News: Self Study: What do I beat on this river?

Barry Carter has trouble targeting hands on the river so he brings in his coach to break down where the value comes from.

In the self study series Barry Carter shows you how he tried to solve a poker problem then consults a coach or solver to get feedback on his method.

In this hand I did a live GTO trainer session as my coach Dara O'Kearney sweated me and shared his thoughts as I played.

Barry Carter: This is a shootout final table, six players remain and we all have the exact same stack - 30 big blinds. Won't that essentially cancel ICM out a little bit?

Dara O'Kearney: Quite the opposite, when the stacks are close together the ICM pressure is extreme for all players, which is where you get the most divergence from ChipEV poker.

Barry Carter: The Lojack Opens to two bigs and I have 89 in the Big Blind, which is an easy defend. This is the GTO range for the Lojack:

And this is the GTO defending range:

The flop is 852 which is better for me because I have more flush draws, straight draws, pairs and sets. I also have top pair and backdoor straight and flush draws in my actual hand. If this was a ChipEV spot I think there would be a case for leading out here because the Lojack rarely hits this flop, but it is ICM so I will play more cautiously and check call.

Dara O'Kearney: Leading would actually be fine here some of the time but checking is the most frequent play. If a flopped straight was possible on this board there would be more leading.

Barry Carter: The turn is 5 which again is much better for me than the Lojack. Once again I am tempted to lead out here but I can't do that with every hand just because my overall range likes it, so once again my plan is to check/call.

Dara O'Kearney: You identified another good card and you could lead here, but you can't go crazy every time you get a good card. This hand has good showdown which is why checking is the more frequent play.

Barry Carter: Lojack actually checks behind and the river is a 9. This looks great for me I have top two and I have more flush draws in my range. However, I'm not sure what I have pulled ahead of except maybe A8. Any overpair is beating me with the paired board, so I decided to check.

Dara O'Kearney: I think you are worried about some hands he doesn't have that often like overpairs.

Barry Carter: The correct play was actually to make a small bet and this is what the solver says the opponent would call with (a lot of these are mixes are calls and folds):

Dara O'Kearney: He does have the overpairs some of the time. As you can see he has a lot of 9x, A8/K8 and 77/66 that he calls with when we make a small value bet. If you checked he would check back a lot of these hands which is why a small bet is better. It functions as a blocker bet that gets called by worse and there is a decent amount of hands he calls with that justifies the small bet.

Previous self study articles

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