I concluded last week’s “What’s Your Play?” by saying that, “I should have been more open to taking in new information and re-evaluating my plan,” since I’d just admitted to following through on a big semi-bluff despite obvious shows of strength from my opponent.
I also said that, in the absence of such tells, I still thought that check-raising all-in on the turn was the best play. Now, a few very good comments on that post have me re-evaluating that opinion. Here, thanks to commenter Todd, is the short version of the argument for betting the turn, planning to fold to a raise but to bluff most rivers if called:
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.
Gareth elaborates and adds some further arguments for bet-betting:
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?
Thanks for the great comments, guys, and for your persistence in arguing with me! There are a lot of things I enjoy about blogging, but I wouldn’t still be doing it if it didn’t continue to teach me new things!
One for the good guys!
awesome response… just curious, are you a professional like andrew? or just an incredibly analytic recreational player?? if you are, do you play live or online, what stakes? thanks for your great comments!
Gareth might be too modest to respond to this (or just not see it), so I’ll take the liberty of asking for him. He is a professional, and if you appreciate his analysis, you can watch his videos on CardRunners. He also has a blog on there which, like mine, contains both poker strategy as well as travel and unrelated intellectual musings: http://www.cardrunners.com/blog/GarethChantler
Finally, let me echo that sentiment: thanks for the great comments, Gareth!
Since the topic is once again open for discussion – I believe the ck / call line has been seriously underestimated.
You need fold equity (F) to ck/ raise. I will assume you have about .33 pot equity when called and no show down value otherwise. When villain bets 10, your eV is
26.6 F + (1-F) (.33 (16.6 +56) +.67(56)) = 40 F -13.5. You need about 33% Fold equity to make the ck raise break even.
To estimate the eV of the ck /call line, we have to make some assumptions about our implied odds. I think it is fair to assume that any hand that will call our all-in on the turn will also call a 2/3 pot size bet on the river when we hit. This may be higher or lower depending on which of our outs hit, as well as many other factors. But it seems like a reasonable default assumption.
Under this assumption (that is F [turn shove] = F [river 2/3 pot]), the river eV of the ck call line is
.67(- 10) + .33 (16.6 + 10 + (1-F)(24.4)) = 6.8 – 8.1 F
Comparing the two values 6.8 – 8.1 F 42%. This should make sense, as when fold equity increases you not only benefit from the turn fold, but ck calling becomes less profitable since there will be less value from implied odds.
I would suggest that you do not have this requisite fold equity – in fact I seriously doubt if you have enough to break even. The reason for this is that, while there are some hands in villains range that will bet /fold the turn, there are very few hands in his range that will do this uniquely (or at least almost always) . There are however several hands in villains range that almost always bet /call.
Consider AJ: This hand probably (not always) calls pre. This hand often (not always) flats the flop. This hand might or might not bet the turn and probably (not always) fold.
Now consider QJs: this hand always calls pre, always flats the flop, always bets the turn and never folds.
Villain’s diamond draws are the same: some like A6dd might or might not get to this point (I usually fold A6s to a utg raise). But AQdd, KJdd, and Q10dd always get there and aren’t folding.
Weak show down value hands (like 88-1010) might bet /fold: but if you think villain is too fishy to understand showdown value he’s probably fishy enough to bet/ call with these hands as well.
As for Andrews favorite hand 77, it is my experience that weaker players love to call with their sets in position on loosely coordinated boards that miss hero’s range. 77 always flats pre, Very often flats the flop, always bets and always calls. Same for 55 and (to a lesser extent) JJ. I’ve seen QQ and AA turn up here. In short villains range is seriously weighted towards value for almost any reasonable range.
As for tells: villain is not particularly bluffy. He has seen you ck /call the turn with KK in the first wyp. (He is probably still congratulating himself that he did not bluff you on that river since he thinks you would have called him down). I would say that villain will never bluff or thin value bet you again ever. Villain’s bet sizing also seems to be consistent with his value bet size.
Thanks for the very thorough post, though I must quibble with a few points:
1. Fundamentally I think you’re off about the fold equity. I think he may bet-fold (or call-fold if we take the bet-bet line) both bare draws and mid-strength hands like 88-TT and possible as good as AJ. You may be right that he won’t be thin on the river, but the turn is a different animal. I think those mid-strength hands in particular are likely to bet but then freeze up when faced with a tourney life-threatening shove.
2. You assume that any hand that would put a bet into the pot on the turn would call the river, but bare draws would not (and would beat us at showdown on most rivers). I can’t say what % of his hands these are, but they certainly reduce the profitability of check-calling.
With those caveats, you’ve made as good of a case for check-calling as I think could be made, and have certainly made me look on it in a less unfavorable light. 😉