ITH Poker Forum

[Willem]

Willem, I just want to make sure I understand your point here, as it seems contradictory. Are you simply arguing that as a practice, you can't call down with J-high here on the turn and river because that would be way too loose (I agree). But that in this particular hand, since you have 10 outs on the turn and possibly the best hand, you call, and then once on the river, since you've made it that far you would consider check-calling.

Exactly. Calling down with every J-high here is way too lose, even though it might be EV+ in this specific hand due to the many draws villain might hold. But since you are on the river anyway, I think you need to showdown.

With an opponent who bluffs too often (as is case online with most players), you need to strike a balance between calling down to extract value from his bluffs, and not overdoing it, or he will adjust and your calldowns will become EV-. Exactly what hands to showdown here and which one to fold is completely another matter.

[Misunderstud]

Raising for a free card and then actually taking it, is horrible in HU pots imo. It turns your hand face up without you having any way to balance this out. So you either keep betting after semi-bluff raising the turn, because that's what you would do with your strong hands too, or you don't semi-bluff at all on the flop, which is my preferred line.

6max has gotten so aggressive that your EV is definitely negative when raising for a free card because you will get 3bet and then bet into on the turn so often that those rare times where you will actually get to take your free card will never make up for the times where you have to pay 5SB to see the river instead of 3SB. This is why the free card raise with a draw is virtually extinct in 6max games. Instead draws are raised to balance out raises with strong hands to disguise your hand range. This means you have to keep betting on the turn because that's the line that maximizes your EV with your strong hands. And in the end that's the whole purpose of your play, semi-bluffs are only used to balance.

So villain played this hand defensible, even though my preferred line would be to call the flop and raise the turn, following it with a river bet most of the time.

Ah, I see.

Well, I'm talking FR 101 here, and fortunately I'm still at the level where you can lay your cards face up and still get callers, but thanks for the insight, Fen.

[kpr16]

Raising for the free-card and actually taking it is not a bad play if you balanced your game in that spot.

Fenris, for example: You said that games are so aggressive that anytime you raise, you're very likely to get 3-bet. Well obviously that sucks for our draws, but what if we had a very storng hand and we could now call the 3-bet and raise the turn or elect to cap?

Don't get me wrong, this is a play I virtually never make. But I do think it can be considered if you prefer to default to a flop raise, like a lot of people still do. The biggest problem I think, is that you usually will gain more value by following up on the turn with draws, than by checking the turn and giving up often enough to catch bluffs.

You probably have to also check behind bottom pair or 2nd pair after raising, or some A-hi hands to pickoff bluffs.

I'm check-folding the river if I didn't bluff kr the turn in Matthew's hand. QT or QJ I'd likely check-call the river with.

[chillrob]

I honestly am having a hard time understanding the original river call here, the c/r bluff on the turn, or even the call on the flop. I don't see the turn as being strong enough to call. Are these games really so aggressive that it is often right to continue with weak overcards in the face of aggression? Villian here has raised hero on two of the post flop streets, and been unfazed by a check-raise on the turn.

I have been playing lately in a lot of 2/4-5/10 shorthanded games, and they are pretty aggressive, but the aggressor normally has something. There are a few maniacs who I may have to call down with a lot of weak hands, but I think King high is the absolute weakest I have ever called with, and that was only once. I do cometimes end up calling with Ace high, but I'm not sure I win often enough to make it really worth it. When I do, it is usually when I have checked the river to induce a bluff. I do see a lot of other players calling me down with Ace high, but hardly ever do they take down the pot. (I do bluff the river a decent amount when I have had intitiative the whole way, but when I lose they normally have at least a pair.

Of course I have never played anywhere near as high as 30/60, but I doubt many of the other players here have either. For others who play the limits I play - is there enough value to this hand to continue after being raised on the flop?

Rob

[Fenris78]

Raising for the free-card and actually taking it is not a bad play if you balanced your game in that spot.

Fenris, for example: You said that games are so aggressive that anytime you raise, you're very likely to get 3-bet. Well obviously that sucks for our draws, but what if we had a very storng hand and we could now call the 3-bet and raise the turn or elect to cap?

Don't get me wrong, this is a play I virtually never make. But I do think it can be considered if you prefer to default to a flop raise, like a lot of people still do. The biggest problem I think, is that you usually will gain more value by following up on the turn with draws, than by checking the turn and giving up often enough to catch bluffs.

You probably have to also check behind bottom pair or 2nd pair after raising, or some A-hi hands to pickoff bluffs.

Ok, I see. So you could raise a whole bunch of hands including strong hands, hands that want to see a showdown cheaply and draws on the flop then check behind the draws and mediocre hands on the turn if given the chance. That way you don't turn up your hand when you check behind the turn. But then you still have to bet some semi-bluffs on the turn to disguise your strong hands. I have to think more about this, but I believe it might be hard to balance your ranges out that way. Also I would need to take a look of your raising range on the flop to determine wether your range really likes to get 3bet. Anyway, I will think about it.

[mchilger]

kpr, what's the difference between calling with Q-J, Q-T, or J-T given the probable drawing hands of the villain?

Chill, calling with overcards is more profitable in short-handed games than full-ring games. You run into more premium pairs in full-ring games than short-handed games. I'm not sure at the lower limits, but you also generally get paid off to the river when you hit (assuming your opponent has a pair). You also have to call sometimes with overs to prevent your opponents from simply running over you.

In this particular hand, not only do you have overs, but an 8 or Q is a decent card on the turn. Also, given that he might be on a draw, it's possible the action with go check-check on the turn.

You can't blindly call with overcards every time you have them, but in this particular case there were a lot of reasons for calling my opponent's raise.

Lots of good stuff in here that I am going to go back and think about also.

Matthew

[Willem]

what's the difference between calling with Q-J, Q-T, or J-T given the probable drawing hands of the villain?

I don't see any difference between QJ, QT, JT, AQ, AJ, AT either. In fact, all these hands have (almost) exactly the same amount of equity on the river since villain is very unlikely to have A-high or Q-high. I don't think it's a matter of absolute hand strength which hand to show down, but more a matter of frequency. I think you need to showdown QJ, QT and JT (and just maybe T8 ) because you are on the river anyway. Since you now have more bluff catching hand available on the river, you can probably dump most (if not all) A-high hands on the turn.

[mchilger]

Great thread guys. My next Cardplayer column will include an analysis of this hand, not nearly the level discussed here as I've only got 1200 words . But I'm mentioning the thread for readers to come and find it if they want.

Matthew

[kpr16]

Matthew, as Willem said, it has more to do with calling frequency than what JT actually beats.

What our exact calling frequency is and rather or not we should call down with JT, QT type hands, but fold good aces on the turn is debatable. My reasoning was that we're always showing down good aces and pairs, so we can fold some hands like J-hi. We're not folding much on the river by letting these hands go, but hopefully that's enough folds to make it correct or (make our opponent indifferent) to bluffing or giving up on the river.


Fenris, I'm not sure either how easy that is to balance. I was only pointing out that none of us really know the exact optimal strategy, and that there can be some very effective ways to balance even if they are not "game theory optimal." I think the conscious thinking of balance and info hiding is usually enough.

[Willem]

Well, it is important that our bluff catching hands are better than the hand villain bluffs with. But I think the main decision point here is after villains' bet on the turn. Here we need to decide what hands to take to the showdown. All of villains' bluff hands are 8-high at most so anything Ten high and above will suffice here. Now we need to pick the hands with the most equity and stick with these. The hands with the most equity are the ones with the most outs. If I have to chose between QJ and AQ, I'd pick QJ since that has 4 extra outs to improve (extra 8.8% equity on the turn). QJ, QT, JT and T8 are all better than AQ, even though AQ is a stronger hand in the absolute sense.

In this hand against a villain who bluffs too often, you should probably showdown {QJ, JT, QT, T8, AQ, AJ, AT} and maybe even more.

[ciaran]

OMGWTFBBQ

Check out post 16 in this thread at 2+2.

[nsidestrate]

OMGWTFBBQ

Check out post 16 in this thread at 2+2.

LOL. I play that guy once in a while. He is a massive multi-tabler who seems pretty solid.

[ciaran]

I must say, I would get a certain amount of perverse satisfaction from putting someone (good) on life tilt for a while. I've probably actually done it once or twice, but without the pleasure of seeing them confess to it.