Nl4 Fr Aa

Hi Erevos,

Please take my evaluation with a pinch of salt as I'm only playing these stakes too! I personally think that the range you give is way too pessimistic. Villain has a VPIP of 44% so he's got lots of things in his range preflop (although I think PFR and 3bet stats would also be useful to determine how aggressive he is and whether he is likely to 3bet hands like JJ).

In my experience so far, a flop min raise is nowhere near as nutted as a turn min raise. Sometimes players do it to buy themselves a cheap card when they're drawing, or to take away your initiative when they have marginal holdings. Of course there are some monsters in his range here, but I think he can have plenty of pair+draws combos such as QT, QJ, KJ, KT. There are also some two-pairs in his range, against which we've still got some limited equity. I would also add in AJ.

My range would be something like:

Board: ThJs9c
Equity Win Tie
UTG+1 44.63% 43.64% 1.00% { AhAs }
SB 55.37% 54.37% 1.00% { JJ-88, AQs-AJs, KTs+, Q9s+, J9s+, T9s, 98s, 87s, AQo-AJo, A8o, KJo+, QTo+, JTo }

The problem, in my opinion, is that by calling you give yourself a bit of a problem as it's going to be so hard to play the turn. If he checks to us, it's hard to know whether to bet again and possibly face another raise or to check behind and give a free card away on a drawy board. If he bets then it's hard to call knowing that we're probably going to face another bet on the river.

That said, as played, I really don't think you can call the flop and then fold to such a small bet on a blank card. But I think I'd prefer 3bet/folding the flop, making it around $1.05 as I think that we can get value from his pair+draw type hands (my plan would then be to bet just over 1/2 pot on a blank turn for a free showdown). If he 4bets us then I'm happy to let the hand go.

Found it an interesting spot. Please feel free to flame if I'm profoundly wrong!

Yeah, that is a very nice post cufc. Range may vary a lot as you said.
And i never thought of 3beting-fold flop.
Also added pfr=13 and 3bet=0 to 1st post.

Thanks and gl.

If you are willing to call the min raise here, you should definitely call on that turn bet! If you had him beat, you still have him beat! Of course, raising would be out of the question, because you would be turning your hand into a bluff.

I actually think it's a pretty interesting spot. I think 3betting the flop is just about the worst thing you can do though! Villain could, as you said, easily have a lot of pair + straight draw hands (that he really should be calling with imo, but bad players can certainly have these kind of hands here). You have tremendous equity here, and by 3betting you're going to isolate yourself against a stronger range, again turning your hand into a bluff. So I personally like calling the flop min raise.

On this complete brick turn though, again, you should definitely call again, and then evaluate the river. You should probably fold though, unless maybe you hit your ace (in which case you should still just call), because I find that 3 barrels are hardly ever a bluff.

At least i am making some progress. Some weeks ago i would insta-jam at flop.:tongue:
Anyway, goodnight and again, thanks very much for your help.

Hi Erevos,

As we can see from the range you gave villain and the range cufc gave villain that we aren't doing really well at all (in either of them).

As far as your range assignment goes I would definitely add 2p in there and maybe some pairs+draw (QJ).

But either way we see that in the worst case scenario we are far behind (your assigned range) and in the best case scenario (cfcu's range) we are also not doing very well.

Since we know nothing about the guy other than he is a fish, and maybe passive, I would be ok with bet/folding the flop.

Calling or 3-betting may be an option but against an unknown we are guessing every time. We don't really know if he would ship QJ or not over a 3-bet.

I'm not sure we isolate ourselves here by 3betting on the flop. I actually don't see him folding hardly any of his min-raising range. I would think it's probable that he'll call with most hands that we have beat and 4bet pretty much everything that beats us.

My main problem with calling is that even though we have position, villain is able to set the price on the turn for a draw and we really have no idea where we are, even on a blank river.

Night Erevos and thanks for posting this interesting spot!