Dr. Maximilious Exploitopoulos MD

non diamond river i am calling, this runout i am folding
this is not solver gto play, just using experience and intuition here dudes got boats all day

stop auto piloting 4 tables with 5 rows of hud stats and actually pay attention to people's showdown hands

have enough basic understanding of gto play to know if opponent is allowed to bet that specific hand you saw using their sizes and frequency, then form counterplay strategy to punish

start playing hudless and your intuition will be stronger if u dont have hud numbers distracting you, also playing heads up helps a ton

It is still a concept that holds and with solvers, its application has been identified more accurately. Before solvers, people over evaluated their implied odds in spots like calling with small pairs in every position to set mine, but your opponent wont ever make strong enough of hands to justify your implied odds. In other spots where you open and get 3bet, your implied odds are huge vs stronger ranges that will stack off and make your drawing beyond immediate odds worth it.

10 years ago ppl thought that calling pocket 55 vs UTG was +ev and calling 55 vs blinds 3bet when your otb was -ev. Today we know its the opposite and calling smol pairs preflop is -ev but defending them vs 3bets late is +ev.

Theory snap call but this is under the assumption that villain is playing HU ranges. If this guy is just playing his blind vs blind 6max ranges then flatting the 3bet is fine too, but stacking is fine as well. In real time I have that thought of oh population under 5 bet bluffing but I still call here anyway despite that because theory + you will see enough random garbage more often in HU.

im ganna go with a number between the two winrates and say ~40/bb

which means i think vs passive pool tendencies your better off just blindly double barreling and making your decision at river when it checks to you instead of checking turn and having a to face river decision vs opponent bets

just to clarify, are you asking for the bb/100 for:

1. hero checks back turn after flop cbet
2. hero double barrel turn after flop cbet
   vs.
3. hero checks back turn OR double barrel turn after flop cbet

correct?

ill let OP answer first and refrain from input but i think i know where you are going with this analysis

your turn cbet winrate looks high, check your flop cbet and river cbet for comparison - if everything is high then your just betting too strong value

or it could your not cbetting flops enough and saving all that power for turn cbet

if that is the case, redistribute your range by cbetting more frequently with weaker hands on flop and rivers, and start checking some strong hands so you can defend your river check calls

goal here is to convert that 650bb turn winrate and turning 150 of it to your river check call so that at least your breaking even or winning there

The linear polar range changes you are describing is subjective and can be interpreted many different ways for and against like most heuristic.

The most important thing is that some of your hands that are forced to fold to an optimal 4betting SB get to realize their equity and win sometimes vs a SB that is flatting too wide, which is +ev for those hands. For example, you 3betting Kxs and low Axo and the SB flats QQ/JJ instead of 4betting, you will win the pot 30% of the time and not get that equity denied as opposed to someone that 4bets more aggressively.

The 3bet/4bet strategies BvB are so dynamic and mixed, I personally don't like to categorize it into the linear vs polar ranges that occur in other positions. You can choose to 3bet or call with tons of hands and the EV won't be that different. It's a buffet line range that you can pick and choose and make into a linear/polar/non-binary whatever range you like and still be within the realm of +ev.

The most exploitative lines require you to know what your opponents are doing with different hand types (3betting with A/K/Qx, suited connectors, small pairs? etc) and adjusting by deviating from this highly mixed GTO sim. That mean's not caring about how your range is constructed linearly or polar. Like if you are playing vs fish just drop the mixed strategies for the mid to lower eV hands and pure 3bet the highest EV hands. Your range will then be linear as the consequence of the most exploitative play and so be it. Let the highest ev exploit lines determine the consequence of your range and not the other way around is what I am getting at here.

Using the winrate alone won't tell you the full story since it might be a case of false-positive/negative. Look at the hands your opponents are betting and what your river calling range is in these spots. Cbet check call means you have a medium strength hand and if your opponents are not trying to make those hands indifferent by bluffing then you are overcalling vs value and hence the -winrate. If that is the case you are much better double barreling thinner for value with medium hands on turns and checking back rivers. If your opponents have unbalanced river bet ranges, you can just exploit using the other line previously mentioned rather than being compelled to fully balance a closer to gto river calling range with stronger hands. It's up to your playstyle whether you want to play defense in these spots with GTO or go aggressive with counter-exploits in other areas.

the best play here is probably the easiest line - just barrel and try to get it in with you hit a pair or straight and check give up when you miss

i am pure checking/calling as i think this is the theory default line here with no reads on a better exploitative line

regular table for sure because you can bumhunt and avoid all good regs until you get to a stake where your forced to play them

definitely not a cooler and the ppl saying it was are giving wrong advice

just flat the flop and see river and turn, your hand is a bluff catcher in these spots so shoving all in is suicidal and the worst line you can take

this guys vpip is through the room so i am never folding here and snap calling a jam

im also considering value jamming river yourself because this player is definitely NOT polarized with his turn raises so he is going to show up with tons of worst hands here

Snowie thinks a large 5x-10x CO open includes 55+ Axs K8s+ Q9/J9/T9s+, A8o+, KT/QT/JTo+ for 23% rfi

vs 10x, BTN defends TT+ AK AQs

vs 5x BTN adds in 99, AQ, ATs+ KJs and 3bet bluffs A4/A3s

the best exploit is if he splits his range into different sizes, then it becomes much easier to play QTs vs a face up range

if hes just raising tight raise large pre, you just fold

if hes raising too wide here 5x with hands like 76s, you can hard punish with 3bets

without showdown hands, you have to gauge the frequency CO is doing this big raise using your intuition, he cant be doing this often or else its super exploitable

yes

only in the sb vs limps will i deviate and isolate more aggressively

yes i would consider limping them as well if the limper is somewhat balanced and the behind me are good with the only pure raising hands being AA/KK/AKs which i know is too tight of an iso range to most ppl

AJ/KQ is probably the best offsuit hands i would limp behind and i would rather much have 75s/Qxs type hands here multiway

im bais towards this strategy atm because i am playing a lot of mtt where pots just go multiway almost always with 4+ players and being completely bloated on the flop already

and in these spots you really want hands that can make the absolute nuts with a lot of people in the pot, so ive abandoned the strategy of iso raising the limper with medium+ hands because you end up too frequently on boards where the top of your range is a broadway overcards and you realize you don't have hands like 86s/53s which you need to combat these spots so you can't even cbet or bluff or do anything but check fold

but once you limp/call very wide with hands like 66-JJ your going to have tons more options since now you are balanced, and you can easily fold these hands post in bad runouts for your overpairs and let your suited connectors and strong draws do the work for you to compensate

no longer are you iso raising 88/KQo, then get multiway on boards where you realize crap i cant do anything but check fold or my range never hits this because im playing an 2010 iso raising strategy

if you want to look more in depth for the theory behind this, check out solver strategies vs limps in deep 150bb+ stacks and sb vs bb spots with antes, theres going to be so much limping going on its hard to wrap your head around it until you try and play this way to see if its more effective than the current meta iso raising strategy

for QTs to be playable here, the guy has to be opening live 5x with a normal online co min raise of ~30% of hands

even with that information, i dont think the math supports calling a relative bigger pot with the same defending range even if you know your opponent is making it bigger pre because the opening size is the most objective piece of information you have and that must be prioritized over "we dont know how tight he is and 5x is normal live"

limp behind insanely wide here with hands as weak as 54s and as strong as JJ/AQo because this pot is going multiway most of the time and having strong hands with your speculative ones is needed for balanced ranges multiway

exploitatively 4betting the top of my strong limping range vs aggressive avg regs that raise double limps too wide with Ax, middle pairs, and broadways

if 50/10 calls an iso raise from reg, you have option come in with your wide range that limped behind or get fat value from a double limp isoraised squeeze when the regs raise too wide and limper calls too wide

this strategy is probably different from the standard meta of just ignoring the limp ever happened and raise your entire CO RFI range to isolate (in theory you would have to raise wider if you consider the limp an ante or post - so isolating with only medium to strong hands is probably not optimal strategy)

but that strategy makes it impossible to play weak speculative hands which are going to be +ev multiway vs the limper sandwiched between an aggro reg that knows limp ranges are weak, so you've got to make a tradeoff by taking some strong iso raising hands vs the limper and instead limp behind to defend your multiway range - similar to how gto sb vs bb requires sb to limp in with very strong hands in mixed strategy to support very weak hands

your being way too optimistic with the calls here in every street and trying to justify a bluff catch way too wide

5x preflop opening is a fold for QTs 100%, unless you have super reads on this guy (which it doesnt seem like) to make up for the -ev call preflop

flop isnt a mandatory call at all when the dude cbets pot, just fold because this guy has to be betting super polarized range for QT to be gto call: opening5x and cbetting JTo for pot on this flop along with hands like 55/A8 - do you give random ppl at 1/2 las vegas credit for studying solvers and knowing balanced polarized pot cbet ranges in this spot? i dont, so exploit folding is fine here

folding turn is the real mandatory line here, and his line does make since if he thinks everyone is a fish and hes playing a over aggro thin value betting style

the negative consensus is people virtue signaling, nobody really cares in the end

people use software, automated controls, bum hunt, etc that go against poker room rules all the time and they justify it when it clearly breaks terms of service and they can get banned, but that edge is too tempting to pass up for them

its all up to your own risk vs reward judgment based on the rules of the site your playing on

"If so, is it more about respecting the game than anything else? If that is the case, then where is the line?"

respecting the game lulz...too late for that we are in the era of solvers and that is going to break the game abuse the players to the max

the line is you cant look at your opponents hole cards :p anything else is fair game

both of you should not have many Tx here at all in theory, but if that is your read then yes UTG can lead turn here and you will feel sad, but almost no one is doing it with balanced ranges so dont worry about it

but if he is defending wide Tx along with 88/99/JJ here, he will show up with some overs and weaker pairs here so value betting turn small is fine here

river is a fold since you already think UTG shows up with too many Tx, you have some AK that play this way and thats sufficient enough to catch when he bluffs with AJs/AQs - he'd have to be bluffing more for you to want to catch with QQ/JJ here

the guy calls 3bet utg with -ev hand and is compelled to float a board vs 3/4 psb, seems like ezpz game for you so just go to value town - you can triple this board with smaller bet sizes and get called with worse from the looks of how UTG plays

AQo is going to be a -ev call or 3bet here so folding is best, AQs is closer to 0 ev so you can do something with that

you have a valid point there

i think the people advocating not folding top set here is that its too high up in our range and villains bet size and he just has to be doing this with worst a small percentage of the time to justify the call

your better off potting 4bet instead of silly min raising preflop

and postflop your overthinking it a ton, just bet large enough to get it in on the next street instead of doing some gto small range bet cause we know your range isn balanced to begin with so just play exploitatively

river is a call with no reads, not exploit folding here unless you have evidence of this particular player only playing flushes this way even though population tendencies does support it

if you feel compelled to cover 876 boards, just check call with overpairs

doing that is significantly +ev and part of balanced play anyway, where as opening 87s is -ev most of the time and marginal even if you hit that board

"Do we play it as a check-call (with the idea that taking an agressive line won´t fold out anything better)? Or checkraiseing to get him of his weak Ax/KJ/KQ with a barrel on the river? Or leading turn to get him of JJ/QQ?"

"Have no relevant history/stats on villain."

You cant justify these exploitative lines unless you have information that co is betting too weak of hands and folding too much to raises or he folds too much to turn leads, it is a backward thinking process in which you are just guessing and incorrectly using a line that requires prior information when you don't have it. And even if the results work in your favor, you will be going into false positive and negative confirmation bias which will screw up your game and your mental. Its super dangerous to be playing this way, hence why its important to study theory to know what the default straightforward optimal line is.

As played the only option on turn is a check call because it is closest to theory correct and non exploitative and least variance line. Your already raising and calling too wide preflop, so putting any more money in here voluntarily is -ev. You got lucky on a turn you can continue on but in order for turning your hand into a bluff with a c/r you need prior information which you don't have. Thus the only option you have after checking is calling and hoping you hit 2pair trips or flush on river.

if by overcalling you mean someone other than the original raiser cold calls your 3bets, then you punish by 3betting bigger, which means you have to be more polarized in theory

lowering 3bet sizing and going linear works if the original raiser is calling too wide

this might not be the answer you want but the math and science behind decisions like these are derived from bayes theorem and super complicated:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem

obviously the 3bet vs UTG maniac is +ev since you have the hard stats to prove it, but it gets tricky to assess the btn since the prior information you have in this spot is that he is an aggressive reg which is very undefined

so the bayes theorem calculation here is whether this player is adjusting by widening 4bets or just 4betting regular with some default 4bet range

im not too versed with the actual bayes calculation because its way more difficult as opposed to learning about it in theory, but in the end you get a distribution of true/false positive/negative results

my intuition based on little knowledge of bayes and poker theory tells me even if the reg is adjusting, once the utg flats were in a new spot where we need to recalculate everything and even at that point A9 is just an poor hand to jam unless a series of very exploitative conditions are met (block 4bet, btn 4bets K/Qx and small pairs, UTG both raises and flat wide, some fold equity, etc.) and on top of that being torn on whether we merge or polarize jam here