Fictional hand analysis

So you say that you would bet top 40% for value and you should have around 12% bluffs in your range due to the pot odds. That means you would bet every Ax, KK+ (63/153), and JTs,QTs(8/71) as bluff combos.

What if hero folds 88-JJ hands, x/r-s with AQ+,AA, KQs,77 and calls down with the rest ? Also dont you think that villains x range would be too weak ? It doesnt contain a top pair. On the turn hero would have a value bet even with a QQ maybe, still villain should call down him with 66, because there would be so many other worse hands to fold in his range.

So hero could split villains range into two parts, and could make the top of his range collide with the opponents, and could force the weaker part to put in money on bit bet streets just for -0,5 SB and a freecard that can probably just bring more reversed implied odds for the villain, as most of the time even with a K on the turn he will still have the second best hand only.
Under these circumstances couldnt Hero win enough on the turn and the river in average plus with that x/r that could cover that loss on the flop in case villain checks back or if hero overfolds a bit on the flop ?

And a different question:

I guess the default preflop PS 3bet ranges are based on pot equity because you dont have fold equity preflop, you get a call or a 4bet, therefore it has to be a pure value bet. Shouldnt it be like that ? After all this game isnt like no limit, where you can have a bluff 3bet range. In steal situations and in blind defense the PS ranges also have deviations from the equity approach.
It is taught so that you should have around 48% equity to 3bet to be at least 0 EV, and a lot of hands you have in your default 3bet range are way below that. I wrote the TJ and QJ suited type of hands because if I was to make -EV 3bets I'd rather play these, cause they perform better in realizing the fold and pot equity equity they have. What can you do with KJo if a significant part of its equity gets wasted ?

Also its worth to mind that these ranges are designed for micro stakes, where people dont care much about balancing especially preflop, and the rake is also high so you cant play too loose.
However I find interesting what you said, and if you have an idea how a more advanced preflop strategy is built up I would be glad to listen to your explanation.

Ok, so first off our value-bluff ratio has to be ~70-30, therefore the bluffing range is way tighter (and definitely includes T9s). Just a quick calc on my part is every Ax for value and QJ- for bluffs.

What if [...]

What if he doesn't. If he does, and we're aware of that, obviously we'll make the perfect exploitative play against it, if we're not aware of that, then it's like saying "the turn play was bad, cause the river came an A". Also, I assumed Villain has a betting range on the flop, and doesn't check his entire range - if he does (and we wanna remain balanced, which is not the case) we should tighten our betting range even more.

Splitting Villain's ranges in half is not really that huge of an advantage as people think. If it's a well balanced range, it's basically no advantage at all. (Tho I'm sure mine is not a perfectly-balanced range. And by this, Villain misses tremendous amount of value from every bluffcatcher (KK-77 or alike), given they're gonna play passively either way - and not win too much more from weaker hands.

But the main thing is we're assuming a situation where we know how Villain plays, and still want to be balanced, which is not really a good practical example. I did answer you what I'd do against an unknown Villain, when I face a missed cbet in this spot, but obviously with reads.

About preflop: no, it's not the case. Well, not in balance anyway. In balance you wanna build up a range that fairs well, but not awesomely on most boardtextures (you shouldn't tailor it to every board texture of course, unless you assume Villain actually plays a random strategy preflop). But saying we have to only 3bet for value is definitely not true, it's the standard 1-street thinking. Let's look at the previous example: on this A22 board against a PS default 3betting range you showed the range that has to be called down - which allows Villain to overfold on the flop (exploitatively) and maybe the turn way too much, then underfold the river probably - Hero's range is way too strong on an A hi board texture. Now my range is strong on A hi board textures, but not as much, and my Villain will have more incentive to peel the flop, since I'll give up a fair bit more on the turn, and also he can't fold his bluffcatchers, since I'll have enough bluffs in my range. We could also be balanced with the PS default range as well, but that would either mean turning stronger PPs (like 88-99) into bluffs, or checking the turn with some weaker Ax hands, both of which definitely hurts our overall expected value.

Once again, equity, equity realization, IO/RIO, playability, etc. are exploitative concepts, and we apply them in our thinking just because we can narrow down Villain's set of strategies to a certain point (you'll "rarely" see a play limp T6o, raise 84s and 98s, and fold everything else UTG - GTO assumes that it's a possibility, that's why we don't strive for the GTO-solution of the game).

And about the last paragraph: yeah, I agree that those ranges only work well on microstakes (see what I did there:D), but I think people in general misunderstand the concept of balance. When one say "balance is only useful against good players", that's definitely false. Ask youself this: how do you know if a play is exploitative or not, if you don't know what the "unexploitable" root was in that situation. How do you know that Villain bluffs too much, if you don't know, what is the normal bluffing range? I had several hands with students, where they thought they made an exploitative play, and actually it wasn't exploitative at all. So IMO knowing a balanced strategy should be the default for everyone, and you can go ahead and start exploitation from there. I know it goes against every kind of education scheme presented anywhere (mostly because poker was a purely exploitative game for a loooong long time), but if you think about it, it makes sense. Or at least it makes sense to me - which shouldn't mean a whole lot.♦

Originally posted by madorjan
Or at least it makes sense to me - which shouldn't mean a whole lot.♦

Yeah, since when did you crush the games you...oh wait

Very good discussion though that's being had here though, I love detailed discussion in the FL forums

Originally posted by madorjan
Ok, so first off our value-bluff ratio has to be ~70-30

Why ? How did you come to this result ?

Now my range is strong on A hi board textures, but not as much, and my Villain will have more incentive to peel the flop, since I'll give up a fair bit more on the turn, and also he can't fold his bluffcatchers, since I'll have enough bluffs in my range. We could also be balanced with the PS default range as well, but that would either mean turning stronger PPs (like 88-99) into bluffs, or checking the turn with some weaker Ax hands, both of which definitely hurts our overall expected value.

So you want your pre ranges to perform well overall possibly on every type of board ? That MP2 range you gave still looks highcard heavy. Also this approach looks a bit of a mission impossible to do, would be OK in HU, but you are simply in a too early position in MP2 and your equity is also too plastic, even if you had an advantage postflop by being able to represent more you would be so much behind when getting 3bets from tighter ranges and playing most of the time OOP. You simply need more equity to compensate the number of opponents and the positional disadvantage . You cant say that equity doesnt matter at all, because it has nothing to do with GTO play, cause after all you have to compare your risk-reward ratio to your chances of winning if you play GTO as well. And you cant do this for 5 streets in advance, i guess not even theoretically, because on later streets there will be "dead end" points where there is no good decision left for you, and you will lose money whatever you do. And the only thing you can do about this to avoid them, by playing tighter and having more change to win.

Also I would be interested in how do you determine the bottom of your opening range ? Why are you opening 55 and 44 not, KTo and K9 not etc.. ?

Anway... I'd like to show you two knew hand examples, which I have been thinking on, a bit similar to the previous one. All ranges are from PS FL charts found in Equilab, except that villain does not have a capping range preflop. Villain folds postflop according to the PS article recommendations.

Example #2:

MP2 raises, SB 3bets with QQ and the flop is AK2 rainbow.

Example #3:

MP3 raises, SB 3bets with JJ and the floos AK2 rainbow.

Questions:

- Do we want to c-bet ?
- If yes, do we barrel the turn ?
- If we do not 2nd barrel how does our turn x/r range look like ?
- Would it make sense to add QJs/TJs to SB-s 3bet range vs MP2/MP3 ?

Why ? How did you come to this result ?

I think both Boomer and I explain it in our vids in depth. Also, this is Mathematics of Poker territory, so you might wanna check that out.

So you want your pre ranges to perform well overall possibly on every type of board ?

Not necessarily, but that's one thing you have to aim for. In tight range situations, you don't want to have too strong of a range on A hi boards (the most common texture), cause that hurts your valuerange a lot (if you don't have enough bluffs, the exploitative play against you is to fold all bluffcatchers - meaning your valuerange suffers a lot). Obviously you can't have a perfect 3betting range in that sense, but you can strive for it.

You cant say that equity doesnt matter at all, because it has nothing to do with GTO play, cause after all you have to compare your risk-reward ratio to your chances of winning if you play GTO as well.

Yeah, in a way you're right, what I meant was that these terms don't mean anything in GTO as their exploitative meaning. Sure, risk-reward, or winning chances exist, but everywhere we use equity in exploitative play (e.g. semibluffing) is meaningless in GTO. But since we (or at least I) don't strive to play GTO, but a more exploitative version of it, equity will matter in those cases, yes.

And you cant do this for 5 streets in advance, i guess not even theoretically, because on later streets there will be "dead end" points where there is no good decision left for you, and you will lose money whatever you do. And the only thing you can do about this to avoid them, by playing tighter and having more change to win.

If you play GTO, that doesn't happen. I'd suggest you read MoP, they explain it much better than I can.:)

Also I would be interested in how do you determine the bottom of your opening range ? Why are you opening 55 and 44 not, KTo and K9 not etc.. ?

It's a good question, and I'm not sure I can mathematically prove that these are the cards to have at the bottom of your range, but I talked with quite a lot of good players about it, and looked at my results, ran a few sim, and that's what I chose to go with. But I don't have any solid math behind it. (Maybe that experimentally it works well on a lot of board textures with my style, but that's it I think.) I'd raise 55 and 44 over K9o cause when you get 3bet, you have much better equity with these hands. If you're in a more coldcally, passive game, it might change the situation.

- Do we want to c-bet ?
- If yes, do we barrel the turn ?
- If we do not 2nd barrel how does our turn x/r range look like ?
- Would it make sense to add QJs/TJs to SB-s 3bet range vs MP2/MP3 ?

I'm gonna leave these 2 situations to other, I don't want this thread to just be the 2 of us talking, but in a nutshell: we've already discussed cbetting, I think barreling both hands is a bit over-optimistic, I have a vid (in Hungarian, sry everyone) on how to construct a donk-x/r-ing range, and I have both those hands in my deafult 3betting range.:)

I asked you to give an exact calculation cause I dont really get it how you managed to come to that result. If there is an open raise and a 3bet thats 2x 3SB= 6SB plus with the dead money (1SB) that is 7 SB on the flop , and as MP2 bets that is an 8:1 pot odds for SB to call. So to make him indifferent to calling that makes 1/9~ 11-12% bluffs. How did you get 30%

cause that hurts your valuerange a lot

Thats true only under 'general' circumstances. By general I mean that all the hands in your range on a board are exclusively either value or bluff hands. This means that fold equity is a necessary condition, if you dont have fold equity at all, or you cant make better hands to fold, then the neccesity of having a bluff range is no longer a valid presumption. And this is true for valuebetting as well, if you cant make nuff worse hands calling you, you dont have a value bet. And you might say yeah thats an exploitative situation, but the most important thing that you miss is that there are no other options than this. You cant play balanced in those situations at all, because you are in lack of fold equity or you cant value bet and without those there is no GTO play. Or better to say the GTO play is very different from the one that is based on bluff and value bets. For example imagine that the blinds are 1 million SB-s, which is utterly unreal but in this case the GTO play is to call any 2. But there are completely real situations, in which your equities against (a) GTO player(s) are so much distorted in one way or in the other that it resembles to the previous situation. For instance these are such multiway pots when your fold equity is below the amount that you'd require to make a bluff bet. This happens preflop as well, when you are in a nonsteal situation, because this is basically a multiway pot as well. The more opponents act after you, the less fold equity you have. Here Im not talking about fold equity in an exploitative manner, but just about the fact that after a point at least one of your opponent will have hand wherewith he'll have the odds to call or 3bet you no matter what range you have. And because of the fact that your fold equity converges to nearly zero by the number of opponents you have to deal with your range must be shifted towards value more and more until it reaches a point where it becomes pure value. You can ofc have bluffs in your range as well if you want but your opponents will own you cause they are too many in numbers and have a lot stronger range overall.

Therefore I think to some situations you cant generalize and say : "if you don't have enough bluffs, the exploitative play against you is to fold all bluffcatchers". How is that you open something with the intention of bluffcathing from FR UTG ? Or with the intention of bluffing for ex. ? I dont think that you have that option from there,because starting from a 10 way pot your opponents wont be able to bluff enough including you as well.

And similar situation happens also in the first example. You say that you can be balanced with those ranges by turning 88 into a bluff, but you have passed by when I showed that the opponent wont fold a better hand. Your pot equity with 88 is very low, and your chance to make a better hand fold is also zero. And this is what I mean by a "dead end". Ofc that doesnt meant its not worth to 3bet 88-s in that spot, cause it will flop well most of the time, but the more you get into a value heavy situation with such marginal hands the more frequently these 'gaps' will occur in your range.

don't strive to play GTO, but a more exploitative version of it

This is a misconception that I found really annoying among the poker community. A lot of time I hear video producers, coaches saying. " Thats more optimal" or "that closer to optimal" etc... but this tells me that they are not familiar with the meaning of the word 'optimal'. Cause this means 'the best'. And when you have the best there is no better, so there is no such thing as 'more optimal',or when something is 'nearly the best' it just means it isnt the best. The goal of GTO is to be unexploitable and you cant say you play and exploitative version of GTO because then you are not playing GTO at all, cause you can still be exploited.

But ofc I dont want to be uncomprehending, I understand that you meant making more decisions based on GTO,and you mean that your overall play is a mixture of both exploitative and GTO based decisions, I just wanna say that when you make your decisions you handle these two separately even yourself, cause they are the opposites of each other and you cant mix em. Even if one decision has influence in the next one, there are no exploitative decisions that ensue GTO decisions and vice versa, due to the incompatibility between them.

@alpha-calc: as I said, there are plenty of materials out there, check those out. Using one-street alpha is plain wrong in that situation, cause you have to make him indifferent on multiple streets. (See what happens with your ranges on the turn, if you bet by one-street alpha on the flop.)

On all the other subjects: I fear you might misunderstood GTO theory at some point, as well as misunderstood me. I'm talking about balance which is as far from GTO as from exploitative play. Balance builds from GTO-theories (e.g. making Villain indifferent with certain parts of their range), but it doesn't try to mimic GTO-play at all. Given that with a pretty high certainty we can rule out (or at least treat unlikely) a high percentage of existing strategies, we can come up with a more profitable approach, that still "balances" between the known and unknown facts. You say stuff here you take for granted (e.g. no better hands will fold to our 88), that you really cannot know. Can assume maybe, or can come up with fancy statistical data (I know of only 1 person that did that reliably for LHE), but the fact is, there are several things we cannot know. I agree that "more exploitative" was a poor choice of words, but I don't think it's a problem to understand what I meant.

Hey again,

I have a new spot for you this time its a blind defense against a tight range:

so Villain raises from MP2 (66+,A8s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KJo+) and we defend with X, and the flop is say 9♥3♥6♠ or something like this.

Let X be a card that is two overcard with some backdoors for a flush and a straight, Q:hJ:s for ex,except ace highs.

So you have around 20-24% equity we needed 37% to call down, so thats not an option. Also to see a turn card we need 16%, and we have around 10-12%. But the board does not hit the opponent too much, and also if he is a barrel monkey we can count with some implied odds so that 16% may drop down to 10-12%, and if he isnt he can give freecards and let us the river cheaply as a bonus. We can easly continue on ♥ or a T, IDK if we could x/r on a K or an 8 to make some A high fold but that might be an option, and easily fold on an A, or 7-
.

So do we want to peel one with such a hand on a board like this, and if we do do we want to x/r as a bluff if we complete to some draws.

a) Fold outright.
b) Ch/r flop

I suppose "a)" can't be a big mistake - we just called bb to see if we hit, we didn't and we fold. Especially if the villain is tight, but with big wtsd/postf-agg we don't really wanna go on here. Even if we hit, we might lose and bluff turn won't get him to fold prolly.

Second thing is if we just call this we get no info whatsoever on our opponent's cards (well unless he doesn't bet in which case he's a donk :)). He starts with a strong range and is IP, he bets flop with EVERYTHING. He also probably bets turn with mostly anything in his range, so it's just a 1/2BB wasted there.

That's why I tend to ch/r here - first, it might get some fitorfolders or autocontibetters to fold outright if they got some A10, small A suited etc. If we get reraised, we can be reasonably sure we are beat. We usually don't get bet at turn by Ahigh so we can peel one card more there - if we do get it's probably the guy i was talking about in a) and it was good to fold outright - or somebody has a hand - fold. If we get called by a typical fitorfolder(tight range, small WTSD) we might even bet turn unless an ace/king hits (thinking him an AQ/AJ/lesser suited ace which he might fold). Some f/f might even fold small pairs, since we've actually shown a lot of strenght (ch/r+bet).

Calling station is an obvious fold - getting betted by a calling station and calling against a probably strong range is suicidal. That's ofc unless it's a completely random clueless fish.

Against a weak LAG/maniac - the turn raise might actually work (unless we're talking a complete autoraiser)- but I tend to get as much read as I can while it's cheap (i.e. flop) so I don't have to spend precious BBs on turn. Especially against maniacs/weak LAGs, I tend to fitorfold, so I would probably fold outright as it is an unneccesary risk to go on betting race with a marginal hand like two weak over and bdflush/sd.

Why would you either fold or x/r?

1) Fold

This iwould be a big mistake imo. We can continue on a 8, Q, J, T, K, :heart:, although would have to maths cruch K and 8, that's almost 1/3rd of the deck, some of those cards we will x/r the turn with (8, T, Q, J obvious, would have to look at our defending combos, K would be a combo crunch becasue I'm not sure raising is necessary although if may be to balance the hands which we hit a K on).

Given the pot size we should be dumping the bottom 18% of our range on this board and I'm pretty sure with 2 overs, backdoor flush and backdoor straight we're not even close to the bottom 18%. I fyolu're folding hands this strong I'd say you're way over-folding this flop

Upon doing a quick number crunch it's not as obvious as I'd have thought but it's still definitely a peel, it's probably around a 25%-ish strength hand so it's definitely a peel and easy fold on turn if don't improve and we probably bluff-raise any improvement

2) X-Raise

The board is 963 two-tone, you have a billion better hands in your range to x/r than QJ here. 78, 45s, 79, 8T, Flush Draws, 75s, 85s, so much that you may even have to delay some of your monster draws until the turn for balance purposes depending on your BB ranges so there's no point in adding a random hand like this to your range unless you exploitatively belive your opponent is a foldy nit who won't call you down with anything other than 2nd pair+

Summary:

Folding - Over-folding
X/Raising - Over-Bluffing

---->

Call and see the turn and react accordingly

Well let's agree to disagree there

You speak about general case which never occurs.

I said I would fold against a cs/tight range big wtsd. And I think that's okay - it's definitely not overfolding against a cs and yeah for the second case it might be viable to call, but i don't like that.

As to the x/r - I could play rr turn on strong draws/monster draws or even here. I just don't see why shouldn't I invest the single SB more to get a better read. The purpose is not bluffing (unless it's a foldy nit as you said - and he doesn't need to be able to fold anything worse than 2p just to fold his overs/ small pairs lol) and the purpose is not value. The purpose is simply getting to know what he has.

What do you mean the general case never happens?

Unless you somehow have the ability to see the 2 cards in your opponent's hand when he's given you no information becsides riasing and c-betting I can't understand why you'd try and play vs any specific hand combination

Also why are you getting a better read by x/r'ing? "Raising to see where I'm at" logic from 2006 and it doens't apply vs anyone even remotely competent these days because call flop/raise turn is a totally standard line in position with value and bluffs.

And your opponent would have to be terrible to fold any pair/decent A-High on this board so, again, you're not making a play that's good, you're relying on your opponent being awful which will get you so far in LHE, because you can find terrible players at micros quite easily, but won't let you develop beyond a point.

I'm not seeing the cards - I'm seeing the player's actions from past hands - What I meant by the general case is that I have no reads on the player - I don't know if he autobets, if he is a CS or a superLAG, how often and how stupidly he folds etc.

To counter the "playing stupid moves on stupid players because they work is -EV on higher limits" - well, it almost sounds like "adjusting to the table is stupid because there may be other tables, where it won't work". Humm. I would do it when it works and not when it doesn't. If I can exploit, I will, if I can't I'm sitting at the wrong table and should get out ASAP. If I can't adjust, I might as well go playing roulette.

Anyway I think you do get a bit more read on x/r - you might even get a freecard against some players because of showing some strenght - hmm ? You think that the check turn still shows enough weakness to get betted into all the time ?

Huh just dug into it a bit. I was thinking that it is easy to get dominated with QJ but it's actually supereasy:

The non-dominated range is:

77,88,1010,K10s,Q10s,J10s, AKs, AKo, A8s,A9s,A10s,A10o
Twelve.
Or 90.

The dominated range is:

66,99,JJ,QQ,KK,AA,AQs,AQo,AJs,AJo,KQs,KQo,KJs,KJo
Fourteen.
Or 110.

So it is actually MORE LIKELY to be dominated than not. We get 6:7 (against us - and 9:11, even worse if we count the absolute occurences and not the pure range, i.e. if AhJh and AdJd is a different hand) that we are dominated already on the flop and that's discounting that there might be a higher heart. How can this be a clear call ? If we hit a J we still have just 6:5 that we're actually better. If we hit a queen it's whopping 4:3(actually 5:4 cards-wise). And that's what we call-down for ? Discounting the fact that while the hands that dominate us will probably play us to the river while the other ones would probably fold.

Moreover, continuing on K or 8 is not even a +EV call even if we discount all the dominated possibilities. Plain and simple - 44 cards left in deck, we have 10 outs, pot is 4BB, 1BB to call means we need 1:4.4 and we get 1:4. Assuming we get some implied odds is not really clear since villain may be betting just like that and folding to a turn raise or c/fing river. Even if he calls us, it's a so-so call and given the incredible chance that he is better it can't possibly be good.

I'm not even talking about the possibility of our hearts being dominated.

Sum up ? Q or J is hardly more than calldown given 4:5(AT LEAST) chance of being dominated and feeding a stronger hand (And I think it's a -EV calldown, given we've paid already just to "improve"). K or 8 is -EV. Heart is speculative. Only 10 actually improves us against this range. Uh-huh.

So again, I think folding is pretty much ok, given the circumstances. And the x/r can work on some players, while getting a free-card turn from other.

I don't really get why making one or two so-so calls is the obvious optimal play.

EDIT: Last edit hopefully ♦ I've not included the SB in the calculations, but it doesn't make the K, 8 call profitable anyway and it sure doesn't make it good for the other turn cards.

Originally posted by M3lchior
I'm not seeing the cards - I'm seeing the player's actions from past hands - What I meant by the general case is that I have no reads on the player - I don't know if he autobets, if he is a CS or a superLAG, how often and how stupidly he folds etc.

To counter the "playing stupid moves on stupid players because they work is -EV on higher limits" - well, it almost sounds like "adjusting to the table is stupid because there may be other tables, where it won't work". Humm. I would do it when it works and not when it doesn't. If I can exploit, I will, if I can't I'm sitting at the wrong table and should get out ASAP. If I can't adjust, I might as well go playing roulette.

So you're saying you have a read on everyone you're playing against because you're playing a 0.25/0.50 table?

I just don't get this arguement where every always assumes they have a rad on the player they're up against, here's a hint, sometimes you don't and assuming you do is not very good for your game.

kav's hand was posted under the premise we don't know about our opponent. If you have a read obviously that over-rides anything to do with balancing your game or anything similar.

And "My opponent will fold all hands better than QJ to my raise and then never bluff me if I check behind the turn" is a pretty specific read, kudos if you can come up with that in less than 500 observed hands.

Anyway I think you do get a bit more read on x/r - you might even get a freecard against some players because of showing some strenght - hmm ? You think that the check turn still shows enough weakness to get betted into all the time ?

Yup because unless the turn is something like an Ace you are representing nothing by checking the turn and your hand looks exactly like what it is, BS.

Huh just dug into it a bit. I was thinking that it is easy to get dominated with QJ but it's actually supereasy:

The non-dominated range is:

77,88,1010,K10s,Q10s,J10s, AKs, AKo, A8s,A9s,A10s,A10o
Twelve.
Or 90.

The dominated range is:

66,99,JJ,QQ,KK,AA,AQs,AQo,AJs,AJo,KQs,KQo,KJs,KJo
Fourteen.
Or 110.

You are just completely ignoring what the turn card is. Yes we're dominated on the flop by 1/2 of his range that you've given him (more on that later btw) but we're getting 5.5:1 to call and have multiple backdoor draws and 2 overcards (which we already discount as being outs but they still count) and the opportunity to win the pot later in the hand unimproved.

Your range is also WAY over-tight, especially for someone who's been described as a LAG in the HJ so doesn't matter how accurate your calculations are your original range presumption is wrong. I would be surprised if a UTG range at 6-max was that tight never mind a LAG in the HJ

Moreover, continuing on K or 8 is not even a +EV call even if we discount all the dominated possibilities. Plain and simple - 44 cards left in deck, we have 10 outs, pot is 4BB, 1BB to call means we need 1:4.4 and we get 1:4. Assuming we get some implied odds is not really clear since villain may be betting just like that and folding to a turn raise or c/fing river. Even if he calls us, it's a so-so call and given the incredible chance that he is better it can't possibly be good.

Who said anything about calling on those cards? There is an option to x/r bluff you know and that's what I would be doing on those cards because QJ, while I think it's an easy peel w/ the backdoor draws, is still at the bottom of our turn range (aside from maybe JT) unimproved and therefore on a picked up draw would form part of our turn x/r bluffing range.

Obviously if the guy is as tight as your ranges claim you should fold as an exploitative measure because he's tighter than an Italian Waiter's trousers but vs anyone described as a LAG, and even a standard TAG in today's games, you should be calling.

Well I was just addressing the ranges that were described in the original post ?

So you're saying you have a read on everyone you're playing against because you're playing a 0.25/0.50 table?

I don't ? And I never said that ? I was just saying that I would like to have reads on AT LEAST ONE player at the table. Playing by pure maths just never worked for me - I mostly start almost b/e at a table and get better only with developed reads.

Yup because unless the turn is something like an Ace you are representing nothing by checking the turn and your hand looks exactly like what it is, BS.

This is actually true, mind you

so Villain raises from MP2 (66+,A8s+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KJo+) and we defend with X, and the flop is say 9Heart 3Heart 6Spade or something like this.

Seriously, wtf ? This was the range described in the original post about the hand and I was using that as a start.

I'm ofc not ignoring the turn card, against the range presented in the post, we are -EV when ch/r WHATEVER THE TURN CARD IS. Mind you EVEN if it's Q, we get approximately -1/7BB EV. Here's the calcs.

We ch/r, Villain:

a) checks back, calls river
A8s, A10s, A10o, AJs,AJo, J10s,A7s
net won: 1BB, 40hands

b) bets into us, calls our rr, folds river unimproved
KJo,KJs,K10s
net won: 2BB, 20hands

c) bets into us, calls our rr, calls river unimproved
JJ,1010,88,77,A9s, Q10s, possibly AKo, AKs
net won: 3BB, 48 hands

d) bets into us, reraises our rr, bets into us on river
66,99,QQ,KK,AA, KQs,KQo, AQs,AQo
net won: -4BB, 62 hands

40+2*20+3*48-4*62=224-248= -24BB

Over 190 hands means ch/r on Q nets -1/7BB loss. I think I was actually pretty generous, since villain will probably fold more than I outlined here with the worse hands.

Who said anything about calling on those cards? There is an option to x/r bluff you know and that's what I would be doing on those cards because QJ, while I think it's an easy peel w/ the backdoor draws, is still at the bottom of our turn range (aside from maybe JT) unimproved and therefore on a picked up draw would form part of our turn x/r bluffing range.

Since we're obviously not both talking about the ranges outlined in the post, this might be useless, but if the ranges were as they were outlined ch/r bluff with 8,K turn would be obviously suicidal. I'm not going into details, but I assume that he just doesn't fold too much of that range and even reraises a pretty big bunch of those (on K it's approx. the same as on Q so we're super-dead and on 8 it's slightly more nice for us, but he still rr's back any PP he has for instance).

Obviously if the guy is as tight as your ranges claim you should fold as an exploitative measure because he's tighter than an Italian Waiter's trousers but vs anyone described as a LAG, and even a standard TAG in today's games, you should be calling.

Hmmm, that's what I'm saying all the time ? Exploitative ch/r or fold ? Unless we're talking about the ranges that were outlined in the original post we're talking a completely different subject, aren't we ?

Mind you the ranges are from ORC if I remember correctly and they should correspond to 25/20. Are you saying that playing the ORC and 25/20 is nitty ? Sounds like a solid reasonable TAG to me. Wtf again.

Seriously have you even read the post ? Or did you read what I was saying ? Or are you just trying to prove me wrong without rhyme or reason?

To answer the bottom question about the ORC:

YES 25/20 is nitty in today's games and the ORC needs very serious updating...I'm pretty sure it was last updated about 3-4 years ago.

For example it has you folding your BB 45% of the time vs a button open. I'm pretty sure every 32/23 TAG at 1/2+ would be utterly salivating at the prospect of facing someone like that in the BB when they're on the button. (Not to mention the fact you're only opening 37% on the button so don't tke advantage of position to anywhere near the degree you should)

Again you've made assumptions in your HH that aren't necessarily true:

There are hands there that won't 3-bet our turn raise (3-betting with KQo there is laughable when you think bluffing is "suicidal".)

If your opponent's going to have a turn fold of 0, which it appears is what you believe from what you wrote on the EV analysis then obviously bluffing's stupid but I don't think anyone will have a fold of 0 here and if they do then obviously you make a +EV adjustment by only value raising.

And yes I did miss the original range from kavboj and apologies for that but I don't play vs many people who play a range anything like that from the HJ.

But coming back to your response I still say x/r'ing is utterly godawful. You're saying he never folds anything to a turn raise and yet you're willing to air-bluff the flop hoping for a free card OOP?? I will concede that folding may be ok vs some really tight players (as this guy appears to be) but if you think that's the y tplahen x/r'ing is just totally awful and not exploiting anything. You have no fold equity and no plan for the rest of the hand other than hoping your opponent is awful and can't value bet when you turn your hand face up.

If you think I'm trying to just prove you wrong out of spite then I'm afraid you're completely barking up the wrong tree.

In order to make the discussion more constructive though:

In your opinion we should fold this flop.

Can you please break down what hands you'd:

1) Defend your BB with
2) Fold the flop with
3) call the flop with
4) Check Raise the flop with vs this player