LilTonyC

That was great! Where is the rest of the series? I'd love to see more on this.

Thanks for the move.

JACKraceLUKE I agree that the flop bet might be a bit contentious for sure. Like I said I decided to make the bet because I thought it was hard for me to find bluffs in this spot but you could be right in that I don't actually need that many bluffs in a multiway spot like this.

To your point about not being exploited with a weak checkback range though I would generally agree but not against this particular LAG in the BB. He has generally seemed to follow the strategy of 'you check I bet'. The fact that there are 3 players in the pot might or might not prevent him from running this strategy but I wouldn't count on it from what I'd seen from him.

Live_your_dreams85 thanks for the vote of confidence. I fixed the hand history above so it's more clear now.

Another consideration I made in the hand was the fact that I unblock flushes which I think can find folds to a jam here. I'm really not sure about this either and curious what everyone else thinks. Would it be better to block flushes so villain will find it harder to hero call or am I right in thinking that villain will likely fold at least their weaker flushes if not all their flushes here and so unblocking them is a benefit? My uncertainty about this is another thing that lead to the very small randomized bluff percentage that I picked.

I think I'd actually be happier with this play if I was holding the Qs but overall I think I'm still decently happy with it.

Results now showing in the hand history up top

Also, if we are going to say that the population is making the mistake of not reaching optimal bluffing frequencies then we probably also have to admit that population will not be flatting much QT, 66 and TT vs the x/r otf but 3betting instead. If this is the case and villains range is strongly capped but has a lot of draw equity then why is it wrong to make them both fold their draw equity and either a) over-fold by folding out too much Qx or b) call in a situation where they are likely crushed?

Also if we expect villain to under-bluff then aren't we are losing value by bluff catching?

Not sure what you mean "is not much of a thing"

thewizz No it comes up with it's own ranges in this and every spot. Its 3betting range SB vs BU is something like AA-66, AKs-A2s, KQs-K9s, QJs-Q9s, JTs-J9s, T9s, AKo-ATo, KQo-KJo.

Bingo 123 I don't think we are necessarily looking to get called by worse a significant portion of the time here. This is a very drawy board and we are out of position meaning we can get outplayed much easier. Villains range is quite capped here (probably) and overly weighted towards draw equity which makes playing rivers quite dangerous for us. We will be able to get blown off our hand when villain puts in a large enough bet on most any spade, K, J, 9 or 7 and have very difficult decisions on an A river. That's a metric fuck ton of the deck that we're unhappy with. I want to negate my positional disadvantage as fast as possible and make it more difficult for villain to outplay me. Also, since villain has so much draw equity to fold here it theoretically makes it much more difficult for them to fold the top pairs in their range. If villain has played correctly then I will get called here by QT, 66 and TT here sometimes but I think these hands are often 3betting flop. If I'm wrong about this I suppose I'll pay for it but it's the assumption I was working with when playing the hand.

Squeeze to 30-35. This is you're best hand. If you're not squeezing this then your squeezing range is likely very unbalanced. Squeezing AA is the main reason you can squeeze bluffs.

thewizz

Snowie is mostly checking and sometimes betting here.

freenachos why?

HawksWin yes I think this is a check raise for value. Villain certainly shouldn't be folding things like naked Qx and might have some Tx that they bet otf that will probably have to call once. Villain should probably even stab-call with AJ with a single flush blocker. Villain should also have a lot of draw equity that can stab call here. While I don't really like bloating a pot when I'm this deep and villain can outdraw/outplay me IP I still need to seek value from the top of my range. I have a lot of hands that need protection here (JJ, AT, KTs, JTs, T9s 99, 88, AK, AJ, K9s., you get my point) so I need to disincentivise villain from bluffing me here and x/ring is a good way to do that. I also have a few decent draws when I do this like combo draws, nut flush draws and straight draws so that I am protected on board changing turns.

However I now agree with your ranging of villain on the turn. I do think that it would be correct for them to flat their monsters here to keep their range playable across all turns and protect themselves from turn cards like this one. I think that it would be a mistake for villain to call with only draw equity otf. Because they have too many hands with draw equity it is correct for them to protect those hands with some big hands. Also I should have QQ here a lot more often than villain so 3 betting TT and 66 can pretty bad for them. That being said I don't think anyone at these stakes is considering that very much and will be prone to get it in on the flop with something like 66 or QT here so I do think their range is very capped and I am putting them in a tough spot. Here's some screenshots from Snowie to show what it thinks.

Good fold I think.

I think I'd try to check raise this flop against a short stacked weaker player.

As played otf I think your turn and river play is correct. You should definitely have a huge amount of flushes and sets in your range on this runnout here so folding AA with no blocker is totally cool imo.

Tough to say, your getting a decent price to peel against some middling pocket pairs that I've seen make this move. Sucks to not be closing the action but it's very unlikely that UTG is going to back raise again here. I'd peel for sure. You'll be in a very small SPR otf which people generally play as an unconditional GII which I wouldn't do with AKo here. For this reason you'll need to be calling with JJ, QQ, and maybe a small amount of KK and/or AA. Since villain will have somewhere between a 1 and 1.5 PSB behind (depending on if BB calls) you'll have a well protected range across all boards with a range of AK, QQ and JJ.

How deep are you starting the hand? Is the third player in the pot in the blinds or in position on you and the other player? These are definitely important aspects of this hand but here are some general thoughts I have about it.

First it's not obvious that you should be betting very often on this flop. You're likely leaving behind a lot of hands in your checking range (meaning it's quite weak and easily exploitable when you check) for example what are you doing with hands like AK-A2cc, KQ-K9cc, QJ-Q9cc, JT-J9cc, or all those in spades, AK-ATo, KQ-KTo, QJo, what do you do with your backdoor flush draws? You have a lot of garbage hands on this board and they need protection because if you bet all of them you can get raised quite easily and if you check them all without some strong hands checking you'll get exploited when you check.

That being said JJ with a flush draw blocker is a decent candidate for a bet. As you said it needs protection but I don't agree that you should 'charge draws'. In my opinion the correct hands to 'charge draws' with is Axhh. Then they're fucked ;). JJ needs decent protection but not a ton. If villain is calling with hands as weak as KQo then for sure protection should be on your mind but otherwise you'll be up against some AQ that is drawing to 6 outs. I think when you have TT, 99, 88 you need more protection from hands like KJs, KTs etc. So I kind of think you should be checking a decent amount here and betting some smaller pairs, some flush draws and maybe some higher pairs like JJ-AA with the flush blocker but definitely not always.

After the flop it's difficult to say since I don't know what else you're getting to the turn with. It seems to me like the turn is a bit of a clearer bet though. You have two good blockers and can still get called by hands like 88, TT, and some sticky weaker pairs like 66, 55 and maybe some A4. Getting villain to fold AQ here is a win for you. So double barreling JJ here is good I think.

River is even harder since I have even less of an idea of your range but I think you might need to be calling. Villain can have lots of Axhh that is bluffing. Even though these hands are probably supposed to be 3bet or fold pre a lot of people will flat their Axs so you beat all those. I'd say esspecially if you think villain can have Kxhh then they can certainly have hands like Axhh. Your specific hand does make for a pretty bad bluff catcher as you block AJ, QJ, JT, J9, J8 missed draws. It really depends on how much Kx you have in your range. I think it's possible for you to have some Kxhh or something like AhKd.

There's sure a lot of puking in this thread.

I agree with JACKraceLUKE. It's very important in these situations to understand your preflop ranges and flop check back ranges to not allow yourself to be exploited. Even shitty spazzy players have strategies that are 'exploitative' even though they aren't thinking that way. So you need to know how often you have AA, Ax, JJ. If you have JJ then you probably also have all QQ and (obviously) KK which means you have 12 combos that need some serious protection on this flop. Did you check back enough hands to protect those weaker holdings?

Villain only needs to win about 25% with their turn bet to exploit you so if your range is AA(3), JJ(3), AK(12), KK(6), QQ(6) that's 30 combos and you need to call 22-23ish. That means some KK and/or some QQ can fold here but only if you checked back all your nutty hands on the flop. If your range after the flop is only KK and QQ you have put yourself in a very bad spot because you haven't protected your range.

I'm not a fan of x/r this combo as I don't think you block enough of villains continuing range. Maybe AsT is a good x/r here along with some KsQ type combos. This combo I prefer the blocker bets as suggested above. You block enough AJ to make profitable small bets (I think). River is probably a good since villains range is more Jx with your flop sizing.

I'm also curious where these are available.

Yes, thanks for pointing that out as success stories are always nice when trying to decide on a product. I wish he'd drop us a comment on his view of the software...

Brokenstars You said that you tried it two years ago, have you looked at it since then? They have made some rather large changes to the AI. It now has more bet sizing options which has drastically changed it's game and could make emulation of it's game a much better option.

Yes I think PIO will certainly give widely different results from Snowie when different ranges are used and don't really think that's very surprising. I'd be curious what PIO would spit out if you put in Snowie's exact button open range. Would it be close then?

Also this is actually a weakness of PIO's I think. I'm assuming you're trying to determine the BB range preflop when BU has opened but the specifics aren't important. Since PIO is giving you an optimal solution vs one range it could open up very large holes if you have made a bad assumption of villains range. Snowie on the other hand is building ranges that hold against all ranges and so cannot make this error.

Yes, I've seen a lot of stuff like this but it's not quite the data I'm looking for.

What I mean is that the article on Zeljko just says that he used PokerSnowie to improve but it doesn't say if he tried to emulate it or just used it's preflop strategies or what. No one has documented how to use it very well and what type of results you can expect from using it in a specific way.

Question: What does your study group think about PokerSnowie?

I don't understand how you figure getting it in with 42% EQ is a good play. If you consistently get it in with <50% equity you will lose $$ no?