Playing AKo in position, fold on turn after check-raise

Yes, he easily could have had the goods. Would just fold OTT here. No need to make any fancy moves. He won't raise you with A10,AJ,AQ but just call you off. Maybe sometimes that he is (semi)bluffing here with TT or JJ but those are just a few cards that make sense to raise with OTT.

Thanks Hesticus, very reasonable explanation!

Follow the Baluga Theorem: fold the turn raise with less than top 2p. There are a lot of better hands.

Originally posted by nitrol
Follow the Baluga Theorem: fold the turn raise with less than top 2p. There are a lot of better hands.

Agree. No need to analyse this further or construct ranges for villain etc.. If you follow this theorem you are almost always right.

Originally posted by la55i

Originally posted by nitrol
Follow the Baluga Theorem: fold the turn raise with less than top 2p. There are a lot of better hands.

Agree. No need to analyse this further or construct ranges for villain etc.. If you follow this theorem you are almost always right.

So if i play against you i just raise alot of turns and just start printing $$. Not thinking about hands is hugely -ev.

Hi,

I think you could actually call pre-flop versus UTG. His range should be rather strong here, and AK plays well in position. Of course if you had some stats or reads on your villain (like he is too loose or so), 3-betting could be the best possible option.

Because this is NL2, people are not going to have bluffs here too often. I would fold against unknown here.

What about a raise OTT with the Nut SD and FD? What about nut SD but lower FD?

Originally posted by Pistoleroo

Originally posted by la55i

Originally posted by nitrol
Follow the Baluga Theorem: fold the turn raise with less than top 2p. There are a lot of better hands.

Agree. No need to analyse this further or construct ranges for villain etc.. If you follow this theorem you are almost always right.

So if i play against you i just raise alot of turns and just start printing $$. Not thinking about hands is hugely -ev.

Baluga Theorem is very good imo. At this level vs unknown it works pretty well. How often do you think villain is going to call 3bet, call flop and x/r turn with weaker hand than TPTK? I don't think he takes this line with draws. So no need to think about this further, turn fold is correct.

If you have a read that I fold too much to turn raises then go for it. Raise me every time. Let's see how it works for you
This theorem works vs unknown very well. Exploiting weak players is another thing. I can adapt too.
I play at pokerstars, my nick is La55i_. See you at the tables.

I think me and la55i won't let you exploit us...

Originally posted by la55i

Originally posted by Pistoleroo

Originally posted by la55i

Originally posted by nitrol
Follow the Baluga Theorem: fold the turn raise with less than top 2p. There are a lot of better hands.

Agree. No need to analyse this further or construct ranges for villain etc.. If you follow this theorem you are almost always right.

So if i play against you i just raise alot of turns and just start printing $$. Not thinking about hands is hugely -ev.

Baluga Theorem is very good imo. At this level vs unknown it works pretty well. How often do you think villain is going to call 3bet, call flop and x/r turn with weaker hand than TPTK? I don't think he takes this line with draws. So no need to think about this further, turn fold is correct.

If you have a read that I fold too much to turn raises then go for it. Raise me every time. Let's see how it works for you
This theorem works vs unknown very well. Exploiting weak players is another thing. I can adapt too.
I play at pokerstars, my nick is La55i_. See you at the tables.

I am commenting on the following reply:
Agree. No need to analyse this further or construct ranges for villain etc.. If you follow this theorem you are almost always right.

I am not talking about this hand particulary. I am talking about the statement that you should fold to a turn raise.

Firstly the theorem:
“You should strongly re-evaluate the strength of one-pair hands in the face of a raise on the turn.”

Secondly:
Not thinking about hands is hugely -ev. If we want to improve we think about all spots we get in even a no-brainer like this on NL2.

Thirdly:
On pokerstars u almost never get a sample high enough to check for raise turn cbet stats so the fact that micro stakes regs will pick up on this is very small. Also it is very strong move to abuse regs who cbet light. I love raising turn cbets with: (IP: Pair + draw, monsters, Strong draws) (OOP: strong draws + monsters). Ofcourse against the right opponents and boards.

i don't play on pokerstars but i don't really see the point in playing you just for the sake of a discussion. My comment was to start a discussion about the baluga theorem. People shouldn't take things too personally.

We want to think about higher level poker right? If you move up we should get rid of these automatic decision.

Also i don't see the point in these one-liners who don't contribute anything to this discussion......

Well I was talking about this spot particularly. Villain unknown, we have TPTK and villain can have a better hand, he raises big OTT so it is a clear fold here imo.

"You should strongly re-evaluate".. This means to me that you must have a good reason to call his raise. Here we don't have a good reason to call.

"Not thinking about hands is hugely -ev. " Well, you can analyse and evaluate this and then tell me if it is a fold or a call. Villain shouldn't call 66 or 88 pre but he still might have some combos. He also could sometimes just call AA pre. I highly doubt that he will be raising JJ-KK or AK and he shouldn't have many flush draws here because of the Ah on the board. So it is a fold. At best this hand is a split and if he raises with a draw he has good equity. That theorem helps us think, makes it quicker.

Instead of me proving to you that Baluga works, why don't you prove to me that it doesn't? You can go through your database and see how much you have won when you called turn raise with less than 2 pair and then take away all the hands where you had a very good reason to call based on reads or stats.

Baluga theory is definitely a tested theory, in which the sample size the researchers have used is significant (i.e. the difference is not the result of coincidence). Based on this, we can say that this theory has a high probability of being true and I have therefore absolutely no doubt of accepting the hypothesis of being right here to fold OTT:f_thumbsup:

Originally posted by la55i
Well I was talking about this spot particularly. Villain unknown, we have TPTK and villain can have a better hand, he raises big OTT so it is a clear fold here imo.

"You should strongly re-evaluate".. This means to me that you must have a good reason to call his raise. Here we don't have a good reason to call.

"Not thinking about hands is hugely -ev. " Well, you can analyse and evaluate this and then tell me if it is a fold or a call. Villain shouldn't call 66 or 88 pre but he still might have some combos. He also could sometimes just call AA pre. I highly doubt that he will be raising JJ-KK or AK and he shouldn't have many flush draws here because of the Ah on the board. So it is a fold. At best this hand is a split and if he raises with a draw he has good equity. That theorem helps us think, makes it quicker.

Instead of me proving to you that Baluga works, why don't you prove to me that it doesn't? You can go through your database and see how much you have won when you called turn raise with less than 2 pair and then take away all the hands where you had a very good reason to call based on reads or stats.

Again i'm not trying to convince you that the baluga theory is not true. But this automatic thinking is a very bad tendency. Especially if you wanna play higher limits. Poker is not a game where for every move there is a perfect solution.

Again im not talking about the hand in question. This hand is a no-brainer when he raises turn. But that is not an excuse to auto-pilot these hands. If you don't have enough time to think about decisions u should play less tables.

Note about hand in question: How about checking back turn. I'm not seeing any hands he will call turn which we beat. I do not see 3 streets of value here .

If you are holding a single pair and unknown villain raises you on the turn, you can fold, because you don't have any good reason to call. Why use the timebank and think about a situation when you will always fold in the end? Of course when we think there is a reason to do something else than fold, for example if villain is super aggressive and we know he likes to raise a lot, we don't have to fold.

When I get raised OTT my thought process is:
Any reads that imply I should call? If no -> fold.
What is your thought process? You think 30 sec and then end up doing the same than me?

You say that not thinking about hands is hugely -ev. Well this is true, if we don't think during the whole hand. That would be stupid and we wouldn't ever succeed. But when we are talking about one particular spot, getting raised on the turn, it is always fine to fold even if we are wrong sometimes. This has been proven. It is still +EV. Again, if I have any reads on villain I will consider doing something other than folding but as you can see from the Baluga theorem it is adviced to STRONGLY re-evaluate the situation with one pair hands, because you are too often behind.

I'm not auto-piloting in my opinion when I'm folding vs unknown.
Have you heard about call20 rule? Can you follow that or do you take a calculator and make very deep analysis before calling small pocket pairs pre?

This discussion is just stupid. Baluga works, we can follow it and fold to turn raise with one pair hands if we have no reason to do otherwise. You can show me any hand where you got raised OTT and I can say that you used Baluga. If you fold, you used Baluga. If you called or raised and had a reason to do so, you used Baluga. If you called or raised without a reason, you are probably losing money.

Thanks for the contribution to this descussion and for different points of views guys

Just for you i played on the microstakes this afternoon. Villain is aggresive reg. Aggresive reg with weird stacksize. No more reads.

Ok, the same approach. So generally, how often is it profitable to ship on turn with such board having overpair or tptk after check/raise?

It's basically not profitable at all to apply this approach for most cases on long distance, but adjusting the strategy and making such exceptions in certain cases will bring its profit, is that right?

Originally posted by ArtemAce
Ok, the same approach. So generally, how often is it profitable to ship on turn with such board having overpair or tptk after check/raise?

It's basically not profitable at all to apply this approach for most cases on long distance, but adjusting the strategy and making such exceptions in certain cases will bring its profit, is that right?

Well i had been messing arround with him abit. I try to apply as much pressure on the villain to my right,. Also its SBvsBB. My 3bet range is big here and he knows it. His ship on the turn isn't bad. I just woke up with a strong hand. Calling down every overpair or TPTK is ofcourse not profitable. But always folding them is insane.

Another 1 just for lulz:

His range is quite polarized.He doesn't have many sets here. And my range has more flushes than his. He also doesn't check back low flushes. So his ship on turn is easy call against decent opponent. Expected alot of AK with a club.