TJ Serdar

Does 1000 mchip = 1 sb regardless of the sb value you've assigned at the sim?

I'd sort of structure the flop x/r sizing based on whether or not you have a good number of flop x/r/folds. Seems like you might want to vs this guy's strategy.

Watch one of Tom Coldwell's (sp?) old videos on equity distribution. He answers all of your questions in that video.

He can also jam PR+GD> and some AKBB on the flop so bet/folding seems a little dicey with a BFD and a pair blocker (though blocking the 6 might be bad actually). I would imagine you should have some sort of bet/fold range here so a sizing to reflect that is nice. You could always play two sizes here.

NH

3bet pre.

Call turn. Your blocker effects aren't great and you're not pushing any equity vs his b/c range.

"I'm pretty sure there's just no way I can be playing as well in actuality as I'd be online at the comfort of my own home not having all these extra worries."

Has there ever been a moment or a hand where you did feel as comfortable live as you would online? Can you think of a moment where you were in a social setting where you felt as comfortable as you do when you're playing online?

If the answer is yes, then you CAN do it. You've done it before so you are capable of it now. Focus on those moments where you did feel comfortable.

"So to be able to even practice having that presence feels like I'd have to get over quite a lot of things first, because how am I going to be the guy who always gives people the stare in pots we play against each other when I'm spending all my energy masking my anxiety or balancing it with faking more anxiety?"

I think this last statement is very profound. It reminds me of a quote from Socrates-'The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.'

I think in order to feel as comfortable live in all situations as you do online you need to stop focusing on making yourself not ever feel nervous or anxious, but instead learn to feel comfortable despite that anxiety. It's just a feeling or an emotion. Everyone has them, believe it or not.

My recommendation would be to reframe that thought into something that empowers you a little more and actually looks achievable. As someone who gets a decent bit of anxiety, especially in pubic, I can tell you that's it's probably not going away. If I said to myself every day before I left the house "I have to get rid of this anxiety then I can go out and interact with people" I'd be stuck in my house on most days. Instead, I say to myself "Let's go out and have some fun and connect with people today. What can I do to improve other people's lives today?" The great thing about this statement is that It allows me to get outside of my own head and to add value to other people's lives. It's not about "me" and my problems anymore. Often times I can really get into the zone with this and I'll feel completely relaxed and in the moment just from this simple reframe. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

He won't have many drawing hands on the turn, and the ones he will have don't have much equity against you. Additionally, your range on the turn is pretty damn strong(you just don't x/ca this flop with enough weak hands here), so it's not like you'll be able to lead 2 streets and get value from AQ. Not to mention by taking the strategy you're recommending your turn checking range here is exceptionally weakened. AKJ* with no hearts is actually an excellent bluff catching combo to use. So with that in mind I'd check this hand (and my whole range) on the turn.

This was 600nl fwiw.  I should have added that to OP.

Yeah I remember getting to river and tanking for quite a while.  I was unsure of a few things:

1) On this run-off, I really don't show up with much air.  Pretty much all of my flop and turn back doors got there.  I would pretty much have to take a hand like AcT/AcJ and decide to bet-bet-shove.

2) This run-off favors villain's range enough that I don't think I should be value shoving hands like AA/KK.  It just seems too thin(maybe when I block a club it's more viable but that combo could fit well in a river x/ca range too).  He has a decent chunk of Qx when I don't, he has all 55-77 combos, and a decent chunk of floats that got there on this river.

3) If villain's shove when check to range is >= to his river call jam range, then I should check expecting him to value jam at least the same range he would call with, but potentially turn stuff like 88/99 into a bluff. 

4) I think I need some sort of hand class that is checking this river to protect my river checks.  Though maybe it's a spot I should just check and call with my AAc/KKc combos some of the time. 

Interesting spot none the less.  I'm curious to hear what others think.

Given you block A3, 36, and don't hold any hearts, this seems like a fine bluffcatcher.

Also your postflop line is the best one w this hand IMO.  

Was actually discussing with a friend a bit more about the merits of pot/calling flop, and I'm starting to like that play for two reasons.  1) The folds we gain from villain's check back range will be very significant to us.  Even the weakest portions of his check back range likely have ~30% or more equity vs our hand.  2)  If villain's pot/call range = his GII vs lead range, then we're able to take advantage of some significant fold equity. 

Flop Effective Stacks-11364.42
Flop Pot-4275
FE -61.7%
Pot When We GII-27003.84
Our Equity When We GII-31.24%

EV(pot/call)=(.617)(4275)+.383[(27003.84*.3124)-11364.42]
=2637.675+(.383)(-2928.42)
=2637.675-1121.56
=1516.09

So, assuming my math is correct, this is our EV relative to open folding the flop, which would be EV=0. 

It's tough to compare this to EV(check/fold flop) because when we check, the flop will wind up being checked back almost 62% of the time and when that happens we'll have a variety of interesting turn options, most of which seem fairly favorable to us. 

I'm not sure how qualified I am to answer these, but I'll give it a shot.

"Should we pot/call ourselves?"

I think that gets less advantageous as his range starts to contain less of those marginal AA/AKK combos, or a wider 4b range in general which ill have more rundowns or AK**ds type stuff (say if we're btn/blinds). Also, like you mentioned, this SPR is a tough one for him as the pre flop 4bettor, so I guess I lean towards checking this hand (and maybe range, not sure) @ this SPR and going from there.

"If we check and he checks, how much EV do you think we have?"

That's tough to say.  On one hand when he checks back we expect him to have that hand class of either total air/give ups (which is probably really infrequent on this texture) or draws with equity that can't bet/call, or mediocre made hands trying to showdown or bluff catch/wait for safe turns.  I think diamonds turn will obviously become better for us as the risk of domination is near 0.  Also, 5,6,8,T,J all seem like they'll be favorable for our hand, either because we'll improve, have removal vs the turned nuts, or will be cards that almost never improve villain's range.  I don't think having it go check/check could really ever be bad for our exact hand since we're getting to realize a good chunk of our equity.  Hopefully others can chime in on this one.

" Can we ever make a big mistake x/folding to pot against a fairly tough villain?"

Given positions and assumptions it seems hard to be making much of a mistake by folding.  If we had some read that he's potting the middle stuff, betting small w/ the polarized stuff (which might contain more NF or OP+NF combos), then our equity might start getting significant enough to where we need to consider continuing.  Good question though.

AcKdJd3c equity vs a 4b range of: 4.5% of hands before removal, 2.7% of hands after removal: ({AA}50, {AKK}50, KK**ds, AKQ*ds, AQQ*ds, AKQJds, AKQTds, AKJTds, AQJTds, KQJTds, QJT9ds, JT98ds, T987ds, 9876ds)  Your hand has 39.2% when 4bet.  I guess this is getting somewhat close to what your assuming. 

I think we should note that villain's 4bet range in terms of % of hands is decreased by 40% given our hands removal and we'll also have significant removal against MOP's 4bet range.  That coupled with our suitedness, nuttedness, and equity edge vs their calling ranges 3 way makes this a value 3bet for me, though I agree it's not a snap 3bet.

Vs that 4b range on the flop, we have ~42% hot and cold, so it looks like we're pretty close in our assumptions. 

So on flop if I did maths right, you need 42% assuming him potting at SPR 2.6 (11,364 in stacks, 4275 in pot) is essentially all in(which seems reasonable given reads, after potting he'd only need ~26% to call it off and it's hard to come up with any hand that he'd pot that would have to fold)  Now we need to find his pot/call range.

Since I/we don't know his flop strategy in this spot, I'm just going to assume his only sizing is pot, and that he's never folding when that happens.  Give villain a potting range of (NFD, FD+OE>, TP>+(FD,OE>), OP+(NGD, OE>, FD),PR+OE>, 2PR>), that's a 38.3% pot/call frequency, your equity is 31.24% so your flop plan looks pretty good to me.  If this is accurate, he's checking back a fair amount of overpairs then you should have a pretty decent opportunity to semibluff turns. 

If we change this to: (NFD, FD+(GD>, PR>), OP>, TP+(FD, OE>) You now have 42% and it's becoming more of a get in, especially if we think we might have a small amount of FE.

Nh as usual, Sauce.

Well, I ran some sims here.



I gave villain a preflop range of 35%-$3b10, which was a little tighter
than his stats indicated, which seemed reasonable since I'm opening UTG.




I broke his range down into a x/r, x/ca, and x/f range.



X/R range: (T2P>,WR,PR>+OE>,TP+NGD+3OC,2pr>+GD>) This
occurs ~11.7% of the time. Vs this range my hand has 42% equity.



X/C Range: (TP>,PR+GD>,2PR)-Raising Range. This occurs ~45% of the time. I have 52% equity vs this range.



X/F Range: (Preflop Range)-((Raising range)-(Calling range)) 43.3% of the time. I have 66% equity vs this range.





Regfish SB had a wider than usual x/r range and seemed to only have 1
sizing, pot, which made me give him a range that's more merged/linear,
and less polarized since it seems tough to add many total bluffs when
your only sizing is pot(though he probably does have some). It's
actually a boarder line call/fold spot if I c-bet 6 into 9 and get
jammed on by regfish. I need 42.6% so I'm right on that threshold.



Additionally, the flops folds that I do get are incredible valuable as
he's folding some hands with as much as 34% equity against my holding.
That, coupled with the 9's blocker effects makes c-betting a really
attractive option here.



I think the toughest part will be deciding whether to show down and
realize my equity, or barrel through on various turn and river run-outs.
His range will contain a good amount of KK/QQ/9xxx combo's which I
should have some FE against on certain turns, but there's also the other
aspect of protecting myself and not getting blown off of my equity on
turns. (Turn SPR will be 3).



Lastly, in the actual hand, I bet 5 into 9, got potted by regfish to 24, BB folds, and I got it in on the 52% side vs T887ss.



I thought I could do better EV wise than jamming, so I ran an equity
distribution sim vs villain's range and found out that I could call the
x/r and fold : Th,Ts,5h,5s,8s,7s,8h,7h,Tc,5c turns, get it in on the
rest, and probably slightly increase my EV relative to shoving flop.

Yeah, that seems reasonable.  Kind of like turning a hand that plays as a poor bluff catcher deep into a bluff.  Agree this is near the bottom of his defending range and his 2pr/trips outs are likely live as villain's range is narrowed, which is a huge plus.  Also the bdfd is really relevant here.

It's cool because Pandora might bet/call a hand like AK or AJ on flop and call another bet on say the 3c, and we get to show down on brick rivers. 

Re: Downside to betting-  I'm saying that if we choose to bet this hand and face a call, the types of hands we're likely to improve to on future streets won't be strong enough to bet 1 or 2 more streets with.  The reason I like checking back so much, aside from making sure we realize our equity, is because the types of hands we're likely to make on turns(med 2pr's/med flush) or rivers play much better as a bluff catchers than as clear value bets.  

I also don't think KQJ5 ever folds flop, so it's not like a flop c-bet is getting that hand to fold.  Targeting stuff like QQ-88, 7x/4x is good, but it may be that we can get those hands to fold on future streets (particularly straightening turns) as well.  

Agree we get stuff like dry 88-QQ to fold flop, and we do have OK removal/blockers to continue barreling straightening cards to fold out Kxxx.  Not to mention villain's not x/r'ing flop too frequently so it's unlikely we'll get blown off much equity.

The biggest downside I can see to betting is that as we narrow villain's range our equity loses a lot of it's robustness.  ie: this hand doesn't retain it's equity that well as villain's range gets more and more narrow. 

Given turn checks through and the fact that I hold two kings, it seems like villain is mostly stuff like QQ/JJ/Tx or worse, with a couple QJ combos sprinkled in there.  Against that range it's pretty tough to get value from worse by betting, but it also doesn't seem like a great run-off for him to start turning bluffing if I check.  So, I was struggling w/ deciding the best way to extract some value.  

It could be interesting to bet something like 22-55 here with this holding.  We might induce some bluff shoves and give him a bit tougher of a decision the times he holds some weird 2pr's or improved to 2pr on the K.  

Whale jams, others fold, Hero gets it in vs dry J9 and wins.  Easy game.

I think pre-turn is fine/fairly standard.  You don't mind getting blown off this equity and you retain your equity well vs narrowing ranges.  Pretty clear barrel off on a lot of rivers if you don't improve I think.

This river card is interesting because you won't have a whole lot of air aside from stuff like 345* or dry JT, though neither will villain on this card.  

It seems like multiple sizings on this river is almost certainly correct.  As to where this exact hand falls, I would guess somewhere between checking or betting (.25p-.33p), probably depending on his tendencies.  Opening up the betting could be a pretty big mistake here relative to the EV of checking back if he's good enough to have a balanced x/r range and expect our .25p range to be capped or imbalanced.  I don't think potting is good because that just makes him correctly fold so many worse hands that our bet might not even be +EV when called. 

Interesting spot, I'll think a bit more about it.

Actually, thinking about it a bit more, you'll probably have at least
some Kxxx combos and most likely all KK combos.  Maybe you can fold here in theory.  Explo wise, I agree w/ midori. 

Also, what made you decide to check this flop instead of c-betting?