AA zoom vs c/r flop barrel off

Give your thought process first.

no stats? no thoughts?

is the sb a fish? i don't see a lot of NL regs calling in the SB.
guess i would fold on the turn, looks like a set to me

It would be nice you post a converted hand history next time as well.
If you don’t know how that works you can always check out our https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=267242 thread.

Cheers,
SDK1987

Originally posted by nitrol
Give your thought process first.

My idea was to have a neutral opinion about the hand, before I give my thought process.

Originally posted by SDK1987
It would be nice you post a converted hand history next time as well.
If you don’t know how that works you can always check out our https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=267242 thread.

Cheers,
SDK1987

Too bad you focus so much on "form" instead of "content". I give all the information that one needs to comment the hand. I have no stats on the SB, its the first time I play against him.

Your thought process will not affect our opinion.
Give it, do not keep it for yourself.

Why the small raise UTG? Is your range wider than normal?

Good flop bet, you rep a strong hand which you actually have. When he check-raises you, you actually can fold on the flop. You beat only strangely played overpairs and flushdraws/combo draws.
Maybe you are really exploitable if you start bet folding overpairs so call is ok.

Fold turn. Its a better card for his range than yours. Also he bets just enough to jam the river.

Fold river. If you call you compound on your turn mistake. Also the offsuit king helps your perceived range but hes not afraid to jam.

Now, we may be waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off with those assumptions. Maybe this is a 80/30/2 guy with 8.0 AF and Win at showdown under 40%. Thats why we need more info. If you play hudless atleast say something about timing tells...

You should fold at some point, but this is an exploitative fold. The thing is that you missed the flop and villain can be pretty sure you did so. (It is full-ring. This means a typical reg is capped as hell at AA. Straight draws and flush draws all missed (no, he isn't playing 95 or T9 this way).)

I would usually open at least 3x from early positions and smaller from late positions, but I guess it is not a mistake to open 2.5x here.
OTF I would bet only 1/2 pot. This board doesn't hit your range that hard? -> you don't have many bluffs -> you bet smaller.

You should be able to fold at some point, but I would not do it OTF.

The river is the place to fold.

Originally posted by nitrol
The river is the place to fold.

Why are we calling turn if planning to fold every river?

Here is my thinking process.

Preflop:

I raise a quite loose range, composed of value hands and bluffs hands, to be balanced :
77+, AQo+, ATs+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, 98s

Flop

I will for sur bet the pairs KK-QQ-JJ-TT-99 for value, as well as the nuts 88. With AA, I may just check/call, to induce bluffs, because I'm not afraid of overcards. However, with two diamonds on the board, I prefer to lead in order to avoid giving a free card to flush draws. So I bet 39 combos for value. I need at least as many combos in my bluff range. I agree with a previous comment, that I should only bet half of the pot here.

To balance my value range, I will bluff with all suited hands of my range, except the strongest ones that will come in my check/call range (along with 77 and 98s). So I bluff with KTs+, QTs+, JTs and also ATs, AJs (40 combos).

AQo I will just check/fold and AKo check/call.

My opponent is risking 13.5BB to win 10.5BB. If I fold more than 43% of my hands, he can basically do that with any two cards and win automatically. So I should probably defend 34 combos.

Another way of seing this is to try to assess the theoretical range of Villain. In his shoes, I would just 3bet AA-KK and AKs preflop. I would also 3bet AQs, T9s, 98s to balance my range. Maybe I would also 3bet QQ for value depending on the opponent. So my call range in the SB vs an UTG raiser would be the next strong hands, something like AKo-AQo, AJs-ATs, KQs, QJs, JTs, JJ-77. Postflop, on a board like we had, I would check all my hands and versus a bet, give up all high card that are not a flush draw and AQo. Since I almost never hit the nuts, I don't think that I can have a good balance between value and bluffs here, so I would just call with the set, the overpairs and the flush draws. If I wan to be tricky, I can c/r like he did, but then I would probably only with 88, 99 (9 combos) and my flush draws mentioned above (8 combos). The idea of picking 99 is that it is the pair to one wants to protect the most versus overcards. JJ-TT would just stay in the calling range, played in the way ahead way behind style.

If we put Vilain on this c/r range, defending all my value bets and flush draws looks like a good strategy. This defends more than 43% of my range, so it's fine from the perspective mentioned above.

In conclusion, on the flop, I defend AA-88 (39 combos) and flush draws (8 combos), for a total of 47 combos.

Turn

I will basically check all my range on this turn. SB bets 22 to win 33, so I should defend at least 60% of my range, unless I want him to be able to bluff me with all his range. In his shoes, I would indeed bet all my range, since the 7 obviously didn't improve the hand of UTG. I should defend 28 combos. If I think that this opponent is not betting in a balanced way, I could decide to defend let say only 40% of my range, but probably never more than that ! So let's suppose that I want to do that, because it is zoom and player tend to play more straightforward, than I need to defend 19 combos (40% of 47 combos). I will for sure defend 88 (3 combos). So let's put AA-KK also in the defend range (12 combos). Let's also put the 4 strongest flush draws (4 combos).

River

Villain bets 62 to win 77, I should defend at least 44% of my hands. Again, if I think that this player plays straightforward, I could defend less, for instance only 30%. Let's do that, I have to defend 6 combos ! Of course, I will still defend 88 (3 combos). Obviously, I should now take KK (3 combos since the river is a king). So in conclusion, I should fold AA on the river. However, this is all based on the assumption that Villain does not bluff much, otherwise, I could defend half of my AA hands, just in case. That's what I did :-)

That pre open range is a bit tighter than I would open in 6max, so I think it should be quite standard. I have no experience in full ring but I wouldn't call that loose.

GTO wise this hand was probably well played, but I would still consider making an exploitative fold OTR because usually these guys are not bluffing enough. Especially when they raise OTF and barrel turn and river they often are too nut heavy.

I think you have a small flaw in the construction of your flop betting range. If we want to be able to bet all streets "perfectly" -> our flop betting range should have about 20-30% value bets, not 50-50?

You are right. Usually, you can contibet with about 1/3 hands for value and 2/3 as a bluff. However, in this spot this would probably mean betting with any two. Why not.

I'm have learned many concepts recently about "perfect" play and I think that this is probably not applicable at the stakes that I'm playing... So probably, I should not defend as if Villain would bluff as much as he should...

I'm coming back from a live CG session and I lost one big pot because I tried to defend against a possible bluff from Vilain, where in fact I felt that he could "almost only" do the move he was doing with two pair. I called with one pair anyway because he could "theoretically" be bluffing with missed draws too, but realised later in the CG session that this player was not bluffing so much in such situations. I must say that it is difficult at the end to decide how to play in practice. Probably, against such fishes as I had in this live CG session, I should just play more straightforward. I also lost a big pot on a big bluff that was "strangely called" by the Vilain, with a hand he probably shouldn't call. So if you have advices on how to adapt GTO play versus recreational players, tell me...

Ummmm... It was an interesting read but I realized something
You are thinking about your oponent's bet sizing, your odds and your range.
You should also be thinking about your oponents range and try to exploit it if possible. No matter how much you study GTO if you only think about not getting exploited you are just half-assing it.
If you are trying to exploit population tendencies, meaning you are differing from GTO and you play against the perfect GTO player you wouldnt lose money.

Think about it this way - lets say you are playing rock-paper-scissors GTO. That means you play exactly 33.3% every one of the three randomly. Now, your oponent starts to play 100% rock, giving you the perfect oportunity for exploitation. Continuing playing GTO wouldnt increase your winnings whatsoever even though your oponent plays the most exploitable strategy EVER. You would still be winning, drawing and losing 33.3% of the time.

Sorry for the rant, but I thought you guys liked money. ♠_biggrin:

Originally posted by nsavovThink about it this way - lets say you are playing rock-paper-scissors GTO. That means you play exactly 33.3% every one of the three randomly. Now, your oponent starts to play 100% rock, giving you the perfect oportunity for exploitation. Continuing playing GTO wouldnt increase your winnings whatsoever even though your oponent plays the most exploitable strategy EVER. You would still be winning, drawing and losing 33.3% of the time.

I like your example indeed. If players are playing in an exploitive way, obviously, we should exploit them. The open question for me is starting against an unknown player with GTO (considering that he should bluff in a balanced way) or just to be safe consider first that he is not bluffing enough (and adapt later when we have reads)?

Adapting against the player pool is better than GTO at micros IMO. Dont forget that your oponent is readless too. Let me ask you: would you flat UTG open from SB any hand and randomly decide to c/r and barrel off readless? Why would you give a random player credit to be capable of doing that. And why would he give you credit for folding?

Doug Polk says playing GTO is good even at 2NL readless.
BalugaWhale and Pleno1 say to bet relentlessly and when you get raised - just fold.
I personally like the second theory.

Back to RPS:
If you know the average player in the player pool plays rock 40%, it would be better for you to diviate from GTO and play 40-50% paper.
Now, about the leveling.. Some smart players may assume (readless) that maybe you are exploiting the playerpool, but they also would like to exploit the playerpool aswell. And if they try to exploit the exploiter, they will get owned against the playerpool. So they will most likely throw paper too and you would tie. Thats 0EV. So what happened? You both tried to exploit the playerpool and ended up playing optimally against each other. And if he played GTO that would have been 0EV again...

Its kind of dumb to have such large discussions. At the end of the day we can agree that you are making money from poker when making the correct adjustments when you get the reads. ♠_thumbsup: