather nitty and no one is calling opens or 3b I see alot of decent players exploiting UTG just to have a stronger perceived range.
If he flatted pre what would you do?

all in all if you're just not liking this spot then call for the gamble and ping top set on a T high rainbow
if you're 3b I'd make it 18k+ with the intention of calling a shove.

Hate 3 bet/folding.

And I hate these spots. I usually end up calling and then not knowing what to do post. Think you can just fold and not tell anyone.

Tens feels like the line too cos I probs 3 bet/call jacks

3b 18k call.  Even if behind just bink and crush whole tournament.

Good winning reg should be fairly wide utg with antes and will know you know that surely?

Don't think he will be too wide with 20 bigs

He's probs raise folding some hands though

20 is still fine to raise fold, surely?  Would assign a much stronger range with 10 or 15?

Raise to 18 to make him think he has fold equity.

I think this is a better stack size to do this than the other linked example. 

I'd 3/bet call and invariably lose.

Major leak in my game, I think folding is fine v this guy.

I think it has to be a choice between folding and 3 bet calling.
I haven't played at these stakes so i'm purely speculating.
I would say that, the tighter that you perceive villian's opening range to be, the more you should be inclined to fold. Do you have any info/stats?
If you think that he's raising 10% and 4 betting 5%, then i would say it's definitely a 3 bet call.
I think it's pretty close, and very much villian dependent, but, unless he has a very tight opening range, it's a 3 bet call for me.
Good one Stato.

trivial 3bet /call gets trickier with 88

3bet/calling is a losing play here for sure. lol at 3b/calling 88.

Vs a random good reg without anymore info definitely 3b/c here, think 99 is fun, sigh fold 88 without anymore info on villain. Hate 3b/f, and hand is too strong to be peeling.

it might be down the gala in a £30f

why are you so sure about this being a losing play? what stakes do you play online usually?

if your image is pretty loose, id favour 15,500 as a betsize as it could induce spazzy jams or get AQ to fold as that's a good result for us, or even induce rubernrtv to jam behind, if you've been pretty solid its gonna be tough to get it in dominating but 3b/c is still the best option
available in this tournament in my experience. The fact that there are only 2 3betjam stacks to get through widens his range up enough to make 3b/call profitable here.

In a different tourney I could see myself folding here. Unless your aim by calling is to induce behind, depending on gameflow then i hate the peel.

oi oi Triggggar.

FWIW, i am 3b/calling but I am a fish who used to be able to play at these levels

15999/call as default folding to biz and visser if they wake up behind

I'm sure you wouldn't have been on too many tables by this time so gameflow is hugely important rather than deciding from a HH

I agree that gameflop would be pretty important.

I feel like alot of you have jumped on the 3b/call wagon without actually considering his 4b jam range.

I think his opening range is gona be like 88+ ATs+ AQo+ KQs (hes opened UTG off 20bigs, gota be pretty strong right, player dependant obv this might be a little tighter/wider than some but looks like a fair range)

I think his 4b jamming range is gona be TT+ AK, stove how well TT does vs that range.

I personally think 3b/c is the worst option. I understand that some people don't think we should ever 3b/f value hands, I used to think the same but there are definitely situations you can do it now. This being one of them, when you actually think about his ranges and how we do against them. I think if your contemplating 3b/calling 88-99 here your just mental. Im not happy about 3b/calling JJ but I prob just about do it.

you've given him a crazy tight opening range utg into these stacks in this 500f

the range youve assigned is exactly the reason he can be pretty wide here

3b/c > fold > peel > 3b/f for me

A 4b shove will be roughly 62k into 42k and we will have ~35% equity vs villain's shoving range (which I agree with Tom will be roughly TT+ AK with maybe AQs?) so the call after 3betting is -EV in a vacuum. It might be a 3b/c in some Nash equilibrium strategy but I don't think we need to get into that in the Sunday 500. Any argument for 3b/f TT is an equally good argument for 3b/f any 2 cards, which may or may not be profitable depending on how wide we think he's opening. Something like 8% (88+ AJo+ QJs KJs+ ATs+) would mean he folds the requisite 50% of the time, and this seems on the loose side, so I would say fold > 3b/f > 3b/c > call.

Why is 3 bet/folding better than peeling? 3 bet folding seems really bad

if you can't 3bet call this profitably then you simply arent 3betting enough. last i'll say on the thread.

So you think villain's 4b shove range is..?


I'm sorry I don't know why I ranked the other options. It should say "fold > other stuff".

what's the reasoning behind calling being such a bad option and seeing this flop in position?
if the guy has a strong range, then as I said you have to be 3bet folding this spot, therefore you're never raising for value and just want him to fold!?

If the guy has a strong range he still has a strong range postflop.  You're effectively setmining against a 20bb stack or hoping the good reg makes a huge mistake postflop and lets you win the pot somehow.  If you're peeling just to get it in on a small flop you're better off just 3b/calling pre.

If we havent been 3betting enough to make 3b/call a good option, will a cib-3b induce a wider 4b shove range from the opener to make cib/call a decent option?

It really depends on game flow,  but it would be impossible to come up with a realistic range that was less favourable to our argument than the TT+ and AK that you presented.  

Some players would be happy to 4 bet shove with 88+ and AQ+, but I think Trigg is saying if you 3 bet people enough they can spew off with all kinds of stuff.  22 and 98s wouldn't be impossible with enough history or enough 3 bets in this game, or if they think you are the type who 3 bet folds too much.  

By contrast you see some others folding AK and JJ.

I don't recognise the opponent here FWIW.

The reality is that 88 is a less likely shove than TT and JJ and AK are less likely folds,  and 3 bet calling can be profitable for Trigg, but unprofitable for someone else, but simple ranges don't capture this.

Probably should construct something beyond stove to allow for this, but would struggle to do so on my phone.  Does the thing pleno was spamming go beyond stove here.  

Happy to 3 bet call here, but don't think alternatives are that terrible either.

Have annotated your post as I had 2 separate points I wanted to reply to. 3rd and more general point, mainly aimed at George and Trigg, is that yeah 3b/f with TT seems terrible and goes completely against our autopilot rules, but you shouldn't be on autopilot when analysing hands after a session and actually breaking down the numbers it looks to me like it is better than 3b/c, happy to be proved wrong btw just nobody is suggesting real numbers to do that. Ideally the aim is to tweak our autopilot and maybe eventually play these spots a little better. I hear a lot of people complain that nits somehow get the lot despite not ever doing anything special, and I think this sort of thing is where the difference lies, possibly the fact that stato is prepared to think a little deeper in spots like this is why he's up over $100k on stars this year.

James, i can't give you a precise range in this spot, it differs from spot to spot, depending on a few intangibles that we can't use stove for. You have your opening utg ranges for regs in this spot way off btw. And anyone who plays this mtt on a regular basis will agree. Of course this also depends on gameflow and how passive the table has been and the opponents image at the time of the open. If we are folding TT here to this open, and other players are doing likewise, do you see how much we can widen our range utg off 20bb?

In a vacuum id say that the opening range of a reg in this spot would be something like 55+ QJss+ A9s AT+  you seem to have overlooked the stacks which he is opening into, Only 3 players can be expected to jam over our open which means the likelihood of it getting through increases which again widens the opening range up. Obv the bb could set us in, being only 20bb effective but its a lot trickier to 3bet bluff this spot on a reg heavy table with players behind to act. If there were 4/5   12-20bb stacks on the table it should tighten utg's opening range sufficiently that with the TT a better case for a fold is made.

On the subject of his 4bet shove range, its all down to OP's image on how wide this range can be, and a range can't be given accurately unless we are aware of these uncertainties. If OP has been playing Tag/nitty and 3bets to say 20k + then i agree the 4bet jam range is going to be/should be really tight.

I think you have underestimated how spewy players are though James, stick a solid month grinding on stars and i think you might change your opinion. Also ive spoken to 6/7 people on skype including middy, marc, bramm and all agree villain in the hand is a bad reg.

What does villain being a "bad reg" mean? He plays too loose? Too tight? Raises too loose and shoves too tight?

If we raise utg 9-handed and everyone else only plays JJ+ AK (3.5% range), they will find one of those hands between them upwards of 25% of the time, before taking into account any card-removal effects. Obviously most people can't be trusted to fold TT and there are plenty of eggs around who still peel all sorts, making a steal from utg off 20bbs an absolutely terrible idea imo. Certainly I'd say including 55-77 and maybe even 88 is burning money, but for this particular villain or the population of Sunday 500 players they might all be making loose opens and it's a good spot to be 3b bluffing people, I don't know.

Wrt the 4bet, it's not that hard to come up with a range, you can only shove the hands you open and obviously we're going broke with premiums so there's not that big a range of things it can be. What would you be shoving with if you opened utg and got 3bet by the cutoff, in a vacuum?

i can't answer this question because the range would vary quite a lot from player to player. Id jam as wide as 77+ QK+ vs some players in some spots and as tight as JJ+ AK in others

TT seems like the nut-low hand to 3b/fold in a spot where it seems pretty unlikely we'll be peeled. Surely we're way better picking a hand with ANY sort of blocker to his percieved 4b/jam range KJ seems like a way way more ideal hand than TT.

You think this is bad in general ? I think it's a decent spot to do so if we have a nitty image with hands like 98ss Axs Q10os etc, obv stacks/villains dependant.

please tell me your baiting with this range. also saying 3b call is a losing play, are you serious?

depending on our image, this is such an easy 3 bet to 16255 / putting the rest of our betting disks in if he decides he wants us to.

Why?


Agree, any argument to 3b/f TT is an equally good argument to 3b/f 72o. Doesn't make it wrong though.

The range suggested is like the top part of his range lol

3 bet fold is only better than 3 bet call because of the range you have chosen.  Assuming he always calls with TT+ and always folds 99 down is as favourable as you can assume.  I assume you have to include AK in any reasonable range, so that is a given.

But if we add just 99 and suited AQ, then 3 bet calling now becomes much better than 3 bet folding, and the difference is more pronounced than in the TT+/AK scenario.

I think this is just a general weakness in people picking ranges and just stoving them.  The reality isn't that he always calls JJ and always lays down 99, what happens in practice is that you would get a distribution.  The distribution depends on the opponents, but also on the number of tables they have/history/their tiltedness/your 3 best today and sometime they just have enough of your pereceived aggression. 

I have no idea on the real numbers, and never will, but guess if JJ/AK shove 85% of the time, then it is reasonable to assume 99 and AQ suited shove 50% of the time, AJ suited 20% of the time and so on.  Whilst people rarely shove 22-55 and suited connectors, it is absolutely clear to me that they do it some of the time.  I have done this kind of thing myself, faced it myself and have seen plenty of posts/tourney reports when similar has happened.  Maybe this just happens 5% of the time they have this kind of hand, but it definitely does.

I was just messing around with a spreadsheet, and put in these figures for shoving percentages:

55   66   77   88   99   TT   JJ   QQ   KK   AA
5%   10%   20%   30%   50%   70%   85%   95%   100%   100%

Aks   Ako   Aqs   Aqo   Ajs   Ajo   Ats   Ato   A9s    KQs
90%   85%   50%   30%   20%   10%   10%   5%   5%   15%

I have assumed everything else is either open folded or raise folded.  I think I could probably add a bit more for general spew/balancing with suited connectors etc, but don't think I need to.  I didn't doctor these numbers after looking at the results, it was more a long the lines of if a group of poker pros shoved JJ 85% of the time, how often would they shove AK, 88 etc.  [Hmm hope that table is clear enough!]
                     
TT is 43.4% vs that range, and it is an easy call once you 3 bet (It works out a bit lower than  AQ+, AQs+, 99+ on stove so feels in the right territory too).  You can take out 66 down and AT down without changing the result much, so it isn't that sensitive either.  I'd struggle to get down to 35% without producing a distribution that looked odd.

The thing you refer to as autopilot can be a different thing for different people.  The autopilot of someone with tons of experience and a mathematical background, isn't the same autopilot as someone who just picked up the game and doesn't want to fold two tens.

I would just add that the reason stato is 100k up this year isn't really because he spends time studying this, it is because he binked $58k on Sunday.  If I was a gambling man, I'd have a punt that sucking out with TT about 50 out on Sunday helped too!  I am not saying he is terrible btw, he is obviously very good.  I think his ROI on stars was around 50% before Sunday over a lot of tournaments.  That puts him right amongst the very best.
 

Lol yes Sunday might have had something to do with it. I folded here though, so no suckout. There were fkn loads of em later on tho :)

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the various opposing views, i think that it's been a really informative and helpful thread. When some of the experienced tournament players beg to differ in spots like these it just shows what a difficult game poker is.
 Anyway, results speak much louder than words. So, a massive Well Played from me to Stato.

so in a spot where its close (as in ATC dont have a profitable 3b/fold, a situation which arises when there is a decent gulf between the combos he is opening and the combos he is peeling assuming minimal if any percieved range that peels? Im assuming this wiuld have to be the case here for 3b/fold to be better than any other option??)

How do you decide between 3b/call and fold in game? Is there a 'stnd' 4bet jam range for players here?

The reason i think 3b/f TT is really shaky here is that folding to his 4b jam has the potential to be a huge mistake, if for e.g. he is jamming 99 and we fol. this seems like it would be way less of a problem with other hands. or is it just a case of we shouldnt worry about the equity ofhands in our 3b fold range because...we're folding them???

Very good post, finally someone putting a bit of effort into justifying a 3b/call. Only thing I would disagree on would be the exact numbers, AKs and QQ are 100%, and 55 I think is rarely opened and then v rarely shoved when it is opened, so would expect to see this way less than 5% of the time in total. On the whole though I agree that the more precise you are with someone's ranges, the higher the cost of being wrong and therefore the more often you have to be right. Maybe I'm wrong and the people whom a fold would be correct against aren't numerous enough to pay for the lost value from people whom a 3b/call would be correct against, tbh I hope I am because if people are still shoving 77 here because of "dynamic" then poker is still hilar easy.

I'm sorry I don't understand the question.

3 bet calling.  i very much doubt any1 is only piling TT+ AK+ this late on a sunday. we need 37.5% v his jamming range to call.   if hes jaming TT+ AK+ 100% and AQ 62% of the time or more we have 37.6% equity.

^ What a great post, really informative.

OK but in that case we would need villain to be opening a >8% range to make 3b/call better than just folding, ignoring the chances of someone waking up with QQ+ behind. Most people do I guess, but I think this thread exists because stato felt this guy isn't opening that wide.

ye ur right, i dont think he is opening as wide as 8%.  although if hes piling AQ+ 99+ we only need him to be opening 6.5%.  i would say almost regs in the 500 are opening at least 6.5% and piling AQ+ 99+.

if you have a tight image and you think the opener is really tight its probably a fold when you consider ppl finding it cold.

interesting spot, in the past ive alway auto 3bet called here.

my point was how is it possible in a circumstance that someone is opening a tight(er) range that 3bet/folding a hand that WILL have notable equity vs a 4b jam range (however tight it is realistically) can ever be better than 3bet/call or folding. Surely the only way this is true is if the gap between the range he opens and the range he 4b/jams is quite significant, making a 3bet/fold with ATC profitable.

Are there EVER really any spots like this anymore with competent regular players in high stakes tournaments? I obviously don't know because i play online MTT's so infrequently but I find it really hard to believe.

I was also asking the sicko's ITT if we find ourselves in a spot where we can 3bet/fold ATC (this has to be the case here with no blockers to a premium 4b/jam range and little chance of being peeled, like you said earlier the argument for 3b/f TT is the same for 72o in this case) how detrimental to play is having a hand that COULD actually be in good shape vs his 4bet range - if he jams 99, AK and AQ given that folding TT vs that range once we've 3bet is a pretty significant mistake, whereas if we had 72o there would be no mistakes in folding to the 4b jam.

So is TT a worse/better/equal hand to 3b/f than 72o in this spot?

Given a good reg should realise we're 3bet/folding rarely, our 3bet range should be super tight?

Shouldn't our 3bet range be polarised here to like 65% blockers 35% JJ+AK+? I mean i understand in theory people should only open 6.5% or w/e here, but it seems in practice people do not. There are a million factors here, such as how deep in the tourney, current table softness, future table expectations etc, that the reg might be taking into account. How does he perceive you stato? This looks as grey area as possible, just flip a coin and whichever one it lands on, or you want it to land on the most, choose.

Yep.


You will find these spots when playing against players who refuse to adjust, if you know their tendencies. This would also come up reasonably often if you had more information than the other guy, e.g. you're on a new username on a network like ongame/ipoker (or are doing something more nefarious)


Pretty much equal. If we're getting 6/4 on a call and we have 39% equity, it's still a fold. It's not as much of a fold as if we have 25% equity, but it's still a fold. This only applies if you ignore uncertainty, which as doobs post shows, will turn a 3b/f with TT into a 3b/c, but presumably wouldn't do the same for 72o. BUT if you assume you have 39% equity and that is what you have, then no there is no difference between TT and 72o.

Where I think you might be tying yourself up in knots is that if we always took what looked like ATC 3b/f spots with ATC, we'd be 3betting a lot, and the chances that our opponents adjust and we'll be wrong about their ranges increase. So, acknowledging the fact that we don't have perfect information, we only 3b/f some of the time when we see a good spot, and if we're gonna do that, we'll help our odds by choosing hands that have blockers, i.e. not TT or 72o.


Umm, no? Our 3bet range should be super tight (imo) because the villain's opening range is super tight.


I completely disagree with this stuff, trigg kept saying this as well, it's a cop-out imo. There aren't a million factors here, you have 20bbs UTG, you need to be playing more-or-less a certain way, to quote Stu "Honeybadger" Barnett's favourite line, "the maths is not very forgiving here". If you're looking left and assessing how tight/loose each player is or thinking about 'future table expectation' when deciding on your 20bb UTG opening range, you are wasting time, because the adjustments you can legitimately make would be so small.

Surely Stato/reg have had time to go, 3,4,5,6 are sat entries/rec player 7,8 unknown 1,2,9 good tight regs. Its not like he has to make all of his decisions at the exact moment the hand has been dealt. Having said that, completely get what your saying here.

Lol def haven't spoken to me about this or him. Not sure what notes I have on villain but yh he is a reg. I won't claim to have done any math on this at all but from experience TT is going to be bottom of my range readless, which means folding is never going to be that far away from the best option. Majority of his 4b shove range is AK/AQ (I assume no1 folds either hand to me, because they just never do) so that's why 3b/c but yh quite a few people wont be opening wide enough to make 3betting gd in the first place I guess. Def be surprised how much people "try to get one through" though, some know how strong the open looks and some just don't care, after all they haven't paid their entry to fold JTs or w/e.

3b/f here would be something I would never do rather have KJo or something but even then it's not that gd a spot.

right I get the theory behind why 3b calling isn't so optimal here with the blockers/combos situation, but is flatting pre turning our hand face upthat were playing a medium pair, are we more likely going to have him jam his entire range on the flop?, and for what it's worth we could pick up a nice flop with equity and if not we can simply fold here. Ofc he is opening tight but I'm more inclined to say at this level sure he knows that everyone knows his stack is just pre flop range territory and their isn't any room for 'play' so in effect he would be more inclined to jam his non pocket pairs on the flop just to see the run out, giving us a possibly more optimal call? Nonetheless I can see the villain min opening more of a range than JJ+AK

Its the sunday 500 vs a reg..

* so in effect would he ...
Must just be the gambler in me that wants to see a flop, I haven't got stove or flopzilla  but I presume an opening range of 77+ AJ would not be ahead on most flops against TT? Just because he is a reg doesn't mean he is lord of the nits. A 20bb stack is a 20bb stack at the end of the day. And you need to accumulate chips.
out of game analysis we never have the best good old fashioned feeling of what he is opening so I 'presume' (lol) stato had the best line here

Thank you James Keys (and middy who had similar discussion with me on skype about this) for taking the time. All very good :)up

He possibly is openin lighter then most people suggest on here, I know for a fact I am! I just mean he's not going to just stick it straight in our eye on the flop with an AK.. Etc.. As u suggested before! People don't even do that at low mtts never mind one of the toughest few mtts stars have running!!

Obv trigg was talking about your dad.

 Ahrt