This week’s WYP is inspired by a hand I played on Day 2 of the British Columbia Poker Championship. The table is probably the toughest one in the room, but thankfully there’s only about an hour left in the day. Both Villains are very smart and good players. To the extent that they can be categorized, Villain 1 is slightly more LAG and Villain 2 on the TAG side, but they both play well enough to exploit their images appropriately. They presumably view Hero roughly the same way.
Hero starts the hand with 115K, Villain 2 has 105K, Villain 1 has 150K. Average is about 90K.
Blinds are 1000/2000/200. Villain 1 raises to 5100 UTG, Villain 2 calls in the CO, and Hero overcalls Ah Jd on the Button. Flop is Ac Jh 7s. Villain 1 bets 12K, Villain 2 raises to 25K, what’s your play with top two? Obviously a lot could happen here but please do your best to describe your plan for likely future scenarios depending on what you want to do on the flop.
I’ll leave this open for the week and post results and my thoughts on Friday.
I think whatever you do will look strong here, its a way ahead/way behind scenario and I’d rather call and hope he barrels turn. Board seems pretty safe imo not much to protect.
I would call, I think. Very few draws on board. villains may think that hero thinks they’re betting light and calling with a bare Ace. And it’s reaaally easy to get stacks in after you call here, even if V1 folds, pot will be 80k by turn with hero having 85k, so either shove turn or bet bet 30k/55k since you’ll be IP.
If you call and bet turn, what are the second-best hands you’re looking to get called by? Are you calling/getting it in if one of your opponents bets the turn?
“If you call and bet turn, what are the second-best hands you’re looking to get called by?”
pretty much A7, worse two-pair hands that form after the turn, one-pair hands that also make some draw on the turn.
If one of them bets turn, I assume it has to be V2 (since we got to the turn by calling). In that case yes, I’d probably get it in because I think villain can have all the hands listed above.
^oh and bluffs too, of course.
I think flatting makes it seem a bit too obvious that you probably have exactly AJ. Also, it can lead to some awkward turn situations. Shoving puts too many chips at risk with a hand that doesn’t have great equity against either Villain’s calling range.
As such I like a small raise to about 42k-45k, with no clear plan going forward, but probably calling a shove by Villain 2 without any kind of read. That said, you could possibly fold if you think it’s almost certain Villain has a set when they shove. At that point you’re playing the hand as a bluff with blockers, which seems fine, as AJ is not the top of your range.
If your raise gets flatted you can evaluate from there.
If you’re playing the hand as a bluff, what are you trying to make them fold? A set of 7s?
Why do you think Villains will perceive a flat as exactly AJ?
I don’t see how calling is an option. I basically see four options from that.
1. Fold — OP doesn’t say how many handed this is, but if its 9 handed I can see this being viable. We don’t expect initial raiser to have a continuing range with any hands we are ahead of should we put chips in, that’s a real problem. Its not even clear that the raiser has a continuing range with hands we are ahead of should we call or raise.
2. Click it back to 38k, fold to initial raiser, call flop raiser. I like this if we think it keeps raiser’s continuing range the widest. It also allows us to hero fold versus initial raiser should he 4bet flop all in. Given that this plan calls for putting 38k in to fold, I wouldn’t do it.
3. Shove. I think this is our best hope. Maybe on occasion the flop raiser calls with A7. More likely is we get him to fold his entire large bluff range. The problems with calling are numerous. Firstly, something comments thus far haven’t addressed, is the initial raiser can come over the top with impunity with an extremely wide range. More importantly the flop raiser is going to correctly interpret a call as big strength and thus isn’t going to put bad turn money in. This is a real consideration because the flop raiser’s bluff range is live against us in the worst way, its almost entirely gutshots, hands like 89, KT, T8. These hands will only put money in on the turn when they hit and we will never extract any more money from them. So putting money in on the turn will probably cost us more chips on average (the times he hits his gutter + the times he has 77 or JJ) than it will win us chips (he goes crazy with A7). That’s the time initial raiser folds, if the initial raiser 3 bets, presumably all in, on the flop, we are helpless. Andrew has written an article, no such thing as a free hunch iirc, that correctly argues in spots where you will look strong no matter what, your best choice is to take the more aggressive action. This seems like that spot.
4. I like this in theory but perhaps not in practice since it requires you to straddle the angle-shoot line. I’m not sure if this would be considered an angle-shoot by the rules of poker per say. Take 4 chips, 2 5ks and 2 1ks and throw the 2 5ks in the middle, then haphazardly toss the 2 1ks on top. This is obviously a call and don’t verbalize anything, verbalizing any intention will be clear angle-shooting. Anyways then when you are made to call the 25k you can expect the flop raiser to spazz out on the turn. I would never do this, but don’t actually know the etiquette in this spot.
Why isn’t calling an option? Your number 4 is interesting, and I don’t think there’s anything unethical about it. I’m just not a sufficiently sophisticated live player to pull it off.
Calling isn’t an option for the reasons I outlined in point 3. If the initial raiser shoves over both the raise and the cold call we have to fold right? He can do this with pretty huge impunity it seems to me, if he is sick enough, which the description makes me think he is. The main problem however, this secondary dilemma aside, is that the flop raiser should correctly interpret our cold call as big strength, possibly extreme strength, meaning our range is likely A7+ in his eyes to do this with. Therefore I find it unlikely he tries to get us to fold on the turn and can make some hero check-folds with AK, A7, J7s type hands. The converse of him not trying to get us to fold on the turn is that his bluff range is very very live against us, its almost entirely gutshots. And there are a lot of gutshots, T9, T8, 89, KT, KQ, QT. Continuing with the assumption that, as a good player, he will interpret our cold call as strength, he should only be inclined to put turn money in when he binks, and our equity is horrible. This isn’t really a great outcome for us because the typical arguments for cold calling here would be to keep ranges wide and therefore keep our equity highest, as well as inducing spazz’s. If he’s a good player he probably isn’t going to spazz, but on any K,Q,T,9,8 his bluff range can make the nuts and we can convince ourselves he is spazzing. We also might get the initial raiser to call the 13k with a similar KQ type hand as well, which actually isn’t that great for us either. Like, we just aren’t trapping when we cold call, we don’t induce low equity spazzes and we don’t extract value from worse enough to justify it given the risks we take on in an already big pot. The only way we can hope to widen his spazz range, it seems to me, is option 4. If we take that off the table I defer to this being a shove/fold spot. I think a shove is going to take it down a huge amount of the time (which is excellent, there is a ton of money in the middle), sometimes we get hero-called by A7s, sometimes we get a fold from AJ, and sometimes we bink the likely 3 outer versus 77 :D.
re: option 4. If its not going to get me a penalty or a douche thread on 2p2, I could easily pull this off, being a “sufficiently sophisticated live player.” I didn’t think there was anything in poker I might be better than you at 🙂
sorry to add another point on. It being 1 hour left in the day is important right? Like you could easily get some weird hero calls from AK/AQ here if both of them think you’re a sicko who plays high variance tournament poker (though it seems quite clear to me you play pretty low variance). In any event shoving should be the best way to keep their continuing ranges and your perceived range the widest, while calling seems to accomplish the opposite with an added risk of being shot in the gut, so to speak.
(Assuming this is 9 handed) am I nuts for wanting to fold preflop here? They’re two tough villains and whilst we have position, we have a hand that’s going to make an OK top pair at best most of the time we hit. TPJK and TPTK on a jack high board aren’t going to be loving life when UTG gets excited.
As played, anything we do (bar folding) is going to look hella scary to both villains, I think. If we ship, I expect villains to be able to ditch A7, to the extent that it’s in either of their preflop ranges (note there’s only one A7s combo left). The range that crushes us is tiny, but 1) it’s squared since there are two villains in the hand and 2) the chance that either villain puts much more money in with worse seems slender. I don’t think a fold is out of the question.
We’re risking 110k in our stack to win 50k+ in the pot, so it’s possible that we are +EV shipping even expecting villains to play perfectly.
*dodgy maths alert*
We need to take it down roughly 2/3 of the time, so we need both villains to fold roughly sqrt(2)/sqrt(3) of the time, or 81%. 5 combos of hands that crush us means that each villain needs some 20+ hands that fold to get us to breakeven. Meh, I’m not liking the look of it at all.
If we do continue, I think that flatting has the best chance of getting people to make a mistake. If you flat, villain A jams and villain B calls, then I guess you puke make a horrified fold and get shown AK vs AQ.
You’re right that AJo isn’t a monster pre-flop, but I’m confident that it’s ahead of both of their ranges. Granted it’s not way ahead nor an easy hand to play, but with position I’m comfortable navigating the occasional dodgy situation like this one. I don’t think folding would be terrible, and I actually considered turning it into a bluff by squeeze-folding as well.
If you flat and V1 folds, are you getting it in on blank turns?
I think it would be a little odd for V2 to raise a set here but not impossible.
It could easily be v1 kk or qq & v2 Ak,Aq,a7s
To me this is like the one spot where a min-raise by v2 isn’t the nuts because he doesn’t want to have hero call behind.
If you call or raise it looks super strong. At least a flop re-raise includes a bluff range.
If v2 has a set he probably has 777 and might be afraid of jjj for his tournament life.
I can see lots of reason not to but I think min-raise to like 45,000 and fold if v1 goes all in (whether v2 follows or not). If v1 folds, and v2 ships, I think you need to fold but if I sensed weakness I might call.
If v2 flat calls (after I throw up on myself). ugh. ship any non 7 or k turn I guess.
Nice comment, Eric. Couple questions/things to think about:
1. Why do you say V2 “doesn’t want to have hero call behind”? It’s pretty tough for Hero to have more than 4 outs if V2 is ahead.
2. “At least a flop re-raise includes a bluff range.” I can see why this would be a good thing if you were planning to get it in, but if you’re going to fold, why would you want your opponents to think you could be bluffing? Seems to me that would only encourage them to continue with the occasional hand you beat, which isn’t good for you when you fold.
3. Why are you more inclined to get it in if V2 flat calls than if he shoves on you?
1. Why do you say V2 “doesn’t want to have hero call behind”? It’s pretty tough for Hero to have more than 4 outs if V2 is ahead.
I guess I was thinking V2 doesn’t want to play the turn against 2 people without some indication of how strong their hands are/what they have. Min-raise gives v2 a lot of info about both. 25k seems way to much to speculate. And v2 min-raising puts v1 to the test though I guess he is getting rather good odds to flat call the min-raise.
2. “At least a flop re-raise includes a bluff range.” I can see why this would be a good thing if you were planning to get it in, but if you’re going to fold, why would you want your opponents to think you could be bluffing? Seems to me that would only encourage them to continue with the occasional hand you beat, which isn’t good for you when you fold.
Hmmm so you make a good point of course.
I think if hero just flat calls 25k(as opposed to 12.5k) v2 is never putting any more money in with ak/a7 unless he improves. And to go with q3 if hero min-raise flop then v2 might get stubborn with ak/a7 even 777 and just flat call 25k more for a pot of like 100k total and just might fold 777 to a turn shove. Admittedly I didn’t think of the possibility that v2 or v1 might shove over your flop bet with something you beat( well except a7 I guess). It’s obviously a disaster if you min-raise and v2 shoves a7 or worse and you fold ( I imagine Durr would make that play, I can’t see too many other people doing it, well maybe heinz or Lamb! )
This was a super tricky hand to play, I am sure I got lost in it more then once 🙂
3. Why are you more inclined to get it in if V2 flat calls than if he shoves on you?
really can’t see how minraise-folding is a good play… we’re putting half our stack in just to fold if they come over the top? Additionally IMO their range for calling a flop 3bet is as narrow if not narrower than if they shove (- if they shove they could be spazzing with like KcQc but they’re never flatting a 3bet with that, however they might flat sets on such a dry board). So why would you fold?
Either 3bet-call or just shove it in now if you want to raise.
I think I’d call here but I wouldn’t be very happy about it. I don’t expect V2 to have many bluffs in his range and if he does, he’ll shut down after hero calls. I think hero can call here, because V2 will occasionally show up with some sort of bluff, but I don’t think hero can put in any more chips on the flop or the turn and expect to be ahead.
I’d call on the flop and fold if V1 comes over the top. I’d also fold if V1 folds and then V2 puts more chips into the pot on the turn. If V1 folds on the flop and V2 checks, which is the most likely scenario imo, I’d probably check back and then make a smallish bet on the river. I don’t think you’ll get called by worse very often, but once V2 has checked twice it’s almost impossible that he has a hand better than hero’s.
I don’t know how I would in fact react in a $2700 tournament (way above my league) and my post may look spewy but looking at this I see 50k in the pot and no real reason to assume you are behind. You have top two with 50BB preflop stacks and no straight or flush possible. Either opponent could have just an ace, or even just a gutshot. (Or is that too optimistic?) So I think shoving is better than folding.
But then raising to 48k should be even better, if it puts bold moves in your range (say, with a gutshot that can’t just call the 25k and is happy to fold to a shove) that try to steal about 50k risking about 50k. Nobody can flatcall this raise getting the right odds to draw out. If someone shoves then call. If you should get a call, then I would get the rest in until the river in whatever way seems best suited to keep a potential weaker hand calling. The most extreme scenario is Villain 1 shoving and Villain 2 calling with confidence, but I think you still have to call now, hoping to outdraw on Villain 2 (or even to split with him), and there is 20k left to play with if you only beat Villain 1.
I would say calling is also better than folding, and leaves flexibility in position on the turn. But many turn cards will complete possible gutshot draws. What is interesting about calling is that there two contradictory aspects, both mentioned by others:
A) It looks so strong already (-> no such thing as a free hunch, the article Gareth mentioned) that it will freeze all weaker hands.
B) It is the best way to get weaker hands to barrel more chips into the pot.
If A is right you can call and fold to further bets. If B is right you should call and call most further bets. But if you don’t know, and this seems to be such a borderline case, and considering the opponents are so good that you can’t predict or read them easily, I would raise to 48k as described above.
I’ll try to find some additional support for this view, since it seems to be quite a lonely one. Let’s start with Andrew’s own estimate, in his comment here justifying playing AJ in the first place, that AJ is ahead preflop of both opponents’ ranges. But that means that, after the flop is dealt, both their ranges contain *lots* of gutshot combos, many of them with backdoor flush draws. I don’t really know what a “good aggressive tournament player” does with such a hand, I just would have suspected he may not simply give up. Would Villain 1 just check such a hand? Would Villain 2 just fold it? Or flatcall it? (I guess he might do the latter if Hero wasn’t in the hand.)
There are also hands for them to have that are better than a gutshot but weaker than a set. Now, if it is true that a) their ranges are indeed still reasonably wide b) reraising for value is bad for Hero because only stronger hands (i.e. sets) will continue, together that would mean a bluff reraise to 50k should be highly profitable for Hero with all his weak holdings. Can such an imbalance occur in a hand between three very good players?
If this makes sense and Villain 1 recognises it, then, given that he covers everyone by at least 35k, he should act against the imbalance by shoving some hands that Hero can beat.
Even if you allow a fair number of gutshots into V1’s betting range and V2’s raising range, by the time you get around to me 3-betting and one of those guy’s putting in a 4th bet, most of the bluffs have dropped out.
Interesting spot.
Overall I think flop call is best. 3B over-reps your hand, and while you could 3b/fold, I don’t think a single worse hand actually continues if you 3b. Granted you never get bluffed if you 3b, you gain nothing. The only advantage is you can get away ‘cheap’ if behind, but I still think you can make better decisions on later streets.
Either flatting flop or raising are going to look very strong, but given the aggro dynamic at the table I think flatting looks somewhat weaker / makes it marginally more likely someone keeps bluffing putting you on an AK/AQ or even A7 and tries to bluff later streets.
I actually think you can make an argument that, from a pure survival standpoint, that 3b/fold is a better play, but I think flatting is overall more +cEV.
If V1 3-bets over your flat, I think you have an easy fold, and if he also calls. If V1 folds, and V2 barrels turn, you have to soulread. More inclined to call on FD cards that add hands like KQ / KTs FDs. AJ toward the top of our range here though, since we rarely have AA/JJ given pre. We have 77 as some protection I guess.
I don’t like shoving flop. We have no bluffing range to shove on this board and both villains know that. Best case senario is someone makes a loose / weak call with A7, but more likely we are -EV vs their calling ranges. We don’t really need to protect our hand here, and while ending the hand is, in theory, nice, we are so crushed by their calling ranges I think its overall not good.
Though jamming flop may get UTG+1 to fold AJ given action 😛
It’s not out of the question for V1 to have AA/JJ. These are the types of situations LAGs live for. V2 could have AA/JJ/77/AJ/AK since he’d be flatting in position against a LAG. (if he wanted to get tricky)
If you flat and V1 flats you’ll have the worst relative position going forward. (Even though I don’t think V1 flats all that often)
I think no matter what action we take Villains will put us on either AJ or 77. It would be hard to put us on AK, AA, JJ with our call behind on the button vs a lag and tag. If we had any of those hands I’d think we’d want to 3b iso one of them to get it heads up and to build a pot.
If you shove what are we hoping to get called by? There are no draws except for the gutters. I doubt AK stacks off there given the action and players involved. We’re only getting called by sets at that point which we’re well behind.
3b/folding seems like we’re betting for information. We’ve only invested 1/23th of our stack in the hand (give or take). If we 3b non-shove we’d have to put in over half our stack. Our opponents would have to have complete air to fold (if that’s the case why are we making them fold?)or chances are we’re getting 4b shoved on. Any continuation of either we’re chopping at best or very behind/drawing dead.
We also only have roughly an hour until the end of the day. Depending on how many people are left we could easily fold and hope for a better table draw with an average stack.
Working the hand backwards you’ll almost always get it all in by the river no matter which opponent you get it to heads up with. If you happen to get it in with both villains you most certainly are crushed. Is it ok to stack off with top2 here. I certainly would do it since it takes me forever to work things out but working it through I think we should fold.
Take our 50bbs and wait for better spots tomorrow at a softer table.
Call, the board has no draws and AJ has hit good. If V1 reraises fold.
On the turn if either villian bets 1/2 pot or more fold. If they don’t and no scare card came (K, Q, T or 7) bet 1/2 pot, if they reraise fold. If there was a scare card check behind.
If they call a turn bet, look to check down the river (unless an A or a J hits).
Assuming that you call flop and get checked to on the turn, which hands do you expect to call a 1/2 pot bet on a blank?
Anything that beats AJ will call and any Ace that thinks this is a bluff.
It sort of a blocking bet against being bluffed on the river, because I don’t think I could call any bet they make on the river.
Do you expect to be ahead if your turn bet is called or are you looking at the value coming primarily in preventing bluffs that you can’t call on the river?
agree with angus. i feel we shouldn’t be flatting pre if we’re gonna fold top 2 on a dry flop. still, have to fold to more aggression since our call looks so strong (our hand may look exactly like AJ, but it probably doesn’t look like we’re planning on folding). all options here suck though. then check behind turn, (thin) value bet river if checked to.
“i feel we shouldn’t be flatting pre if we’re gonna fold top 2 on a dry flop.”
I like the rest of your post but I want to highlight this because it’s a very common error in thinking. I know that you know that there’s a lot more to a poker situation than the cards that show up on the flop. So why do you feel like certain cards falling has to lock you into continuing with your hand? The advantage of having position is that you get to make decisions based on seeing what your opponents do. What if there were five people to the flop and four all-ins on this board before the action got around to you- would you still feel obligated to call because it’s one of the best flops you could ask for?
You call pre-flop because you expect a fair number of good situations on the flop. That usually means catching a piece, but it might mean spotting an opportunity to bluff with nothing. Likewise even when you catch well you might sometimes have to fold when something unexpected happens in front of you.
To be clear, I’m not saying that I necessarily think a fold is correct here, I just wanted to address what I think is a flaw in the first part of your reasoning.
At first I was tempted to say that we have to shove because there’s so much in the pot already in relation to our stack and that we will gain hardly nothing from worse hands by inducing and only giving hands behind a decent chance to catch up.
However, I think the fact that V1 is a LAG opening UTG and V2 is a TAG flatting in the CO has significant importance when coupled with the flop action. V1 is capable of having a wide-ish range here with his open but when he cbets into both of you I take a lot of air out of his range. That being said when V2 makes this minraise, I don’t see much reason to take this line with any sort of semibluff or bluff. I think he’s mostly getting value from worse and not wanting to give a free card or see an action killing card. I can’t imagine what he’d raise/fold here. It’s also likely V2 would flat AA/JJ preflop perhaps hoping to induce a squeeze with the former and playing a flop with the latter. I think I’d fold here given those insights and the action.
The more and more I think about the hand read some of the replies I’m getting the feeling that everyone believes V2 has bluffs in his range, which obviously changes things from my perspective. I guess if the LAG isn’t going to cbet this board into two callers he shouldn’t be opening UTG and V2 would likely flat all value hands hopefully inducing action from our Hero.
Andrew,
Classic WA/WB situation. So the principle is basically you dont want to put much into the pot — since you are not going to win much when you are ahead and will find hard to catchup when you are behind. (duh – that sounded too obv lol)
V2s range is polarized bwtween — mostly med/high pairs, 1 pair hands which are –“raising to find out where he is” against a lag opener — and yes the 5 set combos (3 combos of 7s, 1 pair of Aces and 1 pair of Jacks). V1s range is mostly Ax.
So, we basically have to find out if we are coolered OR way ahead. The board is sooo dry. I’d just call behind. If V1 shoves, then fold. (you look so strong calling behind, I’d be comfortable folding to a shove)
If V1 folds on flop or calls behind, I will still fold to any shove by either of them on the turn. Though this sounds nitty, I dont see either of them shoving turn w worse.
If checked to on turn, then check behind. On river, feel comfortable calling a shove or shove yourself.. as clearly villain has indicated weakness by checking on river.
I agree with almost anything you said, but one thing. I don’t think V2 will show up with one pair hands here almost never. Maybe he’s bluffing with something like 87s, but if he has an A he’s usually just calling. I think his bluffing range will be hands like KQ, QT.
Christoph,
Hmm.. I’ve seen a bunch of live villains doing this “raising to find out where I am” w KK, QQ in this spot. In anycase, the key point is — even if he did w KQ or whatever, V2s equity is still very low against us ie (2 outs v 4 outs).
So, still WA/WB, so the rest of my analysis doesnt change.
Andrew, thoughts?
Well said, Ganesh. One question: if you aren’t comfortable calling a shove on the turn, what changes to make you want to call the river?
If we are folding top two to a shove, why is V1 shoving AK/AQ not profitable here?
Also, when you give the results, could you say what you would do if you had a set here? I mean our hand is pretty much 77 (1 less combo that beats us, but essentially the same) and I’m assuming AA and JJ you 3 bet pre to a raise and call ahead of you, no?
He’d be shoving AK as a bluff, and part of the point here is that I don’t think these guys expect me to fold AJ and consequently I don’t expect them to bluff. Facing an UTG raise with these stacks, I would call with a set here, and I would flat JJ more often than not. From V1’s perspective holding AK, if he knows I’ll fold AJ, then I’ll fold a little more than 50% of the time. That might be profitable for him except that there’s the added threat of V2 sitting behind him who could also easily wake up with a set. He’d actually be better off shoving without an Ace, since the A is a blocker to my folding range, but even shipping a gutshot (which has better equity and no fold-blockers) is probably not profitable because of V2. It’s easier for V2 to own me with a gutshot since he doesn’t have another guy sitting behind him and shoving costs him less. I guess I’m comfortable getting exploited here by someone with the balls to shove a gutshot into this action- I don’t think either of these guys had them.
Oh and the big difference between AJ and 77 is that Villain is much more likely to have AJ than 77 when I hold 77.
This is my first comment so i want to ty first for your blog Andrew … he open my mind the way I think about poker…About this hand now…
First of all i think you can’t fold.So evaluating the minraise it looks to me either as a semibluff (gutshot) to take free turn card or take the pot if Vil.1 and you are weak, or he wants to look like this to induce a 3-bet shove with very strong hand (the strong hand you afraid i think is set of 7’s as AA or JJ not so likely)so there are much more hands in semibluff range and only the 77 in value range. If he is capable to do the semibluff i think you are committed vs him. So i think call to see Vil.1 reaction… Your call look strong so If vil.1 shoves probably you have to fold but if he fold you can see the turn and you have to go all-in in most if not all turns.
Thanks for coming out of the shadows! Glad to have you commenting, and I appreciate your kind words. Couple of questions:
Why do you say I’m committed vs. V2 if he’s capable of semi-bluffing? Just because he can raise flop with a gutshot doesn’t mean he will continue to put more money into the pot with worse once I call or raise.
On a similar note, if you think calling shows enough strength that you can fold to a shove from V1, why do you feel obligated to get it in vs. V2 on the turn?
Ty Andrew for your comments…I like the poker conversation with you so i’ ll be in every post…(sorry for my english, i’m Greek and learn them a long ago)
About your questions now… I wrote that If Vil.2 is capable of semibluff with gutshots then his range has 5 combinations of set’s and much more of semibluffs or A7,J7 (may be he has also AK or AQ that he didnt raise preflop and now he thought that underepresent his hand) that you are ahead. If Vil.1 fold and you think he continue with all of his range then you are committed vs him… If you think that your overcall stop him from betting all of his range in a blank turn so how to act after a big bet is up to your feelings in the flow of the game…If the turn is K or Q and he bet it is a strong move and fold is the percentage option…
Nice post Georgios.
Do you think it also more likely that V2 would slowplay all value hands in this scenario knowing that V1 would possibly get barrely and Hero would be more inclined to semibluff? Since we flatted preflop he has to figure someone if not him has some sort of draw.
Sorry that i didn’t answer earlier gbb187 but i open the pc today…
Your thought is very good and i agree that Vil.2 possibly slowplay a value hand (AJ or better) because the flop texture is good.. And i think it would be my choice to..
So if we count this the min raise was more bluffy and he had to be scared with hero cold call. After this it would be suicidal to shove in a blank turn as he did. So his shove I think means AJ or better…
Hello,
First of all, congrats for your good BCPC. You did great.
Back to WYP.
The pot is about 57k and hero and vilains have 2 bets pot in their stacks.
The board is dry, there is no flush draw and just gutshots draw.
I do not know what is the good LAG player’s range of raise UTG but I think
he can bet all his range on this flop.
Due to your article ‘Improving your MTT skills’ I understand the gap
concept, thus I think that vilain 2 could have a very strong hand if he
calls, but he put a raise, so I can not see him with a set.
Putting it together I think hero has the best hand.
If one vilain has AK, J7 or A7 you will double up what matter you do.
Now the question is how to make value against a weak ace or a good J.
You say that vilains are good players, so they also surely know the gap
concept and a call will freeze the action, but if a vilain can catch a
double pair it will be nice (except AK and AQ of course).
So, I think the raise is better, a small raise will commit you and will
show a lot of strenght, so I will go all in.
Thanks! 🙂
I’m not sure I follow your reasoning here. I don’t think the Gap Concept prohibits V2 from raising a set on the flop. I’m also not convinced that J7 is going to stack off no matter what Hero does. V1 in particular would seem to have a pretty easy fold with J7 if Hero calls or 3-bets the flop raise.
You are right, it is not very clear.
I just think that you have the best hand, a call will freeze the action and an all-in will bring some bluffing hands in your range.
I was just reviewing the stack sizes also.
Hero: 115K
Villain 1: 150K
Villain 2: 105K
Blinds Antes: 4800 (9 handed table)
Preflop: 5100 x3 = 15300 + 4800 = 21100
We also have to look at V1’s actions. He’s betting a little over half pot into 2 of the better players at the table OOP and leaving himself 137k behind. If either or both of you flat the pots about (12+12+12+21) 57k with effective stacks of 78k(V2). This would be disastrous for him since he’ll be out of position the rest of the hand with such a huge pot.
It appears that V2 has put in almost 1/3rd of his stack. (5100+25000-105000=74900) It’s very unlikely that he’s bluffing since he’s committing so much of his stack and he still has Hero to act. What’s V2’s plan if we flat and V1 folds. My guess is V2 is going to shove any turn.
Then what’s out plan? Fold?
If no matter what action we take if we believe that V1 will fold when behind but call or raise when ahead and V2 is going to lead all Turns or Rivers due to us not raising the Flop and checking behind on the Turn, we shouldn’t be calling the Flop for 1/4 of our stack.
What happens is we:
*Call, V1 raises all in, V2 calls, we fold. (lose 25k in chips)
*Call, V1 folds, Turn: V2 moves all in, we fold. (lose 25k in chips)
*We raise all in, V1 folds, V2 calls in most instances since he’s getting 2:1 on his money and already committed 1/3rd of his stack. (at best chopping 36k when V2 has AJ, just my guess)
*We raise all in, V1 moves all in(what is V1 all in with?!?! We have a cold-3-all-in(Hero) with the re-raiser(V2) still left to act?!?!), V2 folds. (well behind and out of the tournament AA/JJ/77, just my guess)
*We raise all in, V1 folds, V2 folds. (gain 21+12+25=59k, increase of 55%)
I believe thinking that we’re going to check Turn and River is being too optimistic and working the hand backwards and planning Turn and River shows we should fold.
It’s sort of like Chess, when you’ve planned 3 to 6 moves ahead of your opponent it’s easy to see what move you should do first.
First off, love reading your stuff and learning from you.
Now on to the hand …
I don’t believe you ever just call here with the bottom of your range made hands (say AK or AQ) so I don’t believe we should call with the top of our range (Sets and AJ). I don’t think we should ever fold here since there are only 6 combinations that have us beat. Additionally, V1 is LAG, so he could have anything, and since V2 is TAG and a good player, I don’t see him flatting A7 or J7 in middle position so we can take those out of his range (ie. we’re not going to be called by worse either). I also think V2 3 bets AA, JJ and 77 against the LAG opponent preflop a good percent of the time. Thereofore we must raise. I’m going to basically play this hand as the nuts. I don’t believe we can ever play the hand and get anymore money in later streets ahead. I.e. if we just call, V2 is only putting in more chips if he hits the turn (either a str8 or a set he hit on turn). That means our only option is how much to raise. Since I “have the nuts”, I’m going to raise a small enough amount where it looks like I may be bluffing and will try induce a bluff shove by either V1 or V2. So I raise to 41K and call any shove, either on flop or turn open shove.
Andrew, great work as always! My response will not be as fancy as the others but here is how I break itt down: If Hero is Andrew then I fold and wait for a better and more clear spot where I can use my superior poker skills to crush the competition. If Hero is Psx120 I snap shove and pray that V1 is c betting and V2 is on AK. I would longball and go for broke here because I’m not a poker savant.
First off, love reading your stuff and learning from you.
Now on to the hand …
I don’t believe you ever just call here with the bottom of your range made hands (say AK or AQ) so I don’t believe we should call with the top of our range (Sets and AJ). I don’t think we should ever fold here since there are only 6 combinations that have us beat. Additionally, V1 is LAG, so he could have anything, and since V2 is TAG and a good player, I don’t see him flatting A7 or J7 in middle position so we can take those out of his range (ie. we’re not going to be called by worse either). I also think V2 3 bets AA, JJ and 77 against the LAG opponent preflop a good percent of the time. Thereofore we must raise. I’m going to basically play this hand as the nuts. I don’t believe we can ever play the hand and get anymore money in later streets ahead. I.e. if we just call, V2 is only putting in more chips if he hits the turn (either a str8 or a set he hit on turn). That means our only option is how much to raise. Since I “have the nuts”, I’m going to raise a small enough amount where it looks like I may be bluffing and will try induce a bluff shove by either V1 or V2. So I raise to 41K and call any shove, either on flop or turn open shove.
If I told you that I’d fold AQ in this spot, would that change your opinion?
No, I’d expect you to either raise/fold AQ, AK (AQ more likely folding) in this spot. The only thing I expect, is that you don’t call with this hand. So, if we are never calling with the bottom of our continuing range, we should never be calling. That leaves us to either raise/fold. That’s what I was trying to get to.
I’d call with AQ/AK before I raised with them. And if I fold them, they aren’t the bottom of my continuing range.
hello,
this is my first time here and i have not read any of the answers as i want to be objective and really put my self in the position.
i would think that the vil 1 would be owning up to hes image as LAG and raise UTG with a wider range of hands including marginal as for the call PF of vil 2 he would probably picked up on the vil 1 that could be raising with any kind of hand but calls with a playable hand like suited connectors 9-10s, 10-Js, J-Qs, A-10o, A-Jo, A-Qo, 8-8, 9-9, 10-10 and above, Post flop i would think that Vil 1 could have missed the flop but as he was the initial raiser, has the biggest stack, and is aggressive would most likely to always raise in this position as for the vil 2 he could taking advantage of hes both their images vil 1 as loose and his as tight and raise to see if he can take vil 1 of the hand ether way i think vil 2 has vil 1 beat in this spot.
i would just call and see what vil 1 does, he might shove thinking that vill 1 in trying to get him of hes hand exploiting both their images or he could just shut in down right there and fold, i don’t think hes just calling here. if the vil 1 shoves i would think that there will be a 3 way all inn probably we can trip up here, if vil 1 folds i would wait for vil 2 action if he checks i shove if he bets i shove i really think we have the best hand here and the pot at this point is quite good.
i would like to add that i am learning and this is my feel of the hand in this moment.
thank you.
Hi, thanks for posting! Of course AJ looks like a very strong here, but if you end up with two people all-in in front of you, what ranges would you put them on that would have your top two pair in good shape?
i would think that vil 1 would have raised more than 2.5 times utg with pair of Aces or jacks and dont think he would raise with a pair of sevens, maybe nines, K-Q, K-J, A-10, i would think he has outs but not the best hand in that spot, i think hes c-bet is a little big for value and would think that vil 2 would not just call the utg raise with a pair of Aces through Jacks, i would put vil 2 in A-J,A-10,A-9, i think he could be ahead of vil 1 at that spot but not better than our hand, i think that we could be ahead of one and worst case scenario chopping with the other, i think that since we are in the button our hand might be a little under-rep in that spot and think that they fail to put us is in such a strong hand.
what do you think ?
Thanks for the comment, Alax. You can read my thoughts on the hand at https://www.thinkingpoker.net/2011/11/whats-your-play-bcpc-edition-results/.
I think that your comments are reading too much into the bet sizes here. Good players don’t give away so much information with the sizes of their bets and raises, particularly not in common pre-flop and flop spots.
Hi Guys,
I think calling is fine tbh. However, I def think in live play villains do get married to AK here quite often and will sometimes over value ship it. The worst the only hand you can beat that V1 will ship is AK after you flat unless he is a monkey AQ, but I doubt that. Unfortunately, you will be up against a stronger range to his shove more often and be counter fitted quite a bit more. Many players live will go spew crazy w aq in villain 2s position and stated above he could be testing the waters w Aq. Folding to Villain 2 would be absurd the key now for him is how to extract from Aq or Ak now.
I think if you call you do have to keep in mind that V1 being live and the potsize may just flat call here w ak, aq, and kq type hands and if he shoves his Value range is Sets and Ak and occasional aq. IMO no draws are reraise shoving ever here. With you over flat calling, your perceived range to both villains is very strong and even to an avg thinking player. However, you are a bit face up now and giving a good price for villain 1 to see a card for a big pot. He will call with Ak,Aq, KQ and QJ Q10 at worst rarely though. If a Q10K hits 2 or 3 way you can easily fold. If s the case, my plan to fire big if the turn blanks. If it’s just you and V2 he may shutdown from your previous flat showing so much strength where potentially your min raise back on the flop would have gained extra value which you now lose. The risk to lose ships out weights the reward of winning them now late in this mtt so calling now is fine with the plan of folding to V1s ship. You and V2 playing the T and R with the plan to extract from 2nd best type hands aq ak by betting big on blank turns. You may still stack V2.