PLO50 5c - AJ952ds value-bet with the straightflush

Dont really get idea behind preflop play. Our hand is imo too weak and to play it versus solid looking reggy player doesnt seem profitable. As played flop call seems like only option but the issue with our hand is showing. We do hit fairly strong (for this hand) but its still somewhat marginal to even continue.

On turn villain barrel so in 4card I would expect to face K high flush as absolute bottom for value and occasional AA with likely A♥: as semibluff bet. In 5card K high flush would probably check even more and maybe always. So for us to raise we essentially say we have straight flush or at bottom nut flush that block straight flushes. I doubt even reggy players are able to fold nut flush often. So I would raise turn big enough to leverage stacks or just call and not have any raises. Its bit tricky here with several SF combos available as even A♥: is not that strong of a blocker. If we have it then how high is possibility of SF when villain is betting? So even if we have nut flush do we want to raise?

Anyway I dont really like this small raise for few reasons:

- It still show huge strength as we should be facing very polarized turn barrel range.
- It doesnt really build that pot and makes kind of "no brainer" call for possible sets. E,g, AA would call more. Would NF fold if we raised to 50bb? Probably not. So when there is good possibility we are in huge setup spot we just need to go bigger for value imo. If we decide to raise.
- If villain has A♥: blocker play he might just give up with those SF combos available but potentially barrel most of time on non pairing river. This is potentially massive EV lose!

Originally posted by Mascherano95
I bet 3/4pot as it is my default sizing on blank flush runouts and I did not design an extra strategy just for straightflush possible runouts (and probably never will lol). Since it is a regular I restrained from using an exploitative sizing like pot

For river in flush board (no SF possible) it would be standard to pot with nut flush. I dont think there is anything exploitative in it when we have already polarized our range to be nuts or bluff. Our aim is to either get max value or put on max pressure.

Good question though could be if we should even be in this table from table selection view.

Good points from Ghaleon. The last sentence is the most important one, if table is full of solid regs it's not profitable for anyone. There are times when good customers have left and we stay in the table for a while, but if it goes on longer it's +EV decision to just sitout and not play.

You are deep, and therefore hand selection plays an important role. That hand is very one dimensional, only spades is your strong component. Not sure how opponent is semi-loose, as your own stats are higher.

Once you hit the straight flush, you only get value from set, nutflushes or Ah blockers. And as we know that opponent is a bit tighter postflop, that leaves him with sets and NF. Both of those would call a bigger raise. If we think between raising minimum or normal sizing, what are the hands that would call that minraise but fold to a bigger ones? We should always know what we are trying to achieve with our decisions, and for valuebetting we should know what part of opponent's range are we trying to get value from. And then choose the sizing according to his range. If his calling range is quite strong, we raise big (or if we need protection) and if his calling range is wide from weak to semi-weak and semi-strong hands, we raise smaller to keep them in.

And as Ghaleon said, if our range is nuts or air, we should use pot sizing as standard strategy.

For river in flush board (no SF possible) it would be standard to pot with nut flush. I dont think there is anything exploitative in it when we have already polarized our range to be nuts or bluff. Our aim is to either get max value or put on max pressure.

So you bet your Ace-high flush with half-pot only? We will not have nuts (straightflush) often enough to have a solid pot frequency.

Both of those would call a bigger raise.

Good point. I raise 3/4pot only on lockdown shifts/textures though. People also overfold and continue bad against that more small sizings from my experience, I know most would argue for pot to polarize but my exploitative sizing worked better for me so far as it widens calling ranges and I am more weighted towards value than bluffs compared to GTO.

If I did raise NF on turn versus solid player it would be with 9♥: or T♥: to block most likely SF combos. So that would heavily remove the issue of not having nuts that often.

For us to bluff in this spot I think at least theoretically it would make most sense to use combos with 9♥: and some equity versus NF. So with set or two pair. One of reasons why you don't usually see people bluffing though is the way lot of players think. That is "I only lose to SF so I am not folding NF".

That is bit twisted way of thinking though because questions to ask should be:
- Do I beat any value? Unlikely as hero here is probably not raising weaker flush.
- How much bluffs are there? Well I just claimed people very rarely try to rep SF...

So then we come to this spot and our sizing preferences. We have made claim that getting NF to fold tend to be very hard. That being clearly biggest part of villain range we should aim to maximise profit versus that even if in reality we would ~never be bluffing in this spot.

If we think that we need to have bluffs in our range all the time, we are thinking it wrong. In GTO strategy, we do have bluffs in every possible scenario, with perfect ratio to value. In reality, 0% of our opponents are playing GTO, and optimal strategy is therefore non-GTO versus 100% of our opponents. Balanced strategy is a starting point for our real strategy. And if we don't know what our real strategy is, we use GTO balanced strategy as a starting point, as it is never a bad option.

We can be 100% sure that our opponent is not folding NF here as often as solver would. So we can quite safely deviate from GTO and be sure that 0 bluffs with Th/9h blockers is a good strategy. Just like we know that if in another spot opponent is a good customer who calls us 100% times on the river, we should never bluff.