Hand of the Week: Turning Top-Top

10 thoughts on “Hand of the Week: Turning Top-Top”

1. Andrew- are you that desperate for comments that something like this hand history- with one opponent OOP donkey who clearly has JJ+ – is really worthy of discussion?

   I think your readers would much rather hear about how- after you snapped called his re-raise- took the money and explored Spain again.

   Just saying- you are better than this drivel.

   (Which I still read and am thankful for).

   JP

2. JP – are you that desperate to comment that you have to trash Andrew’s creative license then thank him for it? Are you perhaps UTG?

   AB – if the lead changed with this turn card, then villain is likely to only call one street. If hero is still behind (unlikely) a check is best. So I think I’d check back and go for value on the river, where, depending on the card, hero can bet big and look bluffy.

3. My first reaction was the same as piefarmer’s, that I’d only try for turn and river value against a fish, but I could also see betting if our history is such that he may believe I’d be floating this kind of flop a lot and firing turn whenever checked to. However, since you stated in an earlier post that much of our preflop calling range is going to be pocket pairs (which I guess it has to be, as our stack isn’t really deep enough to be playing many SCs against a strong opening range, even in position), then presumably we’re checking back this turn a lot and betting instead ranges us too narrowly.

   So yeah, I think check’s probably the way to go.

4. What is in our flop calling range that would bet the turn? Ax hearts combos like AQ perhaps (if that floats flop)? 44 because you want to get stacks in? Mayyyyybe 67s though getting here this way with that seems unlikely?

   Seems like most of our range will be checking.

   That being said, villain is rarely check/folding turn, and I just wonder if there are ever any river cards that will nix our one street of value, if we plan to vb riv instead of turn.

   • Well, if our call flop/bet turn range is as you say, then if he knows that he should actually be check/folding the turn a lot.

     GTO presumably has him check/calling JJ/QQ hands some % of the time and also check/folding them % of the time. And likewise sometimes he should be check/calling or check/raising KK/AK/AA. So we should sometimes be checking AK and sometimes betting it, and likewise also sometimes turning something like 77 into a bluff.

     But our opponent doesn’t seem like he’s that balanced. If he’s more predictable than this, then we have an exploitative strategy, but with the amount of information provided and my own lack of experience at these stakes, I keep changing my mind.

     If we can be quite sure of getting a call on the turn, then I think we should go for it, because yes, there are river cards (like an A) which kill our action on the river (except when we’re beat or splitting), and also, we can probably size bigger on the turn.

     But then I think that no, the guy may actually be able to fold the turn, if he’s remotely competent, because as you say, a standard call flop/bet turn range has something like JJ crushed. What’s he going to do, call and hope we have exactly Axhh and whiff our 12- or 15-outer?

     • Ah, good points.

       I think we may be overestimating hero’s range here, and that the turn provides a decent spot to barrel.

5. I want to at least try for 2 streets of value now. I bet 40%-50ŕ on turn and again on river if checked to again.

   Can’t bet large imo since you don’t want to blow out 99-QQ type hands. Could go even smaller I guess, but I never really bet < 40% (leak on my part?)

6. A couple of thoughts:

   1) It was suggested on the previous thread that how much value we can get ideally depends on what our bluffing range is here. That seems right to me. My bluffing range seems pretty thin here: I’d call the flop with 76s, 87s, and 86s (if I called that preflop) and would probably bluff them here, but I’d have folded most broadway combinations and the suited connectors with which I’d have called pre-flop. If I had a pocket pair, I’d almost certainly check the turn, thinking my hand to strong to turn into a bluff but to weak to bet for value. So I think it’s unlikely I’m going to get lots of value here (maybe my float-bluff range should be wider here, but I don’t think getting value from AK when I turn a K is an enormous concern). On the other hand, my value range isn’t enormous here either: 44, big pairs if I flatted pre-flop, AK, the handful of 5x hands). I am pretty sure I would bet all my bluffs on both turn and most rivers, because I would like to get UTG off, say, 99-QQ and think it’d be exploitable for him to fold them for one bet on the turn.

   I feel like a) there’s an extra math piece about assessing exactly how much value-betting this bluffing entitles me to expected he’ll be indifferent to paying off and b) I’m not really fully confident in these ranges, both because I’m not 100% sure how wide I’m supposed to be calling pre-flop (e.g. 86s?) and because maybe I ought to float the flop a bit more than I say here.

   2) I think the K is slightly worse for us than the A, because there are more plausible dominated hands UTG could be holding (AQ, maybe AJs, versus now exactly KQs, more of both if he’s a little looser preflop, but always more dominated As). Fewer second-best hands.

   3) Holding the Ah leads me to significantly discount backdoor hearts, which makes it easier to check the turn and increase the chance of getting value (or inducing) on the river.

   4) Before doing the exercise, I’d have checked, hoping UTG’d bet the river, and if he checked, I’d bet about half the pot. But after seeing that my value range is not enormous, and that I have some bluffs, I think maybe I CAN get two streets of value. Now I think maybe I should bet small here. I’d bet small, since I have so few monsters in my range—between 1/3 and 1/2 pot and then, if called and checked to, I’d repeat on the river. But intuitively, I still have a hard time imagining getting called twice by, say, JJ.

7. I am betting here. I agree with the checking posts above that we probably only getting one street of value from QQ-66, but that alone isn’t a reason to wait until the river to go for the value. Some river cards could get us an extra bet called and other rivers (e.g., an ace) could kill action and we probably get zero streets of value from underpairs. Also, if we think that villain is folding JJ on the river to a second bet, we’re going to want to run a two street bluff at the appropriate frequency. To do that, we need to put in our first bet now. And if we are going to bluff some of the time, we need to be betting for value as well.

   In the flop analysis of villain’s range, I had him cbetting most of his range, except for KQ and KJ hands that didn’t have a back door draw, which left him with {66+,AQo+,ATs+,KQs,KJs} going to the turn. If that’s the case, villain actually has very few worse Kx hands reaching the turn we can target for 2 streets of value in his range – just a handful of combos of KQs/KJs.

   He also has relatively few potential bluffing hands with any equity – with the Kh on the board, there are only a handful of combos that picked up barreling equity by turning a heart draw that he thinks are in his range (i.e., ignoring our blockers) – for example, AhQh, AhJh, etc., even if he cbet something like Th9h (which he might not even open UTG). Few enough that these might make sense to balance a check raising range, since he has AA and KK (9 combos from his perspective). If a big chunk of his range consists of lower pocket pairs, relatively few Kx, and he has some monsters to protect his checks (and some potential bluffs to balance his monsters), it probably makes sense to check a lot of his range here. That said, when he does have Kx, my guess is that he probably bets (and balances some whiffed AQ/AJ bluffs), and counts on C/R with monsters and a few bluffs to protect all of his underpairs (and maybe check/calls with the very few combos of KQs/KJs he has left).

   Before going further, though, it is worth noting blockers, which I think are pretty important here. Due to our specific hand, the portion of his range which is check-raising is actually much smaller than he thinks – in terms of monsters, there are only 4 combos of AA/KK possible (rather than 9) and our Ah blocks either all of his remaining heart draws, or all but one or two combos if he opens a couple of suited connectors (which seems unlikely UTG with his stack size). If he is betting his Kx and some air and check/raising some monsters and turned draws, then our blockers mean that his range is overly heavy on QQ-66 (as well as ace high that is probably giving up to pressure).

   Turning now to our range, I had us calling the flop with something like {AQ+,JJ-77, most KQs,KJs}. That breaks down to 12 combos of TPTK, 4 combos of TPGK, 30 combos of an underpair, 15 combos of A high and 1 combo of NFD. Since we are at the top of our range, I’d like to bet AK for value here (with a handful of AQ), particularly since I think our blockers greatly reduce the chance for a check-raise. I do have some concern that if we bet all our TPTK here, we cap our check-back range to underpairs and some whiffed AQ, which can be a problem on a lot of rivers, particularly if villain is willing to overbet on us (the SPR is just under 3:1). However, I think we would like to also bet some of our upper pocket pairs (JJ-TT) for one street of thin value against lower pocket pairs (planning to check back most rivers – here we really only can get one street of value) and for protection against AQ-type hands that have some equity. Our lower pocket pairs have less potential for value, and I don’t see a reason to turn them into a bluff. Since we only need to protect 18 combos of 99-77, we don’t need to check back a bunch of Kx – the handful of combos of KQs/KJs will provide some protection. It’s still an unbalanced, but villain doesn’t have a lot of bluffing candidates to attack our check-back range and I don’t anticipate an unknown reg to turn 66 into an overbet bluff on us. If the villain were Katchalov, maybe this would be a bigger concern.

8. I think villain’s check defines his hand pretty well. If he was just c-betting overs, then this is a great card to barrel, especially since your range has so many pocket pairs. I think he’s mostly checking here, then, with pocket pairs between 66-qq that he’ll probably call one but not two bets with, or perhaps ak/kq that is going for pot control or to keep your pocket pairs around for a river value bet. (If I’m right about this, though, the implication is that his being range would be highly weighted toward aq/aj type hands making this potentially a good spot for a bluff raise with any draws you might have (67s and hh, mostly).)

   I don’t think we’re ever betting ak off a chop here even over two streets, and i think it’s pretty hard to get two streets of value here against jj, for instance.

   But given how capped I think his range is, and the fact that ak beats or is chopping against everything but kk here, if he ever checks that (since I think he bets aa again), and that I want to bet with my draws here so we need some value hands for our range, I’m going to go ahead and plan to bet turn and river, expecting a lot of folds on the river. This also means I should check unpaired big cards and pocket pairs, for balancing purposes, and bet any other kings I might have, along with 44, 55, 54s, and 65s (and a5s, if we have that). Since I want to entice jj to call, I’m betting about 5-6 bbs, planning to bet another 9-10 on the river if it’s checked to me.

   I think his c/r range here is a lot of ak with some kk and some turned flush draws, but probably enough flush draws to stack off.

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