My read was good, was my play bad?

I think preflop call vs a tight range is kind of loose.

a) When Villain check-calls normally his range is capped to medium strength type of hands. Having that said 1) his range is strong anyway given his position 2) he is passive = may he could do that with strong hands also to trap. Usually players with low Afq tend to check also with their strong letting you to hang your self. They are passive bc they believe "people are bluffing, so poker should be played by trapping those aggressive monkeys"

b) your line looks very fishy, especially if you consider your bet sizing, which makes no sense, especially in this run out in this specific board.

c) when you risk a shove on the river the Villain needs to defend very little in order to making money vs you.

d) although Villain' s range might be capped, if you start 3 barreling - shove every time he checks, he will eventually catch up with that and adjust, simply by slow playing. Suddenly now he has more value bets by checking than by betting himself.

What should be the correct adjustment vs such a player?
Well 1) we can probably call lighter preflop since he is giving us free roll without c-betting. In that perspective your preflop call might not be so bad after all.

2) if he is abc he shouldn't check-calling 2ice with 2nd pair or worse. That is probably we shouldn't over-bluffing rivers. But if he checks-folds a lot as pfr we can bet any 2 on the flop when he checks and then simply stop if he continues.

Now defining his check-calling range becomes very important. Because the lower the cbet of the Villain the stronger the checking range.

As overall plan attacking Villain's top pairs doesn't look good to me. I would attack though on the river the bottom of Villain's range he gets there.

However, your bluff might not be so bad after all with this specific holding. As I already said though your sizing exposes you imo.

Hi Asimos

Thanks for the reply.

Could you clarify a couple of things that I don't understand:

when you risk a shove on the river the Villain needs to defend very little in order to making money vs you. What do you mean by this?

1,Now defining his check-calling range becomes very important. Because the lower the cbet of the Villain the stronger the checking range. again not sure what you mean....

I have a pretty similar hand I played where I planned on squeezing and the way he played the hand I put him on med pairs. only JJ got there and a few ax flush draws that missed as hi range again is quite tight. Is the bet sizing here any better as again I feel I played this hand similar but villain needs tobe right less often to call. I feel he just cannot call my bet taking the strong line I took raising the flop when its 3 way and then barrelling this run out and shoving the river repping str8, boat, trips and maybe flush on river?

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.1/$0.25 No-Limit Hold'em (6 handed)

Known players:
[tg]BU$46.74:///////;SB$23.49:///////;BB (Hero)$25.00:///////;MP2$26.02:///////;MP3$28.76:///////;CO$30.84:///////;[/tg]

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q:c, T:h.
MP2 folds, MP3 raises to $0.75, 2 folds, SB calls $0.65, Hero calls $0.50.

Flop: ($2.25) 5:h, 6:c, 5:c (3 players)
SB bets $1.29, Hero raises to $3.50, MP3 folds, SB calls $2.21.

Turn: ($9.25) 4:h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $4.25, SB calls $4.25.

River: ($17.75) J:h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $16.50(All-In), SB calls $14.99.

Final Pot: $49.24.
Results follow:

SB shows two pairs, tens and fives(T:c T:s).
Hero shows a pair of fives(Q:c T:h).

SB wins with two pairs, tens and fives(T:c T:s).

Thanks

Originally posted by lulupops
Hi Asimos

Thanks for the reply.

Could you clarify a couple of things that I don't understand:

when you risk a shove on the river the Villain needs to defend very little in order to making money vs you. What do you mean by this?

Thanks

I will use round numbers to simplify things. Lets say the pot has $10 on the river and you bet $10 your self. Then Villain needs to put $10 and the pot after he puts those $10 will be $30, or in other words he gets pot odds 2:1, or he needs to be correct with his call 33%.

If now in the same example the pot is $10 and you shove lets say $30 then Villain needs to put $30 for $70 or 42%, so now he needs to be correct more often with his call. So the larger you bet on the river the more the Villain can fold.

Originally posted by lulupops
Hi Asimos

1,Now defining his check-calling range becomes very important. Because the lower the cbet of the Villain the stronger the checking range. again not sure what you mean....

This is not straight forward, you need to take other things also into account. But lets say that one would cbet all his strong hands as preflop raiser, i.e all his sets, two pairs, top pairs etc and some bluffs, then when he checks his range is weak.
On the other hand if one cbets very little it is more possible that he keeps some goods in his checking range, that is people with very low cbet, i.e. 10-30 or sth, tend to have stronger hands when they check, in comparison to people with cbet 70-100.

Originally posted by lulupops

I have a pretty similar hand I played where I planned on squeezing and the way he played the hand I put him on med pairs. only JJ got there and a few ax flush draws that missed as hi range again is quite tight. Is the bet sizing here any better as again I feel I played this hand similar but villain needs tobe right less often to call. I feel he just cannot call my bet taking the strong line I took raising the flop when its 3 way and then barrelling this run out and shoving the river repping str8, boat, trips and maybe flush on river?

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.1/$0.25 No-Limit Hold'em (6 handed)

Known players:
[tg]BU$46.74:///////;SB$23.49:///////;BB (Hero)$25.00:///////;MP2$26.02:///////;MP3$28.76:///////;CO$30.84:///////;[/tg]

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q:c, T:h.
MP2 folds, MP3 raises to $0.75, 2 folds, SB calls $0.65, Hero calls $0.50.

Flop: ($2.25) 5:h, 6:c, 5:c (3 players)
SB bets $1.29, Hero raises to $3.50, MP3 folds, SB calls $2.21.

Turn: ($9.25) 4:h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $4.25, SB calls $4.25.

River: ($17.75) J:h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $16.50(All-In), SB calls $14.99.

Final Pot: $49.24.
Results follow:

SB shows two pairs, tens and fives(T:c T:s).
Hero shows a pair of fives(Q:c T:h).

SB wins with two pairs, tens and fives(T:c T:s).

Thanks

This hand played kind of very poor imo. I wouldn't blame if people call you down light, bc the strength of the hands you choose to make moves is very weak. Probably that reflects to your stats.

Yes when you raise the flop and bet bet you rep very strong range. But when you do this with some random equity, then you overdo it and as a consequence your stats will be crazy. Now you cannot rep strength anymore. So people who normally would have folded vs a normal opponent, now vs you correctly call very light. Of course vs you in this particular example TT is the nuts!!

Imagine a Villain who open shoves every hand. Yes when he open shoves he reps AA, but if he does this 100% he reps nothing.

Regarding bet sizing I think it is a lot better (maybe not perfect) in this example. You are left with a bet close to pot size bet in the river.

In this scenario you may be facing one of two extremes in your villain. Most likely he is a bad tight player who would never release AA, after all he waited 200+ hands to get it! Alternatively, he could be a good thinking player who has noticed how loose and bluff prone you are and has purposefully taken a passive line to maximize value against a maniac. Either way your river bet was very fishy, and unless you are in a leveling war with a thinking player it screams PLEASE FOLD (which of course tells any decent player to call)

Thanks for both of your comments. Does it make much difference if I tell you I have less than 200 hands on these oponents and my pfr over 20k hands is 17% and vp is 23%. Over the 200 hands with these specific villains its around 12% And 20%. I Cbet 60% and my aggression frequency is 4. I am a tight agg player and try to pick my big bluff pots wisely and rarely. Something I didn't do in the past but I am trying to find more profitable spots

I guess the question is (assuming my reads are correct) what do I do to get my openents to fold I.e not make it look like a bluff or is it more profitable to never pull these moves at $10-25nl as it seems they work a lot less often than they need to to make money even with my tag style play?

Thanks

Oh mrmondopoker I would play a lot of my nuts hands like this if I hit on the river to try and get max value. These openents wouldn't know this with the sample size??

What bet do you think would get a fold as in my mind it seems almost impossible to call these bets when so big? Maybe I'm thinking what would I do and not what others do. Ahhh this game is so confusing

You said you would play you nut hands the same, yet you also said you would expect a fold as in your mind it seems almost impossible to call, Do you really over-bet your nut hands so that your opponent will find it impossible to call? Typically I would avoid over-betting the pot in either situation. Your default line for both bluffs and value bets should be the same. When you make a pot size bluff it needs to work 50% of the time to be break even, when you bet twice the pot it needs to work 2 out of 3 times to be a break even play, If your goal is to get all in, your earlier bet sizing needs to be larger on earlier streets. In this example I am not sure any bet sizing would get a weak player off AA. The problem with this line even against a good player is he is going to give you a range and narrow it based on your betting, On this board a good player is going to think you may have the 10J but you may also have a flush draw that missed, or a pair and gut shot (maybe KJ or KT) that you were betting for value and then turned it into a bluff and against this range especially with the over-bet it is probably a call.... You would do well to tighten up a bit and try keep your bigger bluffs to a minimum. When bluffing into a draw heavy board you should have a decent draw making it a semi-bluff. It is ok to give up on some pots, keep up the aggression just use it a bit more judiciously and you will do fine.

Thanks

Yes it does not make too much sense when you say it like that. Sometimes I find when I river the nuts I do not know what to do and I found people call weak hands as the over bet seems suspicious. I think I just answered my own question

Perhaps a normal value bet size would be best as it may sway him towards me betting my value range (2/3rd pot) and even when he does call I don't lose as much as the shove? This makes sense I think?? Does it?

Maybe balance this out with over shoves on boards when I river the nuts by hitting trips or boats etc with a 2 outer as I played the previous streets like a weak/mid pair or draw that I turned into a bluff?

Yes the over bet is suspicious and sometimes you can use that line with the nuts to get extra value from a weak hand, however this is an example of leveling and while in certain circumstances it may be worth a try, this should not be your normal line as you will probably miss more value by not sizing your bet so that the average player will call. Bluffing would work in your example if the villain had a missed draw or possibly second pair etc and would probably work with a $8 bet on the river nearly as often as your $20.75 bet. Many players just wont fold AA unless the board got real scary for instance it may have worked if clubs had gotten there. Bluffing is great for picking up small pots in position, Semi-Bluffs are great because you have decent equity plus fold equity making it a profitable play. Large pure bluffs are rarely positive EV but if you size them like your value hands and they work often enough to make it close to b/e, they can add enough long term value by getting you more calls on your future value hands.