[highlight thread] - To Cbet or Not to Cbet?

given its zoom5 i cbet exploitatively. in standard conditions check/giveup and delay cbet

yes, at NL5 , i made an analysis and people fold about 50% on flop
and they fold most on K high flops and second on A high flops.
This is the line with the highest ev in single raised pots - just bet it.

However in 3bet pots , probably it's best to give up since ranges are tighter and we have no equity and villain can call 2 streets with a middle pocket pair or sometimes go all the way with it:)

If instead of A6 we had AJ , i would c-bet
If i had AJ with backdoor FD, i would cbet many many many times

This iz zoom. I think players are going to float this board pretty much even on nl2 zoom. When we 3bet this player with Ac6c i guess he is not continuing with wide range here, so Kx, 88+, and even Ax type of hands are not folding. If we decide to bet we have to fire once again on some turn cards.

Kxx boards are quite favorable to the 3bettor, specially when it's very likely that the caller doesn't have AK in his pre flop range. In this case cbetting very close to 100% of our range is a good strategy. On a Q77r or J77r board, this hand would seem to me like a clear check back.

Me for example ... a few month ago i was calling any 3bet w/ AK, even blid vs blind and not 4betting because i didnt want variance
Dont know if we can assume NL5 players do not have AK in their range as they dont know to 4bet AK in this spot?

I'm cbetting here 100%. We could make hand like 55,88 to fold.

Hey! I could handle all of you guys, if we get in some kind of brawl i could kill you with my bare fists , all of you including double2 and weazel. Ok.

whew....well it's a good thing we let the cards do the talking!

I dunno Tinsley15, Weazel seems to me kind of a badass.

I agree with double2, we should be betting this board very frequently, since we have very good range advantage. I would usually bet 25-33% pot size with whole range, and on turn would bet 25-33% something like TT-QQ, weak Kx, KK, some 7x, AQ, (thin value hands protected with some strong hands if playing vs agro player). The rest of value hands, I would bet bigger to set up all in by the river.

Off course it could be possible that some hands play higher EV as check than bet, but since we dont know any stats, tendencies, how villain plays his range postflop, then I think we cant conclude which hand plays better as check, so I would stick with the bet plan which is also much simpler to play, less error prune.

Originally posted by w34z3l
whew....well it's a good thing we let the cards do the talking!

Hi Adam, could you please give an opinion to this https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=2109793#post2109793 thread? I asked at the end of the thread, double2 said he will ask other coaches for more opinions, but nobody answered since weeks. I think it is interesting topic.

I think at this stage GTO concepts are still being mis-applied by majority of players since we are not at the stage where they are understood well. Having a range advantage does not mean we should continue with a hand that is clearly behind opponents range. So what if our range beats his. A6s doesn't do well vs his range.

I'll hear a lot of respected players say stuff like "my range is hits harder than his, so I bet large". It seems to me that the opposite should be true, GTO principles suggest we bet small when our range is very value-heavy etc.

So yeah, I'm still of the opinion that when a sentence begins with the words "my range is stronger than his here so therefore.......", the end of the sentence will be something spewy.

I think at this stage GTO concepts are still being mis-applied by majority of players since we are not at the stage where they are understood well. Having a range advantage does not mean we should continue with a hand that is clearly behind opponents range. So what if our range beats his. A6s doesn't do well vs his range.

Since our range hits good and villain bad, that means that we have more value hands, thus we can bet more bluffs "unexploitable". If villain defends 1-a, it means he will have to defend many weak hands, which further means that our bluffs have a lot of equity, so that we can bet even more bluffs unexploitable than on boards where we dont have such range advantage. And if the board and our ranges are such that our range is much better, it could be that we can bet whole range unexploitable. Off course we can achieve this the best if we use smaller and bigger sizes, so that we can value bet Ac6c thinly, or bet it as merged bluff (depends how you see it). If on the other hand, villain overfolds since his range hits so weak, than all our bluffs are having nice +EV, so in both cases betting whole range should be the best.
If we start checking some hands we give villain free card and increase the EV of his range. When villain checks to us on flop, the worst for his EV which could happen for him is to face aggression, and the best to face check (considering) unexploitable ranges. So I dont see how can our range EV be better if we start checking some hands, if we could bet whole range unexploitable.

I will try to illustrate this with simple example. Lets say BTN has range on board Kc7d7s:
KK, AQ, AJ, AT. And CO has range: T9s, 89s, 65s, A2s-A5s, 78s. So in this case, BTN can bet whole range +EV unexploitable (off course should use appropriate bet size to remain unexploitable if BTN bets whole range). If BTN checks some hands, it is off course bad for his range, because he lets CO realize his equity. Off course he can delay his bets, but still it can't be good. On the other hand, CO has no reason to bet if he faces check, since BTN is value heavy.
So this is some kind of a simplification of what happens in the real hand. The difference is that if you check, CO can bet +EV some hands, and some hands he cant

I'll hear a lot of respected players say stuff like "my range is hits harder than his, so I bet large". It seems to me that the opposite should be true, GTO principles suggest we bet small when our range is very value-heavy etc.

If we have strong hands, we should bet big, which maximizes its EV if villain defends unexploitable, and also maximizes our range EV since we can bet max number of bluffs if we bet big with our value hands. The other concept "GTO principles suggest we bet small when our range is very value-heavy etc", is totally different from the first concept of betting big, since the second concept tells us that if we are VALUE HEAVY we should bet small, because that way we stay unexploitable. In fact, if you say that our range is value heavy thus we should bet small, it only means that the range (or bet size) is not constructed well, and should be reconstructed (e.g. using smaller bet sizes, or checking some hands, check is like bet size = 0). Sometimes we need even to check some value hands in order to stay unexploitable (e.g. if we have 100 nut hands on river and only 1 bluff, and pot size bet left, we should be betting 2 nut combos and 1 bluff, and check the rest of 98 nut combos because if we bet all nut combos, villain folds all bluff catchers (assumes only pot size bet, if we can bet smaller amount, then we calculate max EV bet size but still likely we couldnt bet all value combos).
So now back to our example, our range hits much better which applies to 1st concept you mentioned, so we should bet big, but we are not really value heavy (we are having enough bluffs) so that we dont have to bet small in order to be unexploitable (still I think that some hands should be bet using small bet size, some using large, but the main point applying for both concepts is that we should bet our value hands big, unless max EV is to bet small if villain is too aggro).

So yeah, I'm still of the opinion that when a sentence begins with the words "my range is stronger than his here so therefore.......", the end of the sentence will be something spewy.

I dont agree

It's true that there are spots where we can profitably bet our entire range. For example any time someone checks the flop OOP as the cold-caller there is a decent chance that the PFR should be able to bet his entire range profitably if cold-caller is adhering to GTO principles. However, by the time the initial aggressor is betting his entire range, he is not playing an optimal strategy any more and the cold-caller should stop overfolding due to inherent disadvantage. So in most cases we are not going to be firing the worst hand in our range unexploitably. We might make money with that hand, but it's an exploitative strategy, and by the time we start doing that we have lost any equilibrium and our opponent should also be adjusting his strategy exploitably.

Also finding ourselves in a spot where we are value-heavy does not necessarily mean we misplayed. It's happens as a function of certain board run-outs and not something we always have control over. We should be betting big with value-hands if we have enough bluffs to balance it out of course, I was just giving a general example. The point was that having a range advantage does not mean that we automatically increase our sizing as some people seem to think.

Hi,

We might make money with that hand, but it's an exploitative strategy, and by the time we start doing that we have lost any equilibrium and our opponent should also be adjusting his strategy exploitably.

Sure. But still imo it is ok if we bet 90% of our range unexploitable, and cf the rest. Or if we bet 80% of our range and fold e.g. 40% when we check. I think it is not so much different from betting the whole range. There are definitely many spots where we can bet whole range, I think it is not rare at all. E.g., if we 3bet, especially vs early position, or if we 3bet IP broadway heavy range (as you suggest), and hit the board good, mostly we can bet whole range unexploitable. As the ranges get wider, in 2 bet pots in late positions, we have to check more hands. So I think that the highlighted hands is one of those spots where we can bet whole range, and should even reduce bet size in order to be unexploitable (because we dont have enough bluffs).

Also finding ourselves in a spot where we are value-heavy does not necessarily mean we misplayed. It's happens as a function of certain board run-outs and not something we always have control over.

Sure it doesnt mean that we misplayed, but if we play it value heavy from that point, we would missplay (would not play unexploitable). So my point is, we can always in every spot play unexploitable, whatever our range is, because all we need to do when betting is to adjust our bet size (even if needed bet whole range with bet size = 0, if we have only nut combos as an extreme case of value heavy range).

But why is GTO discussions always from 2NL & 5NL hands:sfishg:

why cbet in this case? I don't see much that we make fold and don't beat and that will call and have beat, ...unless I have a read on he player that he plays fit or fold or complete station.
We have position, let's see the turn and re-evaluate then.

Originally posted by thazar
why cbet in this case?

so we get called with our value hands, of which there are a lot

Against regulars a popular attitude is 'i can make him fold x' or 'he will call with x and beat me' there fore i should do y. A more productive attitude is, I have x amount of value hands, therefore I need y amount of bluffs. Which is kind of a more detailed way of saying, 'this board hits my range, so I bet more often'.

If one isn't betting these flops very, very often. Villains will start overfolding them and taking massive bbs/100 in EV away from hero. As far as population reads go, this is a common exploit that many good and bad villains make subconsciously that is not very risky and not easy to counter effectively.

Originally posted by jules97

Originally posted by thazar
why cbet in this case?

so we get called with our value hands, of which there are a lot

Against regulars a popular attitude is 'i can make him fold x' or 'he will call with x and beat me' there fore i should do y. A more productive attitude is, I have x amount of value hands, therefore I need y amount of bluffs. Which is kind of a more detailed way of saying, 'this board hits my range, so I bet more often'.

If one isn't betting these flops very, very often. Villains will start overfolding them and taking massive bbs/100 in EV away from hero. As far as population reads go, this is a common exploit that many good and bad villains make subconsciously that is not very risky and not easy to counter effectively.

in this particular case you have A high, tell me which hand worse than H high will call you on a K high board, and what range that you beat , are you hoping to villain fold? my point is you don't rep much. Your A high might be good but you won't get any more value by betting, you are just likely to inflate the pot for you opponent. I have a very high cbet rate in CG (probably too high) but this is one case where checking behind is IMHO clearly the best option