Seidman not only updates his advice for contemporary game conditions but also corrects a few of his own earlier mistakes and re-explains some material in light of his current thinking about the game. The result is substantial value added to what was already an exceptionally good no-limit hold ‘em cash game book, one of the few offering really high-level insights to experienced players.

You can read the full review at http://www.thinkingpoker.net/poker-book-reviews/book-review-easy-game-by-andrew-seidman/.

Q: I was wondering if you had considered 3b pre? You’re going to have the worst position in the hand going forward. You’ll also have the worst relative position since villain 1 isn’t going to lead the betting to often being passive. I think you get the button to fold a bunch and you get heads up, granted in a bloated pot, but vs a passive player where I’d think you get to show down easier with 1p hands.

A: The short answer is yes, I did consider it. Really, though, if you 3-bet, what are you hoping will happen? You’ll have to fold to a 4-bet, so that’s a bad outcome. Even if you’re called, you won’t be eager to play a big pot if you flop top pair. A passive player’s early position raising range is pretty strong, and it gets stronger once he calls a 3-bet. I think it’s safe to assume neither of these players continues with AJ or KQ, which means that your AQ won’t dominate anything in their calling ranges. If called, you’ll be hoping either to bluff or to flop some value and check it down, maybe squeeze out a value bet. It’s not a disaster, but it’s not a great outcome either.

If I 3-bet, I’d really be hoping for folds. And at that point, it doesn’t much matter that I have AQs. If I thought a 3-bet would get a lot of folds (and I don’t , because again the raiser’s range is strong), then I would rather do it with a hand that has less calling value.

The results of this hand notwithstanding, being up against passive players is actually a reason to prefer calling. You can keep the pot small and wait until they reveal more information about their hands. Plus, calling keeps all those dominated Ax and Qx hands in their ranges, which is what you really want to be up against when you hold AQ. Being suited adds an extra bit of value in a multi-way pot.

This isn’t to say that AQs is never a 3-betting hand. It’s often a very good one. The important thing to see here is that the original raiser has a strong range, so 3-betting serves only to isolate the best part of his range, the part that dominates AQ, while folding out the part that AQ dominates.

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Saskatchewan limped UTG again, Belgium limped behind, and I raised to 1,000 with A4o in the CO. This raise really blurs the line between “value” and “making a move”, since I do expect to win often with a continuation bet but I also think A4 is ahead of both of their ranges. Essentially I’ve got position and the best hand, so even though it might be tricky to play post-flop, I don’t see how raising can be bad. Saskatchewan joked about how “you internet guys don’t allow limping” and called, and Belgium called as well. They both checked a K83 rainbow, I bet 1,600, Saskatchewan folded, and Belgium quickly raised to 5,100. I was sure he was making a move, so I considered my options.

This trip report focuses almost exclusively on the poker. If you want to read about the rest of the trip, check out Hello, Goodbye, Team Online.

As always, please let me know what you think!

We’ll start with the results:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 200/400 Blinds 50 Ante (8 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t24118)
SB (t25330)
BB (t9032)
UTG (t8323)
UTG+1 (t25215)
MP1 (t13846)
Hero (MP2) (t16901)
CO (t31444)

Hero’s M: 16.90

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with A♦, 4♥
3 folds, Hero bets t800, 1 fold, Button calls t800, 2 folds

Flop: (t2600) 4♦, 4♠, K♥ (2 players)
Hero bets t1666, Button raises to t3640, Hero calls t1974

Turn: (t9880) 10♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

River: (t9880) 7♦ (2 players)
Hero bets t12411 (All-In), Button calls t12411

Total pot: t34702

Results:
Button had K♦, Q♦ (two pair, Kings and fours).
Hero had A♦, 4♥ (three of a kind, fours).
Outcome: Hero won t34702

As many commenters identified, the crux of this hand is in recognizing that Hero’s hand looks reasonably strong after calling the flop raise. Many of you made compelling arguments for 3-betting the flop, which I’ll come back to in a moment.

As played, I don’t think we can expect a bluff from Villain on the river. If he wanted to take a shot, he would have done it on the turn, when he had better leverage. If Hero checks the river, it’s pretty clear that he has showdown value, and it’s too easy to click call. Villain’s flop raise, if it’s a bluff at all, is likely to be a one-shot “feeler” to determine whether Hero has anything at all. Once he gets the answer, I don’t think we can expect him to keep bluffing.

Thus, no matter how heavily his range is weighted towards bluffs (and I think it very much is), those aren’t the hands to target for value, at least not on the river. We have to aim for the part of his range that has some showdown value, either a K he raised for value on the flop or a bluff that turned or rivered a pair. Some of those hands might value bet if checked to (though can KJ/KQ expect to get called by enough worse hands?), but I don’t see them calling a check-raise. Nor do I see Villain shoving for any kind of value over a bet, unless he has exactly KT. Not only is it a questionable play generally, but tournament players in particular tend not to go for thin value with significant chunks of their stack.

That leaves the value betting to Hero, who has a choice between betting smaller or larger/all-in. Fred wishes that we were “less polarized on a river shove”, but I think polarization is exactly what we want here. No matter what, Villain has a bluff-catcher. A smaller bet looks more like thin value, which means a larger value range for us.

This is a spot where a big bet is disproportionately easier to call than a smaller one. In other words, Villain presumably calls 3000 more often than he calls 12,000, but nowhere near four times as often. The overbet shove represents a nuts/air range against which it’s actually easier for Villain to talk himself into a call. Ian says it very nicely:

“When he checks back the turn, he’s either got some showdown value (but then why the flop action?), has given up or perhaps he picked up the draw.

I think it’s going to be hard to get much value out of him, so I’m very tempted to ship and see if he can talk a marginal made hand into a hero call.”

Three-betting the flop is an interesting and very viable option. As Jonny pointed out, it’s not a spot where I expect a tournament player to spew or “attempt a re-re-bluff”. However, Emo Meltdown is correct that “Because he’s unlikely to put a another chip in the pot against a flat (it would be pretty spewy to try to bluff Andrew off the K+ he’s likely to have when he calls the flop raise), it’s not like we lose a bunch if he folds his air to a flop 3bet.”

Against a good hand-reader capable of very disciplined folds, this is a better way to represent a bluff than shoving the river, as it’s very difficult for Hero to show up with air after calling the flop (absent the Emo Meltdown “Scandi float”). Even with KQ on the river, Villain can beat only an out of position float or a small pair/Ax turned into a bluff, both unlikely.

I also like this because it contributes to what Gareth calls a “boss image”. Even if Villain correctly guesses that this is rarely a bluff and folds, there is still a seed of doubt in his mind. He’s likely to overestimate your bluffing range in odd spots in the future and to play more straight-forwardly against you generally. This is a particularly important consideration in live poker, when the whole table is likely to notice your play and adapt accordingly.

So I think three-betting the flop is a very viable line. Failing that, though, I think checking the turn just in case Villain wants to bluff, then shoving the river to maximize value from bluff-catchers, is the way to go.

Thanks again to all our participants!

While you’re there, check out some of Gareth’s other posts as well. Like mine, his blog is a nice mix of strategy content and anecdotes from his travels. Gareth, originally from Canada, is currently backpacking through South America while playing a mix of live and online poker. He’s got some fascinating and funny stories that are well worth the read.