PokerSnowie advises to check(?) (6-max NL5z)

On NL5 I would Cbet for value and protection for sure.
Especially against a weaker villain you lose a lot of value if you check behind.

Cheers,
SDK1987

Originally posted by SDK1987
On NL5 I would Cbet for value and protection for sure.
Especially against a weaker villain you lose a lot of value if you check behind.

Cheers,
SDK1987

That's what I thought, which is why I was baffled when Snowie recommended a check 100% of the time.

try to check the range builder (or whatever they call it) to see how other Ax are played

^^ Actually interested in what their strategy is with Ax here.

I would probably bet AJs+ and AJo at some frequency. We need a whole lot of bluffs to balance our range though (2:1 if we bet pot) and even then with the amount of strong FD's we have we just crush his range, so snowie probably think we get more value out of him by checking a hand like this.

Originally posted by JCSeerup
^^ Actually interested in what their strategy is with Ax here.

I would probably bet AJs+ and AJo at some frequency. We need a whole lot of bluffs to balance our range though (2:1 if we bet pot) and even then with the amount of strong FD's we have we just crush his range, so snowie probably think we get more value out of him by checking a hand like this.

Good response. I think that we're unlikely to get 3 streets of value with just 1p, and we don't have to protect our hand as much as we have a flush draw blocker.

Sometimes we induce some spaz leads on the turn/river too because "hurr durr he checked flop he never has an ace". Then against better players, we protect ourselves from being exploited when we have a worse pair.

Edit:

Originally posted by Tomaloc
try to check the range builder (or whatever they call it) to see how other Ax are played

Interestingly, when I swap Qc for any other Q in the deck, it prefers a bet 55% of the time and a check 45% of the time.

When I swap the Q with Jc, it also likes a check 100% of the time. With other Jacks, it prefers a check 77% of the time. Then when I swap it for Tc it prefers a check 93% of the time. Any card lower than a T and it prefers a check 100% of the time regardless of suit.

i haven't actually checked any solution for this specific spot, but i personally tend to agree with snowie's decision here. i like to check hands like this because they are great bluffcatchers, they allow us to easily defend even against overbets on flush turns and call more flush rivers, while also being strong enough so that the opponent can't just cap us at weak Ax.

that said, i know that solvers often bet these hands over hands without the flush card (having a flush card just makes your hand stronger after all), but i find that kind of strategy harder to play in practice.
however, it seems that snowie is just checking a lot in this spot in general, which i don't really understand. by all means we have a range advantage even with snowie preflop ranges and the PFR not having 33, so we have a lot of incentive to bet at a high frequency.

i'd cbet 100% of my preflop raising range on this board and use two sizings, large and small, but i can't explain which one when.

intuitevily makes sense to bet large with strong aces to get max value from worse AX and 9X which should call at least one street.
checking back makes no sense given the amount of flushdraws in BBs defend range which has all the 84s hands etc.

range advantage favours the IP player a lot, hence 100% cbet frequency.

Originally posted by Tomaloc
i haven't actually checked any solution for this specific spot, but i personally tend to agree with snowie's decision here. i like to check hands like this because they are great bluffcatchers, they allow us to easily defend even against overbets on flush turns and call more flush rivers, while also being strong enough so that the opponent can't just cap us at weak Ax.

that said, i know that solvers often bet these hands over hands without the flush card (having a flush card just makes your hand stronger after all), but i find that kind of strategy harder to play in practice.
however, it seems that snowie is just checking a lot in this spot in general, which i don't really understand. by all means we have a range advantage even with snowie preflop ranges and the PFR not having 33, so we have a lot of incentive to bet at a high frequency.

Could be a nice bluff catcher hand, but if you deal with a fish that's not likes to fold a random pair and never bluffs this isn't working and I expect this will happen a lot on NL2 and NL5.

if i'm playing soft opponents, i'll just cbetting 100%, either small or big sizing depending on my holding and opponent ♦ against a "potential fish", this is a large sizing triple barrel, of course.

as my "default strategies" against unknown regs, i use either a) 100% small cbet or b) polarized large cbets and checks, and for the latter this would go into checking range. not saying it's great or optimal, but it's how i'd tend to do it.

However no one said why snowie checks 100% i.e. why it uses a pure strategy instead of a mixed one?
My solver uses a pure strategy in this case too (I put the preflop ranges of pokersnowie advisor) and I have an idea about the reason why both snowie and solver check 100%

edit
poker snowie sucks

We should be cbetting range here with a small sizing like 25% pot. Bb should have almost zero xr hands, pretty sure that snowie is wrong here, i thought pokersnowie was just pseudo gto & thus is quite useless

Originally posted by Taroxus
We should be cbetting range here with a small sizing like 25% pot. Bb should have almost zero xr hands, pretty sure that snowie is wrong here, i thought pokersnowie was just pseudo gto & thus is quite useless

Yeah, I have the trial for Snowie atm and I'm not the biggest fan, but it's not awful. Do you have any recommendations for more accurate GTO solvers?

u shuld order, GTO+ because it's cheaper and afaik not much difference to PLO

Originally posted by SDK1987

Originally posted by Tomaloc
i haven't actually checked any solution for this specific spot, but i personally tend to agree with snowie's decision here. i like to check hands like this because they are great bluffcatchers, they allow us to easily defend even against overbets on flush turns and call more flush rivers, while also being strong enough so that the opponent can't just cap us at weak Ax.

that said, i know that solvers often bet these hands over hands without the flush card (having a flush card just makes your hand stronger after all), but i find that kind of strategy harder to play in practice.
however, it seems that snowie is just checking a lot in this spot in general, which i don't really understand. by all means we have a range advantage even with snowie preflop ranges and the PFR not having 33, so we have a lot of incentive to bet at a high frequency.

Could be a nice bluff catcher hand, but if you deal with a fish that's not likes to fold a random pair and never bluffs this isn't working and I expect this will happen a lot on NL2 and NL5.

I keep hearing that people at uNL don't fold, but this seem like a spot where the population would be severely under defending against a cbet. Against a 25% pot bet MDF is 80%.. If villain defends wide here I don't see how that is possible without throwing some creative hands in the mix.

With AxQc we block QcJc-Qc8c, so if we x flop and a club rolls of on the turn he is less likely to have a flush, but it's still a good card for him to bluff. So I think our exploit here is to x back flop because he is overfolding this spot and we have a hand that plays very well on future streets.

MDF is useful in very few spots actually
definitely not in this one you are actually supposed to fold way more than 1-A.

Let's go through it
1) Snowie (and solver if you tell it to) picks ONE size that's the best for entire range
But not necessarily specific two cards
2) Generally the EV difference between sizes is very low on flop in most matrixes I've run
So you can pick 25% or 100% and the range EV won't change THAT much
3) In this spot 25% + bet wide is fine, but I assume Snowie picked a larger size and heavy check with range
In that range checking back that combo makes a lot of sense, and a solver will do the same

Reasons being vs a lot of his range you can play a 2 street game as he either has strong hands air, mediocre stuff, flush draws and stuff that beats you
and our range is also Ax FDs and then stuff like Khi etc.
- with large sizes it'll be hard to get 3 streets of value with a hand like this one
- You lose value vs flush draws with check bet bet vs bet bet check . You get always 2 streets from XXcc.
However his missed FDs can also take check bet bet line sometimes
and you BLOCK a good chunk of no made hands FDs actually
- You get the same value from Ax with check bet bet as bet bet check
- You gain value from his no equity hands that stab turn

- you can call down when flush hits , it's nice to have hands like that one. I didn't give the solver and overbet but Snowie uses it, it's well possible oop will on some rivers

As a side note for other hands, OOP should be checking the turn large % of the time anyways

So you can check flop with a good chunk of air and then bluff it on turn and/or river.

I do prefer 25% on the flop vs randoms at micros for two reasons
1) They are too passive on rivers in general. So you will get less value from the weaker hands with check + call 2x line than you s will vs solver/snowie
2) They tend to spazz against 25% yet the tendency is to give up rivers so you'll see a CR flop check turn and then give up with random spazzes from time to time

Also generally the difference between sizes when you pick just one is very low in terms if overall EV on flop for range
It's really not that much about the size when you play vs a solver etc. but more about frequency and range composition, and how your opponents tend to react, how well or badly they play vs certain sizes.

The 25% wide frequency and 66%++ low frequency cbet are both reasonable here and EVs will be close together