Very good point, and good demonstration of how learning other games can give you “mental exercise” that opens you up to new ways of thinking about NLHE.

Very nice post. You and Todd make a compelling case for bet-bet. I’m going to think on this some more, but I’m afraid I may be publishing a correction later this week…

1. Say in the moment you notice this tell and peg him for a strong range of overpairs, two pair, and sets. You abort your check-raise all in plan and check-call to donk lead all straights and heart flushes huge right?

2. When the turn checks through are you planning on ever bluffing the river? Only on obvious cards like an A? It seems to me that he is very unlikely to be able to recognize a b/c/b line for value and will pay us often when we hit a heart or an 8 especially, with the weak holdings in his range. To that point I would not expect him to fold A7s on an 8 river (or a 9 or a T river for that matter), unless we make a gigantic bet. Further I would imagine bluffing a diamond to not be viable if he checks back, we can’t necessarily bet 2.5x the pot since he should have a broad range of diamond flushes in his check back turn range, and his weak holdings won’t be scared enough by a 80% pot river bet on a diamond river either.

My main thought (feel free to dispel illusions):

If his flop calling range is so wide (and we think it might be capped… though it wasn’t… maybe it just excludes or discounts AJ/QQ type hands that would see where they were at with a flop raise), check-raising all in on the turn makes sense if we can get him to bet/fold weak to strong show down hands like JT or TT or KJ. But the main advantage I see of it is that we get to see the river versus his nutted hands (with all the money in no less) whereas bet/bet we might not, depending on how big he makes his turn raise. The problem with this being a big advantage over bet/bet is the fact that you, and I, and most people, thought his flop call range was often capped, so we don’t expect to be raised very often, and we expect to be battling a wide, capped range going into the turn on this texture. That’s what makes bet/bet so great here, it let’s us manipulate his range so thoroughly because we can make excellent estimations about what his range is. In fact we know almost his exact range to raise, to call, and to fold the turn should we bet 7300 — and consequently we know how to best exploit that range, say if he calls, by bluffing the cards that scare him and by value betting the cards that don’t (but actually make our monster).

With check-raise all in we risk the turn checking through often and having severely diminished river fold equity. We often won’t be able to fold out those holdings on the river that we could of on the turn. Moreover those holdings that we couldn’t fold out on the turn with bet/bet we own often on the river in a larger pot, now with turn x/x they never fold in a smaller pot. You mention that he should be able to bet draws because of previous play, therefore he will bet/fold these draws often on the turn in addition to his strong showdown hands? What draws exactly? The diamond draws that turned top pair? The diamond draws that are gutted or double gutted… with an over or two?! Most of the draws that we can fold with a turn check-raise, it seems to me, will call a turn barrel and lose to us at showdown, like 89, T8, 86 (he already showed that he wouldn’t bluff missed draws). The other draws will talk themselves into crying calls often because they are combination draws.

Now I am not saying that we should worry about our river fold equity being diminished (in the turn x/x case) for the sake of trying to win every pot we play, but rather that why would we turn down a +cEV turn barrel that happens to have the benefit of setting up excellent river play versus this villains range and capacities?

Yes Andrew I see many factors and I did not try to analyze because I do not have experience: like survival in large buy-in tournaments,virtual vs non-virtual space,hu vs n-max,etc.Just musing not criticism.

Andrew,
I think the reasons you list, specifically the lack of planning and the value of survival make bet turn bet river a better plan than check shove. I don’t think you are going to get bluff raised virtually ever on your turn bet, and you stand to get the same folds you get by the c/r by barreling all the way – but for a cheaper price. Yes, if he raises the turn bet you have to fold, but if we believe he only raises with the strongest portion of his range such as sets, the alternative is having him call our c/r with that same range and us playing a big pot with one card to come… so bet fold isn’t the worst thing in the world here, and as long as we are correct about our other assumptions (he gets to the turn with a fairly wide range, he is less likely to have a multi-street plan than other players, and he has some value on his tourney life, double barelling the turn and river gets the same folds as c/r) then it seems to be the better line to me.

Recreational players are also notorious for failing to plan ahead, having no sense of pot control, and overvaluing their survival in large buy-in tournaments, all of which I felt could be exploited with a check-raise. Unfortunately I was not alert enough to transparent physical tells, the live poker corollary to your (a). Essentially I think the principles you list are generally good, but there are times to deviate from them. Even if you rarely attempt to make a player like this fold, having one of the biggest possible draws is good reason to consider an exception.

I see check-calling is big mistake in case of good reg who manipulate range or bumhunter who employ low risk strategy(fold equity).
To be clear with my previous post that I will be satisfied with turn showdown aganst top reg.
Well I will not be satisfied because of odds or equity,etc.In case of turnshowdown they will never be great.
I will be satisfied that I will stay ahead of his frequent weapon -range manipulation.
Not me but him will be aggravated at my frequencies.

zero fold equity

The second important detail for me is that Hero draw is not big draw against recreational player turn bet or raise range and I have zero equity at this point(effective stack).
The draw has equity to be “big” under condition that I see river and make my backdoor flush or str8 and I get his stack.
Showdown on turn against recreational player or predictable midlestake grinder I consider my fall off the cliff.
Aganst top regs I will be satisfied to get turn showdown because they able to manipulate against the aggregate tendencies(pretty nutted) in this spot.
But I am recreational player who play exclusively on line and hu and I see your points.