Q2s 0,5/1

What hands you do still beat out of his UTG-Range?

That's very good question Firsttsunami, I think we ll left it for other interested readers.

I can't think of a hand in his range you beat which will call the F c/r en T bet.
Let's say his openrange is like PS says in his ORC. 55+, A6s, A9o, K9s, KJo, Q9s, QJo, J9s, T9s. You call from BB and have a huge range.

With this flop action villain will put you on a mid or bottom pair, straight and flushdraws. If he has hit a set, straight or 2pair perhaps tpgk, would 3-bet because of the wet board? So we can discards those hands?
The A on the Turn is hitting his range hard. But doesn't do much for you. So I might nit and calldown from here on.
On the other hand betting might make him calldown flushdraws Jx in his range a couple of 8x which are still in his range.
But if I discard sets and 2p hands from his openrange and calculate equity on this river there is no hand that you beat.

Hey guys,

1) I'm totally checking 100% of my range on this turn card. It hits his MP range so damn well, and destroys ours, there is no way I'm betting into this turn ever. (However will c/r a bunch.)

2) As played, on the river we're kind of at the bottom of our range (maybe except for J7, T7 7:h6:h and stuff like these, but these are just a few combos), so I'd at least consider bluffing, and check/folding better Qx hands. It all depends on our blind defense range, for me it's the top of my bluffing range.

@Madorjan,

Explain me why you call it top folding range and why you choose it to change it to bluff, and then what hands u choose to fold.

Also , as played, if I play bet bet, on the River i get bet only form hands which are not folding from x/r, so why you even consider x/r for bluff? Do you think he may folding anything with which he is on the RiveR?

I think you misunderstood me, I would bluffbet the river, since in terms of river hand value worse hands in your flop c/r-ing range are just gonna be T7s maybe, some ♥:h hands (just 5-6 combos I'd guess), J7 (tho personally I just c/c the flop), and that's it. These are the only worse hands in my range, and I'd definitely like to valuebet good ~AQ+, so I need to bluff a good amount here.

I've done a calc on a good balanced strategy for the river (although it doesn't account for c/r-ing) from my preflop and flop ranges:

Combonator Output combonator.com
Board: Q J 8 A T

Group 1: Valuebet

JJ+, 88, AQs, AQo, K9s+, Kh7h, Kh6h, Kh5h, Kh4h, Kh3h, Kh2h,
K9o+, Q9s, Q9o, T9s, T9o, 97s-96s

Group 2: Bluffbet

Q5s-Q4s, T7s, 7h6h, 7h5h, 7h4h, 6h5h, 6h4h, 5h4h, 5h3h, 4h3h

Group 3: Check/fold

Q7s (3), Q6s (3)

Group 4: Check/call

AJs, AJo, QTs+, Q8s, Qd7d, Qd6d, QTo+, Q8o, J8s

You can see, that Q2s and Q3s are not part of my defending range, but you can also see that you should turn your worse Qx hands into a bluff, otherwise you hardly going to be bluffing enough.

((*Presumptions for the analysis:

Preflop defending range: 22+, A2s+, A2o+, K2s+, K5o+, Q4s+, Q8o+, J7s+, J9o+, T7s+, T9o, 96s+, 98o, 86s+, 74s+, 64s+, 53s+, 43s

Flop c/r with:

Value: KJ+
Bluff: every K hi or worse 'actual draw' (FD or GS)
))

Sorry but bluffing these hand is an absolute waste against utg range. No better hand will fold, no worse is gonna call. c/f River.

Originally posted by firsttsunami
Sorry but bluffing these hand is an absolute waste against utg range. No better hand will fold, no worse is gonna call. c/f River.

So what do you suggest then, what should our default strategy be in this spot? Not valuebetting anything but a straight so we shouldn't have to bluff Qx hands? I think the value we lose by bluffing Qx hands is much lower than the value we lose by not vbetting a set or AQ here. But if you have some other proposition, let me know. Obviously "balance is overrated" and similar 'arguments' are not the answer IMO.

((Also as far as I can see the absolute bottom of his range here is either A7, A6s type of hands he didn't raise the turn with, or rivered twopairs with JT and QT, therefore what he should fold is way stronger than our Qx hand. If you believe he won't fold these hands, exploitatively we could say that we should have a narrower bluffing range, I agree. But then let's say this, instead of thinking in our own hand only.))

Firsttsunami, please response to Madorjan post

Hi!

I totally agree with turn 100% check...

...as played river bet is ineresting?!?...
My intuition also says that this is not the spot to turn Qx into a bluff since imo its not realistic he folds a better hand here and also because there are sooo many that we loose against.

Im not saying that we are only vbetting very strong hands here,we have some busted FDs and even though these may not be that many it should be enough to cover our value part,which is also not that big either.

Why I think he wont fold a better hand here is just the fact that pot is big and the way board developed your hand looks super polorised. You either have a monster(2pair plus),busted draw or some other wierd bluff(like this one).Since 2 pair+ hands(and not many Kx! considering the action) are not highly likely on this board assuming your BB range,he will not be making though folds getting 1:7.Also his WTSD discourages me even further....I preffer c/f also

Originally posted by Dawnfall26
Im not saying that we are only vbetting very strong hands here,we have some busted FDs and even though these may not be that many it should be enough to cover our value part,which is also not that big either.

Hey,

so you say we shouldn't valuebet sets here? Otherwise my calculation (above) shows you what is the right amount to bluff. Busted FDs are hardly enough to balance our valuerange, unless you want to check most straights here.

I dont think there are that little of busted draws since there is also not that many very strong hands.And if you bluff this hand then u bluff your whole Qx part and that is a lot and sure too much. You can say you do it sometimes but then I would just say that we bluff with anything worse than Qx,there are some Jx,Tx and quite a few FD combos. And since we are bluffing for 1:6 that should be enough.

I definatelly get that we need some hands to turn into bluffs but I really dont like doing it when I cant see a better hand they may fold.

Sry wasnt looking at your previous post till now:S

But... I see that you would c/r flop quite wide and with a lot of draws which I would not(vs his range I would c/c K9 for example since I think you have very little FE and most cards that will suck for him will actually improve you) on the other hand I would defend a lot of lower suited connected cards... so I guess I would be having more FDs in my range

Considering your range your vbetting range seems about right. I still think you dont need to bluff as much as you wrote since I think the part of him that you want to bluff is small in the first place and I would not expect though Ax folds anyway...so having about 10-20% of bluffs must be enough. The hands that you wrote represent more than that imo

also...why would you c/f Q6 and Q5 but not Q2 ?!? and why would you c/c Q7?!? all these hands are the same... I would preffer to c/f all of these

I still believe this is not a good spot to turn Qx into a bluff but all this could totally be avoided by turn check.

Hey there,

Most of my post (including the flop c/r range and the river bet range) is built on my best approximation of a good balanced strategy (top-to-bottom), and that's why some moves seem weird in exploitative sense. Also, you can use a different preflop range, and expect a little bit different results (mostly on the river), but I stand by using mine, it won't make a lot of difference at all.

First off, flop c/r-ing: I think valueraising KJ+ here is more on the passive side, I think we miss some value with hands like JT, J9, but that's a sacrifice I made so we wouldn't bluff A his. If you look at it in Equilab:

Board: Q♦J♥8♥
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    80.18%  79.67%   0.51% { the value + bluff range I described earlier }
MP3    19.82%  19.30%   0.51% { 6s6c }

You can see, that even tho we turned every K hi or worse into a bluff, we still don't make him indifferent to calling down, but he should eventually fold most of his bluffcatchers. Here it is without the K hi stuff:

Board: Q♦J♥8♥
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    87.29%  86.65%   0.64% { above range w/o K hi draws }
MP3    12.71%  12.07%   0.64% { 6s6c }

Meaning there is absolutely no damn way he should call us down with any of his bluffcatcher hands, therefore our valuerange suffers an awful lot - we're not getting paid off enough.

Let's look at it from a different POV, let's build our range bottom-up (fixing our bluffing range, adjusting the valuerange). Then we only want to bluff J hi or worse actual draws. In this case we can have an awesome valuerange of strong 2pair+ hands! That's not a really wide valuerange, is it?♦

Board: Q♦J♥8♥
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    78.37%  77.45%   0.92% { QhQc, QsQc, QsQh, JdJc, JsJc, JsJd, 8d8c, 8s8c, 8s8d, QcJc, QsJs, QhJc, QhJd, QhJs, QcJd, QcJs, QsJc, QsJd, T9s, T7s, T9o, 97s-96s, 7h6h, 7h5h, 7h4h, 6h5h, 6h4h, 5h4h, 5h3h, 4h3h }
MP3    21.63%  20.71%   0.92% { 6s6c }

Also, just from a bit more exploitative POV - let's say you raised A7, A6s-A2s, 22-77 from MP - do you really call down with these hands when you get c/r-ed on this flop? Do you even call the turn with them (given that's not an A)? I know I don't. I think turning K hi into a bluff here is more than standard.

On the river decision: the Q4-Q5 bluff, Q6, Q7 fold is just pure balance, exploitatively I agree that doesn't make sense, but that's how balance works. I think at this point we also have to decide if we wanna build our range top-to-bottom or bottom-up.

Top-to-bottom: already done in the above post. If we select the valuerange for top2pair+ (that I think is definitely a vbet/blockbet in this spot) we get 117 combos and given our alpha (1/8.25) we should have 14 bluff combinations. Busted flushdraws and T7s (my only Tx or Jx hand) are just 11 bluff combos - meaning we bluff 80% of the optimal bluffing range, that is somewhat acceptable (especially exploitatively), but still not optimal. If we include Q4s it gets to exactly 14. (I don't know why I had Q5s in there last time, probably a calculation error.)

Now here you could say that "okay, but I have more Tx hands because I defend wider", and that can make the Qx problem go away, but still, you will have a lot more 9x also, but yeah, having a wider preflop range, or a tighter flop c/r bluffing range (the latter is def a mistake IMO) can make these Qx hands into a c/f (although then you have to call with better Qx hands, which is not a happy camping either).

Bottom-up: ok, let's say we just want to bet Tx or worse here. From the previous calculation it's shown that we should cut off the bottom 20% of our valuerange - setting our valuerange to top set+.

Now, if you really want to be exact, you can calculate the EV of both lines, but I'd actually be surprised if c/c-ing sets would be more profitable than bluffing some Qx hands.

Also, as I said previously, I strongly believe we don't beat anything with Q2 from our opponent's river range, therefore bluffing here theoratically should be fine, since the hands he should be folding (optimally) are hands that are better than ours.

So here you go, that's what is my best approximation of our good balanced strategy - now of course you could go ahead and say we shouldn't bluff optimally against most players on this board, or maybe against this specific player, because of such and such - but that still requires our understanding of what we should be bluffing optimally in the first place (that's why I was so harsh on you, so I could get you to say this). I hope it makes sense now. If you want to get behind the theory a bit deeper, I'd suggest you watching Boomer's vids about it (Balancing the scales I think), and go from there.

If you have any questions, let me know.

1. I didnt say anything about c/c sets, its pretty clear to bet imo

2.You took 66 for your calculation.Yes,that is one of the hands you will probably make him fold by flop raise(at least you should). But equity of K9 vs 66 is strong anyway and I dont feel like bluffing only the hands which I am doing good against...

3. I dont think you make A7to fold here,at least not on the flop.Its just super drawheavy and Im never folding to flop raise and if turn/river are complete blanks Im not having any problem of calling down

4. Which hands are you targeting there by bluffing the river and why would you c/c some Qx and c/f some then also bluff some

I agree we should balance our play well but I dont think Qx in this case is the way to go.

1) It looks like you didn't fully understand what I wrote. If we don't bet Q4s, we have to c/c sets (or else our opponent will be happy to fold bluffcatchers). Math is done above.

2) I took 66 for my calculation because that's a pure bluffcatcher on this board. We want to make him indifferent of calling down pure bluffcatchers, I chose one. You could try others (preferably ones that don't have lots of additional equity vs our valuerange (like AK for example)).

3) That's your problem.:)

4) I answered all of your questions in the post above.

Also, it would be interesting to see you run your strategy against yourself in this spot, because you contradict yourself way too much here. Wanna call down A7 vs a range that has no K hi draws in it?

Board: Q♦J♥8♥
       Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    87.26%  86.61%   0.65% { KK+, QhQc, QsQc, QsQh, JdJc, JsJc, JsJd, 8d8c, 8s8c, 8s8d, AhQh, AcQc, AsQs, AcJc, AdJd, AsJs, AhQc, AhQs, AcQh, AcQs, AdQh, AdQc, AdQs, AsQh, AsQc, AhJc, AhJd, AhJs, AcJd, AcJs, AdJc, AdJs, AsJc, AsJd, KhQh, KcQc, KsQs, KcJc, KdJd, KsJs, KhQc, KhQs, KcQh, KcQs, KdQh, KdQc, KdQs, KsQh, KsQc, KhJc, KhJd, KhJs, KcJd, KcJs, KdJc, KdJs, KsJc, KsJd, QcJc, QsJs, QhTh, QcTc, QsTs, Qh9h, Qc9c, Qs9s, Qc8c, Qs8s, Qh7h, Qc7c, Qs7s, Qh6h, Qc6c, Qs6s, Qh5h, Qc5c, Qs5s, Qh4h, Qc4c, Qs4s, QhJc, QhJd, QhJs, QcJd, QcJs, QsJc, QsJd, QhTc, QhTd, QhTs, QcTh, QcTd, QcTs, QsTh, QsTc, QsTd, Qh9c, Qh9d, Qh9s, Qc9h, Qc9d, Qc9s, Qs9h, Qs9c, Qs9d, Qh8c, Qh8d, Qh8s, Qc8d, Qc8s, Qs8c, Qs8d, Jc8c, Jd8d, Js8s, T9s, T7s, T9o, 97s-96s, 7h6h, 7h5h, 7h4h, 6h5h, 6h4h, 5h4h, 5h3h, 4h3h }
MP3    12.74%  12.09%   0.65% { As7s }

Good luck with that! (The same goes for betting sets but not Qx vs bluffcatching in your opponent's shoes.)

Sorry, but I can't prove it any better, and I can't find any other solution that is closer to optimal. It may be my problem, and I would be really happy if someone could prove (= mathematically point out with sound reasoning) that there's a better optimal (= meaning close to unexploitable) strategy to play this river.

I do agree with checking 100% on the Turn and compliment for madorjan for all the work he'd put in these thread!

It's very good to have a sense for combo relations and how to achieve an indifference but i would not recommend to focus too much on GTO but rather play an exploitive strategy on the low limits because people play abc poker and do not well adapt, if at all. You loose value by playing too much GTO.

Hey there,

thanks, honestly I love these calculations, I'm a bit of a freak, I know.:)

Also, I agree that on microstakes you can be more exploitative than on higher stakes, but exploitation itself cannot really be defined without GTO. (I've had a lot of students using the word 'exploitative' for simple balanced moves.) But that's for another thread or something.:)

Omg Equilab exploded!!!

Oh wait it's Maddy responding

Nice stuff. 1 question though. Do you think we can come up with a balanced, if somewhat polarized turn betting range here. I am only thinking if we employ a no 3-bet strategy from the BB then we could easily have hands to b3b here and it is a board where huge hands will clash