Earlier this week I posted a new What’s Your Play, and now it’s time for the results and my analysis! First off thanks to everyone who commented, there were a lot of really interesting ideas and good questions, and I’m going to address a few of them here.
In this hand, I was actually the BB. I had 8d 6d for a flush draw and turned gutshot, and my opponent checked back his set of Tens on the river, which I thought was interesting and very good. Despite rivering a pair, I had no intention of putting any more money into the pot.
I think that Bond2King pretty much nailed it with his comment:
“A very player dependent spot, but given the minimal information I think I would just check back. Given the deep stacks you can’t rule out AJ just because he didn’t 3-bet, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he would take this line with that and J9 a lot. I think he probably shuts down on the turn with any two pair worse than KQ (and you have two Tens as blockers anyway), so KQ and Kx with two diamonds seem like the only hands to get value from, and I doubt that he’s calling with one pair (I think he might play Kxdd differently anyhow). Unless you’re pretty sure he wouldn’t check a straight on the river, the range he’s calling you with seems smaller than the range that beats you (more combos of just AJ than KQ, not even counting the J9). Besides, he could always find the fold with KQ or check-raise bluff you on the river if you bet small (you would have to fold).”
To expand on this a bit, the BB’s range really should not include bare draws with no showdown value. BB’s line is very strong, and the turn bet is large enough that even calling with Jd xd would be questionable. This makes it unlikely that BB going to try to bluff-catch with one-pair hands, because SB really shouldn’t get to the river with hands that need to bluff.
More importantly, I’m not likely to play one-pair hands this way. I think calling with a hand like QJ or Kd xd is much better than three-betting the flop, because if he calls the 3-bet there are a lot of awful turn spots (for instance if he shoves over this bet) that suck. So again, he has good reason to discount this kind of bluff-catching from my range. It also means he doesn’t have much incentive to turn something like a pair of T’s into a bluff. As Shawn puts it, “His check on the river is either to induce or to fold. Either way the only way more money is getting into the middle is if he has us beat. I think I’d check.” -Shawn
Chris raises a good objection: “I just can’t see why he’d check a hand that we beat when every draw bricks and hero is repping effectively a bluffcatcher.” This is a fair point, and granted it’s unlikely that BB checks a straight on the river. (BTW there wasn’t much discussion of QQ/KK- while these would usually be 3-bet, you can’t discount them entirely, especially when this deep). However, this is a spot where we must compare two very unlikely scenarios: how often does BB check a set/straight vs. how often does he call a bet with a worse hand? As Gareth reminds us, “J9 and AJ have 32 combos between them…. that’s a lot.” Following the check, SB has the best hand 99% of the time, but that number drops considerably, below 50% I believe, once more money goes into the pot.
Two other points that I want to address:
ChngToh asks, “What r u afraid of?Over set? Chances of that are like 1 in 100 and further more ur HU.”
That might be the odds of the hand being dealt in the first place, but that all goes out the window once the betting starts. It’s not enough to say, “better hands are unlikely, therefore shove.” I would argue that worse hands that can call are even more unlikely, given the action.
Eric says, “Hmmm First Hand checking tens here would make me afraid he might try to run over me the rest of the match.”
Even if that were true, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. If I knew for sure that checking this would cause my opponent to start bluffing me at a higher-than-optimal frequency, which I don’t think is the case, then I’d gladly check it and spend the rest of the match profitably picking off bluffs. EZ game.
Thanks again to everyone who commented!
Nice little twist on the series. I like it.
I wish you could do these twice a week. (or more!) It gives us Americans some poker to think about while we’re locked out and they’re a lot of fun.
Cool hand, thanks for posting.
I do want to address 1 point I disagree with:
“J9 and AJ have 32 combos between them…. that’s a lot.”
This is certainly true, but in no way does Villain’s river checking range have 32 combos of AJ/J9.
Given that villain will sometimes c/r flop, sometimes 3-b pre, and of course most of the time jam river himself, I think he actually checks a straight here with maybe 4-5 combos of AJ/J9, MAYBE.
Andrew, had you played AJ/J9 like this, would you really EVER check river on the first hand of a HU match? Not betting is just such a clear value-cut when there’s so many 2nd best hands that can justify a call when draws miss.
I’m on board with B2K that this is an opp dependent spot. Vs anyone with hero-cally tendencies who backed into pair, or would play a pair+draw like this and then look for a reason to call, it’s a jam. Vs a super solid tag (ie, Andrew in this case), it’s probably a good check, since Andrew is likely folding KQ if he played it like this.
Given its the very first hand of a HU match, and despite ‘respecting’ e/o you have no other history – I think river is a fairly clear jam and hope villain gets curious. If there’s a time when someone’s spazz factor is higher than normal, I think it’s on the 1st hand of HU match (leading villain to hero call more often).
I agree with the statement “when villain checks, hero has best hand 99% of the time, but when money goes into the pot, its significantly less” – whether it’s below 50% I think is debatable.
Also QQ/KK make up, in reality maybe a total of 1 combo of villains range given preflop, esp on the 1st hand of a HU match. Nobody’s flatting those hands 1st hand vs a minraise this deep 😛
If they do flat, I also don’t think they take this line 100%.
The idea isn’t that he always plays J9 and AJ this way, but rather that there’s quite a lot of J9 and AJ in his pre-flop range that could be played this way. Considering that BB needs to show up with KQ or a diamond draw that made a pair to pay off the river, there are far fewer combos of those hands that he could play this way.
KdJd, Kd9d, 9d7d, Ad7d, Ad6d, AdKd make up pair + draw combos, and while they may not call a river bet, I can see him taking this line w/ most of them (maybe not K9dd).
I certainly understand there are more combos of AJ/J9 that could play this way (32 vs 8 KQo + pair+diamond maybe make up 5) but that doesn’t really matter – because we’re not analyzing his preflop range – we’re analyzing his river checking range – which I think has us beat basically never.
That alone isn’t reason enough to shove, but when you factor in the 5% time he superheros you with a pair cuz well – your line looks pretty suspect for value anyways (most ppl have to assume you jam J9/AJ on turn yourself had you flatted with 1 PSB left to play) – I think a river bet is +EV.
I def understand where you’re coming from, and fully agree that just b/c you’re likely to have the best hand isn’t enough to bet – you have to be a favorite vs his calling range. I believe that you actually are, since I don’t think during the 1st hand of HU match he’s ever checking river with a hand stronger than TT. Ever. (Unless you have a dynamic of floating him super light and then bluffing a ton, but you don’t – and even if you did your range has too many bluffcatchers vs hands that need to bluff that checking AJ/J9 is nonsensical)
FWF discussed a similar spot in one of his videos on DC – his take on it was: We have the best hand 99% of the time once he checks – and even though our river bet gets called so rarely, since we’re [in reality] never beat, we should bet anyway and just hope he finds a reason to call, even if it only happens ~5% of the time.
Short version is – you’re dealing with 2 very unlikely scenarios:
1) Villain checks a hand stronger than TT on the river
2) Villain calls a river bet with worse
I still think 2 happens more frequently than 1, enough so that betting is good. 🙂
I think there is an article here called something like “combos” (j9,aj,89) vs “Probability of checking to induce” compared with “probability of calling” (k10,KQ,k6,k7).
Anyways super interesting hand (and write up) that I am still confused about 🙂