Yeah 3bet bigger, cbet bigger yadda yadda...
But apart from that, something about this hand has been bothering me. His raise-sizing is just completely weird. And really bad. I cannot think of a single hand that would be good to make this small-sized check-raise with. It is terrible with any hand. Yet you described him as a 'solid player'. Weird.
Thing is we know he has made a badly sized raise, but we don't know what subset of hands he thinks it is good to play this way. I guess we divide them into the following:
A) Nutted stuff. Depending on how he plays preflop he can have 9 combos of KQ, 3 combos of QQ and 3 combos of 22. I am completely ruling out KK. It is not certain he has all combos of KQ or QQ since you'd think he would 3bet QQ some of the time, and
should not flat a tight EP raiser with KQo.
Why is his raise size bad with these hands? Because of the board texture (wet and semi-coordinated). A ton of cards can turn that either lose him the pot or lose him his action. His tiny check-raise does not get 'value' from weaker made hands or draws, and does not protect his equity/put opponents in tough spots with their draws. BTW I'd also count JhTh as a 'nutted hand' too, since he will probably jam over a 3bet on the flop. But this is only one combo, and of course we block all hands like AhJh/AhTh/AhQh etc.
B) Mid-strength made hands or draws. This would be stuff like KJ, KT, AQ, QhJh, Jh9h, JsTs etc. Plenty of combos of these sort of hands. It would be terrible to raise this sort of range (whatever sizing he uses) because he would be 'overplaying' a mid-equity hand in a really crappy spot, and is going to find himself in a horrible spot on the turn in a bloated pot when his tiny raise is flatted, let alone if he is 3bet. I guess the (flawed) reasoning behind someone playing a hand this way is that they want to 'find out where I am', or 'protect my hand', or just 'OMG I have top pair/a draw, I raise... but it is not very strong... so I raise small'.
C)Low-equity bluffs. This could be something like Js9s - i.e. a 'good bluffing hand' due to having some equity - or perhaps just some random zero-equity stuff because he is donking around without really thinking much and maybe just fancies trying a cheap bluff to see what happens. Why is this bad? It is almost never going to fold any made hand or draw given the great price he is laying, plus this board connects strongly with preflop ranges, plus someone has already check-called the flop so it is not even a HU pot etc. Plus, he should never be raising so small with the nutted parts of his range so he shouldn't be doing it with bluffs either.
If we knew with a fair degree of reliability (soul reads FTW) what group of hands he is playing badly in this way then we could take a direct exploitative line. If we somehow know he is likely to have a nutted hand here (he thinks this is the way he should play his monsters) then we crush him by folding. If we somehow know he has a mid-strength made hand/draw then we punish him by 3betting the flop and put him in a really horrible spot with 9h8h or KsJs. If we know he has a zero-equity bluff then we simply call, and hope he barrels.
However, since we do not know exactly what hand he is playing weirdly with then we do best to flat the check-raise and play the turn in position. It is going to be muddy and unclear, but it will be the same for him (and the other opponent) too. And we are in position, which really helps in these muddy spots.
Tbh, although I rarely agree with Guy about poker hands (sorry Guy
), I did sort of like his idea of making a small 3bet on the flop since this would punish him most effectively for check-raising his mid-strength hands. My gut instinct/experience is that this is what you are going to see pretty often in this spot... KJ or 9h8h, that sort of thing. And in-game (i.e. with some sort of feel for the opponent) I might choose this if I feel strongly that his range is weighted towards these sort of hands. But, since I was not at the table I cannot really advise this... so I am sticking with the flatting the 3bet option.
On the turn I think you should fold, barring a ninja-read obviously. This would be an exploitative fold (from a GTO POV we should not fold) based on the fact that I think his turn bet and sizing makes it so very likely that he has a nutted hand. Obviously it is always a concern that he is massively overplaying KJ or something similar because he thinks top pair is the nuts, and is thus going to
accidentally outplay us. But this happens from time to time, and I think he usually just has a nutted hand here. When he does accidentally outplay us with KJ you just realise that he has doubled you up the times you have a stronger hand yourself, or the times you got to draw cheaply on the flop and hit it on the turn, or the times you choose not to fold AA or AK on this turn.
I guess what you have done by flatting the turn is to use your position to continue in the hand and allow him to shop the likely real strength of his hand with his big turn bet. I realise that calling planning to evaluate the turn can sometimes lead to problems, especially if all you are doing is hoping that he does not bet again. However, this is poker... we are allowed to give ourselves extra decision points in hands in which to make the right choices, using our full range of poker skills. We might choose not to fold the turn after all - it would depend on his bet-sizing, and perhaps also our gut-feeling (yes I know... Stu the live fish
). Also, we are getting a great price just to get to SD and win even if it only occasionally gets checked through to the river (and it will do sometimes). And finally, we
are allowed to call with a bluff catcher on the flop and fold it on the turn, or even call flop and turn but fold it on the river. The popular idea that this is somehow wrong is completely incorrect in both a theoretical
and a practical sense.
Author