Anaras Alekberovas

[cambridgealex]

Would make a great bond villain I think. The name, too...

Anyway...So we're playing a €1.5k live comp in Barcelona, 8 left, 6 paid. So we're two off the money, and probably 7/8 maybe 6/8 pretty close. The shortest stack has about 10bbs. The structure is excellent, an hour clock and the field is pretty soft. Villain is our #1 enemy, plays very well imo.

We open UTG+1 to 10k at 2.5/5k. Playing 200k. Villain defends the bb. He's been defending a lot, opening a lot even off a short stack near the bubble. Not afraid to get stuck in basically.



He leads for 25k, so the full pot.

Now what I had in this hand is kinda not the point, but I'm interested about how we counter this play by him with say KK/99 or , what's our plan, bear in mind we really don't wanna bubble this comp, it was such good value.

[stato_1]

assuming there are antes hes actually led for half pot which is going to make  pretty big difference

[cambridgealex]

assuming there are antes hes actually led for half pot which is going to make  pretty big difference

edited. 5k bb, yes antes

[Sulphur man]

Interesting read Alex. A little pushed for time so will post more in depth later with my view.

Just wanted to ask you though if the roles were reversed knowing what you know about our hero how would
you exploit him in this given spot. Basically what would be the best line to take?

[muckthenuts]

If i'm continuing think i'm calling with basically all of those hands. Wouldn't be at all surprised to face a bangbangbang on a wet texture with the bubble factor he's seemingly disaffected by, so calling everything seems like the best way to be able to evaluate the situation by putting faith in our own abilities, but remembering the bubble allow us to get away from the hand if bad cards for our hand come or we feel like he has it etc.

I wouldn't want to just open fold a hand like QQ for example on this texture even if we feel he's probably gonna empty the clip on us. He'll really crush us on the bubble otherwise which might last a while in a decent structured comp like this, and though cashing is important we should really be playing for the win too.

[DMorgan]

Is 200k the effective stack? How much more than 200k does he have?

Initial thoughts are that this is a board that his BB defending range is doing so much better on than ours and if he knows that he can be doing this with any sort of gutshot, bottom pair+BDFD that kind of stuff that has good equity against your range which is weighted to high cards from UTG+1 playing 8 handed, but he doesn't want to c/call with and let you see a turn with overcards.

Its hard to say because I don't play against HSMTT regs so I can't say with any confidence how I think he'll react to a flop raise. Given that he's OOP I'd say that if he wants to play back at your flop raise he would be much more likely to 3bet the flop than to float and do something later, so if he's aggro and tricky I'd be raise/4betting the flop with KQcc

With KK its just a nightmare spot, I'd imagine he'd have to be pretty off his nut for us to be able to call down since we have pretty poor visibility. Any club/3/7/8 on the turn or river is a lot of cards to dodge but I may be overestimating how aggy he has to be. I guess we'll know if pads chimes in with 'easy close eyes and call'

Given the stack situation I wouldn't fault you for just folding the flop with KK. Its a spot where he can have way more value hands than you can (I wouldn't even be opening 44, 55 is close) into this players BB with this stack setup close to the bubble when there are so many softer spots at the table and you have position on him for 6 of every 8 hands.

[stato_1]

its a weird sizing if hes planning to triple barrel here given that the pot size bet means hes giving you a good price to call on later streets with a pretty strong range, kinda makes me think hes pretty polarised here and so I want to call anything im continuing with. Maybe can consider folding 99 since his random stab bluffs QTdd etc have more equity and you are going to be in tough spots if he keeps betting

[cambridgealex]

Yeh we gave 190 back otf he has around 300

He bets 25k into 24k, how can we raise/4bet KQcc Dan?

Nice post tho. Agree KK is a horrible spot.

That's why I thought it was such a good play from him.

[GreekStein]

I'd raise KQcc and I'd call KK

[AlexMartin]

I'd raise KQcc and I'd call KK

this and id probably fold 99 a fair bit

[DMorgan]

Weee comprehension fail

Actually I quite like just calling with KQcc for the same reason that I don't like flatting with KK, I think he'll barrel clubs pretty often

[pleno1]

i think i would call my entire continuing range, one of the last hands i would raise would be kqcc though, why is it we want to raise this one guys?

[Sulphur man]

This is why I tried to ask what he is thinking because then we can exploit him very efficiently.
Obviously this information is not easily gleaned otherwise the game would be much easier.

The default seems to be people using the cards as a stabilizing factor or guiding factor.
You know, the draws missed I'm going to call, the draws hit I'm going to fold this seems
really exploitable. Pretty sure everybody who has posted is pretty range competent but mainly the key
to this is expanding beyond the what are the cards on the board and what are in each of our ranges to
what does this opponent expect from us.

[Honeybadger]

Been thinking a bit about this hand since Alex brought it to my attention the other day...

This is why I tried to ask what he is thinking because then we can exploit him very efficiently.

I don't think it is really possible to 'exploit him very efficiently' in this spot.

Fact is, this is a really bad flop for hero and villain has a substantial range advantage. Not in terms of overall equity, but in terms of distribution of equity. Hero is going to be opening really tightly from EP on the bubble - he won't be opening small pairs or small suited connectors. So on this particular flop hero has an 'empty range' - or, more accurately, he has lots of mid-strength stuff like overpairs, but his range is empty in terms of nutted combos. Villain is the only one who has sets, straights, two pair etc. Of course, hero has some flush draws and these do have robust equity and good visibility. However villain will likely have more flush draw combos, since hero is not going to be opening stuff like Qc9c from EP, but villain is definitely going to defend this sort of hand in the BB.

For this reason, hero is allowed to overfold in this spot. Villain has just got a lucky flop. This is no big deal, because 6 high flops do not occur very often. So it's not like villain is going to be able to recklessly donk many flops at hero.

Much respect to villain for recognising how bad this flop is for hero's range vs his range, and for having the balls to take advantage of it in a high pressure situation.

If you want to think about exploitative play/getting into villain's head, then...

Look at the picture of villain. That mofo is clearly one serious badass. I'm guessing that he's gonna barrel the turn and river way way way too much. Heck, he might even bet every turn and jam every river with his entire range. That's just the way he rolls. Badasses are gonna badass, right?

So with this in mind, we could choose to overfold on the flop and then massively underfold on the turn and river. Fold two red Kings right away for example, but call him down almost regardless of run out with KcKx. That's just a silly example off the top of my head... but you know the sort of thing I mean, right?

I definitely would not be raising anything at all on the flop.

[Sulphur man]

Been thinking a bit about this hand since Alex brought it to my attention the other day...

This is why I tried to ask what he is thinking because then we can exploit him very efficiently.

I don't think it is really possible to 'exploit him very efficiently' in this spot.

Fact is, this is a really bad flop for hero and villain has a substantial range advantage. Not in terms of overall equity, but in terms of distribution of equity. Hero is going to be opening really tightly from EP on the bubble - he won't be opening small pairs or small suited connectors. So on this particular flop hero has an 'empty range' - or, more accurately, he has lots of mid-strength stuff like overpairs, but his range is empty in terms of nutted combos. Villain is the only one who has sets, straights, two pair etc. Of course, hero has some flush draws and these do have robust equity and good visibility. However villain will likely have more flush draw combos, since hero is not going to be opening stuff like Qc9c from EP, but villain is definitely going to defend this sort of hand in the BB.

For this reason, hero is allowed to overfold in this spot. Villain has just got a lucky flop. This is no big deal, because 6 high flops do not occur very often. So it's not like villain is going to be able to recklessly donk many flops at hero.

Much respect to villain for recognising how bad this flop is for hero's range vs his range, and for having the balls to take advantage of it in a high pressure situation.

If you want to think about exploitative play/getting into villain's head, then...

Look at the picture of villain. That mofo is clearly one serious badass. I'm guessing that he's gonna barrel the turn and river way way way too much. Heck, he might even bet every turn and jam every river with his entire range. That's just the way he rolls. Badasses are gonna badass, right?

So with this in mind, we could choose to overfold on the flop and then massively underfold on the turn and river. Fold two red Kings right away for example, but call him down almost regardless of run out with KcKx. That's just a silly example off the top of my head... but you know the sort of thing I mean, right?

I definitely would not be raising anything at all on the flop.

Nice post really highlights the difficulty hero is in with this hand.