Hand Review - 3 Bet Pot, Low Monotone Board

Poker Strategy Hand Review
1

Hello, first post, apologies in advance

The Hand

In a 1 million buy-in PKO, blinds 100-200, 7-handed, sitting with 12800 chip (64bbs).

Preflop: It folds into me on the BTN with K4dd. I decide to open to 400. SB folds but, the BB 3-bets to 1,300 out of a 4,800 stack. Although, a 3 bet from the big blind indicates a lot of strength, my hand flops decently combined with the extra chips offered in a PKO, I called.

Flop: 853 all hearts. BB leads for 1000. I was going to fold but, two things stuck out to me.

  1. BB player shouldn’t have many flushes because they should be 3-betting many suited hands and they also can get the chips in very easily on the turn and river with an SPR of 1.5.
  2. The player in the BB was aggressive and somewhat thinking player.

So, I decided to raise to 2200. I thought this size make it look like value so often that I can maybe fold out, some low heart draws, some weird pairs and pure air. Looking at the math I was betting 2200 to win 3800 which means the bluff need to work around ~55% of the time. I also rationalized that every if I get call, I still have a lot of chips to play with. But, the BB thought for a couple of seconds and folds.
I want to hear your thoughts on how I played this.

Side note: I ended up finishing 2nd in this tournament for around 8.5 million chips.

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2

Seems good to me. Can’t really fault any of your reasoning, and it’s always nice when those plays work out.

Congrats on 2nd place and welcome to the forums.

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3

I disagree. The only thing that makes this borderline, debateable, questionable, etc, is it being a PKO.

Preflop, K4 suited diamonds, ok to open raise steal put pressure on blinds with bigger stack. That part, ok, semi good to good, etc.

But when 4800 bb stack reraises to 1300, even if they are a semi tight, semi aggressive, thinking player, that shorter 4800 stack out of position BB raise, late tournament, by a higher ranked, thinking player, represents a lot of strength, about 88 to AA, A8 suited to AK, K9 suited to KQ, QJ suited, which range crushes K4 suited, and Hero’s quited way wide, wider button raising range, that does not have good postflop playability, and does not have as good a playability as villain’s range postflop. What that means , is that Hero is probably going to need to get extremely lucky, and flop near perfectly, if hero calls.

So because of that K4 suited should be folding to villains 3 bet postflop. So it was a semi bad, questionable, debateable, below average call, preflop. That said if Villain is going to 3 bet preflop, they should have made it between 1600 to all in, instead of 1300, even tho 1300 makes it look like they have a AA type hand looking for a preflop call.

As played, postflop: With the monotone board, Villain’s cbet reps, and even if bluffing reps 22+, A2+, K7+, QJ+, which again crushes K4 and K4’s range. But even if it didn’t, once BB cbets they now only have about 2000 left, and are 50/50, borderline pot committed, and Hero should know, be thinking “I am crushed. And if I reraise, or effectively reraise big enough to effectively put BB all in for BB to call, no way BB will not not call, and BB will probably call, and if BB call’s I am beat, and BB will surely call”.

Hero got butlucky that Villain didnt call, and folded, as Villain should have called. And most thinking good players, since hero thought that villain was a good thinking player, most good thinking players would not fold to hero in that spot, and would realize what range they have, what range hero has, and would realize they are semi practically pot committed, and would call.

So hero played it below averagily, and villain played it wrongly, and both players played it wrongly.

4

I think there’s two things that make this ok. It being a PKO like you say, but also knowing you have enough creative bluffs in your arsenal as well. I agree that if we’re relying on outdrawing our opponent, then calling with K4s isn’t good, but I think it’s fine if you believe you can leverage your bigger stack and positional advantage to bluff them out of the pot on a lot of flops.

I don’t know about thinking players not folding in the big blinds shoes. You’re basically only bluff catching against anything that wants to take that size, and the bluffs that are there likely still have good equity. I think it’s the auto-piloting players who will just decide they’re pot committed and go with it. 12bb is still a playable stack.

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5

I like the play, and I think Hero’s reasoning is sound.

Also, I know Nightlife pretty well - he will definitely be range betting this flop fairly wide, especially given the 1/3 pot sizing. We don’t have to give him credit for much yet, and the monotone board is gonna be really intimidating for any non-heart holdings that might think about floating the flop raise. There also isn’t too much left to play for, so we’re forcing BB to decide right now if he thinks he’s ahead enough of the time.

@Asuronetorius I don’t think your proposed range for villain’s cbet is correct at all.

6

The reason why villain, BB should be pot committed:

  1. About 3.25 to 1 pot odds to call. 2000 to call to win 7000. And only having 10 bb’s, only 2000 chips left, and if blinds go up about 53 seconds after fold, then about 7.5, 8, 8.5 bb’s, if 150/300, and if 200/400, then only 5 bb’s, and if card dead on top of all that, then can be really crippled, blinded down, busted out, etc. And as explained Villain big blind has range advantage over k4 suited’s likely range on that flopped board. And Hero’s likely range is likely bluffing Villain, and therefore Villain should be bluff catching that likely bluff from Hero, considering Villain has a range advantage.

Because of all that, all that combined together is what should make Villain Pot committed, if Villain is playing to win. If villain is playing to squeeze pop thru the bubble to a min cash, etc, then Villain could ok to semi reasonably fold, etc.

If I am villain, I am playing to win, and If I am Villain, and If I had villains likely range, and since I would have a range advantage over Hero, if I was villain, and had villain’s likely range, then I would call Hero.

About 80% of the time if Villain with his likely range, calls Hero’s likely range instead of folding, Hero is probably going to be beat about 80% of time by Villain in that kind of spot, if Villain with his likely range calls Hero’s likely range, instead of folding.

Villain only folds if he has monster’s under the bed syndrome.

7

Younguru, what your not seeming to get, is that even if Villain can be cbetting wide, wider, on a 1/3 pot postflop cbet betsizing, etc, the postflop is not the issue, thing, unless Villain is a maniac postflop, extremely wide when cbets, cbets extremely wide, A extreme lots, and IF Hero knows that about Villain. From Hero’s post, It doesn’t seem like hero is privy to your knowledge about the Villain, bb, Younguru. That means HERO is seemingly likely going by ranges semi somewhat semi closer to what I talked about, mentioned.

Because of that, the PREFLOP, is the key. Based on the PREFLOP, Hero is likely to put Villain on a tight range like TT to AA, AT to AK, KQ suited, etc.

The only reason Hero made the move, bluff, etc, is not because of ranges, but because he errantly thought that he could make Villain HERO fold, even a range like TT to AA, AT to AK, KQ suited. Hero was errant in his thinking, because he got butlucky that villain folded, as He Hero likely only had about 1% fold equity against what he Hero knew about Villain. Most Villains wouldn’t fold a seemingly likely TT to AA, AT to AK, KQ range likely range advantage, and Villain shouldn’t have fold such a seemingly likely range that ahead of Hero’s likely range, either.

It was likely obvious, and should have been likely obvious that Hero was likely making a move, and thus likely bluffing.

8

But even if Villain thought that it was either a toss up, coinflip, semi somewhat semi somewhat semi likely, semi somewhat semi ok chance that Hero might between semi possibly to semi probably, semi ok chance that Hero semi might have him, Villain semi beat, etc, Villain was, is, would, should, could, etc, be 50/50, semi borderline, semi POT COMMITTED, only having to call 2000 to get 7000, about 3.25 to 1 pot odds, on about 49% to 54% to 59% to 63% to 67% to 75% to 83% chance that ahead, winning, and where only have 2000, 10 bb’s left, which can easily be crushed, crippled, blinded down, busted out, etc, especially if blinds go up in a minute after folding up to 150/300 to 200/400, and if then go card dead on top of that, if fold.

9

For some reason, that post reminded me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS5fwbxCckM :wink:

I get pot odds, they just don’t apply in all situations, this one included IMHO. Yes, if the villain has a heart, they are getting the pot odds to call. Over-pairs probably have to call too. But that’s way less than 50% of their range, and cards without a heart are drawing dead almost all the time. Pot odds don’t matter if you are drawing dead to value, the only thing that matters is if the spot is likely to be over or under bluffed. I’d need to see a lot of evidence to the contrary to believe this spot is even remotely over bluffed.

Fair point about the blinds potentially going up, but then they go up for everyone, so big blind should still have a playable stack.

I also agree if villain thinks it’s a 50/50 spot they should call, I just don’t think it’s anywhere close to that. They folded, so clearly I’m right :wink:

10

It’s debateable, questionable, room for disagreement, and I disagree with you, and I guess that we should agree to disagree, as we have both made good points, and we both are not likely to convince, persuade the other to change mind, agree, and both of us have made thorough, etc arguments, cases, to the point that, what’s left to cover, talk about, that haven’t covered already in depth. I understand where your coming from, even tho I disagree.

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11

@Asuronetorius friendly critique: I think your weakest skill in post-analysis is seeing from your opponent’s perspective.

It feels like what you do is describe each hand how YOU would see it/play it, then claim this is how Villain must have/should have been thinking.

I’m pretty confident this is a major leak in your game, the specifics of this hand aside

12

Sorry for the late response to this but, I think if we play this from the opponents side on the flop.

Lets say, he has a overpair like TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA w/o a heart (likely to what the villain has) that are very likely to want to bet to see where they are at and then get raised to a small amount.

The solver suggest to jam here because they are committed and I am likely c/r with 8 + over card, small amount of over pairs, and some low flushes (not K-high or A-high).

But, most likely thinking I am a replay reg, they are not playing like a solver. They would raise most flushes (some A-high flushes might slow play), the some Ah and Kh, two pair and sets.

Against these proposed ranges, his hand is in terrible shape.

I just want to say, this is not a play I would use often or be considered +EV. But, I thought in the moment that works just enough again this type of opponent to made it break even at best. As @lihiue mentions, you need to have some weird bluffs in these type of spots where you and your opponent knows that the spot is massive underbluffed. It makes me think of another hand where I had AK in a 3-bet pot and the flop was 733r, I lead, he raises, and I 3-bet because he has a lot of 7x, 88, 99, TT that don’t like the spot plus not many people find 3-bet bluffs.

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