Yeah, I didn’t catch that you had the Kc, my bad. That does eliminate a lot of his missed draws. Makes it a much trickier spot.
There’s not a lot of time to think it through in the moment, especially with the site acting like it’s been acting. Calling and being wrong would hurt, but not put you out, i would have to call. Maybe that’s whyIi don’t win more tournies than I do.
I agree it is a pretty tough spot. Nice call.
Should you call? Obviously it depends a lot on the opponent. I think a lot of opponents here are going to turn over AJ or 66. There are not that many combinations of either hand though (4 and 3), and even with your K club blocker, there are still enough busted flush draws or random hands that want to make use of a scare card to call an opponent like this that is capable of making bluffs.
I’m still not sure if he just felt pot committed and decided to throw the rest of his chips in the middle with the thought that against you it might be thin value, or if he felt confident his kicker was no good and decided the jack on the river was a good scare card to just turn his hand into a bluff.
If V was to check or make a small bet on the river, what would he do if you jam? Would he be pot commuted enough to have to call with what is essentially a bluff catcher? And you might take the line you took with a good flush draw.
If he would think he has to call, he might as well jam and put you in a tough spot rather than risk putting himself in one.
I often play the role a LAG so he could reasonably believe I was crazy enough to be raising with Kxc. Though if he suspected a bluff it would be better for him to check/call rather than lead. Facing a jam with king high I have to fold. He should be giving me an opportunity to continue bluffing.
We can agree to disagree there, even though what you say makes sense and is pretty much conventional wisdom.
If he checks and you jam, a call is not automatic, IMHO. It would force him to make a hard decision for his tournament life. Him jamming puts you in a tough spot. As they say, better you than me.
Hard decisions are where mistakes are made, so I avoid them when possible.
We can agree to disagree there
Our conversations seem to always end this way 
Haha, that they do. It’s almost as if we are different people. 
In case you haven’t noticed, I like to say how I would approach a situation, then let better players tell me why I’m an idiot. I have learned a lot this way.
Here’s another I thought was a little interesting.
I’m the villain in this hand. It is somewhat late in a tournament, with a little over half of the players eliminated. I think I’m in 3rd place in the tournament with $23,179 before the ante, there are 5 players at the table, blinds are $400/$800 with antes also, and I make a smallish raise from the cutoff to $1,800. The button, with $14,690 left, calls, and hero, the current leader in the tournament with $38,431 before ante and the small blind, closes the action with a call, holding Ac4c.
The flop comes 6cAd3c, giving hero top pair with a weak kicker, along with the nut flush draw. Hero checks, and villain bets $3,300, exactly half pot. The button folds and hero calls, and the pot is now $13,200.
The turn comes 6d, and villain over bets the pot, jamming all in. You have top pair, no kicker, and the “nut” flush draw (full houses are now possible), and will have a fairly healthy balance of roughly $15,000 chips even if you lose.
Do you call or do you fold?
Edit: adding a bit of context here, in these tournaments there are a lot of players that will get very aggressive with very marginal hands in spots like these. Hero is probably used to seeing players betting like this with 77+, and he blocks AA. How many bluffs or losing marginal holdings like this need to be in range before the call is profitable?
I’ve been in a similar spot in the donk league games. I’ve had players shove 66 into me as a bluff in almost this exact configuration (without 66 on the board, obviously). Especially late in the tourney these games are very aggro.
It becomes a player dependent move. Against you specifically I have limited experience in tounies with, so I don’t know to weigh the chances you’re capable of bluff shoving 77-KK here. Against an unknown I probably fold. I dismiss the possibility of you shoving a non-nut flush draw or overbet shoving for value with AA, 66, 33 or A6 on the turn. I would give you Ax with a better kicker without a background on your exact style.
He needs to win ~35% of the time calling 17k to win a combined pot of 50k. For simplicity let’s say his only hope is hitting a flush at 18%. Again for simplicity let’s say your bluff hands are drawing near dead at 0%. So I would need to feel there’s a 50% chance that you’re capable of bluff shoving with a worse hand. With his ace removal, if you always shove AT+ for value/protection, there are 32 combos of value he needs to worry about. So he needs to find 32 combos of bluff to justify a call. Each underpair bluff you would have represents 6 combos. So if you always jam 77-KK in this spot, 6 combos of each in this spot for 42 total making a call justifiable.
In my case, I’m probably bluff shoving with hands like 77-KK only a very small fraction of the time, but will have other bluffs that might generate a fair number of combinations also. He blocks my flush draws, but I still have plenty of combinations there, with a decent fraction of Kc5c+, Qc8c+, J8c+, T7c+, 97s+, 87s and 53s taking this line. With these hands, I won’t make this over bet all of the time, but will some fraction of the time with all of them. At 100%, that would be 23 combinations, though again these same cards will take other lines also some of the time.
So even though it is probably a mistake to assume 77+ is in my range very often, many of my actual bluffs have even less equity here than these.
On the opposite end, I think you might be missing a few bets on the value side. I have probably got full remaining combinations of 65s and 76s, for example, and I also think I do shove 33 here, though I agree that I’m somewhat less likely to take this line with 66 or AA (and there are so few combos of these anyway). Reversing course again, I think AT is also a little marginal, and while I might make the shove some of the time, combos will be reduced relative to the bigger aces. I agree A9 and below aren’t good candidates.
I think it is actually a surprisingly close call, even with the 6 on the turn counterfeiting all of the partial outs from hitting a 4.
Here’s equity for Ac4c on 6cAd3c6d board versus a few types of ranges:
So I think somewhat surprisingly, it doesn’t take that many bluffs or marginal holdings to turn this into a call, though against anyone that is heavily tilted toward value, you won’t have anything close to the equity needed.
In #915928060 I make an insane call with bottom pair against a postflop 5x pot shove. Interested in feedback on this one. Though it turned out to be a winning move, I’m pretty sure this is a losing call long term.
Blinds: 1500/3000
H BB: 52s (79.2k)
V BTN: AJh (70k)
V Raise 6k
H Call
Flop 9d8h2h
H Check
V All in 64k
H Call
As the context, the opponent was clearly on tilt. We were playing heads up in a final table, I had started as a shortstack and doubled up twice to become chipleader. He had minraised preflop and shoved postflop several times before this.
Without the tilt context, or knowledge that the opponent is a maniac, it seems like a snap fold. I think most opponents here have a very nut heavy range, against which you have horrible equity.
You’re obviously in terrible shape against the super nutted range, and aren’t doing too well against the value heavy range either (15.67% equity). What about the bluff heavy range? 5s2s still only has 29.08% equity… So to make this call profitable, you really need a lot of “imaginative” additions to the over betting range. If the player is on tilt, it’s possible that they will do this with a bunch of random over-cards, and even some worse selections, but on the whole, I have a hard time finding a call here.
In the moment with that sizing it felt like he had two overcards that missed the flop. This is only one segment of his range though. And tilted could also lead to not caring about sizing and overbet shoving big pairs and other strong hands.
This was an error that paid off. Thanks for the response.
Here’s a spot that just occurred where I made a call that seems a bit iffy against a normal range.
I open a bit wide under the gun in a 6 max table with As2s, which I probably wouldn’t recommend at this particular table, especially since CK had been 3 betting my raises at a pretty high cadence. CO cold calls my raise (probably not the best idea… choosing between raising or folding is probably better with most of his range in this seat on an aggressive table like this), and in the big blind, Dorkupine, also calls to close the action.
The flop is 2dJcAc, giving me a hand that should be ahead a fairly high percentage of the time (JJ would usually 3 bet and I block bottom set, leaving AJ has the most likely hand ahead of me). I make a moderately hefty continuation bet, and the cutoff (CO) calls and the big blind folds.
The turn is 9s, and I over-bet the pot, and the CO calls. With the call, I think I’m now often against flush draws, some straight or combo draws (even though the over-bet with only one card to go doesn’t leave implied odds that look too terribly attractive with the stacks remaining behind), and hands that beat me like AJ or a set of nines, with a sprinkling of marginal holdings that felt like getting sticky.
The river is the 3 of clubs, and most of the draws just got home. I check, and the CO goes all in for an almost pot sized bet.
I find that a lot of players on this site will not bluff the river nearly as often as they bluff other streets, and most of the hands that had been on a draw are now ahead of me anyway, and most of the non-flush hands that got here and make this bet should also be ahead of me. To call, I need someone that will make a lot of really thin value bets, or that will take hands that had been marginal value, and will now turn them into a bluff (or in some other way find a lot of bluffs in a spot like this).
To be honest, I think folding is probably usually the right play here, but for some reason my fold button didn’t seem to be working…
The biggest piece of information for me is the flat call of your turn overbet. The offered price is wildly wrong for a bare FD to continue, even with an implied all in/call on the river if he hits. Continuing with FD+gutterball is also a losing proposition having 25% equity and also needing a larger payout than offered by both immediate and implied odds. On the turn two holdings with combo draws now are close enough to +EV to continue with, QTc or T8c having 17 outs. If we assume players at the highest table aren’t making losing decisions, I can only give him a tight value range of QTc and T8c on the river.
Unless I had this player previously noted as trap heavy I don’t know how I could give them 2p’s or sets when the board becomes so connected on the turn. And these can’t logically shove almost full pot for value when the flush completes on the river, even after you check. Given your sizing and the low SPR after the turn call, it feels like the situation demands a shove from made hands. Again if we assume people at the top table aren’t playing in an overtly suboptimal manner. (This may be a bad assumption)
This feels like a spot to randomize given the lack of clarity and to avoid becoming exploitable. I perceive his value range as very small, and I’m having trouble coming up with many logical bluffs so I don’t even know how to come up with a good weighting. In play with limited time I’d decide on a 50% call frequency. I would look at my clock and if the last digit is even then call.
I thought this was a nice hand for the thread.
Kaei is certainly capable of bluffing here, and will get here with some surprising holdings some of the time. At the same time, he has a lot of aces, he has QQ and JJ, and he might even have QJs. It’s really hard to try and decide: is he over bluffing in this spot. The fact that I checked the flop makes it a bit harder, as I think it encourages a few more bluffs. Another common line here would have just been to fire a small continuation bet on the flop, as the board obviously favors my range quite a bit, but I’m still mixed on whether or not that is really a better line. I may need to buy a solver eventually, LOL. This site hasn’t given me much recent practice playing 4 bet pots…
Curious to hear what others think (about both the main call or fold question, and if a continuation bet was a better line).
What did you have?
LOL… sorry. I keep forgetting that although I can see my cards in the replay, others won’t be able to. My hole cards were KK (the king of diamonds and the king of hearts) – so it’s a pretty marginal spot. Against an over-bet like that, I should only be ahead of bluffs.
I’d say you made a good fold. I don’t think he was bluffing, probably Aces and a good kicker or 2 pairs.
