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Poker Stars, $100 Buy-in (30/60 blinds, 5 ante) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 9 Players

SB: 3,175 (52.9 bb)
BB: 4,423 (73.7 bb)
Hero (UTG+1): 2,201 (36.7 bb)
UTG+2: 5,617 (93.6 bb)
MP1: 2,166 (36.1 bb)
MP2: 4,203 (70.1 bb)
MP3: 2,885 (48.1 bb)
CO: 5,842 (97.4 bb)
BTN: 3,476 (57.9 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with Ah Jd
Hero raises to 123, 4 folds, CO calls 123, 2 folds, BB calls 63

Flop: (444) 4c 7c Td (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: (444) Js (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 180, CO calls 180, BB raises to 680, Hero?

CO is checktrap11
BB is MatFrankland

Hate this spot, always feel so abused, any thoughts welcomed.

doesnt seem that close. fold.

Betting turn ok you think?

As said previously fold turn. Although I prefer a cbet on this board.

cbetting the flop would be really bad imo. Whole hand looks good imo

yeh betg this flop would be real bad multiway

Would you cbet if we had  Ac or Jc? As I misread the hand and I thought we had  Ac doh!! Which I believe is a defo cbet

I find this an interesting hand.

And whereas I do respect pleno and def Tom Langley's opinion's, I don't like just saying meh easy fold.

Why is it not even close? Can't the co be hooding loads of stuff we crush and can't frankie be semi-bluffing quite a bit?

If it's a clear fold then by betting aren't we getting exploited so much by anyone competent that we should just turn our hand into a bluff catcher on the turn/river and check call like a meek little mouse rather than trying to get a street or two of value from worse?

Having said all this I prob bet fold here mostly too unless there is some history. Just not sure we should always be bet folding and slapping ourselves on the back so much in this kind of spot, though checking seems pretty awful too on such a board.

If we had any more barrel cards than J-A I think a flop c-bet is good, and I don't think a c-bet would actually be that bad as things stand.

I have no idea how Mat plays but once we check the flop we're contemplating folding the very tip-top of our range. We almost always have CO beat so it's a question of how much Mat wants to make a play. He'd be well within his rights as well, reading both us and CO as having a hand like AJ at best.

There are lots of hands that beat us, yes, and a few rivers could well be troublesome, but I feel quite icky folding such a good hand to a capable player. With stacks as they are I think Mat has a draw that he's happy to call it off with here, of which there are many. I first thought this was an easy fold but I think it's closer to a jam.

its 30-60 and we are drawing dead vs a value range and not doing great vs a bluffing range and probably fold some rivers when we are good.

just say wd to him, we can also c callturn if we want.

So you're happy having literally not a single hand that you're not folding here?

yeh they don't do this because they know this or anything. it's an mtt they have two pair/set.

C-betting here is horrible and just a really lazy play. We're betting FAR too much of our range if we bet AJo here, vs two opponents who will definitely not give up easily, and can easily punish our mistake. If the villains are weak fish then I would definitely go ahead and bet; But vs these villains it's the easiest c/f ever.

As for turn, I do think it's really gross actually, mainly because I know Franky's game reasonably well and I'm sure he'd go for a c/r here pretty wide intending to bet full pot or over pot otr, since we've capped our range by checking the flop. Also, I'm not entirely sure he'd c/r JT/89/flopped sets here BECAUSE we have a capped range, so we're unlikely to have a hand that can call/call, also, because we checked the flop 3 way he probably thinks we're done with the hand.

That being said, he might now be ignoring us completely in the hand (which is pretty reasonable since we only continue with a turned J), and be targeting checktrap11 who is MUCH stickier than Jamie, and might just bet/call or bet/spew over franky's turn c/r.

I'm pretty sure I just fold in game, but I think there is a pretty good argument vs Frank specifically to defend this hand here. Not sure that's really that fair a comment though sicne I haven't really mentioned anything about what the "game theory optimal" decision is, just rough idea based on what I know about Franky, but that's all I've got for now, so it'll have to do.

You know this is Franky right? Accomplished mtt/cash game player who is perfectly aware that both of his opponents in the hand are capped and probably views Jables as a pretty solid player who is not going to get ool here.

I can actually see this being a bluff, as I think it's a pretty cool spot to squeeze.

oh ya I give him a much greater likelihood of doing some thing good, ie widening his range with more semi bluffs, if it was hu I deffo wouldn't fold but as the other guy is in and seems more likely to be continuing don't really think continuing plays too well, as as you said he'll be capable of some funky river bet sizes etc.

This is a really lazy, arrogant and some what rude post imo. I say this as Your contribution on PHA over the past 18 months is probably second to none, but just to say it aint close and to fold is defo lazy, not that constructive and can most certainly be viewed as arrogant (i know u dont mean it this way obv).

I think your right in a vaccum that we can / should probably just fold to matt's c/r, but as jamie said, matt is defo good enuff to have bluffs here (the majority of these bluffs do obviously have a ton of equity though). It definately is a grosser spot against a decent player / capable hand reader than it would be vs a fish (can comfortably bet/fold the turn against a 3way c/r from a fish imo). We probably have the top of our somewhat capped range which makes it even more annoying to bet/fold but i think (however much i wouldnt LOVE it) we probably just have to fold to his c/r with checktrap11 behind.
It hasnt been mentioned yet so think its worth saying, utg+1 at a 9 handed table, small antes, i dont mind just folding AJo, im a massive nit tho :-)

Just have to tap the table and say if you've got it nice hand, if you're bluffing nice play. Just too spewy to do anything else in this particular instance.

very true, was a lazy open from me just seeing AJo, clicking raise and not really looking who had position/was in the BB. given the line up I think I prefer open fold

Agree my range is capped to 1 pair and Franky is absolutely capable of abusing that fact. We also chatted about a really similar spot in person very recently so I was really torn between thinking 'he's 20 tabling here, just fold' and 'we spoke about this spot two weeks ago and he's doing exactly what he said he'd do with lots of different hands vs a capped range'

Aghhhhh

yh obv hand takes new dynamic when u have the above to factor in.

I know u fold TPTK tho, so gimme the 86hh again and ill take off :-)

Yeh just think its really simple because of the above.

But ya ur right

We have pretty close to top of our range here so maybe against a player we're gonna be battling with a lot call and have a range of river cards you calling on and a range you folding on.

A lot depends on who the caller is. If it's someone you think Frankie views as a fish then it makes it more of a fold.

I would c-bet flop.

Why would you bet the flop?

Admittedly a lot of Turb cards are good or us so betting aj instead of ak may be ok.

I knew I wouldn't be the only one and Sam grafton of all people to agree with me. I don't need anyone else to back this up now :)

So it's gone from cbetting flop is awful/bad too ok? Just because someone other than me said so Pleno? Admittedly it was Sam but still...

Interesting thread here.  I'm thinking, unless we check really strong hands like sets otf, do we even have a turn bet/call range?  In which case, seems like checking > betting ott against two compotent opponents, given that we should theoretically be doing that with our entire range having checked the flop?

No I think betting flop is awful still by would rather bet aj than ak.

I'd check fold close to 100% here board just smashes pre flop calling ranges. Nothig significantly worse calls and nothing better folds.

You could get quite a few better hands to fold, sure it will take more than 1 barrel but that's just the way I roll ;) #EmptyingTheClip.

If you cbet and all pocket pairs call, 10-x and other 2nd pair rubbish an barrel a QJKA or club turn and do again on river be hard for villian to call down as we turn up with top of our range a lot with this line if he heroes then well done him but they couldn't snap.

This is another really lazy remark. It's actually really easy for him to call down when you barrel those turn cards considering that you just said you would cbet like 80% of your opening range, resulting in you making it to the turn with far too many combinations of hands, drastically unbalancing your range.

I'm not sure why people think that c-betting is the only (or best) way to play loads of different parts of your range. Before ever making a bet (or any other action) you must consider what that action accomplishes.

With a bet we either want to be betting:

A) For value; A bet which can be called or raised by worse hands or bluffs.

B) As a bluff; A bet which makes worse hands fold.

C) For protection or to shut down equity; Neither a value bet nor a bluff, just a bet which protects a weak value hand from the equity of hands that won't continue (not relevant here).

In this example, we don't accomplish any of these things to a relevant degree; No better hand ever folds the flop and no worse hand ever calls the flop (at least not a hand which doesn't have significant equity vs our hand to such a degree that we never realise our own equity).



This romantic notion that you can just bet 3 way on a board which smashes peeling ranges and just barrel any overcard may have had some credibility in 2003, but it certainly doesn't in today's ecosystem, ESPECIALLY against two competent (one significantly more than the other fwiw) villains. This kind of lazy attitude to our actions on each street will result in not being able to beat the games.

Oh, and puke at this.

Well aren't you a delightful fellow. No point in posting on PHA board too much dick swinging, apparently poker has been solved gg nit tendencies

My reply was completely devoid of ego, it was simply a post designed to further the discussion and talk about strategy in a thorough way, so if anybody read it they would understand what drove my thought processes (even if they didn't agree with them) rather than just saying "LOL JUST BET ANY BOARD AND BARREL OVERCARDS OBVVSSS) and not explaining or backing up anything that you've claimed is a winning strategy.

Your reply was two sentences with unsubstantiated claims, mine was broken down into bullet points explaining each point clearly.

If a recreational player is reading our two posts, which do you think will be easier to digest and subsequently help their game?

Devoid of ego, I'm not too sure, certainly the romantic notion comment and even the first line will and has rub people the wrong way. Don't get me wrong, I like your posts, but this is the 2nd time in 4 posts in PHA (something like that) that has rubbed people the wrong way, just calm it on the posting style a touch imo. Obviously you can ignore this, but your posts are good so I'd like you to stick around but people tend to be a touch sensitive especially as it is often something they feel good at.



Personally I'd fold pre, antes are tiny @ 1/6 of sb but maybe I'm a nit. On the turn with dynamic etc, I'm still folding, you cite being a bit eager pre and just seeing antes/not looking at BB, something like that can easily happen other way too, and we still have plenty of chips. Sometimes we can just fold in these spots and largefield MTTs are the time to do it. Altho make a note to jab him in the arm next time you see him. Interesting spot and I'd love to hear his thoughts.

Let me start by saying that I actually don't think that I was being offensive with this post (unlike my one a few weeks previous with you mate, for which i am truly sorry). I was possibly slightly abrupt and maybe should have let the post settle for a while before posting instead of just streaming off what came out of my head without a filter, but I fail to see how me clearly explaining several elements of a point (even if the tone was slightly abrupt), is more offensive than somebody posting two sentences of unsubstantiated statements on a forum for mutual improvement. I consider that to be an action filled with much more arrogance, since this is supposed to be a forum for peer to peer learning, and I struggle to see how anybody can learn from "just bet, and bet all overcards". Even if I disagreed with the stament, if he had said something like "I think I would c-bet for reason x because he will fold y part of his range or it accomplishes z", but in a learning environment i genuinely do think it's pretty lazy (and much worse form than spending some time constructing a helpful and easy to digest post in a manner that might be perceived as shirty) to say "[statement]... just 'cos."

As you can see from the number next to my name, I don't post very often. This is down to a number of reasons, the most relevant being that I think the point of forums gets lost amongst trivial squabbles like this.

My intention was not to offend "PathFinder", it was merely to challenge a post which I deemed not to be constructive and state clearly why, so that we can actually dissect this hand and try (together as a forum) to work out which the best option is and why, rather than just stating each others opinion without any thought processes, since that will get us all nowhere.

Oh and fwiw, I fail to see how the "romantic notion" comment can be construed as anything but flamboyant typing, since I was referring to an ever-present topic (c-betting), and was clearly not attacking "PathFinder" personally.

fold pre

Turns up once a year ........

i do think you were quite abrupt with your post and using terms like "lazy" doesn't help when you could've just asked me to expand on my point therefore not putting people off posting in this section. The reason for my lack of thought process is that i work full time and the only way i can post on this forum during the day is on my phone, which im sure you can understand is difficult to write a full paragraph on especially when trying to do it when the boss isnt looking ;)

Ok ill try and expand on my reasoning to cbet:

Firstly the term of "smashing a calling range". How can we be certain that we know what the calling range of Villians are? Yes we can take an estimated guess and take a population read but i think we worry too much about the Villians calling range and not what our perceived range is. The problem of trying to guess the Villians calling range is that when we are wrong we become exploited whereas we can control our own perceived range and let the Villians make the mistake! i.e folding too much or calling too much

So firstly on this flop you mention that one of the reasons to cbet is to protect our hand vs equity. This is why i cbet, lets say hypothetically one of the villains had K-Q and we checked back this flop, his equity in the hand has increased on the Jack turn. Something we couldve shut down on the flop. Now i think mattfrankland could easily chk raise the turn with this hand to exploit the extra equity you just gave him for free and if you call he can barrel river and your going to have a difficult time. This just doesnt include KQ, what about all the gappers and connectors that have a pair and backdoor draws? You are allowing their equity to increase the hand by giving them a free card and making your perceived range look weak. When you chk back the flop and lead the Jack your range looks exactly what it is and so becomes easy to play against. I just need to crank up the aggression slightly with my increased equity and make you fold.

If you are checking back all sets and pocket Jacks on this flop (which i wouldnt recommend) then its fine to then check back the weakest part of your range. There was more i wanted to write about this but if i dont start my grind now i never will, but i hope this covers my back for the time being and if you dont agree then fine but dont make it personal :)

Regards "PathFinder"

I apologise if my abruptness offended you, that wasn't my intention at all. And fwiw, sometimes I do forget that not everybody has the time to sit there writing out bullet points, so sorry for that too.

Thanks a lot for elaborating and I'll take some time to respond soon.

This is just lazy and arrogant. It really gripes me when these so called 'names' come in with sweeping statements like "easy fold" or "lol 3b". Just because you've had a few results in poker doesn't mean your word is gospel.

<3

Just OPR'd you patonius and you never even finalled the $3r. know your place son.

I agree with your points and wish people were a little less sensitive also, I just wanted to say it could come across as a touch brash to an observer, and this might be why pathfinder got offended. Obviously the (tl900?) post before was worse, especially as stove proved you wrong ( ;whistle;, )but I regularly get my eyes rolled at me by friends for using the phrase "Are you on crack mate" when discussing something that is ALWAYS ((ok maybe I'm wrong sometimes) unbelievable/horrible  so I know how it feels and its frustrating to have someone feel like this when its not your intention etc.

Stick around man, your posts are v.good. I regularly have to defend pads for his "trivial" folds etc, so I wont mind explaining its just your style either!  ;)

Vs 2 people that know what they are doing, I'd most likely bet the flop, as played vs the same 2 ppl I'd just fold now and wait for better given the level of the tournament, and u still have a good stack.

P.S - Would love more than 2 people on this forum to reply to my hands I post, so count yourself lucky Jamie B.

P.P.S - who is Tommymfc irl?

Heh behave yourself Jamie you scallywag

Tommy mf'n C

I would c-bet because we have the strongest range on this board and we're perceived as solid. We have best hand decent portion of the time and a great deal of equity vs nearly all pairs that don't already have a set. I don't th3ink this is a board that 'smashes' there range. peeler never has two pair, bb prob doesnt peel T3, 73 or T3off

I think if you ran our ranges Sammy you'd find that this board is actually better for their ranges because when we open ep at 30/60 we don't have a lot of the weaker Tx combos which they do, and the bb has at least 4 combos of T7 (the suited ones). Most of our range is actually two overcards to this board so I think if you ran this potential c-bet through flopzilla or similar you'd find that we have far too many combos of off suit overcards to bet AJo profitably. It's not illegal to just cf this hand since we have plenty of flush draws, over pairs and AT hands which we can bet with. Betting AJ just means that we're betting far too much of our range, and like I said before, I don't mind if its against two weak bananas who aren't going to punish us for making an exploitative play, but these villains (especially franky playing a wide range in the bb) definitely won't just let us run them over with brute force.

Yeh absolutely this.

This is true, but only because it turns out hero is opening stuff like AJo in EP. He shouldn't be doing so IMO. And if we remove most of the dominated offsuit broadways from his range then he is actually pretty strong on this board.

Hero doesn't have (m)any Tx hands in his range, but he does have 24 combos of overpairs, 6 combos of sets (although maybe he doesn't open 77 in EP?), plus some nutted semi-bluff combos like AcQc, AcKc, AcJc etc.

This is a good example of how a preflop mistake can compound itself postflop. If we have AJo type hands in our preflop range, and choose to cbet them because we think our perceived range is stronger than our actual range (i.e. we are deliberately too bluff heavy on this flop), then we get accidentally outplayed if either of the villains is overly optimistic/out of line with his floats. We cannot barrel very often when we cbet AJo with no Ace of clubs, so we allow either villain to get to showdown (or bluff us on later streets) with their weak flop peels. Basically if either villain is defending the flop 'sub-optimally' loosely then they are accidentally exploiting us and their sub-optimal play becomes optimal. I would suggest that the majority of players (even the really good ones) do not realise quite how tightly they should be defending vs EP cbets in a threeway pot (since both opponents share responsibility for defending enough) and so they will peel far too often from a GTO perspective. Which means they are actually exploiting us by accident if we have too much crap like AJo in our cbetting range.

On the other hand, if villains are both playing very tight postflop, not defending anywhere near enough vs cbets, then we can get away with cbetting 'too much' air. Especially if our image is good, and our perceived range stronger than it in fact is. If this is the case for the majority of the table (i.e. they are too fit or fold postflop) then AJo might become a profitable open preflop from EP, since we can exploitatively cbet too much air on many flops... although this would depend on most players also being fairly passive preflop.

But usually AJo should just be folded preflop.

Good pha imo, i think a lot of us get into spots like this where we open too wide relative to position, get 'lucky' by hitting TPTK on flop/turn, then struggle to lay it down. In this specific example 3 way id fold fairly quickly as it had been played, if its a bluff then wp. Too high variance to assume he's exploiting the check flop/bet turn, not to mention the fact he has no idea whether were 'good enough' to lay down overpairs and TPTK, so i think we have to respect his range is mostly 2pair+

I mean Jamie says he doesnt't always open AJo and most regs would perceive this to be stone bottom of his opening range so if he bets twice/three times your KT is bang under it. The other advantage is that it just keeps the nuts in our range. So that when we hit turn people can't attack us as has happened here.

Where I disagree with you is your inference that hero is going to be able to profitably barrel the turn/river unimproved. There are not many cards that give hero backdoor equity; the only thing he can really turn (apart from top pair) is a gutshot. IMO it is a bit spewy to recklessly barrel blank turns, hoping that your perceived strong range on its own is enough to make this profitable. The EV of barrelling is a combination of fold equity and pot equity, and without any turned pot equity to discount the price of our bluff it requires excessive levels of optimism to keep firing willy nilly.

Perhaps you are right and it is a very marginally profitable cbet, just taking advantage of the fact that hero's range is likely to be perceived as being rather tighter than it, in fact, is. But I sort of doubt it. If we think cbetting AJo with no BDFD on this board is profitable then we are pretty much saying that it is profitable to cbet our entire range. This may perhaps be very marginally the case against one weak fit-or-fold opponent. But against two opponents - especially two good opponents - I am pretty sure this is not the case. I'd construct my cbet bluffing range by choosing air hands with backdoor equity - there are plenty of these. If this means we have to check-fold a large portion of our range then this is partly a product of the fact that we are facing two opponents rather than one, but mainly it is a product of us opening too many combinations of offsuit broadways in EP.

Another point is that we do not automatically lose the pot if we check. Checking still has an EV greater than 0. And if cbetting is only very, very marginally profitable (i.e. it has an EV of only slightly greater than 0), it is likely that checking is a more +EV option. It feels counter-intuitive that this is the case because we win the pot more often when we cbet compared to when we check. But winning the pot the most often is not the same as being the most +EV play.

Yeah Sammy but if I DO open AJo then that's an extra 12 combos to add to our c-betting range, which, by this logic, already includes 12 combos of AKo, 12 combos of AQo and 4 combos of each of those suited = another 12 combos. SO, plus the 4 combos of KQs that's 52 combos of overcards (4 of which are the nut/2nd nut fd and 4 of which are the backdoor fd) to add to our value hand range of overpairs, ATs and top set (of which there are 31 combos of a total of 79).

So as you can see, if we are betting AJo then essentially we're betting our entire range (and bear in mind that I've given us a really tight range of KQs+ TT+ AJo+ and ATs just for arguments sake to highlight the mistake), which is so unnecessarily overcard heavy (52 combos of overcards inc. fd's to 31 combos of value hands) when we have plenty of back door and front door flush draws to have in our "air" c-betting range.

In terms of simple mathematics, it's not going to make a profit making a bet where 65.8% of our betting range is made up of overcards, UNLESS we are making an exploitative bet Vs. weak opponents who will not punish us. Unfortunately this is not the case, so AJo become a clear check/fold.

Loving your works guys. Really impressive analysis.

   ^^^
  This

Also who is Tommy mf'n C?  ;)

Tommy C innit