Ignoring Pleno's range for the time being... what is your range for getting to the turn?
A2-A7s 76s-7Ts 86s-8Js bunch of diamond combos 9T, 56s, KQ/KJ i might peel one off too
Ok so I have whizzed this quickly through flopzilla. I will likely have made the odd mistake since I have done it super fast, but this is not hugely important since perfect accuracy is not the key thing... the idea is simply to get a
feel for what your range needs to do vs this huge overbet. Then, as long as your analysis is roughly correct (even if there are a few inaccuracies it does not matter), you know 'where the line is' as a starting point and then can adjust exploitatively.
Ok, so I have used the range that you gave, which is:
A7s-A2s,KQs-KJs,J8s,T9s-T7s,98s-97s,86s,76s,65s
This is 52 combos in total. Plus you said "a bunch of diamond combos" so I have added another 12 combos of random diamond draws (with nothing extra) in too - deciding on 12 combos was just a guess since you were not specific, and thus I don't know exactly what suited cards you are playing preflop and whether you might c/r (or even donk) some of your FDs on the flop. Therefore, it is just an approximation... which is fine because that is all we are ever doing anyway.
So in total we have 64 combos on this turn.
Villain has jammed 38k into 14k which means he needs to get folds 73% of the time in order to break even jamming the worst parts of his range (i.e. ATC).
Therefore hero needs to call with 27% of his range. Since villain will often have
some equity even with the worst parts of his range, let's bump that number up ever so slightly and say that we need to defend 30% of our range on the turn to his jam. If we don't do this then villain can make a profitable jam with crap like 22 or QJo... and clearly if he is able to do this then we are doing something wrong!
64 x 0.3 = 19.2
Therefore we need to defend around 19 or 20 of our combos. We are 'allowed' to fold a LOT of our range to his jam, since he has risked such a huge amount of chips to win the 14k that is in the pot.
We have 4 combos of straights: T9s(4)
We have 10 combos of 2 pair: A7s(3), A6s(2), 87s(2), 86s(3), 76s(2)
We have 12 combos of top pair: A2s-A5s(12)
Note that with 8 of these 26 combos we also have a FD
This has already got us to way past the 19 or 20 combos that we need to defend. Thus we can fold the worst parts of this range, i.e. the 6 combos of A2s-A4s that do not have a flush draw to go with them. Note that the 2 combos of A5s that do not now have a FD do now have an OESD to go with the top pair.
So our 'perfect GTO calling range' should look like this on the turn:
4 combos of T9s (i.e. a straight)
12 combos of 2 pair: A7s(3), A6s(2), 86s(3), 76s(2)
3 combos of A5s (i.e. TP plus OESD, and one of them has a NFD too)
[Again, note that some of our 'made hands' have FDs to go with them too]
We can fold everything else without worrying that Patrick is able to make a +chipEV jam with a recklessly wide range.
Note that this is an INSANELY strong range! But it is allowed to be insanely strong given that we are facing a massive overbet.
We are folding some really quite good hands, including some top pair hands and even 9d8d for second pair plus OESD plus FD (maybe we could instead fold one combo of A5s and replace it with 9d8d... it likely makes little difference). And this means that the hand you actually held, 9c7c, is a fold to this overbet - given that you have even stronger hands in your range that you are happily folding.
It also means that if Patrick is recklessly over-betting this turn based on a perception that we have a somewhat weak range... he is going to get hugely punished for it, since in reality so much of our range is really strong. And thus, if we feel he is getting 'out of line' here, it is very easy to find good parts of our range to call with instead of folding. In other words, if we decide to make an exploitative adjustment by calling with more than 30% of our range then it is really easy to implement - there are loads of 'good hands' that we can choose not to fold if we have the right read.
Therefore, my initial thoughts are that I don't like Patrick's overbet jam much. It is really easy to defend against even when he is properly balanced (e.g. he is jamming with his really strong stuff like sets too, and not
too many [semi-]bluff combos). Moreover, it is also really easy to exploit
if we feel he is unbalanced (whether that is due to some ninja live-tell like his left ear twitching lol, your perception of how he plays in these spots, the levelling-war, or even just some gut-feeling). Really though, the most important reason why Patrick's huge overbet is not good IMO is because hero's range is pretty strong on this turn. It is suicidal to start over-betting vs strong ranges... this should be saved for the times when your range is much stronger than your opponent's, especially when your opponent's range is capped (and neither is the case in this hand).
One further thing to think about is this: Maybe we should be leading this turn very often with our range? The reason for this is that (as a flopzillanalysis shows) our range is very, very strong on this particular turn card and is almost certainly a LOT stronger than the BTN's range (especially if he opens the BTN widely and will cbet this Ace high flop with fairly high frequency). There is a natural reflex-tendency to check to the guy with the initiative on a previous street, but this is often an error. We should instead be thinking of how our range compares to our opponent's range. And in spots where our range is much stronger than our opponent's then we should often consider leading with much of this range, regardless of action on the previous street. I realise that check-call flop/donk turn is a rather out of tempo and unusual play to make... and that most good players who use it are doing so for
exploitative reasons only. However, in this case it is not an exploitative suggestion, it is just a question of seeing that our range is much stronger than the BTN's on the turn. I am not saying it is definitely correct to donk BTW. I have not looked into it properly, and likely won't do so since I have spent long enough on this hand already. I am just putting it out there to think about.
Additional: I have just taken your turn range at face-value in the above analysis, rather than asking for your preflop range and asking what you would do with that range on the flop etc. It is possible that your range for check-calling the flop is wrong (you might be folding too much on the flop for example), and this is why your range is 'too strong' on this turn card. It is equally possible that your flop check-calling range is fine, you just got a really good turn card for this range, and this is why your turn range is 'too strong'.
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